The Human Science Project

May 30th, 2006 Fred McVittie

This presentation marks the launch of an interdisciplinary research project involving institution in the UK, Canada, the USA, and Norway. This research, dubbed The Human Science Project, brings together knowledge production strategies from;

• studies of the innate knowledge possessed by babies and infants
• the various branches of ‘naive’ and ‘folk science’ knowledge acquired by humans prior to empirical research
• subjective and first person accounts
• phenomenology

These knowledge forms have been developed in many cultures prior to the invention of rational scientific procedures (falsification, double blind trials etc), including in the west up to the time of Newton and Descartes, and the Enlightenment more generally. They also continue to exist in a developed form outside of rational science and empirically grounded knowledge within metaphysical, occult, and religious beliefs and practices.

It can be argued that this ‘Human Science’, failing as it does the test of empiricism and rationalism, is unimportant and childish or backward, and the knowledge it claims is therefore bogus. However, it will be argued that these human centred knowledge systems are not so easily wished away. They have their roots in evolutionary history and that history is engraved in the fabric of our psyche. So whilst we may claim the light of reason as the only illumination for our knowing, the million year old light cast by the dawning of human being also shines on our understanding of the world.

Posted in Knowledge, Phenomenology, Science, Subjective, Universals | No Comments »

Human Universals (The Human Science Project)

June 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The following ‘Human Universals’ have been identified, and it is assumed that these traits form part of the context for any successful ‘Human Science’ project

