Category: Epistemology and Method

(a) as ability declines demand for intuitionistic fictions increases, and conversely as ability increases demand for rationally decidable criteria increases. Meaning those of lesser ability require we appeal to intuitions, and those of greater ability require we appeal to reason. This is because those of lower ability have not been sufficiently domesticated (produced agency) by those of greater ability.

(b) literary analogy using archetypes and archetypal story lines (we can list both archetypes and story lines) can be decomposed into rational terms and tested. Literary analogy allows loading and framing so that individuals can learn by intuition rather than reason (ie: by suggestion). But if we cannot decompose these analogies to scientific statements we do not know if they are false, or harmful or ‘evil’ as abrahamism has been.

(d) people require a means of calculating (reasoning, thinking) in the broadest sense, and the most simple units of measure are anthropological. In the absence of tribal feedback they need what we call mindfulness but is better thought of a means of selecting and ignoring impulses (some of us call this agency). and in the absence of tribal community and dependence we need festivals and feasts. And to establish the limits we need an oath. All civilizations address this spectrum of mindfulness to oath, to feast, to festival to compensate for the competition produced by production, and the hierarchy that evolves form that division of knowledge, labor, and advocacy involved in the production of private, commercial, and public goods. This is because too few of us are evolved enough to survive without institutions that provide help to our remaining animal intuitions.

We teach certain skills but what we do not teach is ‘sacredness of the commons’ that churches did, and we do not teach mindfulness or norms in a rational fashion.

Religion is dying everywhere. ANd it is being replaced with things that are almost as bad. The question is how we provide the necessary services of religions in a manner not constituted by lies that do not decompose in to scientifically testable, and therefore indisputable prose.