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What uniquely distinguishes our species, more than anything else, is our ability to tell stories. From hunting a mammoth to constructing an atomic device, every
by pdog 9y ago
What uniquely distinguishes our species, more than anything else, is our ability to tell stories. From hunting a mammoth to constructing an atomic device, everything depends on our ability to believe in a common story.
- 6stringmerc 9y agoEver have a dream where you were in the past, like hunting or being chased or something? We pass on more than we recognize, I think. Hence consistent fear of heights and/or spiders.
- chillacy 9y agoI've been thinking about that a lot lately. We tell stories about ourselves and call it our identity. Often, we believe so strongly in our identities that we've killed for them or have been killed for them. One person can have one identity where they're a failure, then through therapy, they change their story and become happier. Same events, different story. There's also the cultural story: we descended from these people, we share an intellectual lineage with those people, these are the past events that are important, and this is what they reveal about us, etc.
- l33tbro 9y agoSounds like you may be interested in reading Professor Dan McAdams and the general field of narrative psychology. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_psychology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_psychology