Does myth, consciously separated from reason, have intrinsic value?

[Occam Bandage]

[kristopher]

1. Not sure what you mean by "consciously separated from reason"

But here is an example of why I answered yes:

Resource Use

The Tukano Universe is a limited system with finite resources. Their neighbors restrict the Tukanos in their boundaries. Tukanos rely upon their cultural beliefs and traditional skills for exploiting local resources. The goal of Tukano activities and attitudes was the biological and cultural continuity of their society. To achieve this goal, Tukanos, through time, classified each animal and plant species in their area, recognized behavior, seasonal occurrence, feeding habits and relationships between species. They observed a system of strict reciprocity in all relationships that were established in the environment. Unlike Westerners, Tukanos had no interest in exploiting the environment for the possibility of obtaining more food or raw-materials than was actually needed. This maintained biotic equilibrium. Tukanos believed they must bring themselves into harmony with nature in order to survive. This was achieved by undergoing periods of preparation before one was allowed to hunt game, fish, or gather necessary resources, even wood, fiber and clay. In this respect, one could not go hunting, fishing or gathering anytime one needed something. These resources could only be obtained by permits which came from the spirit-owners of the resources. As these rules were followed by all members of Tukano society, they survived in a restricted environment whose finite resources were easily depleted.

The Tukano obtain most of their protein from fishing in the Vaupés river. The river, classified as a blackwater system, only supports minimal life because of its nutrient-deficiency. It is also damaging to life because of the high levels of acids and metals. The Tukano have great knowledge of their environment and have preserved the natural vegetation of the forests for fisheries maintenance instead of clearing the land for agriculture. This has provided them with long-term economic benefits. Soil found in flooded forest areas and on riverbanks of blackwater rivers are very poor. Clearing the land for agricultural purposes would benefit no one. Fish survive by feeding on debris from plant and animal life that fall into the river from the forest and also from forest substances in areas adjacent to the river that surface during the annual floods. As these substances fall into the river, nutrients are released. This enriches the river and helps support life. In this sense fish production in the flooded forest have greater potential than agricultural production in cleared blackwater floodplains. Tukano beliefs prohibit the deforestation of riverbanks because the river belongs to the fish not humans. Taboos and the concept of reciprocity prevent over-fishing and is observed by all Tukano.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/biodiversity/aislynn1.htm

[Occam Bandage]

2. With the exception of certain fundamentalist movements,

most people who accept myths do not do so because they believe they are factually true, logically sound, and scientifically verifiable. Indeed, those questions are seen as complete non-sequiturs. They accept them, rather, because the myth provides some cultural meaning, bestows some greater truth, teaches some religious value, or enforces some beneficial practice.

I believe, as do most people here, that accepting myths as literally, logically, and scientifically truthful is generally harmful. By "myth as separated from reason," I am asking if one can believe that myths have some value without approaching them from a rational perspective.

[kristopher]

6. So is a climate change denier accepting a myth?

Their belief structure re climate change is as false as any mythology, it is passed in the manner of mythology and yet they believe it to be factually true, logically sound and verifiable.

I think the problem I have with this question is that there is far to much ambiguity. If forced I'd infer that you are focused on a perspective from modern western culture and that you are talking about religion more than mythology, but it isn't clear.

[Occam Bandage]

9. You do not seem to understand what a myth is.

Myths are sacred stories full of symbolism intended to illuminate some condition of the innate human experience. "False," "factually true" and "logically sound" are not phrases that are appropriately used to describe myths by those who hold them. What matters is not whether there actually lived a man named Noah who actually put animals in a boat on a certain date in history; what matters is what that story says about man and his relationship to the the world in which he lives.

Climate change denial is by no means a myth. It is a falsehood. It is a secular denial of a secular scientific paradigm, focused on an aspect of the physical world. Logical soundness and factual truth are considered by those who believe in it to be the prime reasons for supporting it. It says nothing whatsoever about the human condition, nor is there any symbolism at any point. It is almost as if you were looking for something that was the complete and total opposite of a myth.

[kristopher]

16. I disagree with your definition

Myths are sacred stories full of symbolism? Ok, if that is how you want to define it, that's fine. However it isn't a given that your definition is consistently used.
Here is an online discussion of the divergence in definitions: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/mythology/f/111408WhatsMyth.htm

Myself, I have a background in cultural anthropology and my general concept of a myth is a common (edit to add: by common I mean commonly believed through noncritical learning) mental model that is formed within a group to explain the workings of the world - mundane, extraordinary, and other worldly.

