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DrakBalek t1_iuvxbxy wrote

One small critique: metaphor requires common experiences and understanding in order to be effective.

"Traffic flowed like a river after rain" is largely meaningless if the audience does not possess an understanding of the words "traffic," "river" or "rain." While it's difficult to imagine a person who doesn't understand the latter two, it's not difficult to imagine a person who doesn't understand the former, given that automobiles have been around for almost a century-and-a-half. Of course, we might argue that the word means something to a person who lived in early 1800s London or New York, where horses and carts made up the hulk of traffic movements . . . but the point remains, if your audience doesn't have a common frame of reference for your words, there's a not-insignificant chance that the metaphor will either fail to convey meaning or, more likely, will convey a meaning wholly at odds with the author's original intent.

With this added context, I think there's an argument to be made that myth and metaphor aren't actually a form of knowledge. They can be used to communicate knowledge and meaning, but only under specific circumstances, and lacking those circumstances, they're just as likely to be abused, misused or simply misunderstood.

Myth and metaphor are tools of communication through which we can convey meaning; but like most tools, they're more appropriate for some situations than others.

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zedority t1_iuyd1sz wrote

> if your audience doesn't have a common frame of reference for your words, there's a not-insignificant chance that the metaphor will either fail to convey meaning or, more likely, will convey a meaning wholly at odds with the author's original intent.

If I rephrase this as "your audience needs background knowledge to understand", then this is actually identical to knowledge. Especially when it comes to specialised knowledge, such knowledge can only truly be gained if the required background knowledge is present.

The informative statement "traffic consists of automobiles" will not be understood by anyone without the background knowledge of what an automobile is. Entire scientific journals exist which would be completely incomprehensible to anyone except experts in that scientific field.

In other words, I don't think you've found a flaw in the use of metaphor, so much as you've found a fundamental challenge to effectively communicating understanding in any way at all.

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Snuffleton t1_iuw5jtg wrote

That sounded suspiciously like a summary of something worth a read. Can you recommend some book on that?

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acfox13 t1_iuwtr2b wrote

You might like "Crucial Conversations - tools for talking when stakes are high". They discuss "shared pool of meaning" - ensuring you and the person you're trying to communicate with are actually understanding each other well.

Oh, and "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell

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drkgodess t1_iuz8bon wrote

>You might like "Crucial Conversations - tools for talking when stakes are high". They discuss "shared pool of meaning" - ensuring you and the person you're trying to communicate with are actually understanding each other well. > >Oh, and "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell

Thanks!

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DrakBalek t1_iuw9ozi wrote

gawd, I wish I could. Unfortunately, these are simply my thoughts as filtered through my years of experiences and nerdy interest in these topics.

Maybe someone better informed than me knows if there's a related published work?

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A_Literate_Foozle t1_iuzhohr wrote

georges bataille and his work with the college of sociology is relevant on this and seems to resonate with what you’re saying. mircea eliade attended these lectures and worked on related topics as well. strongly recommend either avenue if you’re interested in thinking further.

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Tuckinatuh t1_iuy2omk wrote

In the context of conveying meaning I would argue myth and metaphor are always useful tools. There aren’t better tools. There are bad metaphors, though. To your point about traffic, like you said, as a concept it is new. If metaphors restrict themselves to ancient concepts, though (fire, love, pain), they are able to fulfil their purpose for a broader audience.

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DrakBalek t1_iuy79ge wrote

>In the context of conveying meaning I would argue myth and metaphor are always useful tools.

Whenever someone uses words like "never" or "always," I like to ask myself, " . . . are we sure?"

For instance, do we consider math equations to be a means of conveying meaning? If the meaning I want to communicate is highly technical, like an equation, should I resort to a myth or a metaphor? Let's say my intent is to convey the location of something to someone. "Where's your house?" is the question I want to answer; should I tell the querent my address or a story about how I came to live there?

Yes, myth and metaphor are useful tools for communicating information; but the utility of a given tool is dependent on the user's intent.

You can use a hammer to pound a screw into a block of wood . . . but you're better off using a screwdriver.

(and that is an example of when using a metaphor (or simile) is particularly useful.)

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Tuckinatuh t1_iuzgt5z wrote

Ok but you left out the part where I said “in the context of conveying meaning”. Information transfer != meaning. I’m using meaning in the metaphysical sense here; that excludes addresses and math equations.

2

DrakBalek t1_iv0jkaq wrote

I guess I have to question whether it's possible to have "meaning" without information. (and vice versa)

That's an interesting thought, I don't think I have an answer for it.

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glass_superman t1_iv03flf wrote

What you've written reminds me of a scene from Il Postino, when the postman is trying to understand why Neruda writes in metaphors. The whole movie might be a good way to think about myths and metaphor...

Anyway:

You see, Mario...

I can't tell you...

in words different

from those I've used.

When you explain it,

poetry becomes banal.

Better than any explanation...

is the experience of feelings

that poetry can reveal...

to a nature open enough

to understand it.

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Lonely_Cosmonaut t1_iv0ip98 wrote

Im particularly interested in state mythologies and how we use them or are used by them, do you think people can exist without any kind of „story“ or constructed narrative?

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DrakBalek t1_iv0jfje wrote

I don't, actually. Our brains are wired for certain kinds of communication and storytelling is one of the more critical aspects of our basic nature.