abstraction in speech & thought
actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
aesthetics
affection expressed and felt
age grades
age statuses
age terms
ambivalence
anthropomorphization
anticipation
antonyms
attachment
baby talk
belief in supernatural/religion
beliefs, false
beliefs about death
beliefs about disease
beliefs about fortune and misfortune
binary cognitive distinctions
biological mother and social mother normally the same person
black (color term)
body adornment
childbirth customs
childcare
childhood fears
childhood fear of loud noises
childhood fear of strangers
choice making (choosing alternatives)
classification
classification of age
classification of behavioral propensities
classification of body parts
classification of colors
classification of fauna
classification of flora
classification of inner states
classification of kin
classification of sex
classification of space
classification of tools
classification of weather conditions
coalitions
collective identities
conflict
conflict, consultation to deal with
conflict, means of dealing with
conflict, mediation of
conjectural reasoning
containers
continua (ordering as cognitive pattern)
contrasting marked and nonmarked sememes (meaningful elements in language)
cooking
cooperation
cooperative labor
copulation normally conducted in privacy
corporate (perpetual) statuses
coyness display
critical learning periods
crying
cultural variability
culture
culture/nature distinction
customary greetings
daily routines
dance
death rituals
decision making
decision making, collective
differential valuations
directions, giving of
discrepancies between speech, thought, and action
dispersed groups
distinguishing right and wrong
diurnality
divination
division of labor
division of labor by age
division of labor by sex
dominance/submission
dreams
dream interpretation
economic inequalities
economic inequalities, consciousness of
emotions
empathy
entification (treating patterns and relations as things)
environment, adjustments to
envy
envy, symbolic means of coping with
ethnocentrism
etiquette
explanation
face (word for)
facial communication
facial expression of anger
facial expression of contempt
facial expression of disgust
facial expression of fear
facial expression of happiness
facial expression of surprise
facial expressions, masking/modifying of
fairness (equity), concept of
family (or household)
father and mother, separate kin terms for
fears
fear of death
fears, ability to overcome some
feasting
females do more direct childcare
figurative speech
fire
folklore
food preferences
food sharing
future, attempts to predict
generosity admired
gestures
gift giving
good and bad distinguished
gossip
government
grammar
group living
groups that are not based on family
habituation
hairstyles
hand (word for)
healing the sick (or attempting to)
hope
hospitality
husband older than wife on average
hygienic care
identity, collective
imagery
incest between mother and son unthinkable or tabooed
incest, prevention or avoidance
in-group distinguished from out-group(s)
in-group biases in favor of
inheritance rules
institutions (organized co-activities)
insulting
intention
interest in bioforms (living things or things that resemble them)
interpolation
interpreting behavior
intertwining (e.g., weaving)
jokes
judging others
kin, close distinguished from distant
kin groups
kin terms translatable by basic relations of procreation
kinship statuses
language
language employed to manipulate others
language employed to misinform or mislead
language is translatable
language not a simple reflection of reality
language, prestige from proficient use of
law (rights and obligations)
law (rules of membership)
leaders
lever
likes and dislikes
linguistic redundancy
logical notions
logical notion of “and”
logical notion of “equivalent”
logical notion of “general/particular”
logical notion of “not”
logical notion of “opposite”
logical notion of “part/whole”
logical notion of “same”
magic
magic to increase life
magic to sustain life
magic to win love
making comparisons
male and female and adult and child seen as having different natures
males dominate public/political realm
males engage in more coalitional violence
males more aggressive
males more prone to lethal violence
males more prone to theft
males, on average, travel greater distances over lifetime
manipulate social relations
marking at phonemic, syntactic, and lexical levels
marriage
materialism
meal times
mearning, most units of are non-universal
measuring
medicine
melody
memory
mental maps
mentalese
metaphor
metonym
mood- or consciousness-altering techniques and/or substances
moral sentiments
moral sentiments, limited effective range of
morphemes
mother normally has consort during child-rearing years
mourning
murder proscribed
music
music, children’s
music related in part to dance
music related in part to religious activity
music seen as art (a creation)
music, vocal
music, vocal, includes speech forms
musical redundancy
musical reptition
musical variation
myths
narrative
nomenclature (perhaps the same as classification)
nonbodily decorative art
normal distinguished from abnormal states
nouns
numerals (counting)
Oedipus complex
oligarchy (de facto)
one (numeral)
onomatopoeia
overestimating objectivity of thought
pain
past/present/future
person, concept of
personal names
phonemes
phonemes defined by set of minimally constrasting features
phonemes, merging of
phonemes, range from 10 to 70 in number
phonemic change, inevitability of
phonemic change, rules of
phonemic system
planning
planning for future
play
play to perfect skills
poetry/rhetoric
poetic line, uniform length range
poetic lines characterized by repetition and variation
poetic lines demarcated by pauses
polysemy (one word has several meanings)
possessive, intimate
possessive, loose
practice to improve skills
precedence, concept of (that’s how the leopard got its spots)
preference for own children and close kin (nepotism)
prestige inequalities
pretend play
pride
private inner life
promise
pronouns
pronouns, minimum two numbers
pronouns, minimum three persons
proper names
property
proverbs, sayings
proverbs, sayings - in mutually contradictory forms
psychological defense mechanisms
rape
rape proscribed
reciprocal exchanges (of labor, goods, or services)
reciprocity, negative (revenge, retaliation)
regocnition of individuals by face
redress of wrongs
resistance to abuse of poser, to dominance
rhythm
right-handedness as population norm
risk-taking
rites of passage
rituals
role and personality seen in dynamic interrlationship (i.e., departures from role can be explained in terms of individual personality)
sanctions
sanctions for crimes against the collectivity
sanctions include removal from the social unit
self-control
self distinguished from other
self as neither wholly passive nor wholly autonomous
self as subject and object
self-image, awareness of (concern for what others think)
self-image, manipulation of
self-image, wanted to be positive
self is responsible
semantics
semantic category of affecting things and people
semantic category of dimension
semantic category of giving
semantic category of location
semantic category of motion
semantic category of other physical properties
semantic components
semantic components, generation
semantic components, sex
sememes, commonly used ones are short, infrequently used ones are longer
senses unified
sex differences in spatial cognition and behavior
sex (gender) terminology is fundamentally binary
sex statuses
sexual attraction
sexual attractiveness
sexual jealousy
sexual modesty
sexual regulation
sexual regulation includes incest prevention
sexuality as focus of interest
shame
shelter
sickness and death seen as related
snakes, wariness around
social structure
socialization
socialization expected from senior kin
socialization includes toilet training
spear
special speech for special occasions
statuses and roles
statuses, ascribed and achieved
statuses distinguished from individuals
statuses on other than sex, age, or kinship bases
stinginess, disapproval of
stop/nonstop contrasts (in speech sounds)
succession
sucking wounds
sweets preferred
symbolism
symbolic speech
synesthetic metaphors
synonyms
taboos
tabooed foods
tabooed utterances
taxonomy
territoriality
thumb sucking
tickling
time
time, cyclicity of
tools
tool dependency
tool making
tools for cutting
tools to make tools
tools patterned culturally
tools, permament
tools for pounding
toys, playthings
trade
triangular awareness (assessinjg relationships among the self and two other people)
true and false (distinguished)
turn-taking
two (numeral)
tying material (i.e., something like string)
units of time
verbs
violence, some forms of proscribed
visiting
vocalic/nonvocalic contrasts in phonemes
vowel contrasts
weaning
weapons
weather control (attempts to)
white (color term)
world view

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, 2002, New York: Viking Press

Brown, D.E. 1991. Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill

Brown, D.E., 2000. Human universals and their implications. In N. Roughley (Ed.) Being humans: Anthropological universality and particularity in transdisplinary perspectives. New York: Walter de Gruyter.

