Something I've always wondered - especially if junk DNA turns out to have something to do with species memory or the collective subconscious - is where the hell do the 'mythical races' come from?
Are Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, etc. actually harking back to the race memories of early man - CroMagnon, Neanderthal, et al.? As we developed an oral culture were we still co-existing, even interbreeding, with other Homo types - and, if so, what would a Neanderthal be to early us... and what would we be to them?
Of course, this is pretty batty - its far more likely that stories arose from experiences of people who suffered but survived genetic (and dietary / environmentally-induced?) disorders.
Or maybe someone had been eating badly-stored grain - (h)er(e we )go(t) on rye, anyone?
Posted by lankyphil at April 21, 2004 07:48 PMHmmm. Well, ethnogenically speaking, it's possible - sensory distortions on most substances /can/ cause perception distortions - people's faces getting longer etc etc. These, combined with humanity's habit of anthrocentric perception - i.e. seeing anything that looks vaguely human-shaped as seeing a humanoid entity. This could probably account for say...trolls. Bear in mind, there is also the habitual tendency of humans to exagerate when returning with information - if an explorer from a short race bumps into say, 6ft red-headed dude wielding a claymore, well, it's not surprising this gets embroidered into an encounter with a giant.
The issue with racial memory is a little tricky - I clearly remember having screaming fits at the sight of snakes until about 8 - I'm over it now, but it has been suggested that the snake thing is partially due to the amount of tubes I had in me when I was incubated etc. In the same way, the human mind adapts to trauma I suppose - basic 'sane' processing of sense data within a recognisable context is actually in the minority if we think about it. What we consider our 'normal' state isn't actually the state we've spent most of our time in, it is merely what is the most stable.
Last time I heard/looked you were what, 6 6"? Even growing up in the house with my Dad, when yourself, Mike, your Dad and Grandpa were around when I was small and spending most of my time on the floor, you guys were blimming /huge/. Now of course, you're just big - mostly cos I've grown about 3-4 foot;) The point is, nobody quite knows what effect the data inputting into our brain from birth has - we can't even explain it without language, something that doesn't turn up for a couple of years. We have, in effect, 2-3 /years/ of data which forms our neural network that we /cannot/ access through conscious remembering - and more to the point, it's pretty damn hard to remember totally and utterly, all the sense impressions of say, five minutes ago.
I wouldn't mind betting that we are receiving sense-data on a subconscious level that we are not conciously aware of which then affects conscious behaviour, and we have /no idea/ about.
Most ethnogens can leave one with an obsession for details - you can spend three hours staring at your hands, becoming aware of them in a way you never were before. The classic revelations spoken of - sense of oneness, of being part something larger and connected in a way not normally felt, are brought about by changes in brain chemistry - there's no doubt of that. But rather than being completely internal, they affect our perceptions.
These perceptual quirks, seeing things that 'aren't there' are availiable even when you're straight - it's all a matter of altering perceptions - placing your mind on 'pattern recognition overload' as it were.
Try staring at patterned wall-paper for a while, completely relaxed, and you'll begin to see things, animals, shapes, faces etc. Next time, don't dismiss it as your imagination, but ask yourself:
"Was that face always there, and I just didn't see it?"
Sure, you may have bought flowery wallpaper. It had flowers on and had a label describing it as such. But you also bought walpaper with faces on. You just didn't see them. Which is real and which is not, I wonder? The two co-exist, as it were. Most of the time, your brain interprets that sense data as flowers. But every once in a while, you see a face. It's a difference in perception. The same information is presented to you, but the pattern recognition system of the brain is interpreting it - you are operating in an altered state of consciousness - i.e. outside your normal, standard running parameters. In this case, which is the more real, flowers or faces? We'd say generally that the flowers were real - they've been labelled as such, and in the standard state of consciousness which you inhabit, that is, nominal consciousness, you'd call them flowers.
But suppose they were labeled as face-wallpaper and everyone but you saw the faces more than the flowers, and you saw the flowers more, would you be 'imagining' things then?
I suppose what I'm trying to suggest is that faries/elves etc. may have been things seen by folk whose nominal consciousness was different to our own current consensually created standard. When these things were talked about, mentioned and placed into myth, they may transcend consciousness, that is to say, their descriptions for a linguistic structure which we can process in a variety of states of consciousness. We can entertain the existence of these fantastical creature, but to us, they are pretty much generally inaccessible in terms of direct apprehension. Whether or not they had/have objective reality isn't really the question.
I think its Focault who suggests there are 'discontinuities' in thought, that is, speaking historically, every change in method of thought, be it from scholasticism to enlightenment to modernity to post-modernity is not a continuous thing. Rather, it is like strata of rocks. Each thing is embedded within a stratum, influenced by all other things in a stratum.
It is therefore difficult, if not imossible for us post-moderns to completely apprehend scholasticism - we're in the post modern stratum - everything we think, at least that which is accepted consensually - possibly excepting a few fre^H^H^H^H^Hgeniuses - is firmly embedded within that context and cannot be without that context. Of course such a horizontal model has flaws, not least in terms of consciousness, but it is interesting to note that many cultures venerate verifiable and noticible change in consciousness in individuals - be they shamans, dancers, religious figures, musicians and artists.
It's as if those who spend their life operating differently to the norm, within acceptable limits of course, are recognised for the fact that they have moved into another layer. If that's the case, then maybe change in stratum is what happens when a society alters its consciousness on a mass-consensual level - the move from medieval 'meaning based' consciousness to modern 'cause based' consciousness.
Hobbits were Tolkein's creation - a modern myth-scholar based consciousness operating on more primal source material which may have had its roots in an earlier form of social consciousness. New things from old, conscious manipulation of mythic patterns perhaps?
Does lead to interesting point though - if any of my ranting is half-way right, then how many people operating in a state of consciousness different to the norm does it take to cause a consensual shift? Obviously, religious figures like Buddha and Jesus taught and collected followers. Thhese new memes pretty much triggered an alteration in consciousness in their victims, resulting in /significant/ cultural change. Since culture is a product of humans and humans have consciousness, you could argue that they shifted the consensual by altering the consciousness of those who have significant control of consensual reality...
Now I'm not advocating the 70's tune in, turn on drop out thing. Drugs that alter consciousness can do odd things, prescribed or not, but I think acknowledgement of 'altered states' as the useful things is pretty damn necessary.
Not to go on a paranoid rant, but I've often wondered if that's why governments are against use of certain kinds of chemical, why religious groups speak out against certain types of art and culture. Shifting out of context, even a little, gives you new perspective. When you are afraid, you become locked into survival instincts. You want to survive as you are. The idea of change becomes equated with loss of self/death. This means that if you can provide individuals with methods of escaping this 'death' they'll swallow it - viz the whole ID Cards stop terrorists thing. In general, most people aren't thinking about the issues, if you believe statistics. They are fully embedded in the context of fear and safety. Those who aren't quite there, however, can see the holes.
So, I guess what I'm suggesting is that flexible thought patterns come from the ability to alter ones 'nominal operating' mode of consciousness. We may never again be able to access the states of consciousness held by our ancestors - evolution may have screwed that one up, but we have the /product/ of those consciousness kept through story and culture. Perhaps there are some who can - I don't know, I know people who claim to have seen things which come right out of myth and I believe that they saw them. Whether they were 'real' well, who knows. All I know is, I try not to keep one kind of conciousness all the time - meditation helps with that, I find.
I think I'll shut up now....:)
C