[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[John Carl]

I'm gonna quibble some more, but subtly, with Krimel

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Krimel <Krimel at krimel.com> wrote:
>
>
> Myths can arise in any number of ways but the common 'essence' of myths is
> that they begin as symbolic vehicles for truth and are usually regarded as
> factual.



John:

I remember from somewhere, a piece of anthropology that stuck.  It was a
study of gangs, members and leaders and the relationships therein, and it
was noticed most strikingly that the leaders were not always the strongest
or toughest, nor were they necessarily the smartest or most experienced -
altho those things did factor.

The common attributes of gang leaders, were those who were able to weave
meaning into their lives, by telling the members how their participation in
the activities of the gang, conformed to a narrative myth, spun by the
leaders.

I think this tells us that myth arises not in any search for truth, but the
search for meaning.  That is, the meaning of my actions in an an otherwise
incomprehensible cosmos, and most especially, the meaning of my
particiaption in a social group.  The mythos eases conflicts and group
tensions by pre-thinking out the role of the individual.

When this mythic cosmos is constructed and accepted, "facts" are only
relative to this world and would be interpreted differently by another
tribe.

>
>
> Dreams are most often just rehashing of the previous day's events their
> symbolic value is highly overrated. In fact the active synthesis model of
> dream holds that they result from random thoughts or the random firing of
> neurons during sleep. The mind abhors this kind of randomness and a vacuum
> of meaning and fills in the gaps with some kind of narrative. The same sort
> of thing happens during sensory deprivation.
>
>


John:

Pah.  "highly overrated".  sez who?  Depends on the dream.  And the dreamer.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  What else to expect from a worshipper of
randomness?

   "There is no meaning, it's all just random bits and peices firing off in
the brain."  Tah dah, the moronist exposed.

"The same sort of thing happens during sensory deprivation".

also to those mentally deprived.


> Krimel said:
> Both Mythos and Logos are part of the collection of intellectual patterns.
> You are confusing the function of intellectual patterns on the one hand and
> the quality of the patterns on the other. If levels are sets of patterns,
> then the level has to include all of the patterns.
>
> dmb says:
> Well, no. The distinction is partly based on the fact that they function
> differently. When you read myths as myths rather than bad ideas, they are
> just as true as any true idea. To say myths are just bad ideas is like
> saying organisms are just bad myths. If you try to understand one in terms
> of the other, you'll fail to understand it for what it is. That's the
> problem with reductionism, see? It is a kind of category error.
>
>


John:  They do function differently, but on the same level.  The mythos is
the dynamic aspect of intellect and the logos the static.

Pirsig gave me this idea when he described Goethe's description of the same
thing - you don't find wisdom in reason, you find wisdom on the wind.

That's not  a category error, it's a categorical insight.





> [Krimel]
> Myths survive precisely because they are good ideas they are just not
> regarded as factual.


John:

  Myths and facts are intertwined.    Myth is hypothesis.  Facts are
interpreted in light of the old mythos.  New  facts  suggest a new
hypothesis.

The dance goes on!