Cognitohazards pt. 2 - Virality and the Spread of Memetic Dangers

Introduction

Previously, we discussed cognitohazards and defined them into three types of informative dangers: lanthanic, hermeneutic, and daimonic. Each responds to a different aspect of consciousness, and is perceived, recognised and effective in different ways. Now it’s time to disclose how they spread. 

Ideas can’t exist in a vacuum, and much like parasites, they feed off a host to continue their existence. The same is true for cognitohazards; they need an environment to live, and not unlike eregores, very few of them can survive without active cognitive perception. 

We might be fooled then to thinking that if we simply eradicate all wrong-thought and establish a clean doctrine of right-think that, no evil shall come to our minds, and no heinous acts should ever be performed again. This isn’t true. The nature of evil isn’t physical or even mental; it is metaphysical and begins in the spirit of man. It can’t be removed through genetic engineering or cognitive reconstruction through ethics and morals. Simply burning all books and getting rid of all dangerous thoughts wouldn’t solve the problem of dangerous information, and the reason for that is because of its origin. 

New cognitohazards emerge constantly, and while there are preventive measures to be taken and defensive actions we can do to lessen the impact of them, ultimately we have to guard our minds and stay vigilant, for even unknowingly we can be plaguebearers of cognitive harm. We will briefly discuss the origins of cognitohazards, and then we will discuss the three main ways these ideas spread. 

Origin & Emergence

New ideas emerge on the daily, and not all of these ideas are well-informed or well-meaning. The origin of all cognitohazards is schismogenesis: a split in the human psyche or soul, from which chasm emerges a destructive darkness. This split from Unity is the root of all evil, and it is selfishness; all other evils grow from this single point, and all pains are caused by the distance between the two, and the desire to be whole is the ache, the very thorn in the side of the human condition. 

It is this schism that separates and feeds into the idea that one is greater than the other, more deserving of what it has, and it seeks not to unite with its half but rather to consume it and so falsely believe that the destruction of its other half leaves it whole. Without unity and through consumption and destruction, there is an insatiable hunger which eventually leads the snake to consume itself. This is the destiny of the material world, which has separated itself from the immaterial world. 

What causes or has caused this schism, I cannot tell you, but it keeps fracturing psyches and souls, and from it, egotism and selfishness emerge. A desire for more, and so even angels have left their positions of authority in defiance towards Unity. From selfishness, thoughts of greed, lust, anger, and the other sins grow. From each of these, then arise cognitohazards - thoughts of evil, wicked plots and schemes to achieve nefarious goals. It is from every woe and negative feeling that man can feel that he conceives cognitively of this evil and unknowingly spreads it. The spread of informative dangers is almost always done in ignorance.

Without knowledge and care, we are all susceptible to spreading cognitohazards, and they may also emerge at any moment from the depths of our own consciousness. All they need is a brief moment, an intrusive thought or a single second of weakness where we act upon our lower instincts or when we are overtaken by negative emotions. Consider the harmful things we say when angry, and how quickly that feeling spreads to those around us. If we lash out and start slinging insults, we may negatively enrich the vocabulary of those around us. We can also, through humour and nonchalance, spread hate and misinformation, and while that might not be our intent, the idea itself can spread from us and emerge as more harmful in another psyche. 

It can be incredibly difficult to stop the spread of cognitohazards, and new ones may emerge at any time and anywhere. All it takes is a crack, a start to the schism, and separation leads the way towards the spread of cognitohazards. When a new cognitohazard emerges, how does it then spread further? They spread in a few ways, and the first we’ll be looking at is the first and most common way: it’s the fast-spreading memetic way. 

Memetic Spread

Ideas spread most effectively through culture. This includes various forms of art and similar interactions. The cultural landscape of today is heavily influenced by the internet and ideas spread through virality and memes. The reach is global, and internet culture has effectively removed language barriers and has allowed for the spread of ideas beyond borders. While a lot of these cultural ideas may be harmless, we’ve also seen a spread of cognitohazards. 

