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It is not clear either that the categories "given" to us by our senses, or those abstracted out for us by the processes of scientific investigation, constitute the most "real" or even the most "useful" modes of apprehending the fundamental nature of being or experience. It appears, instead, that the categories offered by traditional myths and religious systems might play that role, despite the initial unpalatability of such a suggestion. Such systems of apprehension present the world as a place of constant moral striving, conducted against a background of interplay between the "divine forces" of order and chaos (Peterson, 1999a). "Order" constitutes the natural category of all those phenomena whose manifestations and transformations are currently predictable. "Chaos" constitutes the natural category of "potential" – the potential that emerges whenever an error in prediction occurs. The capacity for creative exploration – embodied in mythology in the form of the "ever-resurrecting hero" – serves as the eternal mediator between these fundamental constituent elements of experience. Voluntary failure to engage in such exploration – that is, forfeit of identification with "the world-redeeming savior" – produces a chain of causally-interrelated events whose inevitable endpoint is adoption of a rigid, ideology-predicated, totalitarian identity, and violent suppression of the eternally-threatening other.

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M APS OF M EANING : THE A RCHITECTURE OF B ELIEF

PRECIS

Jordan B. Peterson

Department of Psychology, University of Toronto

A BSTRACT :

It is not clear either that the categories "given" to us by our senses, or those

abstracted out for us by the processes of scientific investigation, constitute the

most "real" or even the most "useful" modes of apprehending the fundamental

nature of being or experience. It appears, instead, that the categories offered by

traditional myths and religious systems might play that role, despite the initial

unpalatability of such a suggestion. Such systems of apprehension present the

world as a place of constant moral striving, conducted against a background of

interplay between the "divine forces" of order and chaos (Peterson, 1999a).

"Order" constitutes the natural category of all those phenomena whose

manifestations and transformations are currently predictable. "Chaos" constitutes

the natural category of "potential" – the potential that emerges whenever an error

in prediction occur s. The capacity for creative exploration – embodied in

mythology in the form of the "ever- resurrecting hero" – serves as the eternal

mediator between these fundamental constituent elements of experience.

Voluntary failure to engage in such exploration – th at is, forfeit of identification

with "the world - redeeming savior" – produces a chain of causally - interrelated

events whose inevitable endpoint is adoption of a rigid, ideology- predicated,

totalitarian identity, and violent suppression of the eternally- thr eatening other.

Keywords: Mythology, religion, neuropsychology, cybernetics, natural

category, war, aggression, peace

1. We think we live in the "objective" world, but we do not. The objective

world is something that has been conjured up for us recentl y – absurdly recently,

from the perspective of evolutionary biology – by the processes of science

operating over a span of five centuries (or, perhaps, to give the Greeks their due,

over the last thirty centuries). This does not mean that the objective world is not

real, even though theories about its nature are in constant flux. What it does mean

is that the environment of human beings might well be regarded as "spiritual," as

well as "material."

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2. It is of course virtually impossible – even forbidden, at least implicitly – to

use terms such as "spiritual" in a serious scientific discussion. How could it be

that reality is "spiritual," rather than material, given the overwhelming practical

success of the experimental sciences?

3. There are perhaps two answers to this question. The first concerns our

capacity to categorize. It has become increasingly clear, at least since the time of

Wittgenstein (1968), and perhaps also as a consequence of Piaget's work, that the

categories we use to orient ourselves are at least as much action or significance-

predicated as they are descriptive, which is to say contra Augustine that words are

not labels for things as much as they are tools for the obtaining of goals. Since it

is not precisely clear where the "object" ends an d the "category" begins, perhaps

it is the case that even those things we naturally perceive as "things" might be

better regarded as tools for the obtaining of goals rather than as absolute entities

in and of themselves. The second answer is somewhat more abstract, but is related

conceptually to the first. It is clearly the case that our concept of situation or thing

is context - dependent. What we parse out of the exceedingly complex

"environment" that presents itself to us is always only a limited subset of that

environment, and perhaps precisely that subset which serves our present purposes

(as we attend to some few things, and ignore a multitude of others). We might

say, then, that different purposes require different "objects", and that the highest

and mo st general (and also therefore necessarily the most abstract and "long-

term" and least immediately evident) purposes require us to parse out the highest

and most general categories, tools, or conceptions. If what we extract from the

environment are things more like tools than objects, it might be possible to take a

radically fresh look at conceptual systems other than those of science, on the

chance that what they are talking about are things which are more like tools than

objects. As a consequence of adopting such a perspective, it may be possible to

posit that we are no better at understanding our own past than we are at truly

coming to grips with the conceptual systems of other cultures, and to remember or

at least hypothesize that we really do not understand what our forebears meant

when they used categories such as "spiritual" (any more than we understand what

they meant when they said "virgin birth," for example, or "holy Trinity," or

"resurrection of the Savior", or even "Tao"). If that is the case (which is the only

alternative to presuming that everyone unfortunate enough to live prior to the

dawn of the scientific age was pathetically ignorant, despite their incontrovertible

success at surviving), then things may still be seriously other than we presently

presume.

4. Is it not a peculiar and telling fact (at least from a radically biological or

evolutionary standpoint) that non - empirical or non - experimental archaic cultures

could exist in the absence of scientific truth within systems of ritual and belief

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that maintained their stability for thousands or perhaps even tens of thousands of

years? Telling and peculiar, particularly given the manifest instability of our own

emergent twentieth century "rational" notions of political organization

(communism, say, or fascism)? Doesn't this provide evidence of a certain

incontrovertibility for the "truth" of archaic thinking, even though it is a truth that

we cannot presently explicitly understand (and perhaps never did)?

5. What if we risk the presupposition th at it is experience itself that is real –

experience in all its aspects, including the (theoretically epiphenomenal)

emotional and subjective – and conclude in consequence that the elaborate

description of the objective world characteristic of science is n ot so much an

investigation into the ground of reality but the parcelling out of certain aspects of

experience in a systematic, universally acceptable and pragmatic manner? This

suggests that science is not so much the formulation of theories about the absolute

nature of the object, as the constant formulation of tools used with ever- increasing

accuracy to hit ever- transforming targets. This does not mean, simplistically, that

a hallucination and a table are both therefore real in the same manner (that is, that

they validly occupy the same category); rather, it means that insanity is not the

existence of the hallucination (which is something that could merely be

imagination) but the erroneous conclusion that a purely private experience has

become something public.

6. That still leaves the problem of the "spiritual" or "psychological", however –

and this is no trivial problem, since it involves the very reason for doing things,

including scientific things, even if it doesn't involve the idea of the "ground of

reality", as I am arguing. What if it could be demonstrated, for example, that the

mind or even the brain has adapted itself to an environment that can best be

described in non - material categories? What if it were the case that human beings

were adapted to the significance of things, rather than to "things" themselves?

Wouldn't that suggest that the significance or meaning of things was more "real"

than the things themselves (allowing that "what is adapted to" constitutes reality,

which only means accepting as valid a basic implicit axiom of evolutionary

theory: that the "organism" adapts to the "environment").

7. The most primary categorical distinctions drawn by human beings appear to

involve a single axis: that of center vs periphery, or culture vs nature, or familiar

vs foreign (Eliade, 1986). If this is true, then one might logically be driven to

wonder just what is it that is "center, culture, and familiar" or "periphery, nature,

and foreign", if everything that exists can be subdivided into just these two

categories (which must by necessity be very complex to encapsulate so much

reality into such small and undifferentiated domains). It is the answer to this very

difficult query that allows us to make the radical claim that we live in a world that

is more fundamentally "spiritual" than "material."

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8. It appears to be the case, first, that the human brain has developed two large -

scale specialized systems of adaptation (see Goldberg, Podell and Lovell (1994)

for a parallel notion). The first of these, which we strive with all our might to keep

activated, operates when we are in home territory. In home territory, we are

secure. Friends and kin are there. Our position in the primate dominance hierarchy

there, while not necessarily optimal, perhaps, is at least familiar. Our battles for

position have been fought, and decided, even if not won, and we are not

threatened by every move we make (or every move made by another). We know

what to do in home territory – and, therefore, we might say that culture is where

w e know how to be. But where are you when you know where to be?

9. The second specialized system of adaptation operates when we do not know

where we are. We strive with all our might to keep this system shut down,

inhibited. Most of us are in the fortunate position of never having experienced its

full activation (at least not within memory). We have never been shaken out of

our beds in the middle of the night by mortal enemies, bent on our destruction.

We have never found ourselves up against the predatory terrors of the primordial

forest, unshielded by our cultural milieu. At most – except, perhaps, when we

experience the death of someone loved – we suffer anxiety and grief, rather than

terror and despair. We are not at the mercy of nature – at least so we think, as we

continue to conquer the world with the tools of our knowledge. But grief and

misery occur where we least expect them (and maybe that is nature, too).

10. Nature is concrete reality, we presume, something more real than

abstraction. But if natur e is more real than abstraction, what use is abstraction?

Perhaps it is the case that abstraction is more real than "nature". Perhaps

abstraction can be used to extend what is effortlessly given to us. Perhaps

abstraction can be employed to usefully transf orm what is now presented to us

without effort (Brown, 1986) as the object. Maybe we can perceive with our

(collectively- expanded) imagination levels of reality that are hidden, not so much

from our senses, as by our senses.

11. Here are two (abstract) domains, worthy of consideration: the place you are

when you are not making a mistake, and the place that you are when you are

making a mistake. But are these places? This is a difficult question. What is a

place? Is a river a place (echoing Heraclitus)? The river after all is something that

is always transforming – but it is still clearly a place (at least from certain valid

and useful perspectives or frames of reference). A place could therefore be not so

much an invariant object or situation (which is some thing that is merely a

complex "object"), but a set of relationships that remain constant in the face of

constant transformation. The place you are when you make a mistake is in this

manner a place of abstracted and complex constants, which are no less real

because of that complexity and abstraction: it is the transcendent space where

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embarrassment, anxiety, humiliation lurk; where retreat offers itself as a viable

option, where pride beckons ("I did not make a mistake!", offered because the

"place of mistakes" is somewhere too terrible to admit the existence of). The

place of mistakes is a place where the unknown lurks, so to speak, because the

thing not done well produces consequences which are frightening potential

(whose nature cannot precisely be determ ined). The place of mistakes is a place of

unpredictable relationships, and transformations between these relationships –

and, because that which is fallible is also human, the place of mistakes is

dangerous. What is unpredictable might kill, and one should become carefully

adapted to all those things that might kill, and learn how to operate in their

presence.