The point I was trying to raise is that your questions, while interesting, are predicated on YOUR understanding - which you are taking for granted is shared by all. As eventually became clear you are using it to label religious beliefs you disapprove of as lies. That is a legitimate usage.

[kwassa]

3. I don't think that myth is conciously separated from reason

There is a certain amount of reason and logic internally to the myth itself, though you may be defining reason as to whether or not the premise of the myth is reasonable, rather than within the story itself.

[Occam Bandage]

4. You are correct on both counts. nt

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. Wow, that's a really good question.

I think the catch is in the "conscious separation from reason". For a myth to have value, you have to be willing to really take it in, to let it effect you. You don't have to believe in the physical reality of the talking snake in the tree, (for instance) but you have to be willing to believe that some kind of meaning is there, chew on it, find yourself in it. Same with a hollywood movie. To get anything out of it you don't have to believe its real, but you need to suspend disbelief while watching the movie, open your mind and really take it in.

[knitter4democracy]

7. I believe in Jung's theory on archetypes.

Myths so fundamental to our existence as human beings that they're everywhere in the culture.

[kristopher]

8. In every culture. nt

[knitter4democracy]

14. True. I was trying to go more for the idea of their pervasiveness.

Pervasiveness within a culture as well as within all cultures.

[Odin2005]

23. I agree.

I often half-jokingly say that I am still "culturally Christian" despite being an atheist. Judeo-Christian mythology is just as much a part of Western culture as Graeco-Roman mythology was a part of Graeco-Roman culture. IMO the Western worldview can be seen a a fusion of Indo-European-derived notions of fate and destiny (which when secularized became notions of impersonal laws of nature) and Middle-Eastern religious-cultural traditions that eventually developed in the West into notions of human rights, humanitarianism, and egalitarianism. In there religious sphere the Graeco-Roman influence is seen is such things as Predistination and the Augustinian conception of Original Sin (which is, so I've heard, different from the notion of Original Sin held the Eastern churches).

[DeSwiss]

10. Have intrinsic value?

No, I think not. It had at one time. But not after the Age of Reason, however. At one time, myths were essential, but only in the absence of reason and science. Myths were the only means of recording history until writing. And when they discovered that, they simply wrote down the myths. Neither were then, nor now, accurate. And as Reason expanded its role in deducing the natural world, its relevancy has grown less and less. So now myth can only be seen as an encumbrance to humanity.

- Just pick up any newspaper and we can see the results of myth in its predecessor -- RELIGION.

[Occam Bandage]

11. I'm not convinced that the purpose of myths ever was to explain actual history or natural law.

I believe that to be an ancillary function at best. In the post-Enlightenment Western world, we tend to look for factual explanations for physical phenomena. That is a very peculiar desire in the course of human history, and one that has only produced tangible advantages in the economically flexible post-agrarian society of Europe after 1700. I believe it's something of a mistake to assume that other cultures possessed similar mental desires.

Rather, I think that the purpose of myth was, rather to explain the physical processes of the world, to provide spiritual meaning and context to it. I wonder if such a thing has a use in the rational society in which an ever-increasing number of people live.

(I also believe myth predates religion, not the other way around)

[knitter4democracy]

15. That's how I look at Genesis 1.

I know that there are many Christians who think that Genesis ch.1 with both of its creation myths is literally true, but I think it's there more for the metaphorical truth, the mythic truth. If God had written down the literal lab report of exactly how creation came into being, we still wouldn't have the scientific background to understand all of it. What would the point of that be? What good would it do to try to explain the Big Bang, evolution, E=MCsquared, string theory, and all of it over two thousand years ago when people thought the earth was the center of the universe? Instead, the idea of resting one day a week, that woman was formed from the side of man so as to be his equal (something too darn many people miss), and that we come from mud and muck and need the breath of life to be other than mud and muck--those are far more powerful for far longer than the beauty of the math and physics involved in creation. At least, they're more understandable to more people.

