How do symbolic systems and cultural technologies function as decision frameworks alongside and beyond purely formal computational models?

This line of inquiry examines symbolic systems and cultural technologies as operational decision frameworks that structure meaning, perception, and action under constraint. Rather than treating divinatory, artistic, or technological systems as belief structures or expressive media, the research analyses them as structured mechanisms through which choices are organised, contexts stabilised, and possibilities navigated within specific historical and cultural conditions.

Symbolic systems—ranging from oracles, games, and musical systems to contemporary platforms, artificial intelligence, and algorithmic media—are approached as active mediators of cognition and behaviour. The focus is on how such systems organise decision spaces through pattern, constraint, and affordance, including mechanisms that are not fully captured by explicit syntax or formal logic.

The research avoids both mystification and reductionism. Symbolic systems are analysed neither as spiritual artefacts nor as proto-algorithms, but as cultural technologies: historically situated means of externalising thought, structuring judgement, and enabling orientation under uncertainty. The aim is not to displace formal computational models, but to clarify where and how additional forms of structure and constraint operate alongside them.