You ever wonder how myths and mythical creatures came into being?

[Grey Cloud]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Otaku said:

Here's a tip for future though, when you're suspecting the page reloading and eating up your post always click on the tab on your browser and duplicate the page. Then you can click on the text box and get your whole post back to reply. Alternatively you can copy the whole thing to a temp notepad file and paste it back in the text box after reloading the page.

I used to do the notepad trick with forum posts but stopped doing it on this forum. I'll try to remember to do the tab one though.

[Mr. Otaku]

7 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

Do you not think 'they' (ancient people) did not speak figuratively? Do you not think they understood metaphor, allusion, analogy, allegory and other literary devices? Do you not think that the understanding of the educated elite may be different from the uneducated masses?

 

Bro you just keep saying wrong things, repeatedly. Being literate means knowing how to read and write, it has nothing to do with understanding metaphor and analogies. I mean you're an example of that, you're perfectly literate but can't understand shit. 

 

I know this one in particular is between you two but christ on a bike you're way out of your depth here man, seriously.

 

  

4 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

I used to do the notepad trick with forum posts but stopped doing it on this forum. I'll try to remember to do the tab one though.

 

Nice.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Mr. Otaku
Ninja Edit

[Miauzi]

Vor 2 Stunden sagte Mr. Otaku:

Das einzige, was Sie hier beigetragen haben, ist selbstgefällig auf jeden in einem übermäßig feindseligen Ton zu reagieren und vorzugeben, schlauer zu sein, als Sie sind, Sie sind das Aushängeschild dafür, warum Alter nicht immer Weisheit bedeutet.

 

If I were given the task of teaching an AI - this thread would be a true prime example of human hubris...

... he doesn't really know much

...he has limited intelligence

...but his arrogance in dealing with others of his kind is definitely infinite... chilling

?

 

 

[Grey Cloud]

1 hour ago, Mr. Otaku said:

Bro you just keep saying wrong things, repeatedly. Being literate means knowing how to read and write, it has nothing to do with understanding metaphor and analogies. I mean you're an example of that, you're perfectly literate but can't understand shit

How is it wrong? We are talking about ancient societies here and they are generally described as either literate or oral. Metaphor etc are literary devices and/or figures of speech. Given that we were talking about a written story is that not literary?

My point which you have missed was that just because the Greek story has Helios driving a chariot across the sky it does not mean that every ancient Geek who ever lived thought this was actually the case.

 

That, among the ancients, Greeks as well as Barbarians, physiologia was a discourse on Nature that was wrapped in myths, or a theology most often disguised by enigmas and hidden meanings, and pertaining to the Mysteries, and that, for the crowd, what is said is more obscure than what is not said, and that what is not said is even more problematic than what is said: this is obvious when we consider the Orphic poems and the Egyptian and Phrygian discourses. Yet it is especially the secret rites of the initiations, and what is carried out symbolically in religious ceremonies, that reveal the thought of the ancients.
Plutarch

 

Is Plutarch not describing various literary devices here?

 

 

Whence each of the gods came into being, or whether they always
existed, and what their functions were, the Greeks did not know until
recently – yesterday, so to speak. Hesiod and Homer . . . were the ones
who made a theogony for the Greeks and gave the gods their names
and distinguished their honours and skills and indicated their forms.
(Herodotus 2.53.1–2)

 

Using 'yesterday ' to mean sometime in the not too distant past was a common Greek figure of speech. E.g. the Egyptian priest uses it in Plato's Timaeus when talking to Solon.

So two examples of literary devices and a figure of speech in two different texts by two different authors from two different times. But somehow I don't understand what 'literary' means?

Edited April 28, 2023 by Grey Cloud

[Grey Cloud]

39 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

he doesn't really know much

He knows that mermaids are not sirens.

 

If I am wrong about something then demonstrate my error.

[Guest]

Quote

I assume you are referring to the dates for Hesiod and Homer. You didn't specifically mention the Greeks, you used the vague and indeterminate 'they'. This date for Hesiod and Homer is for the first written accounts not the origin of the actual stories themselves.

