toxo and marx  (Stanford)

Can a virus take over your mind? How much of what we think is because we want to and how much because some parasite in us wants us to think it? It can make a mouse be attracted to a cat. What else it out there --or inside of us-making us think and act in ways that cause our demise?

 How can you know what is abnormal if you do not know know what is normal?


Howard Bloom thinks of the same kind of idea in terms of a meme a unit of social information that seeks to perpetuate itself via a host like a human being. But could it be biological? Just some hidden pathogen or parasite that gets contracted by contact with other infected people.

Hasidim could be understood in this light. A kind of parasite on the body on Torah redirecting it towards its own destruction.

So the question is this:

Toxoplasmosis and the social meme? Is there a connection?

There is a barnacle that rides on the back of  a crab that injects a hormone into a male crab that causes teh male crab to act like a female. It then digs a hole for its eggs. But it has no eggs. But the barnacle sure does!! How much of our behavior and thoughts are  directed some hidden parasite like hasidim that need a host? 

This goes back to what the Torah means. The Torah has a basic meme. That is Monotheism. That God made the world something from nothing and He is not the world and the world is not Him. This is the background worldview of the Torah. This was so obvious that it did not need to be expressed until Saadia Gaon and later the Rambam. But this meme can be lied about. Hasidim deceive concerning the meaning of Torah. They can do so because sentences express abstract features, but these are always in a context of other abstract features (a network)
Torah has a basic meaning and every verse in Torah also. The meaning depends on the background and network. Thus worship of tzadikim is not defined by what anyone wants. Idolatry in the Torah has a specific meaning that depends on the entire network and context.