Social contagions like mass shootings, copycat suicides and harmful trends are all examples of viral cognitohazards spreading largely through cultural means. They can be absorbed consciously or unconsciously, reflecting some disharmonious inner state of the person perceiving them, and the culture surrounding these harmful ideas is what gives them a larger appeal. Through subcultures glorifying school shooters and spreading memes, art and music centred around the acts of these murderers, the cognitohazard becomes disguised. It’s no longer relatable just in the pain and hurt, but also in the perceived martyrdom and fame that comes with it. Death becomes much more alluring to somebody who is hurting if it brings promises of things larger than peace, and ideas become especially dangerous when they become a part of a culture. 

Culture is essentially built upon ideas and values, and those ideas and values can be infohazards. These harmful ideas, much like any virus, spread most effectively in large groups and in a tight-knit community; these ideas are the most likely to manifest and overtake the entire group. This gives rise to dangerous group mentality and is the foundation for some of humanity’s darkest moments throughout history. Ideas and thoughts tend to go unexamined and often become dogmatic in groupthink, and while we often view cults as such an example, any group of humanity within any culture is susceptible to this kind of cognitive disease. We often think our way is the best, and that all others are in the wrong. We often let ideas and things go unexamined, not the least in the Western world, where tolerance and free speech have made way for all kinds of thoughts and ideas. That isn’t to say that tolerance or free speech are bad things, but we tend to take them too far, and with the paradox of tolerance, sometimes intolerance is allowed to fester in the name of individual and creative freedom.

The internet is a microcosm of this global culture. We think it happens there because it’s a largely unmoderated and free space, but the truth is that these ideas and trends are festering in the real world, and in real space, through real culture. The people and the thoughts expressed in the digital space are real, and while it may seem like some distant magical place where nothing really is real, there are real and physical consequences to the spread of viral ideas. The harm in these is the massive audience and appeal it has, and so cognitohazards are now spreading more than ever, and the consequences are felt throughout the world. This isn’t new, however, and many of the dangerous thoughts we’re experiencing the massive and rapid spread of have been lying dormant for a long time.

Hypnotic Spread

Hypnotic in this context refers to the quality of sleep and dormancy. This is the ability for some cognitohazards to exist and live without a host for a very long time and then to be reawakened before spreading memetically or symbolically. This inert thought or idea can exist outside of cognitive perception until it finds a host. Like a long-forgotten virus encapsulated in the arctic ice, some ideas are frozen in time, where they hibernate until a new host is found. Once a new host is established, it phases into memetic spread and begins to make waves through the cultural mindscape. 

This kind of spread of information is distinct from the emergence of a new idea in its lack of novelty. The concept was conceived long ago, and the thought itself emerged in a different mind. Just like all creative and novel ideas, sometimes the first encounter isn’t enough to manifest it, and sometimes it waits for the right mind. In old literature, obscure paintings and hidden in ancient languages, these ideas lie in wait. 

While the memetic way often spreads lanthanic cognitive hazards and appeals to our subconscious desire to belong to a group, the hypnotic way is more insidious and attacks the consciousness directly. These ideas do not target our sublimities or our ideals but rather our noetic capacities and intellect directly. They do not spread through viral trends and instead lay the traps needed, and patiently await the right mind to attack it. This way of spreading can show no symptoms to some, and can spread efficiently between minds without ever actualising the information. Imagine a child possessing the knowledge to create atomic weapons, as absurd and fantastical as it is; a child lacks the knowledge necessary to act upon this information. However, if the child was able to perfectly recite the information to a more nefarious agent, then the hypnotic spread has fully realised its dangerous potential. 

The information remains dormant and passive until it comes to the right mind. Where it awakens and uses its full force to overtake and instil the harm it's capable of. 