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Human Science of Audiences

June 27th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Given that an audience for a performance event is, in all likelihood, human, it is inevitable that this audience bring with them to the event those aspect of being human which are often referred to as ‘human universals’ (Brown, D.E. 1991), concepts, habits, and practices which seem to exist in all cultures and are part of the being of human. This collection of universals, aggregated into what might be thought of as a theorems of a particularly human science, forms the common sense with which they/we interpret and realise that event. Some of these human science theories which apply to a performance might include the following:

• The performance event is an abnormal state.
• The performance event is contained in space and time.
• Events occurring in the space and time of the performance are designed and/or intentional.
• Events occurring in the space which are proximate in space and/or time are connected.
• Any sufficiently complex entity in the space is capable of intentional action, particularly if that entity resembles a human being (anthropomorphism).

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‘Perennial Philosophy’ and Embodiment

July 3rd, 2006 Fred McVittie

The universality of embodiment inevitably produces a similar universality of conceptual and cognitive structure, both in terms of the phylogeny of the human species, and the ontogeny of the individual human. Shared evolutionary history has given us all the same mental toolkit. Introspective and intuitive methods of developing knowledge; ways of thinking which draw only on this toolkit; also therefore inevitably produces similar models for the organisation of that knowledge. This is most evidently true when considering models of the psyche, and the relationship of psyche to the rest of existence.

Introspective methods for considering the organisation of the psyche, whether this introspection take place within a scientific, religious, or philosophical context, have tended to postulate very similar organisational structures. Pundit and founder of ‘integral philosophy’ Ken Wilbur has mapped and charted these correlations in great detail, referring to the general similarity in psychic structure which emerges as evidence for what he calls the ‘Perennial Philosophy’ (1). Wilbur goes on to suggest that the degree of similarity between the numerous different models of psyche and world is indicative of some kind of absolute or archetypal truth, that the psyche really is constructed in the way these models suggest. However, another way of looking at this correlation is to consider such overlap an inevitable consequence of embodiment. Such models inevitably draw on familiar structures of organisation mapped metaphorically from physical embodied experience, utilising such features as levels/hierarchies, part/whole distinctions, nested categories, chains, gradients, and spectra. These concrete features, experienced sensorially and kinesthetically by our bodies and those of our genetic ancestors, form the metaphorical features which shape our cognition.

Wilber,Ken - A theory of everything : an integral vision for business, politics, science and spirituality. Shambhala Publications. 2000

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Perennial Philosophy as Embodied Folk Science

July 4th, 2006 Fred McVittie

‘Perennial Philosophy’ uses the strategies of comparative religion and comparative anthropology to identify common themes running through diverse cultural traditions. Although originally coined by Leibniz, the term has become more widely associated with Aldous Huxley, whose book by that title attempted to distil the wisdom of the world’s religions into an essential set of perennial truths. The perennial philosophy movement includes such figures as Rene Guenon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Martin Lings, Fritjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, Marco Pallis, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Jacob Needleman. The extensive research on comparative mythology/psychology/philosophy carried out by Ken Wilbur, and referred to by him as ‘integral psychology’ is a modern reworking of this idea and ideal.

I would argue, however, that rather than illuminating some transcendent truth or pattern outside of human cognition, an ‘ultimate reality’ if you will, Perennial Philosophy and its cognates (Traditionalism etc.) might better be thought of as ‘embodied folk science’, that is, the body of knowledge we, as humans, create to explain the ‘big picture’ of human existence using the meagre tools of human sense and cognition. The degree of correspondence in the world’s great religious and philosophical tradition is not an indicator of a hidden truth, but a reflection of what truths are constructed when the tools for answering the big questions are common sense and common embodiment.

