Pyschofauna Categorization

What kinds of psychofauna are there?

A few questions that might be useful in categorizing them:

1. What is their origin?

2. How do they survive?

3. How do they reproduce?

4. What do they refer to?

5. What kind of host do they live in?

The first three are questions that can be asked about somato-fauna, but the last two are unique to ideas. Ideas live in a mind, so they have a host. Also, they have a meaning which is an important part of their identity.

Some Interesting Categories

Some categories that relate to origin:

• originated in ancient Greece or Rome

• originated in the Judeo-Christian tradition or the Hindu-Buddhist tradition

• originated from science or math

• originated from slaves/lower classes or from masters/upper classes

Some categories that relate to survival:

• provide the host with survival benefits

• provide the host with status (luxury beliefs?)

• explicitly encourage the host to remember them

• are inherently memorable

Some categories that relate to reproduction:

• explicitly encourage the host to share them

• provide the host with status for sharing them

• encourage the host to reproduce

• are easily shareable (e.g., encoded in songs, poems)

• secrets (i.e., people trying to limit their reproduction)

• encoded in law/curriculum/canon

• r strategy and k strategy reproduction patterns

Some categories that relate to reference:

• refer to concrete objects

• refer to sets of hosts

• refer to abstractions

• refer to systems (e.g., economics, democracy)

Some categories that relate to hosts:

• refer to the groups that host them (i.e., community psychofauna)

• can only be hosted by certain kinds of people (calculus?)

• suited to certain personalities (bitcoin? )

• shared by all humans based on genetics (encoded in our DNA)

Some categories that relate to complexity:

• simple ideas

• complex ideas

Example 1: God

Let’s take an example: God. I’m not going to definitively answer all of these questions, but just want to explore an inch deep into the territory.

What is the origin of the concept of God? Well, obviously it’s extremely complex. Books have been written. But the idea does have a history that we can trace from animism, paganism, monotheism, universalism, etc. My personal concept of God largely traces a mainly Judeo-Christian tradition, but I have been exposed to many other concepts as well.

How does the idea of God survive? There are a few layers to the question of how an idea survives. For example, we can talk about why people remember the idea. Is it useful to them? Does it have a catchy rhyme associated with it? Are there physical monuments to it? For God, the answer is yes to all of these things. It’s a very robust idea.

We can also talk about the effect of the idea on the host. If the idea provides utility to the host it can be remembered more often, and it is also less likely to die due to the death of the host. Does God provide utility? Some people think so. We can also ask whether the idea helps the host reproduce? Some people believe that those who believe in God will dominate because at least some of them are more likely to have children. So people prone to believe in God will become more common.

Some variants of the idea of God include clever mutations that encourage the hosts to remember it: whole days are dedicated to remembering God, some people believe that you will literally achieve eternal bliss if you believe in God (i.e., the Christian concept of saved by faith).

How does the idea of God reproduce? Well, it’s written down. Boy is it written down. And it’s not only written down. It’s expressed in many forms, in many places, in books, in conversations, on twitter, in art, everywhere. God has many channels for reproduction.

Some variants of the idea of God include clever mutations that encourage people to share the idea with others, like evangelism. Mormons believe that sharing that particular brand of God with their family, in particular, is important because they will be able to share heaven with the family if they do.

What does God refer to? People argue about this one a lot. Some people think God refers to something abstract, like the meaning of life. Some people think it means everything. My daughter once said that God was “a mean old statue in the sky.” But can we at least agree that the idea of God is interesting in that it doesn’t refer to some immediate, concrete thing that we can see or feel directly (at least most of us can’t, most of the time)?

What kind of people believe in God? Well, many people believe in God, but there are different variants: Christians, Jews, Buddhists…you know the drill. Belief in God is so common that many have said we are designed for it — we have a “god-shaped hole”. And yet, there are also many who resist the idea: atheists. But even atheists are hosts to a version of the idea of God.