12. The place where a mistake is not made is also a place of constants, but its

"nature" differs. Predictable things happen there, and that is good (unless they are

too predictable). The place where a mistake is not made is "explored territory",

because explored territory is not an object or an array of objects. Explored

territory is where habitual modes of action produce desirable consequences (and

that means if what once worked no longer works, it is possible that you are no

longer in Kansas). How might this be? We know from Einstein that the universe

has a four - dimensional structure, which means that things which are stable in the

three familiar spatial dimensions might still be (and certainly are) transforming

themselves across the fourth, time. This means that the place you return to the

second time is not precisely the same place. The constant relationships you

identified there, which you used to orient yourself and regulate your emotions,

may no longer hold. This becomes evident only when you make a mistake, and

discover that you are now in the domain of nature, so to speak, and no longer at

home.

13. We might imagine at the end of the twentieth century that we are adapted to

the Einsteinian universe (which is objectively real, after all), even if we do not

understand either that universe or our adaptation to it. In consequence, we might

be able to detect when the flux of time has unfortunately invalidated our previous

and dearly held presuppositions, which are both the categories we normally use to

simplify and apprehend the world, and the action patterns we habitually use to

bring about what we desire. One might hypothesize, therefore – out on this

philosophical limb – that "anxiety" constitutes precisely that mechanism of

detection. Anxiety is that which says "something is up" but also that which does

not say precisely what it is that is up (perhaps just as a retinal motion detector

might say of m otion in the non - foveal periphery "please attend here" but does not

say exactly why). One might also posit that nature in its abstracted form could

more reasonably be considered the "flux that invalidates our presuppositions".

This would make nature in the specific case the jungle at night but more generally

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(and thus more really) that place where we instantly are when what we once did

no longer works. This would make culture that which is set up in opposition to

nature, as the place where our knowledge hol ds (in part because it is the place set

up to ensure that our knowledge holds, the place defined by the social contract

that implicitly or explicitly regulates interpersonal interaction, so that the forces of

the unknown remain safely encapsulated, or trapped "underground").

14. We set up a goal in our imagination, like the goal of a game. We parse up

the world, so that those objects and processes apparently irrelevant to hitting the

target are eliminated from consideration (Miller, 1956; Lubow, 1989). We

simplify our world to the domain of relevant tools with every presupposition and

action, act out our model, and approach the goal. As we undertake to transform

the present into the desired future (as we work to attain the goal), we observe the

consequences of our actions and evaluate them. Is what we are producing in the

course of our behavior something commensurate with our express desire? If so,

then we are in explored territory, where things manifest themselves in accordance

with our wishes. If not, then we are in unexplored territory, in nature, if you will

(allowing the useful inexactitude of the "natural category"), where things and the

relationship between those things has not yet been specified; where the current

plan is no longer valid and should be, conservatively, interrupted. In such

circumstances, we stop and retreat (in which case we have implicitly categorized

the new territory as "something better avoided hurriedly by someone as

vulnerable as me") – or we pause, and then explore, and generate n ew information

as a consequence. This is essentially a pragmatic, cybernetic account (when it has

been stripped of its dramatic and metaphorical accoutrements), which arises again

and again outside psychology (Weiner (1948), von Bertallanfy (1975)), and

wi thin it, in assorted variants, ranging from the "psychoanalytic" precepts of

Alfred Adler (1958), through the Soviet neuropsychology of Luria (1980),

Sokolov (1969) and Vinogradova (1961, 1975), to the animal - experimental

theories of Jeffrey Gray (1982, 1996), and the complex social psychology of

Carver and Scheier (1982). We construct an abstracted target, act to transform our

current state into that desired future, and stop, feel anxious, and explore (or

retreat) when our plans do not lay out the world as we wish it to be. Since this

process appears so fundamental (and applies not only to human beings but to

animals and even to machines that have to regulate their own output), it appears

reasonable to look in detail into the world it "engenders" and to give that world

some consideration as "environment".

15. One might say that this "environment" is spiritual reality, since it is not

precisely objective (and also for lack of a better word) and further, that it consists

of two "places" and one "process." The first place is explored territory, which can

be more "prototypically" defined as the known, which is where you are when

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what you are doing is working. This means that the known is: (i) the place where

your current conceptualization of the present is predic ated on presuppositions that

are valid, with regard to the current circumstance, according to all relevant

evidence (that is, according to evidence provided by the consequences of the

action patterns that comprise your current plan), (ii) the place where y our means

for obtaining a given end are appropriate (which means they are getting you to

where you want to be), and (iii) the place of "realistic" desire (which means the

place where a given potential future may well be actualized, given the current

starti ng position and presently operative plans).

16. The second place is unexplored territory, which is where you are when what

you are doing is not working, because "working" – that is, "functional" – is

precisely what "explored" means, and its absence means " unexplored", even

when "previously" familiar. This latter place can be more "prototypically"

defined as the unknown. The unknown is both the "space" that emerges when a

means fails (that is, when the execution of a plan produces an end that is neither

predicted nor desired) or, more radically, the "space" that emerges when current

conceptualizations of present and future themselves (that is, ends, and not merely

means to specified ends) have to be painfully and anxiously dismissed and

reconstituted for emotional stability and the maintenance of hope to continue. The

difference between the former "normal" novelty and the latter "revolutionary"

novelty, for example, might be the difference between failing to arrive on time for

a given meeting on a given day (which is a failure of means, all things considered)

and being unexpectedly dismissed from a promising and secure position of

employment (which might be an event that casts past, present and future all

simultaneously into the "terrible domain of chaos").

17. The process, finally, is the act of mediating between culture and nature,

known and unknown. It is an act that can be undertaken successfully (in which

case the domain of the known grows, or transforms, and the domain of the

unknown shrinks or at least returns to invisibility), or unsuccessfully (in which

case the reverse happens: the domain of the unknown gains some ground, as the

mistake remains unrectified, and the structure of culture shrinks or becomes more

unstable). The process might be defined as " consciousness", for the scientifically

inclined (since consciousness is at least in part that faculty that focuses on novelty

and transforms it into "knowledge" or perhaps even "wisdom," as well as being

the related capacity for encapsulating the strange i n the net of language, and

communicating that encapsulation). But it is also the case that this process is

spirit, as spirit is an active principle, dynamic and alive, rather than something

fixed and static.

18. This is a very old story (and one might eve n say, it is the only true story):

the cosmos is order versus chaos, and the expansive exploratory tendency of man

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is the intermediary between these two great and eternal domains. The constituent

elements of experience eternally remain "known", "unknown" and "knower". It is

the possibility of the existence of such transcendent truth that allows a thinker

with the capacity of Nietzsche to state, despite his reputation as a profound

destroyer of religion: "Every age has its own divine type of naivety for whose

invention other ages may envy it – and how much naivety, venerable, childlike

and boundlessly clumsy naivety lies in the scholar's faith in his superiority, in the

good conscience of his tolerance, in the unsuspecting simple certainly with which

his instinct treats the religious man as an inferior and lower type that he has

outgrown, leaving it behind, beneath him – him, that presumptuous little dwarf

and rabble man, the assiduous and speedy head- and handiworker of 'ideas', of

'modern ideas!'" (Nietzsche , 1968, pp. 260- 261).

19. We confuse our ignorance with sophistication, and denigrate traditions

whose meanings are so invisible to us that the mystery they pose is not even

detected. This means that not only do we not know the answers, but the questions

themselves remain so far afield that the very act of their positing appears as

something incomprehensible or even mystical. Religious thinking – ritual,

mythology, narrative, drama – is not primitive science (regardless of what

scientists, or the religious themselves, presently claim). The people who practised

it were (are) not scientists. They did not have the tools of science, and lacked not

only experimental methodology, which emerged only with the explicit

formulations of Bacon and Descartes, but the very technology that makes accurate

observation and measurement truly possible. We have not replaced a "primitive"

conception of reality with a more sophisticated conception (or are the terrible

political excesses of the twentieth century merely to be regarded as accidental?),

but have instead replaced a meaning- predicated conception of being with an

elaborate tool (and then we suffer existential angst, idiotically: "our tool provides

us with no rationale for being", as though a hammer could describe how to live).

20. We have had more than a century of opportunity to carefully gather, contrast

and compare the religious traditions of the world. It appears to be the case, in

consequence, that for the first time in history we have developed some

(provisional) expl icit understanding of them. This is of course a dubious

proposition, as the means for determining the validity of "understanding" in

domains such as the literary (which might reasonably be considered analogous to

that of mythology) remain unspecified, to the extent that the very idea of

understanding itself in such domains has become a target of vehement criticism.

But it is not reasonable to forego the very possibility of creative and useful

thought merely because such thought has not in all situations reduced itself (or

advanced itself) to a technique. It may be possible to suggest that the acquisition

of knowledge regarding comparative religious thought might produce a certain

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advancement, even though no formal "proof" of that advancement, acceptable to

all, can be produced.

21. One might still ask: does it make a great story? If that can be answered

(hopefully in the affirmative), one might then posit that the capability to generate

such an answer actually constitutes a valid indicator of the ability to evaluate

stories (even if the nature of that ability has not yet become explicit, and the

quality of judgement varies from person to person). After all, we can speak,

without explicit knowledge of grammar, and we can walk, although we cannot

explain how – and we do not doubt the validity of our implicit knowledge,

because it cannot be verbally encapsulated. So we might start with a story which

could be considered "great" on the basis of the historical evidence – at least in the

judgement of thousands of indi viduals, across centuries of time – and attempt a

provisional explanation, and generalize from that explanation, and see if this

effort also produces a story that is at least "great" enough to motivate further

exploration (if for no other reason than to attempt to prove the whole interpretive

framework erroneous).

22. The oldest complete indubitably great story we have in our possession is the

Sumerian creation myth, the Enuma elish. It is no easy matter to make this story

appeal to the modern imagination, as modern individuals lack the implicit ritual

and metaphysical "presuppositions" of the Sumerians (which surrounded and

supported the Enuma elish, and brought it to life). We might perhaps substitute

for this lack of implicit culture more explicit knowledge regarding the "natural

categories" of mythology, and thereby extract from the Sumerian narrative

something that still appears meaningful. We might then apply the same

knowledge to a brief sequence of historically important myths, and see if that

process of application not only appears meaningful, but actually reveals

knowledge which appears revelatory (or at least useful, and not easily or

obviously obtained by any other method).

23. The Enuma elish begins by presenting a great chthonic serpent, Tiamat, who

is feminine – "she who gave birth to them all" (Heidel, 1965, p.18). Tiamat

inhabits the unformed deep with her husband and consort Apsu, locked in an

eternal and undifferentiated embrace. This sexual (read "creative") union gives

rise to the elder Mesopotamian gods, who begin a cycle of ceaseless activity,

including their multiplication, and disturb "the inner parts of Tiamat" (Heidel,

1965, p.19). Tiamat's irritation increases to the point where she conspires with her

husband to destroy or devour thei r recently engendered divine offspring. One

elder god, Ea, hears of this plot and slays Apsu, then fathers the primary hero of

the story, Marduk, fire- speaker, sun- god, "the wisest of the wise, the wisest of the

gods", filled with "awe- inspiring majesty" (Heidel, 1965, p.21).

