Ritual and Symbolic Function
The first book-length application of biogenetic structural theory was an account of the evolution and structure of human ritual. In The Spectrum of Ritual (d'Aquili et al. 1979) the group generated a theory of ritual behavior as a mechanism by which intra- and interorganismic entrainment of neurocognitive processes are evoked, thus making concerted action among social animals possible. The general model was used to examine formalized behavior among animals generally, then specifically among mammals, primates and finally humans. They also looked at the various neurocognitive processes mediating arousal, affect, physical and social cognition, etc. As it has turned out, ritual has been a major focus of the group's work (see also d'Aquili 1983, d'Aquili and Laughlin 1975, Laughlin and McManus 1982, Laughlin et al. 1986, Laughlin 1988c) because of ritual's ubiquitous nature and its role in controlling cognition and experience.
Another major focus of biogenetic structural analysis has been what the group calls the symbolic function -- that is, the process by which meaning and form are integrated to become symbols in the brain (see Laughlin, McManus and Stephens 1981, Laughlin and Stephens 1980, MacDonald et al. 1988, Young- Laughlin and Laughlin 1988). The group has been particularly interested in how sensory stimuli as symbols are able to penetrate (i.e., find their way) to those neurocognitive models mediating meaning and signification, and how models express themselves in symbolic action and cultural artifacts. Among other things, the biogenetic structuralists developed a theory of the evolution of the symbolic function that proceeds from primordial symbol, through cognized SYMBOL systems to sign systems, and finally to formal sign systems, any or all of which may operate at any moment in adult human cognition (Laughlin, McManus and Stephens 1981).
Read more about this topic: Biogenetic Structuralism
Famous quotes containing the words ritual, symbolic and/or function:
“Promiscuity in men may cheapen love but sharpen thought. Promiscuity in women is illness, a leakage of identity. The promiscuous woman is self-contaminated and incapable of clear ideas. She has ruptured the ritual integrity of her body.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Uses are always much broader than functions, and usually far less contentious. The word function carries overtones of purpose and propriety, of concern with why something was developed rather than with how it has actually been found useful. The function of automobiles is to transport people and objects, but they are used for a variety of other purposes—as homes, offices, bedrooms, henhouses, jetties, breakwaters, even offensive weapons.”
—Frank Smith (b. 1928)