This isn't to say that "story" (or constructed narratives) exist independent of people ~which is a position I encounter a lot on the internet ~rather, that it exists in our minds and in our words.

And, by extension (and to some degree), through our actions.

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Lonely_Cosmonaut t1_iv0kiq6 wrote

I think this is the most striking topic in philosophy and it cuts straight through to our daily lives. I agree with you. I think that human beings have been telling stories since there were human beings, and that infact perhaps even telling stories is an attribute of being human itself. It’s dangerous and it is only rarely explored in serious work I’ve noticed, sometimes in Fiction like Frank Herbert’s Dune. (An excellent series on this very topic)

As an aside I don’t think that we fully understand mythologies and their applications and I’m deeply fascinated by them.

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MisterVee87 t1_iuxb3qh wrote

Traffic flowed like a river is a simile, not a metaphor.

Traffic is a river is a metaphor. And it requires none of the things you said. It requires the ability to abstractly compare the two things for their abstracted commonality.

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DrakBalek t1_iuxcd7x wrote

That's fair, I usually get those two mixed up.

. . . of course, so did the author of that Medium article . . .

>It requires the ability to abstractly compare the two things for their abstracted commonality.

And how should the audience compare these two things for the abstracted commonality if they're not familiar the things they're comparing?

1

Melodic_Antelope6490 OP t1_iuyfj14 wrote

To clarify here - A simile is a subcategory of a metaphor, it's just stated differently. So all similes are metaphors but not all metaphors are similes. It's arguable there are only two tropes - metaphor and symbol, with metonymy and synecdoche essentially being kinds of metaphors. But Traffic flowed like a river is a verbal way of referencing an underlying metaphor 'traffic is a river', just like 'we got off to a bumpy start' references an underlying metaphor 'a relationship is a journey', or 'they really swallowed that' the metaphor 'ideas are food'. In other words metaphors can be referenced indirectly.

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dasus t1_iuw4bg9 wrote

I have been pondering similar questions for a long time, and have a lot of thoughts on the matter, but simply put, I agree.

For instance, it's much easier to say "don't do that that's a sin, you'll go to hell" than it is to say "if you continue to misbehave in that way you'll likely develop a personality disorder which will ostracize you from the rest of your community, causing depression and loneliness, ultimately leading to a bitter, hateful and miserable life."

Dietary restrictions also make sense, as for instance pork is susceptible to trichinosis, but beef isn't, as cows don't eat meat. So banning pig products make sense.

It also makes sense that these people wouldn't have been able to conceptualize the things in the way we do, duh, so even if someone knew those weren't literal truths, there wouldn't really be other words that would let them describe what it really is.

For instance, "seeing the burning bush" is, in my opinion, a pretty clear reference to someone who's either been up for days and is hallucinating through exhaustion (been there, done that, know what it looks like) and/or has used psychedelic/deliriant compounds (been there, done that, know what it looks like). I can say that I'm pretty sure what sort of thing they're referring to with "the burning bush."

​

Also, OP, are you an avid reader Terry Pratchett?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPS5Yw_YsHA (transcription of the

>Susan : Now... tell me...
>
>Death : What would have happened if you hadn't saved him?
>
>Susan : Yes.
>
>Death : The sun would not have risen.
>
>Susan : Then what would have happened?
>
>Death : A mere ball of flaming gas would have illuminated the world.
>
>Susan : All right, I'm not stupid. You're saying that humans need fantasies to make life bearable.
>
>Death : No. Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
>
>Susan : With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
>
>Death : Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
>
>Susan : So we can believe the big ones?
>
>Death : Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
>
>Susan : They're not the same at all!
>
>Death : You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and THEN show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet... you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some... some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
>
>Susan : But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
>
>Death : You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?
>
>[they both watch the sun rise]

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AlienWotan t1_iux4tz8 wrote

To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

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Melodic_Antelope6490 OP t1_iuwef2j wrote

You know I've never got into Terry Pratchett but people keep telling me it would be my thing. I've had a copy of Small Gods on my bookshelf here about ten years, maybe I should get around to reading it.

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dasus t1_iv2r5hh wrote

Oh, one more;

>“And, er, these stories about you..."

>"Oh, all true. Most of them. A bit of exaggeration, but mostly true."

>"The one about the Citadel in Muntab and the Pash and the fish bone?"

>"Oh, yes."

>"But how did you get in where half a dozen armed and trained men couldn't even - ?"

>"I am a little man and I carry a broom," said Lu-Tze simply. "Everyone has some mess that needs clearing up. What harm is a man with a broom?"

>"What? And that was it?"

>"Well, the rest was a matter of cookery, really. The Pash was not a good man, but he was a glutton for his fish pie."

>"No martial arts?" said Lobsang.

>"Oh, always a last resort. History needs shepherds, not butchers."

>"Do you know okidoki?"

>"Just a lot of bunny-hops."

>"Shittake?"

>"If I wanted to thrust my hand into hot sand I would go to the seaside."

>"Upsidazi?"

>"A waste of good bricks."

>"No kando?"

>"You made that one up.”

― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

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dasus t1_iv2q4fc wrote

They're pretty short books an very funny and entertaining.

Honestly, I've used them as a substitute for weed; they take my mind off things and get the creative juices flowing a bit with it's weird thinking.

The way Pratchett sees the world and then writes a humouristic take about it, it's just.. beautiful.

