CB: Symboling is ,as I like to explain it , using something to represent something it is not. Imaginary beings are using something ( words or drawing or sculpture ) to represent something that doesn't exist or nothing. Math is all that. Numbers don't exist except in the imagination . Lines in geometry are infinitely long, but there are no infinitely long lines in reality , only in imagination.
Ancestor worship , original culture and language, are using things and words to represent people who no longer exist.
In other words , the gods are symbols of many generations from the past, mortal beings who attain some immortality by the living generation having so many recorded memories in living individual brains of the experiences of the dead while they were still alive . The living individual brains get this by learning language and culture, custom and tradition , religion .
Like the Sphinx rising from the Dead
Culture as material, not mystical, "soul" transcending generationally the mortality of all individual Selves; cultural immortality, eternity , symbolized as gods.
Kelly Smith: "Hmmmmmm I dig this concept. It reminds me of the a priori/a posteriori knowledge distinction, which I am a big fan of thinking about. In this vein, Stanford has a great philosophy site but this seems to be a pretty nice article too: http://www.iep.utm.edu/apriori/".
Just for those who want more info cuz it's super fucking fascinating shit"
CB: Yes , I have an interest in a priori / a posteriori knowledge since my philosophy 101 teacher had us thinking about it ; Kantian issues .
Knowledge from ancestors is from experiences that are a priori to the living generation's experiences ; it is not spun out of thin air by the living individual.
As far as scientific knowledge, Newton said he stood on the shoulders of giants. The Giants were his dead scientist ancestors .
CB: For me , original human society (at least , 200,000 ya) is given qualitatively greater wisdom about the struggle for existence than any other species, even close species like chimps, because to a significant extent the living generation is able to share the experiences of many, many past dead generations. Instead of 50 living heads only , there are 1000 heads from the past inside the living 50 heads as language and culture.
YESS!!!!!! I think about this constantly!!! And the internet is such a fantastic bridge to the past and the future even, like whaaaattt
CB: Yes the Internet is a leap; as writing was a leap from the Stone Age.
Todd L. VanPool:
Relevant article talking about the universality of ancestor worship...
Steadman, Lyle B., Craig T. Palmer, and Christopher F. Tilley. "The universality of ancestor worship." Ethnology 35.1 (1996): 63-76.
Emotions don't exist except in the imagination, correct?
Well, they often correspond to physiological changes. Changes in breathing, hormonal changes, and so forth. If someone hits your system with a lot of adrenaline or suppresses your thyroid hormone production, it will have consistent impacts on emotions for example. "Love" likewise corresponds to certain physiological responses. So, emotions are not completely imaginary, even if something like "love" exists in the mind.
We can track "love" through chemical changes to different areas of the brain. As well as fear, anger, lust and a host of basic human emotions.
Part of the emotion is memory, memory of a past sensation and accompanying memory then, no ?
Emotions are not imaginary. They are sensations and memories , both of which exist in the brain; are material . Memories correspond to past sensations. They are "images", drawings , recordings of past sensations. They are semi-symbols of those past sensations, the way a drawing is semi-symbolling to represent what it depicts. A drawing is not what it represents , but it imitates, is not arbitrarily related to what it represents; not the way full symbols, like most words , do not imitate in anyway what they represent.
A major proportion of human memories are of symbols , especially words. Many memories of emotions are of words or concepts of emotions.
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