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24. Tiamat is pushed beyond tolerance by this act, and determines to rid the

universe of her vexatious "children". She begins to produce horrible "soldiers", to

aid her in battle, "bearing monster serpents Sharp of tooth and not sparing the

fang. With poison instead of blood she filled their bodies. Ferocious dragons she

clothed with terror, She crowned them with fear- inspiring glory and made them

like gods, So that he who would look upon them should perish from terror"

(Heidel, 1965, p.23).

25. The elder gods conspire, in defence, and send one after another of their

members to stand against Tiamat. All fail. Finally, the gods meet in desperation,

and ask Marduk to serve as their champion, suggesting that he quiet her with his

"holy incantation" (Heidel, 1965, p.29). Marduk agrees, but insists that he must

be elevated to the pinnacle of the gods, if he is successful: "'Lord of the gods,

destiny of the great gods, If I am indeed to be your avenger, To vanquish Tiamat

and to keep you alive, Convene the assembly and proclaim my lot supreme. When

ye are joyfully seated together in the Court of Assembly, May I through the

utterance of my mouth determine the destinies, instead of you. Whatever I create

shall remain unaltered, The command of my l ips shall not return, ... it shall not be

changed'" (Heidel, 1965, pp.29- 30).

26. Marduk's compatriots, facing imminent destruction, agree unhesitatingly,

and confer great power on their champion. They place "the starry garment of the

night sky"(Campbell, 1964, p.82) in their midst. At the command of Marduk's

mouth – on his word – it appears; at his command, it disappears, "as the night sky

on the passage of the sun" (Campbell, 1964, p.82). He sets off, after his election,

to face his perfidious mother. Gathering his armaments, he fashions a net to

enclose Tiamat, and sets himself ablaze. He raises the winds and the storms in his

aid, using the forces of nature against nature itself. He dresses himself in a

magical coat of mail, and wears "terror- inspiring splendor" on his head. He

confronts Tiamat in her lair, accuses her of treachery, and challenges her to battle:

"When Tiamat heard this, She became like one in a frenzy and lost her reason.

Tiamat cried out loud and furiously, To the very roots her two legs shook back

and forth. She recites an incantation, repeatedly casting her spell; As for the gods

of battle, they sharpen their weapons. Tiamat and Marduk, the wisest of the gods,

advanced against one another; They pressed on to single combat, they approach ed

for battle" (Heidel, 1965, p.40).

27. Marduk fills Tiamat with "an evil wind", which distends her belly. When

she opens her mouth, to devour him, he lets an arrow fly, which tears her interior,

and splits her heart. He subdues her, completely, casts dow n her carcass, and

stands upon it. His voluntary encounter with the forces of the unknown produce a

decisive victory. He rounds up her subordinates and binds them with netting.

Then he returns to Tiamat: "The lord trod upon the hinder part of Tiamat, And

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w ith his unsparing club he split her skull. He cut the arteries of her blood And

caused the north wind to carry it to out - of - the - way places.... He split her open like

a mussel into two parts; Half of her he set in place and formed the sky (therewith)

as a roof. He fixed the crossbar and posted guards; He commanded them not to let

her waters escape. He crossed the heavens and examined the regions. He placed

himself opposite the Apsu, the dwelling of Ea. The lord measured the dimensions

of the Apsu, And a great structure, he established, namely Esharra [Earth]"

(Heidel, 1965, pp.42- 43).

28. Marduk then constructs the heavenly order, fashioning the year, defining the

twelve - sign zodiac, determining the movement of the stars, the planets and the

moon. Finally, he deigns to create man, so that "upon him shall the services of the

gods be imposed that they may be at rest" (Heidel, 1965, p.46), and returns the

gods allied with him to their appropriate celestial abodes. Grateful, they deliver

him a present: "'Now, O Lo rd, who hast established our freedom from

compulsory service, What shall be the sign of our gratitude before thee? Come, let

us make something whose name shall be called "Sanctuary." It shall be a dwelling

for our rest at night; come, let us repose therein!'" (Heidel, 1965, p.48). The

dwelling is Babylon, center of civilization, mythic sacred space, dedicated in

perpetuity to Marduk.

29. Tiamat is a dragon, a great serpent. According to Mircea Eliade (1978), the

great historian of religions, the serpent or dragon represents virtuality, which must

be conquered and transformed before the "world" can come into being. The

dragon might be considered a "natural category", or a "root metaphor" (Sarbin,

1976) for that which prevails outside the domain of the explored and expected

(and, as the unexpected, unknown or novel is the place from which all

information emerges, as the great "mother" of all places and things (Neumann,

1955)). Why the dragon? Generally, primates easily hate and fear snakes, or

objects reminiscent of snakes (Gray, 1987). Human beings may not be "innately"

afraid of snakes, but learn rapidly to fear them. This rapidity of emotion - object

association might be considered the birthplace of metaphor, as the snake becomes

the symbol for things which arouse fear. The human imagination, however, is not

limited in its representational capacity to the actual thing: the most apt serpent

(the archetypal serpent) might therefore live underground, be large as a town,

breathe fire, devour the innocent, live forever, and threaten the stability of the

community. It might also, paradoxically, appear to hoard treasure (gold, virginal

princesses, valuable jewels, magical implements). Why? Central to the category

of all things that invoke fear is the class of all things not yet classified, the class of

novel things (Gray, 1987), and lurking in the heart of novelty is value (that is, the

new information which is generated when the unknown is voluntarily

encountered, explored, and rendered habitable). Thus the dragon, metaphorical

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embodiment of the unknown, easily becomes the terrible mother of all things, the

temporal flux that always threatens to take back what it has produced, and the

awe- inspiring chaos that gives rise to determinate objects, subjects and situations

(Jung, 1967, 1968).

30. The femininity of the dragon in the Sumerian story is not precisely

universal: the great serpent of chaos is generally something that transcends

categories (as that which has not been explored is not named or categorized), to

such a degree that not even gender is evident. But Tiamat is feminine in this story

because she is the source of things, and "the feminine" is par excellence the

phenomenon that gives rise to the new (and can therefore serve metaphoric duty

as the birthplace of ev erything determinate).

31. The Sumerians believed that man was "created in order to serve the gods,

who, first of all, needed to be fed and clothed" (Eliade, 1978, p.59). What does

this fragment of information mean? It means, potentially, that the Sumerian gods

(the elder gods, children of Tiamat and Apsu) embodied the forces which shaped

and directed human existence. In modern parlance, we might consider these gods

personified motivational states – as Mars/Ares was the Greco - Roman god of

aggression and war, and Venus was the goddess of erotic attraction – although

such gods were more accurately the class of stimuli that gave rise to motivated

behavior, as well as the state of motivation itself (as the stimulus is not easily

distinguishable from the drive – think of erotic beauty, for example, which

appears "external" but is clearly not "objective"). Such motivational state/

stimulus complexes predates and "exists" in a manner superordinate to that of any

specific individual (which predates and exists in a ma nner superordinate to that of

all individuals). Blood- lust, hunger, sexual attraction, terror, and thirst are all

reasonably conceptualized as transpersonal forces, with a developmental history

longer than that of our mammalian and even reptilian precursors (as the origins of

our motivational drives are lost in an evolutionary prehistory millions of years

old).

32. The sexual/ creative union of the most fundamental of deities, Tiamat and

Apsu, gives rise to less primordial, but still transhuman figures (the elder

Mesopotamian gods). But what of Apsu? The Enuma elish itself gives very little

information about his nature. We know he is the masculine counterpart of the

reptilian and chthonic chaos that gives rise to all things, and threatens to take

them back. It is only comparative analysis, and a fragment of the plot of the

Enuma elish, that sheds light on his nature. All hell does not break loose for the

elder gods, until Ea carelessly slays Apsu. The masculine counterpart of the

feminine deity of the origin – that is, the masculine counterpart of generative

chaos, of nature, or the unknown – is culture, the known, patriarchal structure.

This is a result of the innate male - predicated social ordering pattern we share not

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only with other human cultures but with chimpanzees, our nearest biological

relatives (de Waal, 1989; Wrangham and D. Peterson, 1996). When our

dominance- hierarchies are destructured, and the patriarchal systems which protect

and oppress us are violated, the chaos from which we are guarded reappears, and

threatens to devour us.

33. None of the elder gods prevail against Tiamat, who defeats all comers. This

subplot may be regarded as "implicit knowledge" on the part of the Sumerians,

with regard to the insufficiency of "basic instinct." The philosophy of the drives,

in Nietzsche's (1968, pp.203- 204) terminology, is not complex enough to solve all

problems: the constant reappearance of the chaos of the unknown poses a

challenge that neither instinct nor habit can reliably solve. It is therefore not until

the appearance of Marduk (who is born immediately after the death of Apsu,

when the birth of the hero who might regenerate the damaged cultural structure

constitutes an event that might most devoutly be desired) that hope for the

continuance of the cosmos appears justified. We know that Marduk, although a

late- born god, is someone remarkable – someone categorically equivalent to the

light, to the re- emergence of the morning sun from the terrifying darkness of the

night; someone identified with technol ogical sophistication (mastery of fire) and

linguistic ability (the capacity for the holy incantation, which dispels that which is

destructive). Thus the great gods turn to the power of the word and technology to

master the generative but dangerous unknown, and elect Marduk to rule

permanently over them all.

34. Marduk faces Tiamat, the great dragon, voluntarily, and splits her into two

halves, making the world from her pieces. He is therefore part of the pantheon of

heroes who engenders the cosmos, as a consequence of creative but dangerous

confrontation with chaos. Marduk is also Namshub, "the bright god who brightens

our way" (Heidel, 1965, p.53) and Asaru, the god of resurrection, who "causes the

green herb to spring up" (Heidel, 1965, p.53). Whatever Marduk represents is also

considered central to creation of rich abundance, mercy, justice, and familial love,

and, most interestingly, to the "creation of ingenious things" from the "conflict

with Tiamat" (Heidel, 1965, pp.54- 57). The Mesopotamians addressed this central

deity by fifty names. Each name appears to have signified a once independently

conceptualized valuable property or ability (perhaps at one time separate gods),

which came over time to be regarded as mere attributes of Marduk's mode of

being. It seems evident that the attribution of these fifty names to Marduk

parallels the movement towards monotheism described in the Enuma elish itself

(with all the gods organizing themselves voluntarily under Marduk's dominion),

occurring in Mesopotamian society at the historical human level. But what

precisely does this latter, historical and human process signify?