The books are even hard to categorize, as sometimes they're proper fantasy, sometimes they're very light-hearted, some of them are pretty much detective novels, there's several books of one character and then several books of another, who don't have much to do with each other, but do visit similar places and meet the same people and so forth.

They're amazing. The TV-specials aren't half bad either, if you can stand the sort of cheap production values they have as TV-movies. I'd guess they might be more enjoyable after the books though.

There's no need to go through them in order, for instance Small Gods iirc is a more or less autonomous story with new characters.

"Thief of Time" is one of, if not THE favorite of mine. The first one's are classics as well.

All of them have had me giggling on public transportation, haha.

>“Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em.”

― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

---------------------------------------

>“Questions don't have to make sense, Vincent," said Miss Susan. "But answers do.”

― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

-------------------------------------

>“Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.”

― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
---------------------------------------

>“Just a minute," said Lobsang. "Who are you? Time has stopped, the world is given over to...fairy tales and monsters, and there's a schoolteacher walking around?"

>"Best kind of person to have," said Susan. "We don't like silliness. Anyway, I told you. I've inherited certain talents."

>"Like living outside of time?"

>"That's one of them."

>"It's a weird talent for a schoolteacher!"

>"Good for marking, though," said Susan calmly.”

― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's loads of better one's, these aren't probably the most giggly ones, but just from "Thief of Time". Oh, right, and the one I have memorized; "There's no educating a smart boy."

Here's a two minute video from an animated Discworld show, with Death voiced by the late, great sir Christopher Lee

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Storque t1_iuwtbz3 wrote

Several thousand years ago, the Greeks believed that Hades fell in love with the goddess of spring, Persephone. She was a lover of light and nature, and could not possibly have loved Hades, in his gloomy underworld.

But that didn’t stop Hades. He kidnapped her, took her to the underworld, and forced her to marry him. But, as she was held captive there, he noticed the things he loved about her disappear. Her inner light faded, and she wilted like a flower without the sun. So he made a deal with her.

6 months a year, she can live in our world, and bring spring and summer. But the remaining 6 months, she must return to the underworld. In her absence, autumn would strip trees of their leaves and winter blanketed the land in snow.

And that’s their explanation for seasons.

Now, the amount the average Greek knew about the world back then probably greatly facilitated their belief such a story.

And when the oracle proclaimed it from his pulpit on high, your average Greek had neither the knowledge nor the evidence with which he could reason against the claim, nor a reason to want to try to argue in the first place.

After all, he’d be called a heretic and malefactor if he did dispute it, so why would he.

Instead, he would participate in the faith and the various forms of culture and ritual that would emerge from it.

None of this has very much to do with the “Truth” factor of the assertion that winter exists because Hades married Persephone.

He might even find the story a bit romantic, and therefore relatable; Hades loves Persephone for her light and love of life, but recognizes that he will take what he loves from her if he holds her captive. So he lets her go.

Mr. Greekman might find that thought a bit intoxicating. Therefore, the story might double not only as an explanation for the seasons, but also as a commentary on the nature of love and it’s relationship to possession

But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that what it takes for him to believe the story is that it’s told by a person in a position of authority, and that he agrees that winter exists.

It doesn’t need to be true for there to be a reason to believe in it. The risk of social alienation is enough. And it at least somewhat parallels what he can observe about nature.

Let’s parallel this to the modern day.

Our relative understanding of the world has deepened. Our awareness of the politics of power has also deepened.

Myths and metaphor have done a relatively poor job keeping up with the development of our knowledge.

The problem is not the death of myth and metaphor. It isn’t that there is a vacuum of “belieflessness”, into which all meaning is absorbed and lost forever.

The problem is that many of these myths and metaphors are no longer relatable because they are not reflective of our experiences.

In a secular nation state, the risk of severe consequences for faithlessness are greatly reduced.

Thus, the changes in our knowledge and in our social environment have given rise to a phenomenon where myth and metaphor have become particularly impotent when it comes to performing (what I believe) their purpose is; to behave as an ideological and social coagulant.

The resulting lack of social cohesion is what’s responsible for the conflict of meaning and understanding that has arisen in the modern world. We will necessarily struggle to know what to believe when we live in a world without consensus.

While the smartest amongst us might have, at least partially, risen above a sort of tribal perspective, they’ve left the rest of us behind.

The vast majority of us are still arguing about God’s opinion on gay people.

But again, it isn’t the death of myth or metaphor that’s responsible for this.

It’s that there are now many opposing authorities offering differing explanations for the order of the universe, competing amongst each other to win over as much of the population as they can.

If each of these ideologies represents a sort of cohesive world view, their intersection and competition in the public domain is a sort of blender which reduces each competitor to an unidentifiable and alien slurry; it’s nutritional value, no longer visible or apparent.

To put it more concretely, studying science as a religious person might result in a conflict which makes both science and religion seem absurd by their comparison to one another.

While the professor and the preacher are espousing contradictory perspectives, the student must somehow either reconcile them with one another, or else renounce one in favor of the other.

While we can, at least partially be guided by reason, most of us are predominantly motivated through emotion. These emotions are themselves incredibly vulnerable to biases.

Because of this vulnerability to bias, there does not have to be a truth in our beliefs; our beliefs are often conformed around a set of needs we unconsciously hold. Myths and metaphors can appeal to these unconscious needs, but that isn’t because they’re true, it’s because they’re significantly more powerful linguistic tools for communication precisely BECAUSE they can slip past our defenses, target out emotional vulnerabilities, and bypass our faculty of reason.

