4 ms·

How do we know these actually relate to the same original story and not to, say, the fact that there weren't quite so many things to do back then but look at st

by Natsu 10y ago

How do we know these actually relate to the same original story and not to, say, the fact that there weren't quite so many things to do back then but look at stars and hunt, so there would be a lot of random stories about starts and hunting, along with other common elements of daily life?

nswanberg 10y ago
That's a great question which doesn't appear to be answered in the article or the paper. Maybe there is convergent evolution for features in myths just like in biology.
posterboy 10y ago
I don't know an answer to your question, but I wonder what makes a story original, when it's common to say, every love story is the same story told over again.
blacksmith_tb 10y ago
Another approach (which would be time-consuming, admittedly) would be to work from the opposite direction - how many themes in the myths of a particular group don't seem to be found elsewhere? That would tend to argue against some kind convergent evolution, at least, but might not rule out inconsistent transmission to other groups. Even in the article, it looks like the data could be used to emphasize the outliers and not the common thread (which does seem to potentially suffer from selection bias).
lgessler 10y ago
Isn't the answer to this the same as the answer to Jung's hypothesis? > “Myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul,” Jung argued. But the dissemination of Cosmic Hunt stories around the world cannot be explained by a universal psychic structure. If that were the case, Cosmic Hunt stories would pop up everywhere. Instead they are nearly absent in Indonesia and New Guinea and very rare in Australia but present on both sides of the Bering Strait, which geologic and archaeological evidence indicates was above water between 28,000 and 13,000 B.C. (So, the absence of Cosmic Hunt stories in New Guinea, Indonesia, and Australia would seem to be a counter to your hypothesis, unless for some reason we could explain why people in those regions thought less about stars and hunting.)
- aaron695 10y ago
  "very rare" "nearly absent" does acknowledge that they do exist though. So we know at least they will spontaneously appear. And if it's a good meme why didn't it spread? The stars are a huge part of any lore. Hunting is a huge part of a mans life (Along with women) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_astronomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_astronom...
  - lgessler 10y ago
    I don't think that's a good counterargument--there are hundreds and probably thousands of data points in those regions. Using a simplistic metaphor, what are the odds that when all the cultures in the world rolled the dice to decide whether they'd have a Cosmic Hunter myth almost all of the ones in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea rolled not to? Vanishingly small.
    - aaron695 10y ago
      I don't know. Stories like this sound pretty close to me - http://members.optusnet.com.au/virgothomas/space/abobeliefs2.html http://members.optusnet.com.au/virgothomas/space/abobeliefs2... (Two Brothers & The Pointer Stars) All primitive societies obviously have stories of the stars being people and animals. Men were hunters, the animals will be game. Finding a exact narrative the fits your model from thousands of data points feels possible to me. [edit] From the authors paper read "What about the Saharan versions of Cosmic Hunt" and tell me they are not just making stuff up
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >From the authors paper read "What about the Saharan versions of Cosmic Hunt" and tell me they are not just making stuff up What about it seems as if they are "making stuff up"? They summarize several versions of some such stories, with differentiating details, and even give the papers and studies where they were collected by anthropologists, etc.
- 10y ago
coldtea 10y ago
>the fact that there weren't quite so many things to do back then but look at stars and hunt, so there would be a lot of random stories about starts and hunting, along with other common elements of daily life? If that was the case, the stories would be found in most/all places that there was hunting groups (e.g. maybe not in the Alaska). But they are not, they are in specific places where people seem to have migrated and brought them with them. Besides, there are far more common themes, resemblances and details (that change as the story passes on) apart from "there is hunting and some constellations" involved. Finally, while hunting might have been a big part of daily life, the idea that there were few things to do than "look at stars and hunt" seems a little off.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Modern anthropologists have had the opportunity to observe several groups of neolithic hunter-gatherers. They hunt or gather or prepare food for a couple of hours a day, and spend the rest of the day napping and playing. The pressures that create the variety of more developed cultures simply don't exist for them. Of course, sometimes the whole tribe dies from disease or starvation or war, but those are relatively rare events.

