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‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

singularityhub.com

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Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#11

Post by Garlef »

sibeliuss wrote: post #4
dash2 wrote: post #2

Here 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.

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.).

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#12

Post by gcatalfamo »

timkam wrote: post #10

I 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 o…

It might have started in good faith, but now there are local chapters at least in EU, where people basically advertise themselves.

So yeah it is snake oil now.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#13

Post by skrebbel »

timkam wrote: post #10

I 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 o…

I don't disagree, but you have to understand that because "university" isn't a protected name in the US, it also doesn't carry the same status and thus calling the Singularity organization a university is less preposterous.

Eg you learn to run a team of hamburger flippers at the McDonald's University. Many SaaS startups have a tutorials page named $BRAND University. In that context, a bunch of atheistic reli-nuts calling their clubhouse a university isn't that far off.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#14

Post by wombatmobile »

dash2 wrote: post #2

Here 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…

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.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#17

Post by progre »

reducesuffering wrote: post #15

I'm surprised the article didn't mention one of the most popular names for the "Seven Sisters," Subaru, the Japanese name and vehicle manufacturer whose logo contains six of the stars.

Subaru does not translate to "seven sisters" (or even six sisters) so bringing up Subaru would undermine the claim of the article

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#18

Post by coldtea »

timkam wrote: post #10

I 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 o…

It's what we call a "cult". A light one, as far as cults go, but still a cult.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#19

Post by timkam »

skrebbel wrote: post #13
timkam wrote: post #10

I 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 o…

I don't disagree, but you have to understand that because "university" isn't a protected name in the US, it also doesn't carry the same status and thus calling the Singularity organization a university is less preposterous. Eg you learn to run a team of hamburger flippers at the McDonald's University. Many SaaS startups have a tutorials page named $BRAND University. In that context, a bunch of atheistic reli-nuts cal…

Thank you for clarifying, then the main issue comes with global scale (a point that one of the other comments here makes).

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#20

Post by russellallen »

timkam wrote: post #10

I 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 o…

I don't know anything about the Singularity Hub, but this article is just a repost of a Creative Commons licensed article from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-oldest-story-astronom...

Ideally this story should be changed to this URL which has further comments by the author attached to it. Also The Conversation is a legitimate Australian academic site.

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