The Hades and Persephone myth is made much more effective (in terms of its ability to get stuck in your brain) because it couches it’s explanation for the seasons in a story about the pain of loving from a place of deficiency or sorrow.

But, for the average person, our ability to believe in things is only slightly affected by its truth factor. Our beliefs, by my measure, are first and foremost shaped by their utility to us. And that utility is, once again, first and foremost emotional in nature.

And that is what enables us to form beliefs around untrue things.

I guess my point is that myth and metaphor are neither inherently good, nor do they have to be inherently truthful. They are not powerful through their ability to depict reality, but rather, because they are powerful linguistic tools to generally communicate a broad sentiment. They are effective at replicating reality in the same way an impressionistic painting is; they idealize and approximate some vague truths, seduce us with their beauty, and leave the mind to fill in the details.

This doesn’t make them inherently evil either. Myth and metaphor are simply powerful linguistic tools for communicating an idea or concept. To what end that tool is utilized is the measure of its value.

But the sort of “meaning void” we’ve fallen in to is much more a result of changing social and environmental factors, ideological and philosophical conflict between different sources of authority, and a general deepening of our knowledge (thus resulting in myth and metaphor needing to more accurately depict reality), than it is about our disconnection from some primal Truth that can only be ascertained through spiritual means.

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lost_in_space2020 t1_iuxr9dw wrote

"But the sort of “meaning void” we’ve fallen in to is much more a result of changing social and environmental factors, ideological and philosophical conflict between different sources of authority, and a general deepening of our knowledge (thus resulting in myth and metaphor needing to more accurately depict reality), than it is about our disconnection from some primal Truth that can only be ascertained through spiritual means."

So much yes. "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes." My friends and I frequently draw on that verse as an apt analogy of the current state of knowledge. I used to think it was possible to form some kind of "cosmological analogy" for our new technological paradigm, but sometimes the only way out of something is to go through it. Unfortunately I don't see the conflict resolving into a new paradigm anytime soon.

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Storque t1_iuyhfyd wrote

I couldn’t agree more.

As much as modern interpretations of spirituality get flack, I actually see them as a move in the right direction.

When people on Instagram post things about “listening to the universe” or whatever, I see it as a secular attempt to employ traditional religious modes and methods of interacting with the world and life in general.

In a world that is as decentralized as the one that we live in, it’s impossible to know when, if ever, such a belief system could codify into a unified set of principles that we could follow as a collective.

I’m doubtful if such an ideological unification would even be a good thing in the first place.

But I do see a lot of evidence that there is a trend towards a sort of modern, decentralized, more secular spirituality which at least attempts to reconcile our emotional wants and needs with modern developments in science and philosophy.

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glass_superman t1_iv03xj6 wrote

Have our myths gonna away because science has provided better answered or have they just changed form?

The myth of Hades is probably not relevant to us anymore because we have science to explain seasons. But what about our shared myths about how the economy must work or what is "America" or what is "liberty"?

1

eliyah23rd t1_iuw0zti wrote

It is possible that a subjective notion of truth is implied in the article, but if it is stated to be so explicitly, I missed it.

Many of the assertions that the article makes would seem to require a very subjective notion of truth. "Truth" would be a label given to an experience. Of course it could apply to an experience of visual immediate reality but equally to conjunctions of words with feelings (including moral imperatives) or words with meanings experienced in conjunction with other words. An experience of assent to such conjunction could be labeled "truth".

In that sense, myth cannot be a direct communication of truth. There is no shared evidential basis. At its most successful, words may evoke experiences of assent to conjunctions in the listener. It would not even be meaningful to compare the "similarity" between speaker and listener assent experiences.

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MisterVee87 t1_iuxav22 wrote

This is just wrong. From the first paragraph on. We don't mostly disbelieve myths. Lol We are constantly creating and propagating new myths.

5

KwietKabal t1_iuxph1d wrote

“Metaphors we Live By” by Lakoff and Johnson is a nice read, especially for anyone interested in cultural anthropology. Here is a pdf just in case.

4

Quiet___Lad t1_iuwxy5f wrote

Language is a tool used to communicate idea's and/or elicit emotions.

"traffic is flowing like a river after rain" communicates an idea. It may or may not be the best words to communicate an idea. Metaphor can be an excellent tool to use when communicating an idea. Or horrible. Details matter.

3

fax_me_your_glands t1_iuygsrd wrote

Thank you for this article. I think it is a little sad that today there is an extreme polarism in most people's mind that says "science true" / "religious myth wrong".

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Jake0024 t1_iuz1ru3 wrote

This seems like a semantic distinction of what you believe truth means

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TunaFree_DolphinMeat t1_iv0x7gx wrote

I don't think it's that simple. The allegorical values in religion do not need to be wrapped in anti-Semitism, divisive rhetoric, and bigotry. It's not a matter of right and wrong. It's like an apple being wrapped in fetid rancid meat. Yeah the apple is an apple but you don't want to eat your way through what it's wrapped in.

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jmcsquared t1_iuz1uz3 wrote

The ideas you're hashing out sound to me like the ones that have already been analyzed - perhaps poorly - in the debate between Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, and Bret Weinstein.

In short, is a linguistic error to claim that we should "believe" myth and metaphor.

