I was reading something that suggested that trauma "tries" to spread itself. ie that the reason why intergenerational trauma is a thing is that the traumatized part in a parent will take action to recreate that trauma in the child.
This model puts the emphasis on the the parent's side: the trauma is actively "trying" to spread.
This is in contrast to my previous (hypothetical) model for IGT, which puts the emphasis on the child's side: kids are sponges that are absorbing huge amounts of info, including via very subtle channels. So they learn the unconscious reactions of the people around them.
(I say "hypothetical", because all while this sort of thing is in my hypothesis space, I haven't seen clear enough evidence that intergenerational trauma is a meaningful category that I solidly believe it is real.
More like, "here's a story for how this could work.")
More like, "here's a story for how this could work.")
On first glance, I was skeptical of this "active trauma" story.
Why on earth would trauma be agenty, in that way? It sounds like too much to swallow.
Why on earth would trauma be agenty, in that way? It sounds like too much to swallow.
It seems like you'll only end up with machinery for replication like that if there is selection pressure of some sort acting on the entities in question.
But on second thought, it's pretty obvious that there would be some selection pressure like that.
If some traumas try to replicate them selves in other minds, but most don't pretty soon the world will be awash in the replicator type.
If some traumas try to replicate them selves in other minds, but most don't pretty soon the world will be awash in the replicator type.
And it isn't that crazy that one coping mechanism for dealing with some critically bad thing is to cause others around you to also deem that thing critically bad.
So, if the fidelity of transmission is high enough, you SHOULD end up with psychological damage that is basically a living, reproducing, entity.
Its unclear how high the fidelity of transmission is.
Its unclear how high the fidelity of transmission is.
I've been engaging with Critical Rationalists lately.
Thinking through this has given me a new appreciation of what @DavidDeutschOxf calls "anti-rational memes". I think he might be on to something that they are more-or-less at the core of all our problems on earth.
Thinking through this has given me a new appreciation of what @DavidDeutschOxf calls "anti-rational memes". I think he might be on to something that they are more-or-less at the core of all our problems on earth.
Except, that, to me at least, "anti-rational memes" suggests "beliefs", that are mostly communicated verbally.
Where I think that most of the action might be in something like implicit aliefs and mental-action patterns that are only visible through things like "vibe."
Where I think that most of the action might be in something like implicit aliefs and mental-action patterns that are only visible through things like "vibe."
(To be clear, I think this is just a problem of my reading comprehension. David makes a point to talk about implicit ideas, all over the place. I think(?) he knows that anti-rational memes don't need to be explicit, and indeed might most be inexplicit.)
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