I was referring to when the stories were believed to HAVE BEEN WRITTEN, as in the earliest documentation of them. I thought that was pretty straight forward, but I guess not.

Quote

So what about the origin of Egyptian, Chinese or any other mythology?

Yes. Other cultures have their own stories about the Sun, like the Egyptians had Ra, the Vikings had Sol, etc., but I wasn't talking about those, so adding them to your argument is pointless.

Quote

Do you not think 'they' (ancient people) did not speak figuratively?

Yes. The people of ancient times (as in, all of them) may NOT have been figurative, but now those terms are figurative, but again, you don't actually hear what I'm saying. Instead, you hear what you WANT to hear.

Quote

I love the way you totally ignore the fact that you never mentioned the Earth revolving around the Sun. You said it was because of the Earth rotating on its own axis which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

The reason I didn't mention the Earth orbiting the Sun was because that's irrelevant. The Earth rotates on its own axis, which creates the illusion of the Sun rising and setting. The Earth does a full rotation around the Sun every 365 days, or 1 year. The Earth does a full rotation on its own axis every 24 hours, or 1 day. If you paid attention in science class, you would know that.

Quote

Strange that no modern academic has managed it then.

It doesn't take a scientist to use common sense.

[Miauzi]

Vor 10 Minuten sagte Grey Cloud:

Er weiß, dass Meerjungfrauen keine Sirenen sind.

 

Wenn ich mit etwas falsch liege, dann zeige meinen Fehler.

Mistake?

No - you don't make mistakes ... But you tend to look at everything from the worldview model you have built yourself

and

To meet people who have another model for the world with an unbearable know-it-all arrogance!

In your world model there are only "Greek" sirens - that is a postulate for you

(I hope you remember what a "postulate" is)

According to this procedure, a woman "living" in the sea who attracts people (sailors) with her singing and then drowns them by drowning can of course not be a siren but just a simple mermaid (Undine).

You spout quite a lot of academic babble... to "prove" that only your point of view is the only true teaching.

In this respect you are like a monk/priest who tries to prove the existence of his god with references to the "holy book of books".

Um - well, "postulates" can neither be "proved" nor "disproved" - that's in their fundamental nature.

My "postulate" is based on the assumption - that all women who "live" in the sea and sing and kill sailors -> can be regarded as sirens...

...including the Greek ones.

On the other hand, you can bring up so much "bullshit" from mythological textbooks ... I simply ignore them ... because I consider them to be simply OUTDATED.

If I look at books on the history and culture of ancient peoples that were written in the 19th or early 20th century with today's scientific knowledge...

...I don't know if I should laugh at the arrogance of the authors (they found the ultimate truth) or cry at the fundamental fallacies due to their lack of knowledge.

---

So this isn't about mistakes... it's about a lack of self-reflection

 

---

Somehow you remind me of two characters from a 19th century French novelist:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvard_und_Pécuchet

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

According to this procedure, a woman "living" in the sea who attracts people (sailors) with her singing and then drowns them by drowning can of course not be a siren but just a simple mermaid (Undine).

They're arguing about what a mermaid is? Do they think that the giant rampaging monster that attacked Tokyo with mouth lasers was the Kraken?

[Grey Cloud]

5 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

In your world model there are only "Greek" sirens - that is a postulate for you

That is an etymological fact. Siren is a Greek word and describes a specific creature with a specific set of attributes, behaviours etc.

 

6 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

According to this procedure, a woman "living" in the sea who attracts people (sailors) with her singing and then drowns them by drowning can of course not be a siren but just a simple mermaid (Undine).

No she cannot be a siren because that is not what a siren is or does. Whether she can be anything other than a mermaid I neither know nor care.

 

There are mermen but not male sirens so how does that work?

 

9 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

My "postulate" is based on the assumption - that all women who "live" in the sea and sing and kill sailors -> can be regarded as sirens...

...including the Greek ones.

You may postulate whatever you wish but you cannot make it so.

 

10 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

you can bring up so much "bullshit" from mythological textbooks ... I simply ignore them ... because I consider them to be simply OUTDATED.

So you ignore them because you consider them outdated. What bang up to date sources do you get your 'facts' from?

