The Snark is hunted because meaning is always pursued as if it were object-like.And yet, the pursuit is precisely what sustains meaning in the first place.
1. Clinical: Myth as Structured Potential
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The Snark is a mythic phenomenon, not a creature.
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Myth emerges from relational density:
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a vector of attention, expectation, and cut
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enacted through collective construal
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punctuated by thresholds of potential (Boojum logic)
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The myth persists because it is never fully instantiated, only enacted through interaction.
2. Satirical Undercurrent: Reification Exposed
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Humans desire objects; we misread relational systems as things.
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Carroll shows that the chase itself is generative: the Snark does not exist outside the hunt.
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The absurdity is epistemic: belief in the object is optional; relational participation is compulsory.
3. Mischievous Layer: Implicating the Reader in Myth
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Every reader is co-constructor of the Snark-myth.
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Every mental image, every conjecture, every interpretive act is part of the system.
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The text does not merely describe; it performs.
To read the Snark is to hunt it. To hunt it is to co-create it. And to co-create it is to feel, ever so lightly, the edge of a Boojum.
4. Coda: Lessons from the Hunt
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Potential > Instance: The Snark exists as structured potential, not object.
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Roles > Individuals: The crew demonstrates distributed individuation, functional construal, and systemic resilience.
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Cut as Generative Act: Each name, each act of attention, each inference sustains meaning.
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Density as Risk: Generative potential carries the risk of catastrophic actualisation.
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Nonsense as Transparency: Absurdity exposes structure, enabling reflection without reification.
The Snark is not a creature. It is an allegory of meaning itself, enacted through relational cuts, sustained in density, and always inviting the next hunter.
And so we close the map, yet the field persists.The Snark remains, in us, in the gaps, in the very act of pursuit.
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