Not Another Post About the Body of Christ?!?

 Alright, so I've spent a lot of time studying the overlap between the science of memetics, the study of collective intelligences, and the metaphor of the Body of Christ. We all know that at this point. Let me add some more vocabulary to the pile. Memotypes - akin to genotypes, meaning the actual genetic code in the DNA that leads to particular traits, these are the ideas that lead to behavioral/cultural traits. Phemotypes - these are akin to the phenotypes, which are the actual genetic traits themselves, like blue eyes or brown; these are the actual behavioral/cultural traits. Another word for collective intelligences is superminds. This is mostly from the book of the same name; Superminds: The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together, by Thomas W. Malone. In the books, Malone posits that there are five species of supermind. 

1. Hierarchy

2. Democracy

3. Community

4. Market

5. Ecosystem

Anyway, this was an amazing summation of my exploration into structural memetics; the exploration of memes coding for social organisms. What's interesting about each of these superminds is that while they can be built up from individual people "blocks," they can also be built up using other superminds as building blocks. One easy way to see this is how businesses, which are typically hierarchies, can also form a market together. 

This brings me to looking, again, at the Body of Christ. Looking at some of these superminds as organ systems within the Body. Democracy should be the brain, right, providing the intelligence? Hierarchy the rest of the nervous system, basically providing structure and fast communication and quick interactivity with the environment. Market works as a circulatory system. 

I've also tried to think about how to implement this new framework. How do I plant the memotypes to code for the phemotypes of Christlike superminds? Healthy bodies are made up of healthy cells. Healthy superminds are made up of healthy people. There is some wiggle room, in a healthy body, for some cells to have issues. But if you have too many cells with too many issues, then you get disorders and diseases. Cancers, autoimmune disorders, allergies. 

How do we change a person's memotypes? Habits. Atomic Habits by James Clear is really, really good at describing how you can either start new habits or stop old ones. But what habits do we start? How do we change the memes in our heads into the ones that were in Jesus' head? This is where my history studying the Full Armor of God, found in Ephesians 6:10-18 comes into play.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the Full Armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefor, put on the Full Armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm, then, with the Belt of Truth buckled around your waste, with the Breastplate of Righteousness in place, and with your Feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of Peace. In addition to all this, take up the Shield of Faith, with which you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the Helmet of Salvation and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And pray in the Spirit, on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."

This was such an inspiring passage for younger me. It evoked all the imagery of a warrior of Christ. For some reason, teenaged American boys like the imagery of a warrior in Christ. Warriors are cool. American Christians are still mostly stuck in their juvenile love affair with war. It feels heroic. For me, I broke it down in regards to the three anointed offices Jesus inherited from Jewish culture: the King, the Prophet, and the Priest. Priest and Prophet were easy enough for me to explain. They were two sides of the same coin. Priests intercede unto God on behalf of the people. They step in between the people and God and beseech God. A prophet is God's mouthpiece to the people. Occasionally this meant foretelling, or somehow telling the future, but more often than not, it simply meant speaking God's will into a particular situation, what my teachers called forthtelling. Oftentimes, it meant knowing God's word, or scripture, and applying it to a given situation. Like when Elijah knew about God's promise to deny Israel rain if they lived in sin, as announced in 1 Kings. 

It was the King piece that took some breaking down. For me, I naturally attached it to the premise of a "royal priesthood" as presented in Hebrews, an Order of Melchizedek. Jesus is said to be the High Priest of that Order, and that Order is said to be a higher one than the Levitical Priesthood established in Mosaic law, because it predates it. Melchizedek was a king in the land of Canaan, king of the city of Salem. But he was also a priest that served God, as in Yahweh, Jehovah, or El. As opposed to the other gods that were worshiped around Canaan back then. He was a contemporary of Abraham, the ancestor of the Jews, and probably the Arabs, and the like. Anyway, Abraham submitted to Melchizedek's authority... and because he was the forebear of Levi, the Levitical priesthood can be said to have submitted to Melchizedek through Abraham. Anyway... how does one share in the authority of royalty? Family works, as a first order. Princes and Princesses have often historically had authority to order around subjects, or as a mouthpiece to a foreign power or something. Historically, they have often been given general status or ambassadorial status, simply because they were kin to the king. I imagined knights as having some authority given to them by a king. I imagined knights of the Round Table from Arthurian legend as my inspiration. It's kind of like cops, today, or soldiers. You shoot a man at home, you get tried for murder. You shoot a man overseas, on a battlefield, you get hailed as a hero. That's because, in the latter case, you're doing it with the official authority of your government. 

I imagined something similar to being a knight of the Order of Melchizedek. But now, looking back on it, I think I was wrong about that. I think the princes and princesses thing is a lot closer to the truth than I was originally comfortable with. Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 talk about how God has adopted us as his children. Anyway... now that my perspective has shifted, I see my authority in Christ differently. A knight is like a cop, capable of confronting people on behalf of the crown. But a prince has other obligations, other responsibilities, and more authority. And if we're all meant to be kings and queens under God, then I imagine democracy is an easy sell. It's a matter of respecting the authority a person has as a child of God, a prince or princess in his family, and also a matter of respecting the obligations and responsibilities we ourselves have been given as such. We are expected to make decisions, not for our own benefit, which is the purview of a dictator, but on behalf of our countrymen, as befitting a benevolent and capable king or queen. And if everyone has these responsibilities? Then everyone needs to make these decisions, together, for the greater good. Democracy. 

Anyway.... the Full Armor of God passage is about taking on characteristics of the character of Christ, so as to better emulate him. There is a parallel passage to the Armor of God passage in Colossians 3, about "clothing [ourselves] in Christ." Just one of the things you're supposed to "put on" is compassion. How do you don compassion? By behaving more compassionately. How do you do that? By cultivating a habit of compassionate behavior. So.... how do you take on the memotype of compassion? By cultivating a habit. How do you we take on the memotypes? By cultivating those habits. The better we get at cultivating those habits, the more we'll see a supermind defined by the phemotypes of compassion on a collective and social scale. 

We're at a weird place when it comes to memetic sociology. With biology, we've had hundreds, if not thousands, of years to study the anatomy of the human body. Only relatively recently have we discovered the realm of genetics. Ever since, we've been playing catch-up in that direction, getting a fuller understanding of every level of the biological systems in our bodies. But it's only even more recently have we discovered the science of collective intelligence, the anatomy of the superminds we're all a part of, and the science of memetics, the foundational ideas that code for those anatomies. In this way, we're kind of having to develop both schools simultaneously, in parallel. Which means we do it slower, and more clumsily. But it's kind of fun, if you ask me. 

I think that's it for now. I'm not sure if there is an overarching lesson to be had here, but I think I've done a pretty good job of pulling out a few smaller ones. That's it.