We shouldn't really asking if myth and metaphor are "true" or if they should be "believed." The right question is, what do we call truths that are conveyed by myths, metaphors, and artistic fictions? The answer is clear: we call them moral lessons. A teenager might watch a film such as Star Wars and learn a lesson about redemption or bravery. That lesson manifests because it resonates in their psyche with an objective truth about human nature and life.

This isn't confusing for most art and mythology because people usually understand which categories those genres of human creativity belong to. That, however, is obviously not true with religion. Seeing authoritative texts as myth and metaphor is simply not the way the majority of religious people read those texts. The can of worms that kind of thinking opens is postmodern: those metaphors are fundamentally subjective because it's not clear at all what objectivity it's conveying without a textual interpretation to view the bible's claims through.

What lessons one extracts from the bible depends crucially on what interpretation one uses to understand it. If someone attaches literal belief to it, that is going to produce very different results than someone who reads the bible in the same way one would watch Star Wars. There is no reason to believe practically anything in the bible actually happened. Now that of course doesn't prevent someone from viewing the bible as a mythology with metaphorical truths similar to a film or piece of artwork that one can extract lessons from. But that does not mean one believes it even in that sense, just as one would never say that one believes in Star Wars.

And even if one does try to see moral reality within images in the bible, that is extremely hard to do if one engages with what is actually in that barbaric text as honestly as is possible (unless one conveniently ignores those nasty sections about god engaging in actions such as genocide and genital mutilation, which is incidentally what many Christians resort to).

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glass_superman t1_iv04n4n wrote

Maybe one day in the future all of humanity will unite as one society and we'll realize that we're all brothers and it'll be a real big kumbaya moment like John Lennon's "Imagine".

And in those times people will look back on the charters and constitutions of our nations and see them as myths the same as you view the Bible or Star Wars today.

The Bible is just the old myth. Now we have new ones. They will also prove to be bullshit.

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jmcsquared t1_iv18osg wrote

>The Bible is just the old myth. Now we have new ones. They will also prove to be bullshit.

Nobody believes a myth like Star Wars or Harry Potter actually happened. That's the problem. We understand that these are fictional works created by people.

What about the Epic of Gilgamesh? Again, there is no confusion about whether it actually happened, but that poem is very old, at least as old as the bible.

The problem is, the west has become obsessed and fixated on one particular myth, the monotheism from Judaism and Christianity. The middle east has done the same with Islam. The confusion is categorical: without this obsession, nobody would believe that these works are literally true in the sense of reflecting objective history.

But that's what dogmatic religion has brought to us.

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coyote-1 t1_iuwtq4f wrote

Ok, the linked article asks the question. The OP answers it in the affirmative in his thread title.

I am going to retort to the thread title.

NO. We do NOT need to believe myth and metaphor in order to understand ourselves. We need not believe anything… and in reality, as beliefs function as filters that prevent us from seeing reality, one could rationally argue that believing in stuff prevents us from understanding ourselves.

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EffectiveWar t1_iux3b8j wrote

We know our senses are limited (we see only spectrums of light), and flawed (some people see better than others) and unreliable (sight alone is not comprehension of what was seen).

If the true nature of reality is hidden then, at least for vision, one must necessarily operate on beliefs and not absolute facts to make progress, it is impossible not to unless all the parameters are known (perfect sight of all things all of the time), which they aren't and likely never will be.

Some beliefs do become filters, but that is a failure of proper reasoning (the rejection of new beliefs provided by new information) and does not affect the value of having beliefs at all. They are compulsory and useful.

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coyote-1 t1_iuxgshz wrote

While most of what you say is true, beliefs are ALL filters and therefore prevent us from seeing the full picture. That we are unable to see the full picture and are sometimes forced to therefore rely on beliefs is in no way equal to a need to buy into beliefs if we have an option to forego them and see reality instead.

Should we have relegated satellite science to those who continue to believe the earth is flat? Of what value is believing in that myth?

Relating to the concept of myth/metaphor: Icarus flew too close to the sun, so his wings melted from the heat and he fell to his death. It’s a fun story, and its point is to understand your limitations… but were we to believe in that myth as it is told, we would run counter to the science that it is colder as we get higher into the sky. One need only go up a thousand feet to know this.

But if you want to say that “belief in myth/metaphor“ is a metaphor for utilizing those tales as possible reference points, then perhaps you’re correct. Which would make them meta-metaphors lol

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EffectiveWar t1_iuxqe3f wrote

Beliefs aren't really filters, if by filters you mean something that obstructs. True reality, or the full picture as you say, is already blocked to us for obvious reasons, such as the eye example I gave you earlier. For us to see true reality, or be free from all filters or beliefs as you said, we would have to be Laplace's demon and such a being doesn't exist.

The point you seem to be making is that people stick to outdated, unuseful, unreliable or inaccurate beliefs and this causes them to have a worse understanding of the full picture. But this is not a fault of belief or having them, beliefs are compulsory and useful, its a fault of poor reasoning causing rejection of new information. People who stick to inefficient beliefs when new ones are being shown to be better, are behaving irrationally because their reasoning is poor and preventing them from adopting better beliefs.

We don't solve this by getting rid of beliefs and we can't anyway. Not ever, because we don't have perfect information about all things, all of the time and therefore every action we take is always founded on some belief or another.

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coyote-1 t1_iuyl2ls wrote

Belief. BeLIEf. BeLIEf. Be^(LIE)f.