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35. Marduk is elevated by his peers to the highest place in the Mesopotamian

heaven. But this is really of secondary interest to us. What is of primary and

perhaps overwhelming significance is the role this tale played in establishing and

supporting the notion of sovereignty among the ancient Sumerians. The Sumerian

emperor was sovereign only insofar as he embodied the spirit of Marduk on earth

(El iade, 1978). He stood in relation to earth as Marduk stood to heaven, and it was

this "equivalence to Marduk" that justified his sovereignty. What does this all

mean? It means that the Sumerians managed to capture in their images and

narratives of sovereignty the great and still insufficiently comprehended idea that

the process of creative exploration – the process that generates order out of chaos

– is something to which all other considerations must be rendered subordinate,

whether those considerations are instinctual (as in the case of the "elder gods"), or

whether they are interpersonal (as in the ordering of Mesopotamian society under

the "guidance" and rule of the emperor). This implies that the Mesopotamians

"acted out" the idea of the sovereignty of the creative hero, long before they (or

we, for that matter) explicitly understood the significance of that action pattern. It

also implies that the idea of sovereignty itself is firmly embedded in the more

primordial notion of the exploratory hero. One might object: "where then did this

knowledge come from, if itwas not represented explicitly, or 'understood'"? – but

it can easily be said that the exploratory and creative individual, mastering the

chaos in his own narrower personal domain (and appearing admirable and worthy

of emulation and representation in consequence) becomes elevated in a

temporally- extended iterative process to the "highest position", as the nature of

what makes him admirable and worthy of emulation becomes more clearly

encapsulated in the good and then the great and then the archetypal story.

36. An examination of the ritual and secondary conceptualization that

characterized ancient Egyptian society sheds additional light on the structure and

meaning of this "spiritual" world. In the earliest known Egyptian cosmology

(circa 2700 B.C.) the god Ptah, a spiritualized manifestation of Atum, the all-

encircling serpent, creates "by his mind (his "heart") and his word (his "tongue")"

(Eliade, 1978, p.89). Eliade states: "In short, the theogo ny and the cosmogony are

effected by the creative power of the thought and word of a single god. Here we

certainly have the highest expression of Egyptian metaphysical speculation. As

John Wilson observes, it is at the beginning of Egyptian history that we find a

doctrine that can be compared with the Christian theology of the Logos [or

Word]" (Eliade, 1978, pp.89- 90).

37. The Egyptians implicitly realized that what we would call consciousness

and linguistic ability were vital to the existence of things – precisely as vital as the

unknowable matrix of "material" being. Despite its centrality to Judeo- Christian

thinking, this idea has still not fully permeated our explicit understanding (since

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we attribute the existence of things purely to their "material" su bstrate). The

Egyptians viewed Ptah – he spermatic word – as the original, or primordial (read

"heavenly" king). As in Mesopotamia, Ptah ceded his power in the earthly domain

to his successor, the pharaoh. The creative power thus transferred was literally

defined by the Egyptians as the ability to put order (Ma'at) "in the place of Chaos"

(Eliade, 1978, p.91). Ma'at replaces the disorder of heresy, or falsehood, and

appears to be a term that occupies the same "categorical space" as the notion of

theemergenc e of the sun in the morning (or at the dawn of creation), or the

appearance of the pharaoh at a state function or festival (both of which are

described by the verb "khay", to shine) (Eliade, 1978). Ma'at means truth, good

order, justice, right, and describ es a state of being characteristic of the Golden

Age, prior to the emergence of sin and the descent of man from the promise and

perfection of the time of beginning (Eliade, 1978). The pharaoh who incarnates

ma'at is, like Marduk, the target for the ritual emulation of his people. It is this

ritual emulation that liaterally makes him a leader, makes him sovereign (and it is

his veridical embodiment of ma'at that provides the basis of and justification for

his power).

38. It should also be noted that the pharaoh's political activity is assimilated to

the actions of the solar god who nightly and eternally repels the great dragon of

chaos (Eliade, 1978, p.104, fn. 48). This is a fact whose central importance can

hardly be overstated. The pharaoh protects the borders of his land from the

barbarians without, who are directly apprehended as (not secondarily defined as)

equivalent to precosmic chaos. This chaos is the virtuality from which order is

drawn, and by which it is constantly threatened. Deep understanding of this level

of conceptualization, which is by no means limited to the ancient Egyptians,

reveals the nature of the profound and fundamental motivation underlying social

conflict: those who occupy unexplored territory are not "human inhabitants of a

different state". They are perceived directly as part of the serpentine, reptilian

power that constitutes all things yet unknown and threatening. This means that the

"natural" human mind apperceives the foreigner as indistinguishable from all that

must be heroic ally overcome to establish the norms and customs that define

culture, or the sacred space in which life can flourish (Peterson, 1999b). There

seems little doubt that this might be regarded as an abstracted variation of the

same instinctive level of "ideati on" that makes the chimpanzee patrol its borders,

and respond to the existence of same - species individuals outside its dominance

hierarchy with a brand of aggression that can only be described as motivated and

murderous (Wrangham and D. Peterson, 1996).

39. The ideas of sovereignty, exploratory activity and the establishment/

renewal of the state are described in a more sophisticated way in the central myth

of Osiris, which served as an alternative basis for Egyptian theology. The story of

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Osiris, and his son Horus, is more complex than the Mesopotamian creation myth,

and describes the interactions between the "constituent elements of experience" in

exceedingly compressed form. Osiris was a primeval king, a legendary ancestral

figure, who ruled Egypt wisely and fairly. His evil brother, Seth, who he did not

understand, rose up against him (Eliade, 1978, p.100, fn. 41). Seth killed Osiris

(that is, sent him to the underworld, where he lived a vague and partial existence)

and dismembered his body, so that it could never be "found".

40. The death of Osiris signifies two important things: (i) the tendency of

(static) ruling ideas, systems of valuation, or particular stories – no matter how

initially magnificent or appropriate – to become increasingly irrelevant wi th time;

and (ii) the dangers which necessarily accrue to a state that "forgets" or refuses to

admit to the existence of the immortal "deity" of evil. Seth, the king's brother and

opposite, represents the mythic "hostile twin" or "adversary" who eternally

opposes the process of creative encounter with the unknown, and signifies a

pattern of adaptation characterized by absolute opposition to the establishment of

divine order. When this principle gains "control" – that is, usurps the throne – the

"rightful ki ng" and his kingdom are necessarily doomed. Seth, and figures like

him – often represented in narrative by the corrupt "right hand man" or "advisor

to the once- great king" – view human existence itself with contempt. Such figures

are motivated only to protect or advance their position in the power hierarchy,

even when the prevailing order is clearly counterproductive. Their actions

necessarily speed the process of decay, endemic to all social/ cognitive structures.

Osiris, although great, was nevertheless n aive, and blind to the existence of

"immortal" evil. This blindness, and its resultant incaution, hastens his demise.

41. Osiris has a wife, as befits the "king of order". Isis, as Osiris' mythic

counterpart, represents the positive aspect of the unknown (a force equivalent to

the creative aspect of Tiamat). Isis is possessed of great magical powers, and

gathers up Osiris' scattered pieces, using his dismembered phallus to make herself

pregnant. This exceedingly concretized story makes a profound abstract point: the

degeneration of the "state" or "domain of order" and its "descent" into chaos

serves merely to fructify that domain and to make it "pregnant". In chaos lurks

potential. When a great organization disintegrates, the pieces might still usefully

give rise to something else, perhaps something more vital, and still greater. Isis

therefore gives birth to a son, Horus, who returns to his "rightful kingdom", and

confronts his evil uncle.

42. Horus fights a difficult battle with Seth, and loses an eye in th e process. Seth

is defeated, nonetheless, and Horus recovers his eye. The story could stop there,

with the now - whole and victorious Horus' well- deserved ascension to the throne.

This would be the familiar story of the "re- ascension of the rightful son of the true

king to the endangered kingdom". Horus, however, does the unexpected,

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descending voluntarily to the underworld to find his father. It is representation of

this move, reminiscent of Marduk's voluntary journey to the "underworld"

inhabited by Tiamat, that constitutes the most brilliant and original contribution of

Egyptian theology.

43. Horus discovers Osiris, extant in a state of post- existence torpor. He offers

his recovered eye to his father, so that Osiris can "see" once again. They return,

united and victorious, and establish a revivified kingdom. The kingdom of the

"son and father" is an improvement over that of the father or the son alone, as it

unites the hard- won wisdom of the past (that is, of the dead) with the adaptive

capacity of the present (the living).

44. Marduk, the Mesopotamian supreme god, carves the familiar world from the

unfamiliar, creating order from chaos. That capacity, which is theoretically

embodied in the form of the Mesopotamian emperor, lends temporal authority its

right ful power. The same idea applies in Egypt, but is elaborated substantively.

Osiris constitutes the old state, once great, but now dangerously anachronistic.

Horus partakes of the essence of tradition (he is the son of his father), but is

vivified by an infusion of "new information" (his mother, after all, is "the positive

aspect of the unknown"). As an updated and aware version of his father, he

iscapable of dealing with the emergent evil represented by his uncle. Victorious

over his uncle, he is nonetheless incomplete, as his youthful spirit lacks the

wisdom of the past. So he journeys into the unknown, where his father rests,

"lifeless", without embodiment or active incarnation in the present. Horus unites

himself with his father, and becomes the "ideal ru ler", incorporating the

"consciousness" of present youthful life and the wisdom of tradition.

45. The "dead" Egyptian pharaoh, the ruler whose death preceded the ascension

of the current pharaoh, was assimilated by the Egyptians to Osiris (that is, the

"dead pharaoh" occupied the same "categorical space" as Osiris). This meant that

the dead pharaoh was regarded as equivalent to "the spirit that founded the state"

– the archetypal creator - god or legendary ancestor whose courageous actions had

cosmogonic significance. The current ruler (who depended for much of his power

on the traditions of his predecessors, modified when necessary) was regarded as

equivalent to Horus, and to Re, the sun- god. The ruling pharaoh was therefore the

power that generated order from chaos (as Re), and the power that rejuvenated

order, once it had degenerated into unthinking authoritarianism or too- rigid (and

blind) tradition. Furthermore, however, the pharaoh was the rejuvenated Osiris

(who was the "dead pharaoh"), so he was traditi on, given sight. The sophistication

of this idea of reputable leadership – creative power, regenerative power, and

revivified tradition – cannot be regarded as anything but remarkable. It is also of

overwhelming historical interest and modern relevance tha t the Egyptians

increasingly came to regard Osiris - Horus as an exemplar, not just of the pharaoh,

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but of every individual in the kingdom. Eliade states, with regard to later Egyptian

burial practice: "The texts formerly inscribed on the walls of the hidden chambers

in the pyramids erected for the pharaohs are now reproduced inside the coffins of

the nobility and even of totally unprivileged people. Osiris becomes the model for

all those who hope to conquer death. A Coffin Text proclaims: 'Thou art now the

son of a king, a prince, as long as thy heart (i.e., spirit) shall be with thee.'