 

15 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

If I look at books on the history and culture of ancient peoples that were written in the 19th or early 20th century with today's scientific knowledge...

...I don't know if I should laugh at the arrogance of the authors (they found the ultimate truth) or cry at the fundamental fallacies due to their lack of knowledge.

And your examples of this would be?

 

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Mr. Otaku said:

 

Bro you just keep saying wrong things, repeatedly. Being literate means knowing how to read and write, it has nothing to do with understanding metaphor and analogies. I mean you're an example of that, you're perfectly literate but can't understand shit. 

 

I know this one in particular is between you two but christ on a bike you're way out of your depth here man, seriously.

I was trying to be as clear as possible, but they just enjoyed twisting my words to make it sound like something else.

[Grey Cloud]

25 minutes ago, deadjester226 said:

I was trying to be as clear as possible, but they just enjoyed twisting my words to make it sound like something else.

Who is 'they'? If you mean me then show where I twisted your words.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

Who is 'they'? If you mean me then show where I twisted your words.

I am done trying to explain things to you. All I've achieved is running around in circles because you're too dense in the upper-story to understand anything more than what you want to understand. You want to know who "they" is? Figure it out yourself. You're not helpless. As for twisting my words, consult the first sentence of this comment.

[Grey Cloud]

45 minutes ago, deadjester226 said:

too dense in the upper-story to understand anything

This from the one who said "that it's actually just the Earth rotating on its own axis creating the image of the Sun moving across the sky".

 

You still haven't said where I twisted your words.

 

At least you did try to introduce mythology into the thread which is more than the rest did.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Miauzi said:

Mistake?

No - you don't make mistakes ... But you tend to look at everything from the worldview model you have built yourself

and

To meet people who have another model for the world with an unbearable know-it-all arrogance!

In your world model there are only "Greek" sirens - that is a postulate for you

(I hope you remember what a "postulate" is)

According to this procedure, a woman "living" in the sea who attracts people (sailors) with her singing and then drowns them by drowning can of course not be a siren but just a simple mermaid (Undine).

You spout quite a lot of academic babble... to "prove" that only your point of view is the only true teaching.

In this respect you are like a monk/priest who tries to prove the existence of his god with references to the "holy book of books".

Um - well, "postulates" can neither be "proved" nor "disproved" - that's in their fundamental nature.

My "postulate" is based on the assumption - that all women who "live" in the sea and sing and kill sailors -> can be regarded as sirens...

...including the Greek ones.

On the other hand, you can bring up so much "bullshit" from mythological textbooks ... I simply ignore them ... because I consider them to be simply OUTDATED.

If I look at books on the history and culture of ancient peoples that were written in the 19th or early 20th century with today's scientific knowledge...

...I don't know if I should laugh at the arrogance of the authors (they found the ultimate truth) or cry at the fundamental fallacies due to their lack of knowledge.

---

So this isn't about mistakes... it's about a lack of self-reflection

 

---

Somehow you remind me of two characters from a 19th century French novelist:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvard_und_Pécuchet

 

If I may offer some advice, just ignore them. They won't listen to reason.

[Miauzi]

Vor 11 Minuten sagte deadjester226:

Wenn ich Ihnen einen Rat geben darf, ignorieren Sie ihn einfach. Sie werden nicht auf die Vernunft hören.

 

I have already had wonderful discussions/arguments with Benedictine monks - in front of an audience.

but always polite and at eye level - with mutual respect

and of course it was always clear to us - that we would never really be able to convince the other of our point of view ... but on the one hand it served both sides to penetrate deeper into their own ideological system and to deal with the ever-present mistakes - which the other side always "harks at " - to deal with in more detail.

because a world view is always made by people - ultimately it is also a religion (which a monk would never deny!) - but by working through these mistakes one grows in terms of knowledge and understanding.

our "candidate" here fails completely on all of these points

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

 

I have already had wonderful discussions/arguments with Benedictine monks - in front of an audience.

but always polite and at eye level - with mutual respect

and of course it was always clear to us - that we would never really be able to convince the other of our point of view ... but on the one hand it served both sides to penetrate deeper into their own ideological system and to deal with the ever-present mistakes - which the other side always "harks at " - to deal with in more detail.

because a world view is always made by people - ultimately it is also a religion (which a monk would never deny!) - but by working through these mistakes one grows in terms of knowledge and understanding.

our "candidate" here fails completely on all of these points

My grandfather always told me that it's wise to know when to just walk away. When it became clear that our mutual "friend" wasn't going to listen, and instead just continue looping around in circles, I decided to just block them. They're not worth my time.

