Irreligious people: what does "sacrality" mean to you? How does that answer affect your behavior?
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After reading Alexander’s The Nature of Order and watching Vervaeke’s AftMC I think Vervaeke is onto something with defining The Sacred as a deep participatory identification, what Alexander calls the Mirror of the Self.
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I’m afraid his explanation doesn’t make much sense without untangling each word back to his definitions from earlier in the video and the whole series.
Another entry point could be his 4 ways of knowing / participatory knowing.
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Lakoff & Johnson, Alexander, and Vervaeke all present an alternative world view evolved from purely scientific/rationalist/objectivist to scientific/experientialist based on perceiving wholeness, connection, and belonging as different interpretations for what is sacred.
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I don’t know if anyone else has made connections between those three, Alexander clearly being the odd one out here, but to me it seems obvious that they all describe the same using very different words.
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In practical terms this means that I’m much more trying to apply Alexander’s fundamental process in design, trying to be less analytical and more guided by observing inner experiences. I guess “trust your gut” is an approximation of that, but now I have actual techniques.
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I haven't read Lakoff, so this is hard to follow, but I'm taking this as a sign to bump him up my reading list!
Lakoff provides some nice lenses, +1.
I was raised atheist, so lack cultural grounding in sacredness. OTOH, I’ve feelings that seem similarly transcendent around things like being in nature, singing in tight harmony, &c.
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I’ve been trying to make this more approachable for people who aren’t familiar with the exact combination of sources, but haven’t progressed that far yet. Here's a note which is basically just a summary of what Vervaeke says in the video. Highlighted words need to be expanded on.
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Back on this and I think this bit about ontology is a good historical perspective on what "sacred" meant to the Greek philosophers:
Making the most sense of something == Experiencing something sacred (after Thales)
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