INCOMPLETE WORK IN PROGRESS - please contact: john@newschool futures
Shamanism
(see autopoiesis, consciousness and other relevant keywords)
A working definition
- A living system's heightened awareness of the monistic nature of things, but described from an outsider's perspective (i.e. in dualistic terms).
The logic of cells
- Our definition is a claim to perhaps the oldest semantic concept for cellular-based living systems.
- Each individual (single) cell is bounded by a membrane that is semi-permeable.
- Dualistically speaking, this has two domains - interior and exterior.
- The interior is where its metabolic processes (food processing / dreaming etc.) take place.
- The exterior is the (rest of) the whole universe, from which it accesses all of its life-support assets.
- Loosely - a cell's autopoietic task is to manage these two domains in order to survive.
- Its consciousness denotes the coordination of many local states of awareness (inside & outside).
Our definition
- Shamanism is the ability to attain a high level of interior and exterior awareness simultaneously.
- It would be evident from the organism's rapid and apt responsiveness to situations.
- It corresponds to the ability to heal others where it also includes empathy --- etc.
TBC