Following Osiris' example, and with his help, the dead are able to transform

themselves into 'souls', that is, into perfectly integrated and hence indestructible

spiritual bei ngs. Murdered and dismembered, Osiris was 'reconstituted' by Isis and

reanimated by Horus. In this way he inaugurated a new mode of existence: from a

powerless shade, he became a 'person' who 'knows', a duly initiated spiritual

being." (Eliade, 1978, p.100)

46. This development might also be regarded as an illustration of the increasing

"psychologization", "abstraction" and "internalization" of religious ideation: in

the earliest stages of representation, deities are viewed as pluralistic, and as

individual istic and fractious members of a supracelestial (that is, transpersonal

and immortal) community. Later, they are incorporated into a hierarchy, as the

culture becomes more integrated, more sure about relative valuation and moral

virtue – and a single god, with a multitude of related features, comes to dominate.

The development of monotheism thus parallels intrapsychic and intracultural

moral integration. As the average citizen identifies more and more clearly with

this monotheistic, integrated pattern, its "external" nature, as an attribute of the

gods, recedes. It becomes more clearly an attribute of the human being, per se,

rather than a characteristic of the extra- individual world – and more like what we

would conceive of as a psychological trait. The god's subjective aspect – his or

her intrapsychic quality – becomes more evident, at least to the most sophisticated

of intuitions, and the possibility of "personal relationship" with the deity emerges

as a prospect at the conceptual level of analysis. The process is just beginning, in

abstraction, in Mesopotamia and Egypt: it was the ancient Israelites who brought

it most clearly to fruition, with potent and lasting effect. It does not seem

unreasonable to regard this development as a precursor to the Christi an

revolution, which granted every individual the status of "son of god", and to our

modern notion of the "human right", which is the metaphysically- predicated

presumption that everyone, regardless of "earthly status", has a value to which

temporal authori ty must bow.

47. The Egyptian pharaoh, like the Mesopotamian king, served as material

incarnation of the process that separates order from chaos; simultaneously, he

embodied the state. Finally, the pharaoh/ king was the rejuvenator of his own

"father". The "ideal" pharaoh/ king was therefore the exploratory process that

gave rise to the state, the state itself, and the revivifying (exploratory) process that

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updated the state, when it was in danger of too- conservative ossification. This

massively complex and sophisticated conceptualization is given added breadth

and depth by consideration of its "psychological" element. The "state" is not

merely cultural; it is also "spiritual". As custom and tradition is established, it is

inculcated into each individual, an d becomes part of their intrapsychic structure.

The "state" is therefore personality and social organization simultaneously;

personality and social order conjoined in the effort to keep the terror of chaos at

bay (or, better still, united in the effort to make something positively useful of it).

This means that the hero/ king who establishes, embodies and updates the social

world is also the same force that establishes, embodies and updates the

intrapsychic world, the personality, and that one act of update cannot necessarily

or reasonably be distinguished from the other. In "improving" the world, the hero

improves himself; in improving himself, he sets an example for the world.

48. Initially, the "personality of state" was in fact a ritual human model (a he ro)

to observe and imitate (an entity represented in behavioral pattern); then a story

about such ritual models (an entity represented in imagination), and, finally, and

much later, an abstract construction of rules describing the explicit rights and

responsibilities of the citizenry (an entity of words, the "body" of law). This

increasingly disembodied and detailed construction develops as a consequence of

processes ranging in abstraction from imitation to verbal representation, and

comprises rules and sch emas of interpretations useful for maintaining stability of

interpersonal interaction. It is the establishment of these rules and schemas that

gives determinate meaning to human experience, by bringing predictability to all

social situations (to all things encountered interpersonally). The same thing might

be said from the psychological perspective. It is incorporation of the "personality

of state" – dominated by the figure of the hero – that brings order to the inner

community of necessity and desire, and to the generative chaos of the soul.

49. The Mesopotamian culture- hero/ deity Marduk represents the capacity of the

process of exploration (the unknown, eternally promising and threatening) to

generate the world of experience. The Egyptian gods Horus - Osiri s represent the

extended version of that capacity, which means not only generation of the world

from the unknown, but transformation of the pattern of adaptation which

constitutes the known, when such transformation becomes necessary. It is the

integrated totality of these processes that manifests itself in the Judeo- Christian

tradition as the mythic Word of God (and which is embodied in Christ, the

Christian culture- hero): "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with

God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things

were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In

him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness;

and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:1 - 4).

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50. This "Word" is the seminal force that serves to generate subject and object

from the primordial chaos (and which therefore predates the existence of both);

the force that engenders the tradition which makes vulnerable existence possible,

in the fa ce of constant mortal threat; and the force that updates protective

tradition, when it has become untenable and tyrannical on account of its age. The

"Word" is, as well, the force identified with man by God in Genesis, when man is

created in God's image, and the process offered to man as pattern for ritual

emulation – for the solution of the eternal existential crisis of the individual – in

the corporeal form of Christ, the central culture hero of Christianity.

51. The Sumerian, Egyptian and Judeo- Christia n myths portray ideas of

exceeding complexity, in ritual (dramatic) and imagistic form. This form is not

purposeful mystification, but the manner in which ideas emerge, before they are

sufficiently developed to be explicitly comprehensible. Our forefathers acted out

and provisionally formulated complete, "impressionistic" models of the world of

experience, long before the "contents" of such models could be understood, in the

way we currently conceive of understanding.

52. The Sumerians, ancient Egyptians an d Old Testament Hebrews settled by all

accounts on a world - story that made of existence and experience the eternal

battleground of order and chaos, mediated by the heroic aspect of consciousness –

the Logos, the Word, truth, light, enlightenment, illumination. In the east, this is

the path of Tao, the Way, extant on the border between yin and yang, feminine

generative chaos and masculine order. But it was the Christians, drawing on a

tradition made concrete by the ancient Zoroastrians, who elaborated what m ight

be the most illuminating mythology of all, describing the process that exists in

absolute opposition to the power of the Logos, the Word, encapsulating that

description in the person of the eternal adversary, Satan, the first- born "son of

God".

53. We believe that we have dispensed with the necessity for an image of evil in

this most enlightened of centuries. But even casual exposure to the literature

describing the horrors perpetrated in the modern concentration camp, for example

(and not only there) must necessarily convince even the most skeptical that there

are important things that we still do not understand about the central nature of

man. It might therefore be conservatively suggested that it may be unwise to

dismiss centuries of speculation abou t the dark side of human nature without

making every attempt to unlock the wisdom contained in that speculation.

54. Perhaps we might close this discussion, in consequence, by drawing on

another source of potential knowledge which while not yet formalized might still

be sufficiently meaningful to be worthy of attention. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the

Russian author, regarded the Nuremburg trials as the crowning achievement of the

twentieth century (Solzhenitsyn, 1975, p.616). He said this because he believed

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that the events of the holocaust were so terrible that they made it possible for

human beings to unite over and above their conditional differences to state with

conviction that "this was so wrong that no conditional difference could ever be

utilized to jus tify its existence". While considering such events, recently, I made

my way into a bookstore specializing in "extreme" literature the other day while

considering such events, and found in a magazine (which I immediately put

down) the description of an even t so shocking (and perhaps not veridical) that it

produced a week- long obsessional state within my consciousness. The book

described a film made by the Japanese invaders of China during the initial stages

of the Second World War, which documented "medical" experiments conducted

upon Chinese prisoners of war. In one experiment, a Chinese woman was

shackled outside in subzero weather to a device like a stock that held her arms out

in front of her, parallel to the ground, encircled by a restraining device that fit

around her upper arms. The medical experimenter poured freezing water over her

extended arms, until they were frozen, and then brought her into the "laboratory"

to then pour hot water over her frozen limbs, and then repeated the procedure

until in front of the horrified victim's eyes her skin loosened and could be stripped

off both arms leaving them bare and lifeless and useless and utterly terrifying to

apprehend (that of course being the point of the experiment, and certainly not the

"knowledge" that such a procedure generated). Whether or not this description is

true, it is certainly something a human being could (and did) imagine doing, and it

is true as well that everything horrifying imaginable has been practiced on the

captive victims of foreign invaders at some point in the last one hundred years

(see Chang, 1997, for an endless litany of similar examples).

55. This is partly because we "naturally" view the denizens of foreign states as

partaking of the essence of the terribly threatening state of chaos, but also because

of something more profound and frightening and revolting. It is one thing to

understand that human beings are territorial, and that we "naturally" view all

things that make up or inhabit the domain outside present understanding as

threatening (because what we understand regulates our emotions; because

everything we do not understand, including the foreign "other", threatens that

regulation). It is another to understand that human beings will pursue the

destruction and torture of th e foreign other to the point where such pursuit itself

endangers the stability and predictability of everything theoretically held dear by

the pursuer. This is something truly mystifying: why would an individual risk the

very ground he stands upon, merely to ensure the suffering of another?

Documented evidence for this sort of behaviour certainly exists.

56. It seems clear that both the Nazis and the Stalinists, for example, were

motivated by the desire to consolidate and expand the "territory", psychologic al

and material, which their respective ideologies dominated. As a consequence of

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this motivation, it seems logical to presume that the slave labour employed during

the process of consolidation and expansion would be employed in a manner

commensurate with this goal (a goal clearly within the realm of general human

understanding: even if my enemy is pursuing his own interests, which I do not

share, I may at least come to some comprehension of his goal - directed purposes,

merely in the light of our shared huma nity). But this logical presumption appears

wrong, so perhaps it is the case that the motivating forces underlying Nazi and

Stalinist action are not so clear, not so easily or comfortably or even familiarly

comprehended. Solzhenitsyn describes, for example , the construction process of

the Belomor canal, uniting the White Sea to Leningrad, undertaken from

September 1931 to April 1933 (a canal one hundred and forty kilometers in

length, excavated primarily by hand through land alternatively peppered with

boulders and swamps, with no delay even for the harsh Russian winter). By

Solzhenitsyn's estimation, 100,000 workers perished the first winter, and 250,000

died, in total. He cites Vitkovsky, a White Sea Canal work supervisor: "At the end

of the workday there were corpses left on the work site. The snow powdered their

faces. One of them was hunched over beneath an overturned wheelbarrow. He had

hidden his hands in his sleeves and had frozen to death in that position. Someone

had frozen with his head bent down between his knees. Two were frozen back to

back leaning against each other. They were peasant lads and the best workers one

could possibly imagine. They were sent to the canal in tens of thousands at a time,

and the authorities tried to work things out so n o one got to the same subcamp as

his father; they tried to break up families. And right off they gave them norms of

shingle and boulders that you'd be unable to fulfill even in summer. No one was

able to teach them anything, to warn them; and in their village simplicity they

gave all their strength to their work and weakened very swiftly and then froze to

death, embracing in pairs. At night the sledges went out and collected them. The

drivers threw the corpses onto the sledges with a dull clonk. And in the summer

bones remained from corpses which had not been removed in time, and together

with the shingle they got into the concrete mixer. And in this way they got into

the concrete of the last lock at the city of Belmorsk and will be preserved there

forever." (Solzhenitsyn, 1975, p.99)

57. Perhaps this story is no more terrible than any of the many others that could

be told about human political behavior in the last one hundred years, except for

one far from trivial and potentially overlooked detail. Solzhenit syn visited the

Belomor canal in 1966, only three decades after its completion, and found it

abandoned, silent, unused: "There was no traffic on the canal nor in the locks.