[Grey Cloud]

Neither of the two who shall be nameless had answers to any of my questions.

 

Discussions on this forum always take the same course. Assertions made without any supporting evidence; assertion challenged; still no supporting evidence just waffle, waffle, waffle; questions repeated; pearls clutched and excuse made to not continue.

[Mr. Otaku]

8 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

How is it wrong? We are talking about ancient societies here and they are generally described as either literate or oral. Metaphor etc are literary devices and/or figures of speech. Given that we were talking about a written story is that not literary?

My point which you have missed was that just because the Greek story has Helios driving a chariot across the sky it does not mean that every ancient Geek who ever lived thought this was actually the case.

 

That, among the ancients, Greeks as well as Barbarians, physiologia was a discourse on Nature that was wrapped in myths, or a theology most often disguised by enigmas and hidden meanings, and pertaining to the Mysteries, and that, for the crowd, what is said is more obscure than what is not said, and that what is not said is even more problematic than what is said: this is obvious when we consider the Orphic poems and the Egyptian and Phrygian discourses. Yet it is especially the secret rites of the initiations, and what is carried out symbolically in religious ceremonies, that reveal the thought of the ancients.
Plutarch

 

Is Plutarch not describing various literary devices here?

 

 

Whence each of the gods came into being, or whether they always
existed, and what their functions were, the Greeks did not know until
recently – yesterday, so to speak. Hesiod and Homer . . . were the ones
who made a theogony for the Greeks and gave the gods their names
and distinguished their honours and skills and indicated their forms.
(Herodotus 2.53.1–2)

 

Using 'yesterday ' to mean sometime in the not too distant past was a common Greek figure of speech. E.g. the Egyptian priest uses it in Plato's Timaeus when talking to Solon.

So two examples of literary devices and a figure of speech in two different texts by two different authors from two different times. But somehow I don't understand what 'literary' means?

 

All of this is well beyond the scope of what i was saying. My point was that being literate does not teach someone how to understand metaphors, analogies etc. deadjester simply said that the figurative expressions of sun setting and rising comes from a time when people thought that's what the sun is actually doing and not the earth itself rotating to create that illusion. What most greeks thought is beyond the scope of this particular argument.

 

It just seems like you're branching into 10 different tangents with every argument while being deliberately obtuse with your questions and reasonings. You're clearly not dumb by any means so i have no idea why you're doing this.

 

7 hours ago, deadjester226 said:

I was trying to be as clear as possible, but they just enjoyed twisting my words to make it sound like something else.

 

He's unusually agitated this time for some reason, he certainly leans heavily on the condescending side to put it lightly but this time he really snapped i think lol. I've certainly argued with far worse on this site though (one of them used to be a moderator) so he's not the worst offender in that regard.

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, Mr. Otaku said:

He's unusually agitated this time for some reason, he certainly leans heavily on the condescending side to put it lightly but this time he really snapped i think lol. I've certainly argued with far worse on this site though (one of them used to be a moderator) so he's not the worst offender in that regard.

That's why I have him listed with other users I'm ignoring. I don't know what the fuck his problem is, and I don't give a shit. Here's a list of my top priorities, from most to least important.

 

1. Making sure that I'm OK and not going to die, so I can be there for those I care about.

2. Making sure that my girlfriend is OK and happy.

3. Making sure that our pets are OK and happy.

4. Calling my grandfather to make sure that he's OK and happy.

5. Doing my job well so I can get paid because everything costs money.

 

Did any of these say "Waste time arguing with some random schmuck on the internet."? No. That's because if he wants to waste someone's time, he can do it elsewhere.

