cosmological autism

is the state of a hunter (and perhaps modern man more generally) who has lost the ability (often through evil magic) to detect pretty in the forest, which is to say, he has lost the ability to distinguish the world of selves from the environment.

in dogs essay If transspecies interactions depend on the capacity to recognize subjectivity, losing this ability can be disastrous for beings, such as the Runa, their dogs, and the animals of the forest, that are enmeshed in webs of predation. For instance, something known as the 'hunting soul' (casariana alma) allows men to be aware of prey in the forest. Enemy shamans sometimes steal this soul with the effect that their victim can no longer detect animals. Without this soul, hunters lose their ability to treat prey beings as selves, and they can, therefore, no longer differentiate animals from the environment in which these beings live. This condition is an example of a widespread phenomenon in A vila, which is a by-product of treating the numerous beings that inhabit the world as selves. I call it 'cosmological autism'.

cosmological autism, n.All

cosmological autism