It’s right there in the word. A belief belies the reality.

Just because beliefs are inevitable does not mean we ought embrace them. Rats and cockroaches are inevitable - do you embrace them? Let them roam freely in your kitchen? The more we can dispel belief, the better we can function in the modern world.

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EffectiveWar t1_iuyowtc wrote

Not sure how many ways to say this, you cannot operate without belief, not now and not ever. The absolute best we can do is improve our beliefs so that they match reality as closely as possible.

The fact that belief contains the word lie, has no significance. Its etymology is related to a mental acceptance of something as true, along with religious connotations of faith.

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coyote-1 t1_iuywgr5 wrote

Your argument mirrors that of religious believers who claim that atheism is a belief system - and that therefore, their beliefs in deities are as valid as the atheist belief that there are no deities. Once you iterate that it is impossible to transcend belief, then indeed you support their claim.

But atheism is not necessarily a belief that there are no gods. It is simply a lack of belief in gods! There’s a huge difference. The former stipulates that gods are a given, and from there which ones you believe in - while the latter says there’s no evidence of it. Furthermore, what is true remains true regardless of how fervent your belief otherwise… while that which is not true cannot ever be made true by mere belief.

So I will opt to disgree with the conclusion posited by the OP in his title. We do not need to believe anything - least of all fairy tales (myths).

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EffectiveWar t1_iuz1c5d wrote

Many people who consider themselves atheist are actually nontheist. There is only one type of atheist, those who claim there are no gods, as this cannot be proven it constitutes a belief. Everyone else is nontheist and rejects the question of the existence of deities entirely. An absence of belief is nothing, it isn't non-belief, hence nontheism, not atheism because you can't non-believe something, only believe that it isn't true, which is still belief.

I'm not sure how you can repeatedly state that its possible to not believe anything, when you don't even know for certain if you are really alive at this moment and not some brain in a jar. Or a simulation of yourself in a virtual environment. I might be a philosophical zombie for all you know. You have no idea if the sun will rise tomorrow, or the true speed of light because it depends on the sensitivity of the instrument doing the measuring. Everything is belief, or prediction or estimation. All of it.

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coyote-1 t1_iuz8b2o wrote

It goes this way: I can never know for certain what I am not. What I do know for certain is that I am. In whatever medium it may be, I am. You can make the case that it’s a simulation if you’d like; nonetheless, within that simulation IF it is that, I am.

I can tell you with utter certainty that the sun will not rise tomorrow. I’ve made the celestial observations and calculations myself. Our system is not geocentric, it is heliocentric. So the sun will not rise at all. Rather, our planet will continue to rotate for the remainder of my life unless some massive external force acts upon it. Likewise our star. It is not at all belief, therefore, to state that absent some as yet unknown massive external force our planet will continue to rotate as it continues to orbit our star.

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EffectiveWar t1_iuz9lw8 wrote

Cogito ergo sum doesn't mean the certainty of what one is. It just means that whatever is happening, is happening now. Having the thought I think, therefore I am, is a way of repeatedly reaffirming the occurence of real time events, by using a real time event. Not what, who, where or why you are with any certainty.

The sun will rise tomorrow has been a figure of speech for decades.

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SneezyAtheist t1_iuz1002 wrote

I believe taking good care of my kids is good.

Does that belief need to be dispelled?

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coyote-1 t1_iuz2sty wrote

Depends. Are you taking care of your kids in such a way that it is actually damaging them? And/or in such a way as adversely affects scores of other people? Are you so stuck in your belief that you are taking good care of your kids to notice if you are not?

I’m not arguing for or against any particular belief. I am merely stating that an insistence on a need to embrace belief itself is bound to lead to issues. Here’s one for you: virtually every “evil dictator” has been utterly convinced that he’s doing the right/good thing for his nation. Go read Mein Kampf. Hitler believed fervently that his course of action was the right and necessary course of action for Germany. Believed it so fervently and spake it so strongly, so very strongly, that he convinced millions of people to join him.

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EffectiveWar t1_iuww3yr wrote

That was well-written and covered a range of things but I really didn't get much out of it.

Subjective meaning is unique to the individual and yes, many find it within myth and religious texts and yes, we need to embrace subjectivity as well as objectivity and truth to have happier, more meaningful lives.

But we have known since the scientific revolution and the enlightment that seperation of church and state is a good thing. The subjective mind will find meaning in a brick shit house and will make itself happy, its designed that way, but we have suffered for generations at the hands of unfounded subjective belief, especially religious belief, overruling reason and science. Trying to salvage things like religious texts for any sort of factual truth that can be relevant and practical in the present is a dry well. If someone doesn't understand love thy neighbour by now then they are doing it out of wilful ignorance or malice. The bible has been squeezed for every ounce of truth for centuries and it should take its place as a subjective tool for personal insight, not a guideline for modern society or governmental policy.

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jumpmanzero t1_iux093x wrote

I keep reading these articles, but I never really get your point. Like, you see some kind of subjective/objective divide here:

Take abortion: is a human life within a womb significant based on an objective fact or a subjective decision? Left leaning news articles will talk about the pain of a miscarriage and the necessity of the choice for abortion without seeing a contradiction because the significance of life is purely subjective, right leaning ones will talk about human life within the womb as if the idea of its value from conception is a kind of irrefutable objective fact.

