cargo cult · ritual
Ask PrometheusMaintenance that copies the seen actions of others who got an outcome, under a model reading them as setting it though they set nothing.
Cargo cult (noun) means: Maintenance that copies the seen actions of others who got an outcome, under a model reading them as setting it though they set nothing. It emerges from maintenance, model, set, illusion of control: The copy is faithful to what could be seen and blind to what did the work; the model links action to outcome through a mechanism it never held, so maintenance runs on indefinitely without any feedback it can read. In the EmergenceLexicon it sits at computed level 17, chaining down to the four foundations (space, time, energy, pattern).
ordinarily means: copying the outward form of something that worked, without the mechanism that made it work
Examples
- After the Second World War some Melanesian groups built imitation airstrips and control towers hoping cargo planes would return; Richard Feynman borrowed the image for 'cargo cult science' in 1974. anthropology
Emergence
- form copied without mechanism
- maintenance that never stops because nothing reports failure
- another's reach mistaken for a sequence of actions
Chain to foundations
full chain as text (373 steps)
- cargo cultL17
- maintenanceL14
- modelL9
- setL9
- illusion of controlL16
- self-modelL14
- reachL13
- reportL8
- messageL7
- stateL2
- happenL2
- eventL3
- informationL6
- actionL4
- setL9
- controlL15
- copyL4
- seeL6
- actionL4
- othersL2
- getL5
- outcomeL10
- readL7
- nothingL10
Neighborhood
Concepts that depend on this one above; what it is built from below.
Relations
| is-a | illusion-of-control.over | illusion of control whose content is a copy of another's visible actions |
| contrasts-with | habit.grooved | habit runs without the self-model reading it; a cargo cult runs because the model reads it as causal |
| contrasts-with | hubris.overreach | hubris over-reads reach it has; a cargo cult reads reach where there is none |