the idea of a deity
Plato invented the idea of an idea. It's very hard, perhaps impossible, to get into a pre-Plato frame of mind. People have, behind their closed eyelids, mental workspaces where we can put various figures, shapes and entities. Let's call those things representations (we could call them ideas, but I want a word that means 'idea necessarily inhabiting one mental workspace' - from a post-Plato vocabulary, an instance of an idea).
Representations are often inspired by things out in the world; salt or pyrite crystals might inspire cubical representations in people familiar with salt or pyrite. By talking and gesturing, a teacher can sometimes work from their representation to inspire a similar representation in their students.
Once a species of representation (e.g. cubical representations in many people's workspaces) is broadly established, it is very durable - humans are durable, they change their minds slowly, they infect people unfamiliar with it and correct misconceptions, and there's always the possibility of the original inspiration (salt or pyrite or whatever) triggering a new wave of discovery.
Plato's Forms are a way of thinking about species of representations - that they're eternal (durable), non-spatial (widely distributed), sortof accessible to brains, and sortof inaccessible (see previous post regarding the firefly people vs. the quasar people; basically disagreements about ideas are better resolved as if the parties disputing are referring to a distant, inaccessible entity rather than entities inside their heads.)
Big jump
A principal and an agent have a relationship; an example is a merchant (principal) who hires a buyer (agent) to buy things on the merchant's behalf. The agent normally maintains a mental representation of the principal's desires or instructions, and also normally receives a consideration for loyal service.
The idea of a benefit society is that the members keep the society in mind,
and act as agents for the society as a whole. One member's loyal service to the society becomes another member's consideration for loyal service to the society. One service that benefit societies perform is insurance - each member pays small steady dues, and in compensation the society pays out larger lump sums in certain disastrous circumstances.
In order for members to act as agents for the society as a whole,
the members need to learn what the society officially desires,
how members are expected to behave. It's like the official briefing of
the agent by the principal. That document is something like the DNA of
the society (see Snow Crash regarding the three-ring binder as the DNA of the franchise). Perhaps that document can be understood as a story, and the society
consists of the people "enacting" that story - working to make that story true (see Ishmael by Quinn).
So the distinctions between the idea of a benefit society, and a deity are pretty fine. Note however that the hyperbole about omniscience / omnipresence / omnicompetence and perfection of various sorts are just that - PR spin and braggadocio. Surely all the Catholics in the world are a powerful entity, but they're not infinitely powerful. A deity can easily be weak if it has few, or not-very-devoted followers.
So to "create" a deity in this sense, you mostly just write a story. The story concerns things like how the believers of the deities behave, how they recognize one another, what their duties are, what benefits they receive, what divination procedures (voting, leader election are forms of divination procedure) can be used, how to relate to nonbelievers in general and perhaps how to relate to believers in specific other deities.
The value of pantheons
This is actually based on a presentation by Margaret Seidler; I'm probably mangling the ideas. Many times, we need balance two or more things; working and playing, planning and doing, speaking and listening. Seidler suggests picking two that are important to you and writing down:
Then the idea is to focus on one of these at a time, and switch promptly on the warning symptoms. Instead of imagining the world as many people, each with one deity (like the Medieval jokes that always start "so, a priest, a rabbi and a mullah..."), imagine a person as switching between different deities at different times. The family of past and future selves that are enacting a particular story/deity/idea form the support of that particular story/deity/idea.
As part of the story, there would of course be relationships from one deity in the pantheon to the next. In test-driven development, there are three modes - getting to red, getting to green, refactoring.
Supposing that "gettingToRed" is a mode of thought. How would you recognize someone in the gettingToRed mode from their actions? They're filled with grandiose vision, foresightful to the golden future with no consideration of difficulties between here and there. They're navigators, making sure we're aimed in a good direction. What are their duties? They add a small amount of text to the tests; they don't subtract text, nor do they edit the code. What are their perogatives? They inherit clean, beautifully well-factored code. When should they leave the gettingToRed mode? When the tests are showing red, the mode must vanish.