Ok, so the point of asking all of these questions about God is not really to understand God, but just to get a sense of how we can think about psychofauna in general. So what we really need to do is ask these questions about all types of ideas and then determine which questions best help us cleave the many species of psychofauna into meaningful categories. So what if we ask the same things about capitalism? nation-states? calculus? the self? chocolate-chip cookies?

Example 2: Capitalism

Let’s start with what it’s meaning this time.

What does Capitalism refer to? Although it has many corollaries, I think you can boil capitalism down to the concept of transferrable corporate ownership. It’s an abstract idea referring to a system of interaction. It’s hard to see or touch capitalism, yet it seems much more profane than God because we interact with it more directly.

Where did capitalism come from? From Europe, starting in the 16th century. Quite a bit of conceptual infrastructure needed to be in place for this idea to develop, including concepts related to private ownership, legal protections for private property, corporate abstraction of enterprises, etc. In addition to the conceptual background, capitalism emerged in large part due to needs in economies that depended on risky enterprises (e.g., naval enterprises).

How does capitalism survive? Ever since the idea started to take root, people who understand capitalism and believed in it tend to be more successful. There is a strong incentive to interact with the idea. These days there are many reminders of capitalism, so it’s very easy to remember.

How does capitalism reproduce? Capitalism is baked into the legal system. It’s part of the curriculum. It’s on twitter and substack. It’s in almost everything we consume. People seek out ways to learn about it because it’s a valuable idea. It’s also a famous villain so it’s hard to avoid hearing about it one way or another.

What kind of people know about Capitalism? The idea is pretty widespread, but I think it’s a particularly important idea among rich people, the business people, and people who are comfortable with abstractions.

Example 3: Family

Among all psychofauna, this is the one I am most interested in cultivating. I am particularly interested in the relationship between “family” and the “self”. This is partially for historical reasons. First, growing up in the Mormon tradition, family was always a big element of my theology. And of course, I grew up in a family.

Eventually (and it took a really long time, well into adulthood) I decided that I was mortal. But I didn’t want to die so this was very depressing. Then after thinking more about the subject I decided that mortality is kind a squishy concept. To the extent you identify with something bigger than yourself, you don’t necessarily have to die. In my view, the family is the the minimum viable product for immortality.

What does the family refer to? A family refers to a group of people who all share the understanding that they are part of a family. It is largely based on genetic relations, but this is not essential. At heart, the idea is self-referential. A family has layers. I am largely concerned with the “nuclear family”: me, my wife, my kids. But the “extended family” is significant, too.

Importantly, I believe that it’s up to me to make certain adjustments to the way my family understands the concept of family. I want to make it more successful as psychofauna. I identify with it so if my idea of family is successful, I am successful.

Where did the family come from? On some level the family has existed even before human beings. It’s a very old concept, pretty much baked into our DNA. This makes it easier to identify with. But specifics of the family have evolved over time in very interesting ways. For example, the aforementioned distinction between nuclear and extended family, or the idea of family as psychofauna. Also, the family comes with some ideas about roles of different people within the family, including gender roles, which are quite obviously evolving over time. So I want to play a role in that evolution by using some of my creative power to tweak the idea.

How does the family survive? There are a number of physical reminders of the family that we are exposed to fairly often. I spend far more time with my family than any other people. We live in the same house. We share finances. We talk and write about the family, a lot.

How does the family reproduce? One of the main ways that ideas about the family reproduces is that the hosts (i.e., me) reproduce and teach the next generation how to think about the family. It’s an interesting concept because ideas about what the family means are developed to a large extent by intimate interactions between the people in the family. Of course, the concept of family is also heavily influenced by what we read and what we see in our neighbors.

One of the categories I mentioned above is the difference between “r” and “k” strategy reproduction. This refers to whether people spend a lot of time sharing an idea with a few people, or a small amount of time sharing the idea with a lot of other people. Although different variants of family exist, in general people (including me) spend a lot of time trying to share their idea of family with their own family…so it’s a good example of a k strategy posychofauna.

What kind of people know about family? Everyone, really. Everyone has a family, or did have a family at one point. But most importantly, families know about family. That is, family is a type of community psychofauna.