And I don't see the distinction working that way. Either side in this, or most other debates, tend to claim "our side is objective fact and your side is incorrect subjective opinion" - but that doesn't mean that's what's happening. In general these disagreements are not about the two sides have taken different approaches to understanding reality, they're just disagreeing on the matter at hand and using "objective"/"subjective" distinctions to discredit their opponents.

As to abortion in specific, I think it's a good example of how metaphor is often not a productive basis for ethical decision making. Each side in this debate has a metaphor:

"Abortion is like murder, therefore wrong"

"Abortion is like other health choices, therefore OK"

With this sort of deontological/metaphor approach, there's not really a framework for resolving conflicts. And thus when conflicts arise, people tend to fall back to consequentialism. For example, when presented with "abortion in the case of rape", many people who otherwise accept a "murder equivalence metaphor" will suddenly become more circumspect because they don't like a consequence of their otherwise clear position.

So how do we actually resolve a debate like this as a society? Well, that's pretty tough.

A reasonable chunk of the population believe that correct ethical reasoning ends with the tenets of their religion. God says abortion is wrong. It's therefore always wrong.

The next chunk believes ethical reasoning can involve some consideration of outcomes - but they have specific beliefs about reality that flavor that consideration. For example, they might believe God endows a soul to a person on conception, and that therefore that person deserves the same ethical weight and protection as anyone else.

A further chunk might believe that a distinction is less clear, such that the ethical weighting afforded a developing embryo-fetus may likewise grow over time (ie. that a 2 cell embryo might be afforded very little consideration, while a 8 month old or "survivable" fetus may require more weight or consideration).

Another chunk might believe that a fetus is not afforded ethical weight - that they are effectively an appendage of a mother. Or that, while having ethical weight, those weights are trumped by a mother's right to control their own body. Or. Or. Or.

These differing viewpoints are often backed by a different understanding of objective reality. Other differences come down to philosophy, and differing opinions on who has a voice in the ethical bargain and/or how to resolve competing ethical priorities - or even what ethics is, and whether it itself is objective or subjective. Or they come down to different ideas about the appropriate intersection of ethics and the law.

Long story short... I don't think the problem is that we don't read enough poetry, are worried too much about science, and thus can't see the truth about abortion. There isn't a magic key to everyone synchronized on this. Some people are likely not clear on their own position or how they came to it... but generally I think people just legitimately disagree on "the state of the universe and whether there actually is a God who is concerned with our fetuses" and/or "how do we decide what's right" and/or "what should be the goal of our laws" and/or "how will things play out if we make a law that says X".

I don't understand what your subjective/objective distinctions (or myth or metaphor or whatever) are bringing in terms of resolving or understanding these questions.

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Melodic_Antelope6490 OP t1_ivzx5od wrote

Hi, thanks for the response. Sorry it's taken me a week to read it, I've found a lot of these replies to be someone who's read the first paragraph and rushed back to tell me I'm a moron, which may be true, but still. Anyway, thanks yours is actually helpful and maybe I threw that abortion bit in without enough context.

You're perhaps right abortion isn't the best example, but the point is to reflect that it is a debate between an absurd dichotomy of a person deciding arbitrarily if a life is a life, and a person insisting a life is objectively a life at a point of conception because of a religious 'fact', and that this mirrors say, the gender squabble between the "I feel like a woman on the inside therefore I am a woman and it's morally wrong to say otherwise" and "woman is a female nothing else matters". Unfortunately, these debates really are that absurd. All the points you've raised illustrate that its a broad ethical issue with both outcomes and "values" that might not be agreed on, but it's literally framed in the public sphere as black/white subjective/objective.

So my point in saying the problem is that we don't read enough poetry is perhaps the other way around, we don't read poetry because we can't deal with metaphorical language without a facile insistence on reducing it to objective claims. 'Gender', however you look at it, is a metaphor. A literal man cannot literally be a woman, but masculinity and femininity are metaphors and abstractions, and if you accept that both have kinds of truth, but not the same kinds of truth, you can actually have a discussion. The point is that it's akin to Dawkins arguing about evolution with a seven day creationist. They're trying to argue the same things but putting together two language systems that aren't accessing truth in the same way, genesis one might be 'true', but it isn't an objective scientific theory.

If that makes any sense.

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jumpmanzero t1_ixixnuk wrote

I'd certainly agree that many people are unwilling to engage with these questions (or even internally interrogate or understand their own positions) to much depth. That in itself is a complicated problem to tease apart.

In any case, I think your comment here has helped me understand the angle you're coming from.

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AlchemiA t1_iux4hvx wrote

It has become evident to me that the ‘meaning’ envisioned by the Author\Speaker will probably have been revisioned by the Reader\Listener. Hence the subjective like/dislike quality to the tale told. Engrams or HieroGlyphs branded in the brain via synaptic structures are inter-connected: there, where you can gather more dendrites by adding new memories to old, thus creating a modular set of precepts in the garnering of meaning. Musing further, to use Socrates validation, ‘seeming is often master of the reality’ and we therefore need to agree to terms for an agreed meaning to be garnered. To deter the ‘revisionist’ and march like ‘soldier lemmings’ off an agreed upon ledge, to ‘meanings’ fatal fall, to reason's fatal flaw. Meaning is co-dependent upon Language=Syntax (agreements of form) for connecting, while Poetry is the flow and rhythm of words; sound-scapes which create meaning from word-movement--reflecting is optional!! And yet, we ‘disturb’ meaning by recreating Language in our own image according to these HieroGlyphic-synaptic modules we’ve garnered. Subjective intertextual ironics made of objective (echoing Nature) uber-lexical sonics become the happy dance of gleaning meaning. We are the meaning makers.

