Contemplative fieldnotes: (Ritual, symbol, waffling for kicks) Ritual theory & practice is a big, nuanced area of study. How, why, where ritual works is not obvious. After a brief chat with another practitioner, I thought I’d share some of my limited thoughts - very briefly.
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Symbol, used well, can work. Eg: as gateways to simplicity (nishprapanca). Singing a syllable can do this. Our imagination is very powerful indeed. Alas, we get lost in the stories about that syllable, we confuse our warm fuzzies for confidence, and we strengthen confusion, etc.
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World building - spheropiesis - is heavily related to manipilation of symbol. Seligman et al recognised the role of ritual in the continual recreation/maintainence of social worlds.
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Waffling on: I am currently engaged in the manipulation of symbols - telling stories about a foamy world of nested ‘human interaction spheres’ (ie: mandalas). No matter how elegant or helpful a symbol, it will likely be a coping strategy; its more a question of degree.
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Where the meta-rational crowd seem to be making headway is in recognising the fact that we are always and everywhere between world models - particularly wrt epistemic systems - and learning how to navigate that in ways which are fun and helpful....instead of ultimately true.
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NB: Please excuse this pile of waffling proto-ideas....I’m deliberately engaging in public waffle peddling to invoke a desire -> motivation to clarify.
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End of conversation
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