by Natsu 10y ago

nswanberg 10y ago

That's a great question which doesn't appear to be answered in the article or the paper. Maybe there is convergent evolution for features in myths just like in biology.

posterboy 10y ago

I don't know an answer to your question, but I wonder what makes a story original, when it's common to say, every love story is the same story told over again.

blacksmith_tb 10y ago

Another approach (which would be time-consuming, admittedly) would be to work from the opposite direction - how many themes in the myths of a particular group don't seem to be found elsewhere? That would tend to argue against some kind convergent evolution, at least, but might not rule out inconsistent transmission to other groups. Even in the article, it looks like the data could be used to emphasize the outliers and not the common thread (which does seem to potentially suffer from selection bias).

lgessler 10y ago

Isn't the answer to this the same as the answer to Jung's hypothesis? > “Myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul,” Jung argued. But the dissemination of Cosmic Hunt stories around the world cannot be explained by a universal psychic structure. If that were the case, Cosmic Hunt stories would pop up everywhere. Instead they are nearly absent in Indonesia and New Guinea and very rare in Australia but present on both sides of the Bering Strait, which geologic and archaeological evidence indicates was above water between 28,000 and 13,000 B.C. (So, the absence of Cosmic Hunt stories in New Guinea, Indonesia, and Australia would seem to be a counter to your hypothesis, unless for some reason we could explain why people in those regions thought less about stars and hunting.)

aaron695 10y ago
"very rare" "nearly absent" does acknowledge that they do exist though. So we know at least they will spontaneously appear. And if it's a good meme why didn't it spread? The stars are a huge part of any lore. Hunting is a huge part of a mans life (Along with women) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_astronomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_astronom...
- lgessler 10y ago
  I don't think that's a good counterargument--there are hundreds and probably thousands of data points in those regions. Using a simplistic metaphor, what are the odds that when all the cultures in the world rolled the dice to decide whether they'd have a Cosmic Hunter myth almost all of the ones in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea rolled not to? Vanishingly small.
  - aaron695 10y ago
    I don't know. Stories like this sound pretty close to me - http://members.optusnet.com.au/virgothomas/space/abobeliefs2.html http://members.optusnet.com.au/virgothomas/space/abobeliefs2... (Two Brothers & The Pointer Stars) All primitive societies obviously have stories of the stars being people and animals. Men were hunters, the animals will be game. Finding a exact narrative the fits your model from thousands of data points feels possible to me. [edit] From the authors paper read "What about the Saharan versions of Cosmic Hunt" and tell me they are not just making stuff up
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >From the authors paper read "What about the Saharan versions of Cosmic Hunt" and tell me they are not just making stuff up What about it seems as if they are "making stuff up"? They summarize several versions of some such stories, with differentiating details, and even give the papers and studies where they were collected by anthropologists, etc.
10y ago

coldtea 10y ago

>the fact that there weren't quite so many things to do back then but look at stars and hunt, so there would be a lot of random stories about starts and hunting, along with other common elements of daily life? If that was the case, the stories would be found in most/all places that there was hunting groups (e.g. maybe not in the Alaska). But they are not, they are in specific places where people seem to have migrated and brought them with them. Besides, there are far more common themes, resemblances and details (that change as the story passes on) apart from "there is hunting and some constellations" involved. Finally, while hunting might have been a big part of daily life, the idea that there were few things to do than "look at stars and hunt" seems a little off.

jessaustin 10y ago
Modern anthropologists have had the opportunity to observe several groups of neolithic hunter-gatherers. They hunt or gather or prepare food for a couple of hours a day, and spend the rest of the day napping and playing. The pressures that create the variety of more developed cultures simply don't exist for them. Of course, sometimes the whole tribe dies from disease or starvation or war, but those are relatively rare events.