Concept
The Sperberian-tradition construct for the cognitive defenses humans have evolved to screen incoming information for plausibility and source reliability — ‘mental immune systems’ in the popular framing. Mercier extends and refines the term as open vigilance (see open-vigilance concept) to mark that the system is paired with openness rather than being a one-sided defense layer over a credulous default. The catalog keeps both entries because earlier book chapters used ‘epistemic vigilance’ before the Mercier extraction sharpened it.
Connections
- Defined in: Emotional Memetics As The Floor
- Discussed in: Ch 7 — Emotional Memetics As The Floor, Ch 5b — Selection As The Other Engine
- Evidenced by: Memetics — a critique, The Misinformation Age, Not Born Yesterday, Psychology of Virality
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