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I personally wouldn't have used the Bible as an example, but... I too am impressed that so many old folk tales/myths/legends have recently been found to have a

I personally wouldn't have used the Bible as an example, but... I too am impressed that so many old folk tales/myths/legends have recently been found to have a basis of reality. I mean, the way I see it: There are stories from a decade ago 'based on a true story' and if you look at our modern 'myths', like a movie based on a true story, generally they are very loosely based on the true story. And that is with our modern ability to document and review what happened in the past. These stories were oral tradition for hundreds of years before being written. The fact that they have any basis left is amazing and a testament to the powerful events that resonated through history. It's a testament to the ability of humans to pass on information in a uni directional time dimension. * I'm completely non-religious.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
> I too am impressed that so many old folk tales/myths/legends have recently been found to have a basis of reality. Why wouldn't they? You're going to want to pass on interesting stories. And what other means would they have had to transfer knowledge if not through oral tradition? It would have been the only available medium. The stories deemed interesting or important would have been the way people would have entertained each other. The other thing to keep in mind is that with these stories we can suffer from historical pareidolia - where if the parts of the story fit the truth just enough we assume that must be the basis. I don't know if that's always the case.
- 4ntonius8lock 8y ago
  Why wouldn't they is already in my first post: play broken phone in school and see what I mean. 400 years = 20 generations. How accurate is the retelling of things that happened just 5 or 10 years ago... and for which pictures, books and video exist for evidence? We are in the post modern era where we have to make distinctions like personal truth and objective truth. Amazement comes when reality exceeds expectations. If this isn't just the case of pareidolia or cherry picking data: It seems I see maintaining an oral history that retains any connection to reality over hundreds of years as amazing. That is because I see human communication as highly flawed, even in today's day where recording and reproduction are easy. Also, think of education; how much more standardized and advanced it is today and still people have a hard time passing things on accurately. Some people think of human communication as less flawed than I do. So I guess there would be no amazement for them.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    > Why wouldn't they is already in my first post: play broken phone in school and see what I mean. Broken phone is you listening to a message whispered once to you, and there's always a jerk in the middle who changes the story to something totally different. These stories would have been told to you over and over again until you know it by heart. They would naturally get embellished, and that's what we see - floods cover the earth men become gods, mountain peaks become heaven. It's also important to note that, while we don't know events from 5 to 10 years ago off by heart, we all remember where we were when 9/11 happened - those are the sorts of events that would have been passed down. And really, all we get out of these stories is the equivalent to "9/11 happened" - many of the stories lose all other details. For instance, there's a general consensus that Noah's Ark is based upon a flood myth shared by many different cultures is drawn from a Mesopotamian precursors, and seems to stem from ~2000 BCE. There are a bunch of retellings with a bunch of different details - there's heroes and gods, but the water varies from "killing everything on Earth" to "a river flooding", and was due to sin, or overpopulation, or just the caprices of the Gods. That does sound like what would happen if you were playing telephone.
    - 4ntonius8lock 8y ago
      Again, reality - expectations = our reaction to what we see. You seem to feel your version of expectations are better tuned so that when we subtract them from reality it is what you expected. I see this as amazing. Again, that has to be because I see human communication more flawed than you do. And that is fine. Personally, I think you do a lot of hand waving when you say something like "there's always a jerk in the middle who changes the story to something totally different" and then just outright ignore that when talking about oral tradition maintenance. Especially when you consider wars, famine, mass migrations, etc. But alas, it's different expectations and and given that you aren't amazed, your expectations are apparently more accurate (as long as those expectations were truly held before the proof was shown)
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition There's plenty of research and precedent for it.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago

> I too am impressed that so many old folk tales/myths/legends have recently been found to have a basis of reality. Why wouldn't they? You're going to want to pass on interesting stories. And what other means would they have had to transfer knowledge if not through oral tradition? It would have been the only available medium. The stories deemed interesting or important would have been the way people would have entertained each other. The other thing to keep in mind is that with these stories we can suffer from historical pareidolia - where if the parts of the story fit the truth just enough we assume that must be the basis. I don't know if that's always the case.

4ntonius8lock 8y ago
Why wouldn't they is already in my first post: play broken phone in school and see what I mean. 400 years = 20 generations. How accurate is the retelling of things that happened just 5 or 10 years ago... and for which pictures, books and video exist for evidence? We are in the post modern era where we have to make distinctions like personal truth and objective truth. Amazement comes when reality exceeds expectations. If this isn't just the case of pareidolia or cherry picking data: It seems I see maintaining an oral history that retains any connection to reality over hundreds of years as amazing. That is because I see human communication as highly flawed, even in today's day where recording and reproduction are easy. Also, think of education; how much more standardized and advanced it is today and still people have a hard time passing things on accurately. Some people think of human communication as less flawed than I do. So I guess there would be no amazement for them.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  > Why wouldn't they is already in my first post: play broken phone in school and see what I mean. Broken phone is you listening to a message whispered once to you, and there's always a jerk in the middle who changes the story to something totally different. These stories would have been told to you over and over again until you know it by heart. They would naturally get embellished, and that's what we see - floods cover the earth men become gods, mountain peaks become heaven. It's also important to note that, while we don't know events from 5 to 10 years ago off by heart, we all remember where we were when 9/11 happened - those are the sorts of events that would have been passed down. And really, all we get out of these stories is the equivalent to "9/11 happened" - many of the stories lose all other details. For instance, there's a general consensus that Noah's Ark is based upon a flood myth shared by many different cultures is drawn from a Mesopotamian precursors, and seems to stem from ~2000 BCE. There are a bunch of retellings with a bunch of different details - there's heroes and gods, but the water varies from "killing everything on Earth" to "a river flooding", and was due to sin, or overpopulation, or just the caprices of the Gods. That does sound like what would happen if you were playing telephone.
  - 4ntonius8lock 8y ago
    Again, reality - expectations = our reaction to what we see. You seem to feel your version of expectations are better tuned so that when we subtract them from reality it is what you expected. I see this as amazing. Again, that has to be because I see human communication more flawed than you do. And that is fine. Personally, I think you do a lot of hand waving when you say something like "there's always a jerk in the middle who changes the story to something totally different" and then just outright ignore that when talking about oral tradition maintenance. Especially when you consider wars, famine, mass migrations, etc. But alas, it's different expectations and and given that you aren't amazed, your expectations are apparently more accurate (as long as those expectations were truly held before the proof was shown)
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition There's plenty of research and precedent for it.