Language is a bridge, connecting, but the bridge has a syntax you gotta’ pay to getta’cross what you wanna’ say; Poetry is the stream below, murmuring, reflecting many Suns; meandering meaningful-sounds for each ‘n everyone!

In the phenomenology of Love coupled with the visceReality of joyousness which frissons up the spine, what remains is our own courage to change the world from inside out withoutta’ doubt; that lost Art of interior-design … it starts with wonder imbued in awe, unbound by the language of ‘reason’ nor by the fatal-skin we’re in, uncluttered with the pitter-patter of patterns promulgated by all of our bad education nor spoilt by the cliché of tribal-mediocrity!

As the Poet averred; We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. Ergo: if we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.

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Beederda t1_iuxeizz wrote

I can suggest a 50 part lecture series on youtube called “awakening from the meaning crisis” by a brilliant man named John vervaeke. He completely breaks down the meaning crisis, but it is a mental tax to go through the whole thing but incredibly worth it! If anyone wants a more in-depth video series on the meaning crisis definitely check out johns work!

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lore345 t1_iuxsit1 wrote

Myth is of fundamental importance in the history of philosophy. Ancient philosophers were able to exploit their arguments through myth. The most important example is the mythology linked to Orphism, which laid the foundations for the philosophy of Socrates, but especially for Platonic philosophy, introducing the concept of "daimon" in ancient and modern philosophy.
Despite all the importance that myth has had in the history of philosophy, in the present system, the soul has been removed from the dominant philosophical thought.
I therefore consider it of fundamental importance to bring the concept of soul back into the dominant philosophical speculation. Because through myth it is still possible to perfectly understand also the modern reality of our days.

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SovArya t1_iuyc2ca wrote

Not wrong. Clear thinking is the basis of a healthy mind. Reminds me of Markus Aurelius.

I observe my son, still pretty young learned concepts and ideas from the if then statement. He's not yet learned of myths and metaphors but, the if then allowed him to learn meaning.

And I would tell him stories with morals, made up, so he can understand the cause and effect of things. He would then make it simple to an if then statement.

It's probably not wrong to say, we need the if then logic for meaning and language and clarity.

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Substantial-Yak-8072 t1_iuyfy2u wrote

I don’t rightly know what metaphor is but I do know that I don’ find myth necessary or helpful. Religion, to me, is myth or at least part of myth. And I have no use for religion because religions are collections of fairy tales.

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glass_superman t1_iv049dm wrote

Capitalism is a fairy tale that permeates your life and I bet that understanding it would be helpful to you.

There's no such thing as "America" either but it matters very much to millions of people what it means.

I wouldn't throw out the myths so quickly if I were you!

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JustAPerspective t1_iuwz4ej wrote

Author puts a little too much emphasis on language as of necessary value to this concept, we feel.

"Being" requires literally zero effort. One doesn't clench to "be".

To understand ourselves, we need only examine the efforts we find ourselves making and ask ourselves "Why do we believe we need to do this?"... and then answer that question, plus all the others that come up, as completely as possible.

Understanding ourselves means accepting that we were born without language; we communicate with our bodies by feeling them.

Language is an attempt to break down the universe, to parse it into little bits and pieces, so that those individual facets can be explored, possibly even articulated. Yet language itself creates... nothing; rather it merely reflects what is.

What is does not require maintaining - it's why we can sleep at all. What is can be felt simply by relaxing completely... if one is capable of relaxing enough to feel. Like a fist clenched too tightly for too long, those cut off from their feelings by the impulse to "do" oft end up forgetting what it is to simply... be.

If "What we practice, we improve at" is true... well, a species-wide blindspot can be problematic.

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Cajun_Cordozar t1_iuyeyum wrote

Can we start moderating what sources can be posted to a “philosophy“ sub Reddit? Seriously people, this is just some random person’s blog where they write their personal feelings and opinions.…

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Melodic_Antelope6490 OP t1_iuygoxv wrote

Well may I ask what you expected to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain?

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petal_supply_fan t1_iuzd3z0 wrote

I believe in science not because I want to, but because it has enabled us to build weapons of war. It is provable via death. What's there to argue with?

Nothing in this article suggests to me that any sort of subjective belief can come close to that. And yeah, as another commenter suggested, scientific facts come much closer to tying the knot with their subjective counterparts than vice versa. The explanation that, if you don't act like you believe in a moral god, then you'll develop a personality which leads to despair and unhappiness, seems to me much more compelling than something from the other end. (Maybe like 'the firmament of fields vibrates to the music of eternal existence and consciousness springs from a sufficiently beautiful harmony of vibrating being-ness)

The article doesn't address this to my satisfaction so I fail to see what it can do. It's just another call to action to deny the nihilism (which it mischaracterizes as cynicism) which will destroy our society.

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sunnyata t1_iv05few wrote

> Animals may have consciousness of some kind, we don’t and probably will never know, but they don’t have reflective self consciousness because they do not use language.

That's a strange thing to say.

E: i.e. saying that animals don't use language. They do, of course.

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S-Vagus t1_iuw5pnz wrote

furiously satisfying masturbation has now begun

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