Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> The concept that words equal numbers
> equal abstract concepts seemed obvious to the ancient Hebrews.
>
> This lead to the evolution of a lot of divination techniques. It was easy
> to ask a question, roll dice and read an answer. Any roll of the dice would
> give structured and intelligible answers that would put any magic 8-ball to
> shame. This also lead to superstition and fear of omens everywhere. It was
> hard to ignore daily omens when every day occurrences or groupings would
> spell out words or phrases. Imagine that the grouping of cattle in the
> field, say a pair here, three there, and a dozen over there, spelled out
> messages. Consider if every flock of birds could spell out an idea.
> Imagine that blades of grass could form words and sentences. Imagine if
> "meanings" would be automatically apparent in every grouping of objects, in
> every scene or in every name.
>
> It would be easy to see these obvious signs being noticed, interpreted and
> often believed to be hidden messages from some underlying force that exists
> invisibly behind all reality. This would be a form of subliminal messaging
> that would be hard to avoid. Subtle ideas and concepts would creep in
> thoroughly mundane life everywhere. Names would be instantly associated
> with objects or actions. Locations would automatically be interpreted with
> meaning.
>
WOW. Talk about a supersaturated memetic solution. No wonder there were so many
prophets and other religious madmen running around all the time there (not that
that has changed much). They were literally being programmed by their language
acting as a memetic compiler, creating executable memes based on the gibberish
of nature, like reading the random typing of monkeys and finding Shakespeare in
every sentence.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:21 MDT