From: Twirlip of Greymist (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 22 1996 - 17:18:54 MDT
} More seriously, I think the Snow Crash meme/religion/consciousness idea
} is intriguing, even if I don't believe in it. Religion doesn't seem to
} help cognition much, but helps provide an emotional framework. Maybe we
} should see it as an early and somewhat odd cognitive tool?
I've started studying linguistics, and started with Ernst Cassirer's
_Language and myth_ on the grounds that it was short. I think that he
was saying linguistic and mythological development were somewhat linked
in the 'discovery' of concepts and classes. Myth starts with isolated
events and things that awe the viewer; moves to somewhat generalized
functional gods (god of first plowing, god of sowing, god of second
plowing); and thence to more personal and anthromoporphized gods.
Actually I don't think I can well-represent the other side of his
argument, so I won't mutilate it, but considering how animist I was as a
child while considering myself atheist, I wouldn't be shocked if
something religion-like was a part of breaking up the world into things
to perceive.
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
(I used to mercy-kill my breakfast sausages. After they had been cooked
and all.)
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