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Digital Re-Discovery of Culture/Prologue

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Prologue

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«Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing. We can safely assert, even, that human civilization has added no essential feature to the general idea of play. Animals play just like men.»[1]

Culture and Playing and Games and Theatre and ... are all interlinked. We want this to be a fun book where all of this happens digitally with backlinks to the "real" world. Such backlinks (i.e. linking back) are thought of as being in the realm of "physicality of soul".

Physicality of Soul

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If one compares the Internet activity with the activity of Soul, then the grounding of such Internet activity in physical spaces is compared directly with the grounding of the "spiritual" in its own reality. An example might help.

Play on stage

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Someone writes a play. Some players put on the performance. During the performance, everything is play-acting. It is a sort of dream world for the players. They are "out of the body" so to speak. It is "make believe" and for the play to work, the audience must also must enter into the spirit of "make-belief". After the play, there is a coming down to earth, to reality. But the play has happened, has been experienced. This experience will color, will affect both players and audience for ever after. This is the intended meaning of the concept of "physicality of soul".

To illustrate this idea, let us take a look at some plays. We begin with A Doll's House.

Notes

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  1. Huizinga 1955, p.1

Reading links

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  1. Huizinga, Johan (1955). Homo ludens; a study of the play-element in culture. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0807046814. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)