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Here is another story about myths being extremely persistent: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/27/an-australian-legend-may-be-the-world

by dash2 6y ago

Here is another story about myths being extremely persistent: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/27/an-australian-legend-may-be-the-worlds-oldest-datable-story https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/27/... Amazing if true. I got the impression, when I studied (a little) anthropology in the 1990s, that myths were related to the present structure of a society more than to its past, and that you couldn't expect reliable transmission of messages over such long time periods. Edit: here is a cool article about geomythology - https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/MayorGeomythology.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/MayorGeomythology.pdf

sibeliuss 6y ago
Jung, amongst others, believed that myths are archetypal constructs that underpin the architecture of the mind, and are shared by all, which explains much about the uncanny cultural similarities across time and space.
- dash2 6y ago
  Right, but that would not explain why they are also similar to the actual facts. As an example, from the Stanford article: "... debate raged in the nineteenth century over Native American legends that seemed to contain ancestral memories of mastodons hunted until their extinction in the Ice Age 10,000 years ago. The possibility was supported by twentieth-century archaeological discoveries of mammoth kill sites that matched local tribal lore about elephant-like monsters."
- Garlef 6y ago
  I don't think we need this kind of hocus pocus to explain this. Frist candidate for an explanation: * Stories get passed on and some are surprisingly stable. Second candidate for an explanation: * The underpinnings of the architecture of the mind cause the same stories to (re?)surface everywhere. Let's use occams razor. (I don't claim this argument disproves the "theory" of archetypes. But we should not jump to conclusions when applying it out of context.).
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >* Stories get passed on and some are surprisingly stable. That's reasonable. While certainly far from proven, the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis[0] posits the possibility that the "Great Flood" story, which is part of many ancient traditions (and long predates Abrahamic[1] religions) may be from an oral tradition recounting a flood occurring at the end of the last glaciation in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. While that story certainly isn't anywhere near 100,000 years old, if true, it does add credence to the stability of oral traditions over long periods of time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions Edit: Clarified hypothesized location of the Black Sea Deluge.
  - Tistron 6y ago
    What is the difference between your second point and "archetypes"?
    - sibeliuss 6y ago
      Precisely
    - Garlef 6y ago
      The point of listing the second point was to paraphrase/summarize archetypes and contrast it to a more plausible explanation (the first point). Here's some hyperbole explaining why the first point offers the simpler explanation. To use the old south park meme: 1. The underpinnings of the architecture of the mind 2. ? 3. Stories resurfacing. vs 1. narrative tradition
wombatmobile 6y ago
Your expectations are a function of what you know and your experiences. In your case, those are dominated by your immersion in literate cultures that rely on written communication formats for information transmission and archiving, not to mention education. But what if all that knowledge and experience of writing technology and writing based culture were to vanish? What would you be then? Helpless? Lost? Isolated? Actually, no. You’d still be capable of advanced communications, education, and data storage, using alternative modalities. It’s like pre-internet humans. They still went out on dates, met up with friends, gossiped and bought things. They just accomplished all that with different tools to what people use today.

by dash2 6y ago

sibeliuss 6y ago

Jung, amongst others, believed that myths are archetypal constructs that underpin the architecture of the mind, and are shared by all, which explains much about the uncanny cultural similarities across time and space.

dash2 6y ago
Right, but that would not explain why they are also similar to the actual facts. As an example, from the Stanford article: "... debate raged in the nineteenth century over Native American legends that seemed to contain ancestral memories of mastodons hunted until their extinction in the Ice Age 10,000 years ago. The possibility was supported by twentieth-century archaeological discoveries of mammoth kill sites that matched local tribal lore about elephant-like monsters."
Garlef 6y ago
I don't think we need this kind of hocus pocus to explain this. Frist candidate for an explanation: * Stories get passed on and some are surprisingly stable. Second candidate for an explanation: * The underpinnings of the architecture of the mind cause the same stories to (re?)surface everywhere. Let's use occams razor. (I don't claim this argument disproves the "theory" of archetypes. But we should not jump to conclusions when applying it out of context.).
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >* Stories get passed on and some are surprisingly stable. That's reasonable. While certainly far from proven, the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis[0] posits the possibility that the "Great Flood" story, which is part of many ancient traditions (and long predates Abrahamic[1] religions) may be from an oral tradition recounting a flood occurring at the end of the last glaciation in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. While that story certainly isn't anywhere near 100,000 years old, if true, it does add credence to the stability of oral traditions over long periods of time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions Edit: Clarified hypothesized location of the Black Sea Deluge.
- Tistron 6y ago
  What is the difference between your second point and "archetypes"?
  - sibeliuss 6y ago
    Precisely
  - Garlef 6y ago
    The point of listing the second point was to paraphrase/summarize archetypes and contrast it to a more plausible explanation (the first point). Here's some hyperbole explaining why the first point offers the simpler explanation. To use the old south park meme: 1. The underpinnings of the architecture of the mind 2. ? 3. Stories resurfacing. vs 1. narrative tradition

wombatmobile 6y ago

Your expectations are a function of what you know and your experiences. In your case, those are dominated by your immersion in literate cultures that rely on written communication formats for information transmission and archiving, not to mention education. But what if all that knowledge and experience of writing technology and writing based culture were to vanish? What would you be then? Helpless? Lost? Isolated? Actually, no. You’d still be capable of advanced communications, education, and data storage, using alternative modalities. It’s like pre-internet humans. They still went out on dates, met up with friends, gossiped and bought things. They just accomplished all that with different tools to what people use today.