‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
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‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
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Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#2Here is another story about myths being extremely persistent:
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
Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#3I can't help but feel that some combination of the Birthday paradox [0] and primates churning out stories [1] is going on here.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#4Here is another story about myths being extremely persistent: 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 arti…
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.
Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#5Here is another story about myths being extremely persistent: 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 arti…
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.
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."
Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#6I can't help but feel that some combination of the Birthday paradox [0] and primates churning out stories [1] is going on here. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
What accounts for the missing sister though? If the seventh sister was last visible 50000-100000 years ago, how the myths are trying to account for it now without the memory?
Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#7Title seems to have no correlation with the article.
Edit: My bad - I clicked through to another link on the page accidentally
Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#8Title seems to have no correlation with the article. Edit: My bad - I clicked through to another link on the page accidentally
Did you read all the way down?
Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#9I can't help but feel that some combination of the Birthday paradox [0] and primates churning out stories [1] is going on here. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
What accounts for the missing sister though? If the seventh sister was last visible 50000-100000 years ago, how the myths are trying to account for it now without the memory?
I think the idea of the 100,000 years of memory is plausible, but I think it's likely to persist because the number seven seems to be universally important to humans.
People could potentially have superimposed the number seven on the story, as per the rainbow's seven colours and Newton.
Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
#10I must say the Singularity Hub web presence looks snake-oily to me.
Why do they call it a "university"? Why do they call some of the members "faculty"?
Why do they claim Ray Kurzweil has "a thirty-year track record of accurate predictions"? (https://singularityhub.com/experts/)
Any idea why they brand it like this? Who is supposed to take this seriously?
I'm EU-based and here you're not allowed to claim that your organization is a university if it is not recognized by the state as such (roughly speaking).