Posted in Huxley, Aldous, Naive Physics, Perennialism, Universals, Wilbur, Ken | No Comments »

Universal Physics

July 17th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The development of the science of physics, particularly over the last 400 years, can be seen as the triumph of a particular approach to knowledge gathering. This approach disregards the position of the human being within the scientific process, and attempts to construct an objective position outside of incarnate humanity from which to regard the world. In order to achieve objectivity it is necessary to consciously abandon our embodiment as ‘medium sized objects moving at medium speed’ (Dawkins 2003), and embrace an organised scepticism toward the data of the senses and the common sense which these senses produce. This in turn has required an increasing reliance on the (apparently) disembodied language of mathematics . Alongside this evacuation of the human being from its privileged position at the heart of physics is the corresponding development of a set of protocols for the objective verification and falsification of knowledge, enshrined in the idealisations of the scientific method. This project, the construction of Rational Physics through mathematisation and scientification, has been astonishingly successful, and its creations and discoveries are truly awe inspiring. However, the creation of new conscious knowledge does not necessarily mean the erasure of the old, and even though the findings of physics are as close to factual as we are likely to get, they still may not get us ‘where we live’. Science may have abandoned the body at some point in the late 16th Century, but as functioning humans we still take it around with us everywhere we go. Also, whilst our consciousness may be able to engage with the mathematical abstractions of quantum theory and dark energy, our non-conscious cognition (and actually much of our conscious, in the form of covert metaphors) is still working with the tools provided by an embodied evolution.

Within the system of beliefs, biases, misconceptions, common sense, and generalisations that Brown (1991) identified as ‘Human Universals’ there are a subset which refer specifically to matter, energy, and their interactions. In any formal, rational system of knowledge constructed through the protocols of science, this subset of knowledge would be called ‘physics’. In the context of human universals, which operates without scientific protocols but only with the innate and accumulated knowledge that comes with embodiment, this subset could be referred to as ‘Universal Physics”, a set of general principles and theories about the way the world works that is held by all cultures, and that is a result of a common biology and a common evolutionary history. While Rational Physics is the physics of the disembodied universe of atoms, quarks, membranes, black holes, and quanta. Universal Physics (UP) is the physics of dreams, intuition, emotion, art, God, and human frailty.

(Note: The “Universal Physics” referred to here is in no way connected to that proposed by Ethan Skyler http://www.physicsnews1.com/ or of the ‘commonsense science’ of Barnes, Bergman, Collins and Lucas http://www.commonsensescience.org/ )

Brown, D. E. (1991). Human Universals. New York, McGraw-Hill.
Dawkins, R. and L. Menon (2003). A devil’s chaplain: selected essays. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Posted in Brown, D. E., Dawkins, Richard, Embodiment, Evolution, History, Mathematics, Metaphor, Physics, Universals | No Comments »

Evidence for Universal Physics

July 18th, 2006 Fred McVittie

If the theory of Universal Physics has any validity, we should see evidence of its existence across a range of disparate cultures. Given that all cultures are built upon the same basic template: an embodied evolutionary development and the day-to-day sharing of a common sensorimotor vehicle. Comparative anthropology and comparative religion has produced a body of data which suggests this is the case. Although these research domains have framed their observations differently, and may have focussed on different aspect of the data, there is a good match between the axioms of Universal Physics and some of the commonalities variously referred to as ‘perennial philosophy’, ‘archetypal myths’, ‘integral psychology’ etc.

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Universal Physics and Body-based Practice

July 19th, 2006 Fred McVittie

A range of body-based (or ‘bodymind’) practices have been developed in a wide range of different cultures which are reputed to improve health, effect healing of psychic or bodily disorders, optimise performance in various tasks, enhance spirituality, etc. These practices include yoga, taichi, reiki, acupuncture, etc. There is a considerable variation in the extent to which these practices use the body: some, yoga for example, require extensive, often arduous body disciplines, whilst others, zen meditation for instance, require very little exertion or ’skill’ at all. All of these practices, however, stress that the body and the mind are not discontinuous, and that these practices are effectively ‘psychophysical’, implementing both mental and corporeal processes inseparably. The apparent differences in levels of exertion or required skill level is therefore not significant, what is important is the beliefs and assumptions about how the psychophysiology which underpins these various practices actually works . It will be argued that common throughout these practices is reference to a set of universal axioms about the physical world, including the central role of the person in that world. These axioms are those of a kind of ‘Universal Physics’; a set of theories about the world held by all human cultures and produced by shared evolutionary history and shared biological incarnation.