It makes me think about three intertwined secret societies, each secretly performing services for the next in line, and being served in turn by the previous.
Representations are often inspired by things out in the world; salt or pyrite crystals might inspire cubical representations in people familiar with salt or pyrite. By talking and gesturing, a teacher can sometimes work from their representation to inspire a similar representation in their students.
Once a species of representation (e.g. cubical representations in many people's workspaces) is broadly established, it is very durable - humans are durable, they change their minds slowly, they infect people unfamiliar with it and correct misconceptions, and there's always the possibility of the original inspiration (salt or pyrite or whatever) triggering a new wave of discovery.
Plato's Forms are a way of thinking about species of representations - that they're eternal (durable), non-spatial (widely distributed), sortof accessible to brains, and sortof inaccessible (see previous post regarding the firefly people vs. the quasar people; basically disagreements about ideas are better resolved as if the parties disputing are referring to a distant, inaccessible entity rather than entities inside their heads.)
Big jump
A principal and an agent have a relationship; an example is a merchant (principal) who hires a buyer (agent) to buy things on the merchant's behalf. The agent normally maintains a mental representation of the principal's desires or instructions, and also normally receives a consideration for loyal service.
The idea of a benefit society is that the members keep the society in mind,
and act as agents for the society as a whole. One member's loyal service to the society becomes another member's consideration for loyal service to the society. One service that benefit societies perform is insurance - each member pays small steady dues, and in compensation the society pays out larger lump sums in certain disastrous circumstances.
In order for members to act as agents for the society as a whole,
the members need to learn what the society officially desires,
how members are expected to behave. It's like the official briefing of
the agent by the principal. That document is something like the DNA of
the society (see Snow Crash regarding the three-ring binder as the DNA of the franchise). Perhaps that document can be understood as a story, and the society
consists of the people "enacting" that story - working to make that story true (see Ishmael by Quinn).
So the distinctions between the idea of a benefit society, and a deity are pretty fine. Note however that the hyperbole about omniscience / omnipresence / omnicompetence and perfection of various sorts are just that - PR spin and braggadocio. Surely all the Catholics in the world are a powerful entity, but they're not infinitely powerful. A deity can easily be weak if it has few, or not-very-devoted followers.
So to "create" a deity in this sense, you mostly just write a story. The story concerns things like how the believers of the deities behave, how they recognize one another, what their duties are, what benefits they receive, what divination procedures (voting, leader election are forms of divination procedure) can be used, how to relate to nonbelievers in general and perhaps how to relate to believers in specific other deities.
The value of pantheons
This is actually based on a presentation by Margaret Seidler; I'm probably mangling the ideas. Many times, we need balance two or more things; working and playing, planning and doing, speaking and listening. Seidler suggests picking two that are important to you and writing down:
- The benefits that we would get if we could balance these things.
- The problems that we would get if we cannot balance these things.
- The reasons it's important to do Foo.
- The reasons it's important to do Bar.
- The early warning symptoms of doing too much Foo.
- The early warning symptoms of doing too much Bar.
Then the idea is to focus on one of these at a time, and switch promptly on the warning symptoms. Instead of imagining the world as many people, each with one deity (like the Medieval jokes that always start "so, a priest, a rabbi and a mullah..."), imagine a person as switching between different deities at different times. The family of past and future selves that are enacting a particular story/deity/idea form the support of that particular story/deity/idea.
As part of the story, there would of course be relationships from one deity in the pantheon to the next. In test-driven development, there are three modes - getting to red, getting to green, refactoring.
Supposing that "gettingToRed" is a mode of thought. How would you recognize someone in the gettingToRed mode from their actions? They're filled with grandiose vision, foresightful to the golden future with no consideration of difficulties between here and there. They're navigators, making sure we're aimed in a good direction. What are their duties? They add a small amount of text to the tests; they don't subtract text, nor do they edit the code. What are their perogatives? They inherit clean, beautifully well-factored code. When should they leave the gettingToRed mode? When the tests are showing red, the mode must vanish.
It makes me think about three intertwined secret societies, each secretly performing services for the next in line, and being served in turn by the previous.