Symbolic Spread

The symbolic is the most subtle and hardest way to define. It’s arguably more a form that a cognitive hazard can take as a way to spread, and the symbol can spread both memetically and hypnotically. The reason we differentiate it and view it as a separate way of spreading altogether is because of its metaphysical nature. This is the only way for ideas to transform and move from and into the superconscious. It’s therefore less of a way for these ideas and forms to move from one mind to another and more to move between different parts of the same consciousness. 

Information can be condensed into a symbol, and whole ideas can be expressed through simple geometric shapes, forms, colours and even more creative expressions. A symbol is many things, and a symbolic expression is merely a representation of a thing or an idea. The symbol is not the thing itself. A picture of a rock represents the rock symbolically; the picture itself isn’t a rock, but it expresses at a basic level the idea of a rock or, in a more literal sense, an actual rock. Symbols don’t have to be visual, they can be expressed in a multitude of ways, e.g through speech. In the same way, a cognitive hazard as a piece of information can be condensed into a single image or expression. 

In the sense of metaphysics, we often see this expressed as sigils, runes and similar concepts. Especially, sigils are considered to be symbolic representations of the will of their crafter. Intent and focus are poured into a physical representation of not only concepts but also alternative realities. These gateways into another plane are perhaps not only one way, and when we open ourselves up to engaging with such content, we ought to be careful with the information we’re dealing with. Not all thoughts and ideas are good, and when we wish to change the world to our own liking, we put our ego above all else and we leave ourselves exposed to dangerous cognitive hazards, not only for our minds and bodies but our souls as well.

The demons of yore were often summoned through symbols and engaged with in this symbolic way more often than in a physical way, and regardless of whether they were bringers of knowledge or malicious entities, the path to them was the same: namely, through symbols. Likewise, cognitive dangers can also be in a single symbol. In Robert W. Chambers’ The Yellow King, the characters come across an eerie symbol called “the yellow sign”; it’s never disclosed to the reader what this symbol is exactly, but it serves as a dangerous cognitive hazard that drives anyone who sees it into madness and their inevitable doom. 

Perhaps limited to fiction, yet it still highlights the power of symbols and the dangerous traits some of them can possess. People who become obsessed with ideology and religion can experience dangerous psychosis induced by these symbols. A symbol can be a powerful message of hope, endurance, love, and so on, but a symbol can also be a symbol for evil, destruction and hate. Undoubtedly, ideas can be condensed and spread through these symbols.

Final Words

The three ways cognitive hazards spread directly relate to the type of cognitive hazard as well. While any type of hazard may spread in any way, their relation to one another reveals their nature.

Memetic Spread - Lanthanic (Subconscious)

Quick, viral and cultural. This is the most effective and fastest spreading of information. It moves through cultural channels and is spreading across the globe through pictures, videos, memes and more. Ideas can travel instantly across the digital net, and culture has always been the best platform for ideas and ideals to grow. Look at propaganda: it’s all art. This can also be used for evil, and memetic spread is a way for cognitive hazards to spread quickly from person to person.

In terms of dangerous ideas, this gives rise to social contagions as well as group mentality. Social contagions are ideas, behaviours and conditions that spread rapidly through a group, and are expressed as hysterical contagions, deliberate self-harm contagions and more. 

Hypnotic Spread - Hermeneutic (Conscious)

Dormant and virionic. The hypnotic spread refers to a sleeping idea which is awakened by cognitive perception. Sometimes it can seem harmless, but in the hands of the wrong agent, it can be devastating and very dangerous. These cognitohazards lie patiently in wait until the right mind comes along. They may be expressed and transmitted by an unknowing carrier and remain harmless until they’ve arrived at the right host.

To fully realise their potential, this kind of spreading requires active and intellectual perception. It’s only when it's fully understood that this information manifests as the true cognitive danger it is.

Symbolic Spread - Daimonic (Superconscious)

A powerful and condensed expression of information. Powerful beyond words, and the only communication between the three aspects of consciousness. Allows for the spreading of dangerous information in the same consciousness, and even allows for this harmful information to reach the very soul of the individual.

The signs are everywhere if you look for them, stay vigilant and keep watch. Don’t believe everything you think. 

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