Posted in Evolution, Performance, Physics, Training, Universals | No Comments »

Universal Physics and Rational Physics

July 22nd, 2006 Fred McVittie

The term Universal Physics here refers to the set of extra-scientific (1) beliefs and theories about the physical world which have claim to universality, particularly those beliefs which concern matter, energy, and their interactions. These beliefs differs in significant ways from Rational Physics. In Universal Physics;

• There is no clear distinction between those aspects of the world which are external to the self, and those which are internal; i.e. there is a significant overlap with what Rational Physics would refer to as psychology.
• Entities and phenomena are proposed which are not acknowledged in Rational Physics, and which would otherwise be referred to as ‘magic’, ’superstition’, or ‘religion’.
• All descriptions are in natural language, no mathematical formulation is used

1. The theories and beliefs of Universal Physics are often held to be temporary and ‘pre-scientific’, to be replaced by the more ‘objective’ knowledge created by rational scientific processes. The term ‘extra-scientific’ is used here in preference to ‘pre-scientific’ to indicate that such beliefs may not be replaced in this way, but are usually held alongside scientifically formulated theories of Rational Physics.

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Examples of Universal Physics

July 26th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The concept of a ‘Universal People’ put forward by Brown is based on the notion that all human beings share a common core of behaviours, perceptions, and concepts. This notion is derived from a large number of cross-cultural and anthropological studies and is widely assumed to result from a common evolutionary history and a shared embodiment, this embodiment also incorporating the organs of sense and cognition. Part of this shared universal cognition concerns commonly held interpretations of the behaviour of matter and energy; what in rational scientific terms would be called ‘physics’. Given this commonality, we should expect to see a set of correspondences across cultures, and possibly across times, between the models that different peoples use for this ‘universal physics’, and indeed this is what we find when we compare:

• The pre-Newtonian paradigm in Western hermetic science
• The paradigm informing Chinese Traditional Medicine
• The paradigm implied by ‘Naive Physics’

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Sensorimotor Origins of Universal Physics

July 27th, 2006 Fred McVittie

“Experiential models of the world are based on sensorimotor and visual experiences with environments, and form in individual minds as the associated bodies and senses experience their worlds. Formal models consist of axioms expressed in a formal language, together with mathematical rules to infer conclusions from them. ” (Mark, 1996)

Universal Physics describes an experiential model of the world based on sensorimoter experience, particularly the experiences provided by the visual and the proprioceptive senses. This model is partly ‘hard wired’ through evolutionary processes, and partly developed through the body’s experiencing of the world. This is in contrast with Rational Physics, which describes a formal model of the world, this model being axiomatic and produced through formal non-embodied languages, particularly mathematics. Although, as Nunez & Lakoff (2000), and Jones (1983) point out, the most formal and apparently abstract languages of science, including that of ‘pure maths’ are deeply embodied through metaphorical mapping of sensorimotor experience, so this contrast is somewhat illusory.

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Conscious Difference and Unconscious Universals

August 5th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Conscious processes (deduction, analysis, evaluation, etc) tend to address the needs of situations created through human differences; cultural, linguistic, moral, legal etc. Unconscious processes, or at least some of them, tend to address the needs of situations created by human universals; fight or flight responses, disgust, love, etc.

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Non-conscious ‘Beliefs’ and Behaviour

August 12th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Theories relating to the perception of optical illusions suggest that non-conscious mental processing of visual images has a persistent effect on how those images are consciously perceived. There is clearly a potential for such non-conscious processing to similarly have an effect on physical action, behaviour, attitudes, or feelings. It is conceivable, for example, that an error in perception caused by such processes might lead a person to make a judgment based on this (mis)perception which judgment would be incorrect in conscious rational terms. We know that information directed directly at non-conscious processes, and which bypasses conscious awareness, has a direct effect on attitudes and choice (hence advertising), it is likely that the unconscious knowledge represented by Universal Physics has a similar effect.

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Paradigm Shifts and Human Nature

September 10th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The periodic large-scale changes in the structure of knowledge which have come to be referred to as ‘paradigm shifts’ undoubtedly make significant changes to the organisation of culture and power, the technical and physical resources available, the philosophies discussed and taught in Universities etc etc. Do such apparently seismic shifts have any appreciable affect on those behaviours, attitudes, and actions that might be attributed to ‘universal human nature’? It seems likely that, since much of human nature is a result of the slow accretion of adaptive behaviour, that this will have a natural damping effect on any such rapid change. It is more likely that whilst large scale ‘paradigm shifts’ in human knowledge will affect the organisation of cultures, they will not affect the overall function of those cultures, which is to provide for the human needs of their members.