There was no hustle and bustle of service personnel. There were no steamer

whistles. The lock gates stayed shut. It was a fine, serene June day. So why was

it?" (Solzhenitsyn, 1975, p.101). [The chief of the guard explained:] "'It's so

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shallow ... that not even submarines can pass through it under their own power;

they have to be loaded on barges, and only then can they be hauled through.'"

58. Addressing the spirit of the dead Stalin, Solzhenitsyn cries: "And what

about the cruisers? Oh, you hermit - tyrant! You nighttime lunatic! In what

nightmare did you dream up all this? And where, cur sed one, were you hurrying

to? What was it that burned and pricked you – to set a deadline of twenty months?

For those quarter- million men could have remained alive. Well, so the

Esperantists struck in your throat, but think how much work those peasant lads

could have done for you! How many times you could have roused them to attack

– for the Motherland, for Stalin! 'It was very costly,' I said to the guard. 'But it

was built very quickly!' he answered me with self- assurance. Your bones should

be in it! Tha t day I spent eight hours by the canal. During this time there was one

self- propelled barge which passed from Povenets to Soroka, and one, identical in

type, which passed from Soroka to Povenets. Their numbers were different, and it

was only by their numb ers that I could tell them apart and be sure that it was not

the same one as before on its way back. Because they were loaded altogether

identically: with the very same pine logs which had been lying exposed for a long

time and were useless for anything ex cept firewood. And cancelling the one load

against the other we get zero. And a quarter of a million to be remembered."

(Solzhenitsyn, 1975, p.102)

59. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (1996) has also taken pains to demonstrate that

Jewish concentration camp labour was also far from productive – not only that,

but wasteful in a manner clearly not even in the theoretically ideologically-

motivated interests of the Germans themselves. Such labour was torture, a parody

of work, instituted merely as a prelude to death. B uchenwald prisoners carried

sacks of wet salt from one useless location, to another, and then back again,

merely so they could be engaged in the precise opposite of creative activity – that

defining hallmark of the free individual – and humiliated thereby. Goldhagen

states: "The phenomenon of Jewish 'work' was such a triumph of politics and

ideology over economic self- interest not only because the Germans killed

irreplaceable workers, but also in the more profound sense that even when they

were not killing them, Germans, owing to the character of their racial antipathy,

had great difficulties employing Jews rationally in the economy. The words and

deeds of Heydrich, Himmler, and countless others reveal the real relationship

between Jewish 'work' and Jewish death in Germany. Work put into motion

beings whom the Germans themselves had already condemned to death, socially

dead beings with a temporary lease on socially dead life. In its essence, Jewish

'work' was not work in any ordinary sense of 'work' – but a suspended form of

death – in other words, it was death itself." (Goldhagen, 1996, p.323)

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60. Only those who were possessed by a true aesthetic of evil could become so

engaged in the torturing of a helpless victim that even self- interest might be

suspended (and, one might comment, the sacrifice of one's own interest to the

torture of others can be regarded as the most poetic expression of the force whose

sole aim is the elimination of everything vulnerable, and therefore worthy of

contempt, from the surface of the planet).

61. It is not sufficient explanation to argue that those engaged in the process

were frightened, or were victims of the totalitarian spirit who were following

orders, or were motivated by economic or other rational considerations (as if any

of these explanations would justify the process, in any case). In the latter days of

World War II, for example, when the Nazis had clearly been defeated but had not

yet entirely capitulated, Himmler explicitly ordered those serving as guards in the

concent ration camps to stop the torture and killing (merely to decrease the

likelihood of Allied retaliation for the commission of such crimes). But the killing

did not stop, in spite of orders from the ideological and political leaders. The most

straightforward explanation is that the killing was so implicitly satisfying to those

involved that it did have to be either condoned or encouraged for any other

(secondary) reason. And so the phenomenon of the "death march" spontaneously

emerged: death camps were emptied of their prisoners, who were then forced by

their jailers to march without direction (excepting that direction whose end point

was the grave). Goldhagen states: "Viewing the maps of some... death march

routes should be sufficient to convince anyone that the meanderings could have

had no end other than to keep the prisoners marching. And the effects were

calculable – and calculating. The Germans in charge of the marches, who, cut off

from their headquarters, were almost always on their own while under way, were

under no compulsion to trek aimlessly; they could have chosen to remain in one

place, feed their prisoners, and deliver them to the Allies, who, no matter what,

were bound to reach them in a few days or weeks. As far as is known, this never

occurred. The death marches were not means of transport; the marching transports

were means of death." Goldhagen, 1996, pp.336- 337)

62. Why would individuals, theoretically motivated to protect the group identity

that lent structure to their existence, dispense with what was after all

pragmatically useful captive creative labour, just so they could further the torment

of the captives? Why would individuals, theoretically obedient and thoroughly

encapsulated within the confines of a totalitarian regime, dispense with their

obedience, just at the moment when could have dropped their "enforced" brutality

and still have maintained a patriotic facade? A rationally self- interested individual

would not sacrifice his own security to ensure the suffering of others. The merely

obedient and frightened individual would not work to maintain a system dedicated

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to torture in the face of official orders to desist. Another level of explanation –

indeed, another kind of explanation – must be sought.

63. We work to maintain and extend the boundaries of the stories which

regulate our social existence, our individual goals, and our emotions, and to

extend the boundaries of the stories which we embody and represent abstractly.

Such stories have an integrity, at least in principle, which ena bles them to "make

sense" of our past and present, and to structure those actions that take us into the

future. Our stories are "true" to the extent that they allow us to utilize the wisdom

we have generated in the course of our experience. But such wisdom is always

incomplete. The transformations of the present invalidate the static knowledge of

the past, and we are in consequence continually faced with the emergence of the

unexpected. When confronted with anomalous information – which threatens the

structure of our stories, the structure of our very identities – we must necessarily

choose between two responses. In the first case, we admit to our eternal

insufficiency, and mine the source of emergent anomaly for redemptive

information. This means that we must tolerate the anxiety and uncertainty that

necessarily emerges when the structures that regulate our emotions disintegrate,

prior to their (potential) re- establishment. This pattern – the voluntary

transformation of the "simple story" – has been conceptu alized most simply as

"steady state, breach, crisis, and redress", and appears central to the underlying

structure of narrative itself (Bruner, 1986; Campbell, 1968; Jung, 1967, 1968).

The same pattern appears to underlie rituals of initiation (Eliade, 1958) and

transformations of explicit theory (Kuhn, 1970), and to provide structure for

traditional systems of "thought", such as Christianity or Buddhism (Jung, 1967,

1968, 1969; Eliade, 1982). Our most profound stories and compelling dramas are

predicated u pon the archetype of transformation: "paradise, encounter with chaos,

fall and redemption".

64. But the anomalous, frightening and revolutionary does not have to be met

head- on. It can be avoided – not so much repressed, as the Freudians might have

it, but at last not explored (or, if embodied in the actions or opinions of another,

violently suppressed, even eliminated, as if the challenge dies when the

messenger dies). The second pattern of response represents a voluntary failure to

update the narrative structure guiding ongoing action, prompted by the desire to

avoid intermediary chaos. In the long term, however, this failure means existence

in a frame or box ever more like the medieval torture chamber: the room of little

ease,. The room of little ease is too low for the prisoner to stand up in, and too

narrow for the prisoner to lie down in. There is no comfort in the room of little

ease. There is no comfort in the room of little ease.

65. Self- deception is generally considered to be the capacity to hold two

conflicting notions in mind at the same time (Sackeim and Gur, 1978). This

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conception is predicated on the misapprehension that the structured story and the

anomaly which arises to challenge it have the same ontological status. This

appears unlikely to be true. When an anomaly is signalled, at least initially, all

that reveals itself is the insufficiency of the current conceptualization. This may

be signalled only in emotion, in the activation of an internal state, devoid of

content except for the "message": be cautious (then explore) (Gray, 1982;

Damasio, 1996). The detailed manner in which that insufficiency exists, however,

may only be revealed as a consequence of active exploratory behavior (behavior

which risks the unpleasant revelation of further error, at more profound and

important levels of presupposition). This means that the lie may be something as

simple as "failure to explore a meaningful but threatening occurrence" – may be

something more reminiscent of a sin of omission, rather than a sin of commission.

But this does not lessen its seriousness.

66. What are the consequences of failure to explore? It is, after all, the

exploratory creative process that makes "cosmos" out of "chaos". So the

consequence of failure to participate in this process is the creation of an

"imbalance" in the "divine" forces underlying experience. Failure to explore

therefore means: (i) eradication of identity with the Logos, the creative Word –

and, therefore, sacrifice of the process of adaptation in the desperate hope of

maintaining the (no - longer valid) past consequences of that process; (ii)

increasingly frantic rigidification of the boundaries between "what is known" and

"what is unknown", in the hope of eliminating from contact or consideration

anything, no matter how trivial, whose existence casts doubt on the increasingly-

totalitarian structure of current belief; and (iii) the generation of a morass of

unstructured potential around the now - walled- in individual, bereft of creative

resources, and increasingly threatened by the self- induced re- animation of the

terrible dragon of chaos: "The Marabout draws a large circle in the dirt, which

represents the world. He places a scorpion, symbolic of man, inside the circle.

