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Knol

rituals of the Mayas through the dramatic events that their culture has been subjected to in the last millennia.

Perhaps the simplest, yet most dramatic ritual in Christianity is that of communion. The taking of bread and the drinking of wine form a powerful reminder to the faithful of the sacrifice made by Jesus when he was crucified; a sacrifice ostensibly made on behalf of all mankind, not just the faithful, whose significance is expressed in the words attributed to Jesus at the Last Supper in suggesting the token, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In actuality, the ritual follows good form relative to contract law, which in fact it is intended to be; that is, the establishment of a covenant (contract) with consideration due both parties. The sacrifice made by Jesus in accepting crucifixion as payment for the sins of the people being the consideration due the people; accepting the sacrifice and living as Jesus described being the consideration due to him. Different churches make use of this ritual at various times, but for all it represents a unifying time to remember the basis of the faith; to renew the trust that is the strength of this social grouping.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei

Social structures based on religious mechanisms were likely the earliest means of large-group coordination. When the collective understanding of physical or social ecosystem is unable to provide explanations, new causality, by definition, can only be initiated through preternatural means, i.e., means perceived to be outside accepted cognition. As new mechanisms such as representative democracy in the early United States, or elsewhere, began to emerge, it was therefore natural to couch the rationalizations for these systems in readily understood religious terms. Thus, it became opportune to imbue the collective wisdom of the people, as expressed through election mechanisms, with religion style trust mechanisms. From this come concepts such as “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” Thus, the results of an election can perhaps be better accepted if viewed as the will of God. Of course, as the operation of human stimulus-response mechanisms has become better understood, we are perhaps better able to characterize the results of elections as collective responses to our individual needs hierarchy.

Social System Ontologies

Through the next few chapters, we will use a construct derived from the field of philosophy as a means to explore a variety of concepts concerning computers and their interactions, a construct called ontology. This construct enables language mechanisms to be used to establish metaphorical understanding, in this case, understanding based on the complex, social ecosystems that encompass religious organizations in their various guises. Following Thomas Gruber in A Translation Approach to Portable Ontology Specifications, we use as our working definition of ontology, a specification of a conceptualization. In the technical world, a specification, particularly a formal specification, carries a relatively well-understood connotation; that is, from a specification one should be able to design an implementation that can be measured to meet the specification. One should be able to describe, in detail, how to build one of the things described by the specification; i.e. convey a message to the architect and builder. So, writing or creating a specification means that one is going to use some language or graphical representation to convey the thoughts in the specification, and the representation one uses must be capable of sufficient detail to pass along instructions for the subsequent architects and builders.

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