[DeSwiss]

19. Based upon what I've learned and read...

...about humanity's development, the recounting of the natural occurrences (weather, storms, floods, eclipses, earthquakes, etc.), and of the exploits and experiences of individuals (leaders, role models, etc.) within these early groups, that myth "evolved" from what was essentially a means of survival. Group effort and cohesion could only be enhanced if what was happening around them could be "explained." As well as providing some rationale for efforts that are best or only accomplished by the whole group. So a degree of group-think was needed to make survival as successful as possible. Myth provided this. These oral histories, with the invention of writing, later became the myths and legends that we now recount, but which served then as early humanity's history and religion.

As humans traveled out from the savannas, they took with them the central core of their myths and beliefs. These central core themes often involving the heavenly bodies and other central characters, were carried along with these different groups and evolved in different directions with new exploits and legends, but always retaining same central core of their beliefs. I believe that this, in addition to later group conflicts and the conquering of tribal-nations, best explains the similarities within these legends and myths occurring in far-flung civilizations, over time.

And you were right about the grammar correction, I did mean quite the opposite.

[rug]

12. Of course. What about Tantalus?

[saltpoint]

13. Yes. Strongly yes.

[saltpoint]

17. This is a great thread, a great question.

I'm bookmarking it as a true keeper.

Thanks for putting it up there for us, Occam Bandage.

[dmallind]

18. Sure - there is great entertainment value and social anthropology insight

Does it have any valid explicative value for objective phenomena? Not a shred. But the myths of a people or a society tell us a lot about what they value, what they fear, how their society viewed power, what traits they admired and revered, etc. Plus they are often great fun in their own right. I enjoy reading all kinds of mythology and folklore. Sometimes the similarities tell us much (the ubiquity of flood myths in the Eurasian and Middle Eastern areas for example is probably rooted in a real example of the Black Sea Deluge) and sometimes the differences do too (the number and role of gods plus their similarity or lack of it to humans is anthropologically valuable).

[Occam Bandage]

20. I agree that myth does not convey valid explicative value for objective phenomena,

and I believe that it was not meant to convey valid explicative value for objective phenomena. That seems to me a rather novel pursuit, and one that agrarian societies have little if any use for. Rather, I think myth was, as you put it, to convey values, fears, and views on power and traits, as well as entertainment. I also agree that the anthropological value of myth is undeniable.

I'd like to ask your indulgence for a related question. At one time in human history, it was possible to accept myths without denying rationality, for myth and rationality were largely separate spheres. In today's rational society, in which near everything may be understood rationally and as objectively as is possible (without going off into critique of pure reason territory), and in which there is very little possibility for myth that would not overlap with and thereby conflict with knowledge, is there still an intrinsic value to myth? Is it a good thing for people to accept myths wholeheartedly on the level of myth, despite the fact that doing so requires a suspension of rationality if not a limited denial?

[dmallind]

25. The value is still there, but it must be viewed differently

Even IF (and I am still unconvinced) myth was never meant to be taken seriously and the whole idea of, say, the ubiquitous flood myth was to explain and extol upright living and good animal husbandry with a dash of watch out for the wrath just in case, that must still be relegated to the realm of socio-historical curiosity once more empirical and verifiable methods of explaining the same ideas are established.

Myth is valuable and entertaining, but must always make room for facts qua facts. It's still fun to read the Inferno. It's not still OK to tell kids they will go there or to burn sinners alive since that is their eternal destiny anyway. It's still fun to retell folk tales about the coyote, but not sane to use them to explain how coyotes evolved. Myth has intrinsic value, but only as myth firmly understood to be so. Suspension of disbelief is still possible even for the most ardent rationalist. I still read fiction - even very "mythological" fiction , and I am still intrigued or moved by the characters. I just know it's fiction, and don't let it intrude into how I see issues or solve problems in real life.

When humanity can as a whole view religion like that, a shitload of problems will disappear overnight, and many more will be solved far more quickly than they are now.

[ZombieHorde]

21. 'Does', 'from', and 'have' are all awkward word choices, but I voted 'yes'.

[Odin2005]

22. Yes, because of the allegorical aspects of myths. Allegory is a very powerful thing.

I'm an atheist, but even I find myself using references to Judeo-Christian mythology constantly. in fact, it is inseparable from reason and rationality because allegory is so important in human cognition. IIRC it was the philosopher of science Karl Popper that said that "Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths". the key distinction being that in Science the myths are tested instead of being dogma.

[saltpoint]

24. KICK.