The scorpion, believing it has achieved freedom, starts to run around the circle –

but never attempts to go outside. After the scorpion has raced several times

around the inside edge of the circle, the Marabout lowers his stick and divides the

circle in half. The scorpion stops for a few seconds, then beg ins to run faster and

faster, apparently looking for a way out, but never finding it. Strangely enough,

the scorpion does not dare to cross over the line. After a few minutes, the

Marabout divides the half circle. The scorpion becomes frantic. Soon the

Marabout makes a space no bigger than the scorpion's body. This is "the moment

of truth." The scorpion, dazed and bewildered, finds itself unable to move one

way or another. Raising its venomous tail, the scorpion turns rapidly 'round and

'round in a veritabl e frenzy. Whirling, whirling, whirling until all of its spirit and

energy are spent. In utter hopelessness the scorpion stops, lowers the poisonous

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point of its tail, and stings itself to death. Its torment is ended." (Edwardes and

Masters, 1963, p.124)

67. The individual who has sacrificed the best in himself in order to maintain a

belief he knows is no longer tenable has placed himself in a position in which

constant torment is inevitable. His domain of competence necessarily shrinks, as

he pulls away from contact with everything that threatens but simultaneously

renews; his capacity for flexible action deteriorates, as he continually defines and

redefines himself as that which must run away from all that is unknown. As he

surrounds himself with an ever- gr owing "domain of unexplored chaos", he

increases the probability that all hell will break loose around him at some

unspecified but ever- looming future point: "Him the Almighty Power/ Hurled

headlong flaming from the ethereal Sky/ With hideous ruin and comb ustion

down/ To bottomless perdition, there to dwell/ In Adamantine Chains and penal

Fire" (Milton, 1961, p.38, part 1:44- 48).

68. Under such circumstances, feelings of resentment and hatred will multiply,

waiting to be released upon an unsuspecting, innocent and therefore more

worthwhile target. Such feelings will express themselves in an archetypal pattern,

through actions dedicated to the destruction and violation of existence itself: " - for

whence/ But from the author of all ill could spring/ So deep a malice, to confound

the race/ Of mankind in one root, and Earth with Hell/ To mingle and involve,

done all to spite/ The great Creator?" (Milton, 1961, p. 71, part 2:380- 385).

69. The human desire to be right, above everything – to assume omniscience (in

the well - guarded guise, for example, of patriotic identity with the state) –

generates a manner of being absolutely opposed to the process of creative

exploration and the regeneration of the father. This manner of being has been

represented most explicitly in Christian conceptions of the world (prefigured in

part by the Zoroastrians), as the spiritual insurrection of Lucifer – "prince of lies"

– who is motivated by the desire to dispense with the necessity of the creative

Word. Such "maladaptive" identification induces personal suffering, of the most

meaningless and therefore unbearable sort; this pointless suffering breeds intense

resentment and the overwhelming desire to lash out, in vengeance. When calls for

the "defense of the state" ring forth, therefore, in compelling and emotion - laden

language, the already - totalitarian - in- spirit leap forth, to defend the right against all

comers, to cloak their desperate desire for the generation of misery in the disguise

of rectitude, and to fulfill their blackest fant asies: "With cohesion, construction,

grit and repression/ Wring the neck of this gang run riot!" (Mayakovsy, cited in

Solzhenitsyn, 1973, p.41).

70. Human beings, "made in the image of God", construct their familiar

territory, their cosmos, out of chaos – the unknown – and then strive to maintain

the dynamic equilibrium of what they have constructed and now inhabit. The

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capacity to engage in such activity is "incarnation of the divine Logos",

embodiment of the creative, exploratory "Word", whose activity finds eternal

dramatic representation in the figure of the hero, the dragon - slaying savior.

Rejection of the process of exploration and update of action - predicated belief is

equivalent to identification with the mythical Adversary, whose credo was

explicitly elaborated by Goethe: "The spirit I, that endlessly denies./ And rightly,

too; for all that comes to birth/ Is fit for overthrow, as nothing worth;/ Wherefore

the world were better sterilized;/ Thus all that's here as Evil recognized/ Is gain to

me, and downfall, ruin, sin/ The very element I prosper in" (Goethe, 1979, p.75).

71. This means: the human story is the battle between good and evil, played out

against a background of the dynamic interplay of order and chaos, fought for the

redemption of fallen and painfully self- conscious man. This is a psychology

grounded not merely in one hundred years of experimental science, nor in four

hundred years of post- enlightenment rational thought, but in forty or more

centuries of dramatic self- analysis, nested in a ritual - centered prehistory, which

extends back perhaps to our non - human primate ancestors, and beyond.

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paragraphs, 43 references, 1261 lines)

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... The mechanisms by which sensorimotor activity is regulated are essentially affective in kind, involving various forms of emotional feedback, as well as feelings and moods [13], all of which are aimed at evaluating the relative potency of one's sensorimotor coordination in relation to a task for achieving contextually-relevant goals. Accordingly, behaviors (sensorimotor acts) which result in reward or which cue potential reward are experienced positively (e.g., joy, happiness, hope), and are therefore reinforced; whereas behaviors which result in punishment or which signal potential punishment (threat) are experienced negatively (e.g., fear, anger, anxiety), and are therefore extinguished [11]. Successful framing thus implies that all relevant sensorimotor affordances and affective cues are sufficiently known in the problem-solving domain at hand; functional action is afforded; and the world is thereby experienced as a place of determinate meanings, or as "predictable." ...

... Whereas the cognitive agent's frames of the world are static, the world as such is entropic [11,30]. A fundamental limitation of the framing process, therefore, is that obsolescence is both necessary and inevitable. ...

... The functional utility of framing erodes whenever the agent is confronted with a wholly novel experience-an "anomaly," in a manner of speaking. During such instances of anomaly, the world's inherent complexity emerges and overwhelms the agent's cognitive structures and attendent capacity to act functionally [11,30]. The world, in other words, becomes a fundamentally unpredictable place and its meanings are rendered obscure and indeterminate. ...

The standard approach to immersive virtual reality (VR) is arguably "object-centric" in that it aims to design physically realistic virtual experiences. This article deems the object-centric approach both philosophically and theoretically problematic and builds up to an alternative, "action-predicated" approach, whose aim is to simulate virtual experiences with a primary emphasis on pragmatic functionality instead. Section 1 lays out the rationale of the article and provides an outline for its general structure. Section 2 illustrates the nature of the problem being tackled and articulates a philosophically motivated critique, demonstrating the necessary limitations of the standard approach, as well as the need for an alternative. Section 3 draws on the enactive approach to cognitive science and begins the formulation of such an alternative. Section 4 completes the turn toward an action-predicated approach and argues, in particular, for a flow-based conception of immersive VR experience. Section 5 systematically discusses the methodological implications of the theoretical merits of this article by examining a design probe, Wake, conducted on participants (N = 25) in a mixed reality (MR) setting. Finally, Sect. 6 constitutes the conclusion of this article, wherein its philosophical, theoretical, and methodological efforts, as well as possible avenues for future research, are briefly noted.

... Evolutionary psychology suggests there can be many fine-tuned instincts which resonate with our brain, even without us being necessarily aware they exist, which can influence behavior and cause, for example, aggression [4]. Jungian psychology shares this epistemic belief [29] and provides examples of narratives which resonate with our consciousness. As stories and movies can display these narratives [29], so can games, especially when games involve reality in the gameplay as LBGs do. ...

... Jungian psychology shares this epistemic belief [29] and provides examples of narratives which resonate with our consciousness. As stories and movies can display these narratives [29], so can games, especially when games involve reality in the gameplay as LBGs do. Despite the above mentioned negative side-effects of territorial behavior in LBGs, the competitive and motivating element it brings to the game might be a big factor in player engagement as predicted by previous studies [36]. ...

Location-based games (LBGs), where the user's physical location is a central part of gameplay, have become popular since the commercial success of Pokémon Go. The extant literature has focused to explain the success of LBGs by focusing on aspects of gratification and reasons to start, continue and quit playing. This study departs from the previous work by using a focus group method and hypothesizing that primal instincts developed during the evolutionary period of hunter-gatherer living-such as territorial behavior-can play a role in players' actions, potentially enhancing engagement and motivation. The manifestation of territorial behavior in LBGs can occur via persistent need to control specific virtual locations in the game world. Initial results indicate that territorial behaviour could impact on the engagement of the games. This study presents a conceptualization on how territorial instincts influence player engagement in LBGs and provides a theoretical background for future studies.

... With a more metaphorical, less physically grounded, but equally rational definition, perhaps an NLP system diagram could be considered a map of the functionality (cf. [4,13]). In other domains, a "process map" would not fit naturally within the definition of either mapping or depicting categories. ...

We utilise Richards-Engelhardt framework as a tool for understanding Natural Language Processing systems diagrams. Through four examples from scholarly proceedings, we find that the application of the framework to this ecological and complex domain is effective for reflecting on these diagrams. We argue for vocabulary to describe multiple-codings, semiotic variability, and inconsistency or misuse of visual encoding principles in diagrams. Further, for application to scholarly Natural Language Processing systems, and perhaps systems diagrams more broadly, we propose the addition of "Grouping by Object" as a new visual encoding principle, and "Emphasising" as a new visual encoding type. Full text available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.11785

... Moreover, of those affiliated to the Church, Collings-Mayo and colleagues suggest many see this identification more as a fading 'inherited cultural memory' than an 'active faith' [19]. However, as scholars such as Jordan Peterson have argued, such 'cultural memory' is still very important in shaping who people are [20]. Even if many in the West (and beyond) no longer have an active religious faith, our common mental frameworks-including ideologies, metaphysics, morals, and concepts-have been conditioned over the centuries by Judeo-Christian traditions. ...

Tim Lomas

The environment is widely recognised to be in peril, with clear signs of a climate crisis. This situation has many dimensions and factors, but key among them are the often-destructive ways in which humans interact with the natural world. Numerous cultures-particularly more industrialised and/or Western ones-have developed predatory and disconnected modes of interaction. In such modes, nature tends to be constructed as a resource to be exploited (rather than, say, a commonwealth to be protected). However, many people-especially, but not only, in less 'developed' nations-have cultivated less destructive modes of relationship. These bonds may be broadly encompassed under the rubric of 'eco-connection'. In the interests of exploring these latter modes, an enquiry was conducted into adaptive forms of engagement with nature across the world's cultures. The enquiry focused on untranslatable words, i.e., which lack an exact translation in another language (in this case, English). Through a quasi-systematic search of academic and grey literature, together with additional data collection, over 150 relevant terms were located. An adapted form of grounded theory identified three main dimensions of eco-connection: sacrality, bonding, and appreciation. Such analyses have the potential to promote greater wellbeing literacy with respect to our relationship with nature, both within academia and beyond in the wider culture. This includes enriching the nomological network in psychology, and more broadly building a nature-related vocabulary that is more sustainable and harmonious. In doing so, there may also be benefits to public health, in that developing such literacy could possibly influence people's engagement with nature itself, leading to more adaptive forms of relationship.

