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Frederick Roth's avatar

One of my most influential encounters outside the classroom during my uni years was discovering Jacob Bronowski's Ascent Of Man. (Amazing series I encourage everyone to see and read the book-of). There is a scene I still clearly remember that deals with ritual - that of Japanese swordsmiths forging katana blades.

Bronowski asserted that a major utility of rituals was to transmit procedural knowledge in pre-literate cultures. The given example shows the swordsmith heating up blades to a very particular colour - a shade of red precisely matching the hue of the setting sun... Thus without any written instructions or instruments and with very primitive tools the craftsmen could find the precise quenching and tempering temperatures for steel.

It would have taken decades and many generations to perfect such process, then transmit it from master to apprentice for centuries before modernity.

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Lucy Tucker's avatar

Fascinating.

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