[Grey Cloud]

6 hours ago, Mr. Otaku said:

My point was that being literate does not teach someone how to understand metaphors, analogies etc. deadjester simply said that the figurative expressions of sun setting and rising comes from a time when people thought that's what the sun is actually doing and not the earth itself rotating to create that illusion.

Nobody is suggesting that being literate teaches the understanding of metaphors etc. The point is that ancient people could understood and did use these things - they did not take everything literally. Deadjester did not mention figuratively - it was me who introduced that.  Deadjester said that the Sun appearing to move was caused by Earth rotating. This was part of her explanation of the Helios driving his chariot across the sky.

 

7 hours ago, Mr. Otaku said:

What most greeks thought is beyond the scope of this particular argument.

It is a Greek story and deadjester was making a blanket assertion that the Greeks took things literally because of their lack of knowledge. That is the impression one will get from reading My Bumper Book of Greek Myths. It is not what one gets from reading Plato, the dramatists or modern scholarship for example.

[Dorabella]

22 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

It is a Greek story and deadjester was making a blanket assertion that the Greeks took things literally because of their lack of knowledge.

Just a clarification : 
 While restoring the Temple of Athena , an anti-seismic system was identified , considered , today , more than functional . 

 

San Francisco, razed to the ground by the 1906 earthquake, lacked this knowledge 

 

Just as an example. The knowledge of ancient civilisations was certainly superior to that of modern civilisations, if we consider past eras 

[spoonsinger]

"Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" - which is the answer to the OP's question. 

[Harvald56]

It is often the older gods who continue to be worshiped in this form. The first mermaid was Ea the Babylonian goddess of fertility. Cronos, the Greek father of the gods, became the Kraken after his fall. Dragons, on the other hand, at least in Europe, can neither fly nor breathe fire. They are huge snake-like worms, the largest one encircles the entire disc of the earth and when it chokes on them, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. Here again we find that it is often about old gods like Leviathan the Babylonian Lithanu. Only this time it was about fighting the evil god.

 

In most cases, mythical beings and the veneration of saints in parts of Christianity are nothing more than the residue of an older religion that was rejected as pagan.

[Grey Cloud]

8 hours ago, Harvald56 said:

The first mermaid was Ea the Babylonian goddess of fertility.

Ea was a male diety. Not depicted as half-human half-fish. Nothing about luring sailors to their deaths.

Ea is also his Akkadian name, his original Sumerian name is Enki (Lord of the Earth). He was associated with wisdom and fertility among other things.

http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/enki/

 

8 hours ago, Harvald56 said:

Cronos, the Greek father of the gods, became the Kraken after his fall.

Cronos was not the 'Greek father of the gods'. His father was Uranus. After his fall he was either imprisoned in Tartarus or the cave of Nyx depending on which version one reads. Nowhere is he said to become anything other than Cronos.

 

The Kraken is Scandanavian not Greek; mediaeval not ancient. 

https://scandinaviafacts.com/is-the-kraken-greek-or-norse-mythology-get-the-facts/

 

If you are thinking of the Perseus story then the monster was Ceto/Keto. The parentage of Ceto is unknown but the family tree of Cronos which is well attested makes no mention of Ceto.

https://www.theoi.com/Ther/Ketea.html

 

8 hours ago, Harvald56 said:

Dragons, on the other hand, at least in Europe, can neither fly nor breathe fire. They are huge snake-like worms

Draco, Serpens, Cancer (a crab aided the Hydra) - many of the Greek and eastern Mediterranean stories involving serpents/dragons end up in the sky.

 

 

8 hours ago, Harvald56 said:

In most cases, mythical beings and the veneration of saints in parts of Christianity are nothing more than the residue of an older religion that was rejected as pagan.

'Pagan' is a Latin word first used in the 4th century CE. Can you provide an example or two of a mythical story which supports your statement? If you could give examples from India, Egypt, China or the Americas I would be well impressed.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Grey Cloud

[Grey Cloud]

8 hours ago, spoonsinger said:

"Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" - which is the answer to the OP's question. 

A masterly contribution - the breadth, the depth.

 

Oh, it's a TV reference. American by any chance?