... Depending upon intuitive judgments, often presented in the form of specific legends and myths, people during a long road of their historic development have been in many ways quite successful in their life activity both in relations to nature and interrelationship. On the basis of myths' analysis clinical psychologist J. Peterson concluded that " the only alternative to presuming that everyone unfortunate enough to live prior to the dawn of the scientific age was pathetically ignorant, despite their incontrovertible success at surviving " , is to suppose that " objective world is something that has been conjured up for us recently – absurdly recently, from the perspective of evolutionary biology " and " the environment of human beings might well be regarded as " spiritual, " as well as " material "[10]. Methodologically this way of thinking comes from constructive approach in sociology[14], which assumes the fact that " observer interacts with reality via his or her perspective in such a way that reality is organized according to the perspective ". ...

Sergey Artemenkov

In contemporary cross-cultural communication and education processes the human decision making and heuristics are often mistakenly evaluated by means of a certain standard scientific conceptions. For example the tendency to consider human estimations of joint probability as the Conjunction Fallacy may be regarded as a form of scientific illusion. The transcendental psychology approach to perception makes it possible to substantiate co-representation probability models which are compliant with human perceptual psychology and heuristic judgment under uncertainty. Presented pilot cross-cultural experiment provides for possibility to influence a person's decision making process in predicted direction varying perceptual and semantic situational parameters according to theoretical assumptions connected with co-representation model of events.

... Firstly, perceiving the greater wealth and power of others, monotheists and modern-day fundamentalists play for status by emphasizing their moral superiority. Secondly, feelings of stress and uncertainty are predictors of religious experience (Persinger 1983;Rambo 1993), which is often at the heart of the monotheistic model (James 1902) and religiousness in general (Inzlicht et al. 2009;Kay et al. 2010;Peterson 1999), and the socioeconomically disadvantaged can be expected to be higher in stress. Thirdly, negative events such as exclusion tends to increase religiousness (Rutjens et al. 2010), and the socioeconomically disadvantaged, or those on the borders of a more successful society, might be expected to experience these acutely, as might the defeated. ...

As Norenzayan et al. cogently argue, religions that proliferated most successfully did so because they facilitated prosociality and cooperation in large-scale, anonymous groups. One important way that religion promotes cooperation may be through improving self-control. In this comment, we cover some potential obstacles to implementing self-control and how religion can overcome them. How to Cite This Article Link to This Abstract Blog This Article Copy and paste this link Highlight all http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X15000515 Citation is provided in standard text and BibTeX formats below. Highlight all BibTeX Format @article{BBS:10188860,author = {Reynolds,Tania and Baumeister,Roy F.},title = {Self-control, cultural animals, and Big Gods},journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},volume = {39},month = {1},year = {2016},issn = {1469-1825},doi = {10.1017/S0140525X15000515},URL = {http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X15000515},} Click here for full citation export options. Blog This Article Copy and paste this code to insert a reference to this article in your blog or online community profile: Highlight all Self-control, cultural animals, and Big Gods Tania Reynolds and Roy F. Baumeister (2016). Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , January 2016e21 http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=10188860 The code will display like this Self-control, cultural animals, and Big Gods Tania Reynolds and Roy F. Baumeister (2016) Behavioral and Brain Sciences, , Volume 39, January 2016e21 http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X15000515 Tania Reynolds and Roy F. Baumeister (2016). Self-control, cultural animals, and Big Gods. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e21 doi:10.1017/S0140525X15000515 Metrics Related Content Related Articles

Cátia da Graça Effertz

Abstract Since the emergence of the New Public Management model that aims to integrate private sector tools in the public to achieve more effectiveness and efficiency, two more paradigms of Public Administration have emerged to address the challenges facing countries, called New Public Service and New Public Governance.These latter two models, while highly theoretical, focus their attention on the partnership between the public sector and the citizen in order to find optimal solutions to fill market failures. In terms of Mental Health the studies are meager. The question of collective well-being, economic productivity and social equality is almost automatically associated with Mental Health. With the exponential and progressive increase of people with mental illness, the problem is worrying globally. The National Mental Health Plan 2007 - 2016, to be extended by 2020, promoted by the World Health Organization, is a reflection of this concern. This research aims to give citizens a voice to understand their position in terms of accountability of the State, others stakeholders, the citizen and also regarding concepts such as inclusion, exclusion, social justice and reciprocity and stigma in relation to individuals with mental disorders. It was possible to conclude that there are two groups with opposing opinions regarding public policies. One of the groups is skeptical and the other that encompasses most of the respondents is more credulous. The group with more positive attitudes assign the responsability to the State as well as the family, religious institutions and the patient himself in his recovery. They argue that it is fair for taxpayers to pay for treatments and other costs incurred in Mental Health care without recapturing any consideration. It is also the group that shows more stigma in relation to the mentally ill, which causes social exclusion, facilitating unemployment, lowering productivity and, consequently, social inequalities. These results justify the importance of State intervention and the successful implementation of health policies such as the National Mental Health Plan 2007-2016, extended until 2020. Keywords: Public Policies, New Public Management, Health Policies, Mental Health, Stigma, Plano Nacional de Saúde Mental.

Paola Trapani

Background: In recent years, the practice of co-design has gained proper attention for it can provide innovative approaches to complex societal problems through the participation of all stakeholders. Usually, designers focus on arranging methods and tools to support participants' ideation and expression trying to overcome the barriers resulting from differences in background, skills, attitudes, and expertise (Sanders and Stappers 2012). However, acting as facilitators or team leaders without specific training on individual and group dynamics can lead to overlooking tacit or latent aspects that can eventually drag the team into tiresome quicksand during the sessions. Methods: interpretive concepts and theories describing individual transformation processes in the context of small groups are taken from relevant literature in the field of management development and applied psychology. Results: a light conceptual framework spots five critical areas that professional designers need to pay attention to when planning and conducting a co-design activity, if they want to keep the participation and involvement alive: (1) Motivation; (2) Focus; (3) Boundaries; (4) Rumination; (5) Transformation. Conclusion: An area for further research and theory ground for group-based co-design practice is outlined.

Cátia da Graça Effertz

Since the emergence of the New Public Management model that aims to integrate private sector tools in the public to achieve more effectiveness and efficiency, two more paradigms of Public Administration have emerged to address the challenges facing countries, called New Public Service and New Public Governance. These latter two models, while highly theoretical, focus their attention on the partnership between the public sector and the citizen in order to find optimal solutions to fill market failures. In terms of Mental Health the studies are meager. The question of collective well-being, economic productivity and social equality is almost automatically associated with Mental Health. With the exponential and progressive increase of people with mental illness, the problem is worrying globally. The National Mental Health Plan 2007 - 2016, to be extended by 2020, promoted by the World Health Organization, is a reflection of this concern. This research aims to give citizens a voice to understand their position in terms of accountability of the State, others stakeholders, the citizen and also regarding concepts such as inclusion, exclusion, social justice and reciprocity and stigma in relation to individuals with mental disorders. It was possible to conclude that there are two groups with opposing opinions regarding public policies. One of the groups is skeptical and the other that encompasses most of the respondents is more credulous. The group with more positive attitudes assign the responsability to the State as well as the family, religious institutions and the patient himself in his recovery. They argue that it is fair for taxpayers to pay for treatments and other costs incurred in Mental Health care without recapturing any consideration. It is also the group that shows more stigma in relation to the mentally ill, which causes social exclusion, facilitating unemployment, lowering productivity and, consequently, social inequalities. These results justify the importance of State intervention and the successful implementation of health policies such as the National Mental Health Plan 2007-2016, extended until 2020. Keywords: Public Policies, New Public Management, Health Policies, Mental Health, Stigma, Plano Nacional de Saúde Mental.

The concepts 'rural' and 'urban' have long been criticized by geographers for their lack of analytical and explanatory power, yet have remained a vital source for conceptual guidance in human geography. Realizing that the continued use of questionable concepts inadvertently runs the risk of compromising communication, misdirecting resources and downgrading social theory, the current status of 'rural/urban' creates a paradoxical epiphenomenon of progress-making in geography. We disentangle this paradox in two dimensions. Firstly, we show how a conflation between meaning and utility is what renders us desensitized to the problem. Secondly, we outline 12 extra-scientific factors likely to actuate the binary's persistent retention. We finally sketch a sensuous template set out to minimize its undesired impact. We concede that the confusion surrounding 'rural/urban' in human geography cannot be understood unless the influence of extra-scientific factors is fully taken into account, revealing the concepts' vestigiality. This, we argue, is the only way forward if we truly want to embrace the rationale of the scientific approach. The principal contribution of our paper is laying the groundwork for this particularly underresearched dimension of 'rural/urban' amidst an exceptionally rich conceptual literature on what 'rural/urban' 'are' or 'mean'.

Antonio Damasio

In this article I discuss a hypothesis, known as the somatic marker hypothesis, which I believe is relevant to the understanding of processes of human reasoning and decision making. The ventromedial sector of the prefrontal cortices is critical to the operations postulated here, but the hypothesis does not necessarily apply to prefrontal cortex as a whole and should not be seen as an attempt to unify frontal lobe functions under a single mechanism. The key idea in the hypothesis is that 'marker' signals influence the processes of response to stimuli, at multiple levels of operation, some of which occur overtly (consciously, 'in mind') and some of which occur covertly (non-consciously, in a non-minded manner). The marker signals arise in bioregulatory processes, including those which express themselves in emotions and feelings, but are not necessarily confined to those alone. This is the reason why the markers are termed somatic: they relate to body-state structure and regulation even when they do not arise in the body proper but rather in the brain's representation of the body. Examples of the covert action of 'marker' signals are the undeliberated inhibition of a response learned previously; the introduction of a bias in the selection of an aversive or appetitive mode of behaviour, or in the otherwise deliberate evaluation of varied option-outcome scenarios. Examples of overt action include the conscious 'qualifying' of certain option-outcome scenarios as dangerous or advantageous. The hypothesis rejects attempts to limit human reasoning and decision making to mechanisms relying, in an exclusive and unrelated manner, on either conditioning alone or cognition alone.

O. S. Vinogradova

Morphological data on structures of the principal limbic circuit show that they constitute a complex, hierarchically organized system, and that this is indeed a system with important intrinsic principles of organization. The morphofunctional interactions among the elements of this system are obvious from the successive transneuronal degeneration of the limbic structures after an interruption of their interconnections (Cowan and Powell, 1954; Bleier, 1969). The principal limbic circuit is supplemented by very significant interactions between the hippocampus and the brain stem reticular formation, with the septum as the intermediary link.

These comments were made by Colin Cherry in a discussion of the mind-body question. However, the significance of Cherry's remarks may be more general. A peculiar characteristic of the study of mind and, therefore, the discipline of psychology is that the study is necessarily self-reflective. Whether one examines observable behavior or develops theoritical models of contents of the "black box," consciousness is employed to investigate the produscts of consciousness. In this sense, like the puppy, the psychologist is self-confronted; the mind observes and attempts to understand the mind.

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Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235336102_Maps_of_Meaning_The_architecture_of_belief_precis