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Progressive Universality

November 24th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Imagine yourself as you were yesterday. What do you have in common with that person?

Imagine yourself as you were five years ago. What do you have in common?

What do you have in common with another member of your family?

Another member of your culture?

Someone from another culture? What do you have in common?

Someone from another time?

How about another species? What do you have in common with a non-human animal?

What do you have in common with something that is not alive at all? A rock. A wave on the ocean.

What do you have in common with everything?

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Universal Feeling

December 1st, 2006 Fred McVittie

Some of the traits, affordances, abilities, and tendencies that humans display are not particular to a single individual, or to a specific culture, but are found in all cultures, and in most, if not all, individuals within those cultures. These are what Brown referred to as ‘Human Universals’. It is likely that the universality of these traits stems from combination of shared environmental conditions, shared evolutionary history, and a shared embodiment, (these factors are, of course, closely related). Given also that for most of that history we have been without consciousness, it seems likely that much of our non-conscious processing is similarly universal. These universals would not be something we are aware of, and may not have an overt visibility within culture, but would exist at the level of emotions, feelings, intuitions, and biases. Alternatively, it is similarly likely that there are responses, feelings, and behaviours which are part of all human nature, and which may be triggered by similar stimuli.

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Evolution, Embodiment, Perennialism

September 25th, 2007 Fred McVittie

1. All humanity has a common evolutionary history, facing largely the same challenges and finding the same opportunities.
2. Our common evolutionary history is expressed in the genome.
3. Our evolutionary history, and the genomic record of this ancestry, is echoed in our common embodiment.
4. Our common embodiment includes all of the mechanisms of sensation and of mind
5. The commonality of our physical and cognitive embodiment is echoed in the wide range of identical features found in all human cultures, the ‘human universals’.
6. The commonality of cultural, embodied, genomic, and evolutionary experience is echoed in the common philosophies and mysticisms of Folk Science and Perennialism.

For example, the universal cognitive process which allows us to conceive of categories, based on the common embodied conceptual metaphor of the container, leads inexorably to the idea of a universal category. The universal category, the conceptual vessel in which everything is contained, is one possible formulation of a monotheistic deity, as is found in Plato and the neo-Platonist philosophers of the early Christian church.

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A Handful of Metaphors

October 4th, 2007 Fred McVittie

“It may be that universal history is the history of a handful of metaphors”. (Borges. 1964. p.224)

Posted in Borges, Jorge Louis, History, Metaphor, Universals, thesis | No Comments »

Soul of an Atheist - Overview

November 16th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The ‘Soul of an Atheist’ section of this writing refers to the hypothesis iterated in various places throughout this blog that the desire to understand the relationship between self and world, the universe and the place of human beings within it, is a universal tendency. This desire may be simply a side-effect of the operation of cognition, perhaps an overactive holistic operator (Newberg & D’Aquili), or some version of the HADD or ‘Hyperactive Agency Detecting Device’ suggested by Barrett, or some other pattern recognition system. Such devices, systems, or operators are presumed to provide the function of cohering data from the senses such that prediction and control become possible; we see patterns in the seasons which allow us to plan our harvests, and this same cognitive skill allows (or demands) that we see patterns in the stars, or in the entrails of sacrificed animals. Furthermore, this cohering tendency operates across a range of scales. At one end there is the relatively discreet process which allows us to cohere the partially occluded outline of a tiger in the bushes into a complete image of the entire terrifying animal. At the other end of the scale the tendency urges us to find a single unifying pattern in all creation. It is interesting to note that at both ends of this scale we ourselves are also posited as an element within the unified image; the fearful symmetry of the tiger produced by our cohering cognition is fearful to us, and that fear is part of the image and the rationale for our producing it in the first place. Similarly, our seeking of a unified image of the universe, a cosmology if you will, also inevitably contains ourselves as active participants.

The quest for a satisfying cosmology probably underpins much of the action of scientists in their talk of ‘theories of everything’, and also of seers, prophets, and evangelists who make apparently similar claims for a unifying goal.

For a cosmology to be both useful and satisfying, as well as being resistant to rational dismissal, it must fill certain criteria. These are, that it be coherent, without obvious internal inconsistencies; that it be expressed in concepts which are capable of embodiment (possibly through the use of conceptual metaphor), and that it not be contradicted by the processes of logical deduction and the scientific method.

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