The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things. —Aristotle, Metaphysics 1-5 , cc. 350 BC In a way, we are all heirs to the Pythagoreans. M...

bg, I can’t speak for Claude Levi-Strauss because I’m not all that familiar with his theories. He’s referred to a lot. But my own take is that language is a very late development in our evolution. Ritual preceded language. Dance preceded language. Music preceded language. Thought preceded language. ...

Bodhi, Muxter, It is an unfortunate consequence of our age that a person often dies in the public mind long before his physical body fails. I too, never would have thought Levi-Strauss was still alive. There is a great deal of overlap between the work of Campbell and Levi-Strauss. An overlap and an ...

Great topic and a great website by Jeff House that provides a very concise snapshot of myths, heroes, rituals, and gods. Being a cynic, I’m always skeptical about the authenticity of a story said to have come from ‘natives’. Anthropologists are never the first to arrive. First are the explorers, soo...

Technically, if you draw a right angle of both sides = 1, then the hypotenuse cannot be drawn because the square root of 2 is an irrational number. - RS Just hafta throw in my two nano-cents on this one. Following this logic Richard, you wouldn’t be able to draw the hypotenuse even on a 3,4,5 right...

Thx Andreas, Those are good analogies Owl to describe the fundamentalists – the Borgs and the Nazis. But the Borgs were unfeeling machines, incapable of emotions, amoral not immoral. The Nazis and religious fundamentalists that resort to terror are acting ‘with passionate intensity’. (W. B. Yeats, ‘...

Thx Owl, No, I don’t like the scientific assault on the religious Right unless it is accompanied by some sort of spiritual message. Dawkins sees the problem of a lack of rationality without recognizing or appreciating in some way the problem of a lack of spirituality. I haven’t had anything to do wi...

I think the problem really is these desert myths are not really up to the job anymore. The attacks on religion arose quite naturally, as science and rationalism were being attacked in the United States. Even today this moronic majority is trying to force their creation myth to be taught in the scie...

Joseph Campbell once said that the ecological problem, applied to the entire globe, as symbolized by the image of the earth from the vantage point of the moon; a blue, white, brown, and green sphere with no national borders, may be the unifying theme of a new mythology. Gaia, mother earth, the harmo...

I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it Clemsy. Shakespeare hacked up the English language many times. James Joyce titled his last novel Finnegans Wake without the possessive apostrophe. The Irish ballad he took it from was titled Finnegan’s Wake because it was about Finnegan’s funeral. It was also a...

Hey, really great explanation of the hero journey on wizard of oz, Noman. - Andreas Thx Andreas, Reading through it I realized there is one obvious but important symbol I forgot to mention. The ruby shoes that Dorothy won’t give up are a symbol of her autonomy – her free will. Maturation is all abo...

Evinnra and all, It was once understood that the terrestrial sphere was our mortal universe, a cozy little world. Yet there was still talk of many other worlds, a hierarchy of worlds where angels and demons dwell. Sort of like the star ratings for hotels. And we happen to be staying in a three-star ...

hi bg, The name ‘big bang’ sounds derogatory. It may be, at least in part, the result of Hoyle’s attitude towards the theory. But I’ve also heard the suggestion that scientists operating at this level had (and still have) an attitude toward traditional Western religion – especially in light of Darwi...

bg - I didn't mean that all human beings are destructive or that humankind is necessarily programmed for destruction. I just meant that the capacity for suicide - and war - are not something we would want to pass on to the next-generation of higher consciousnesses. Just a little modification here an...

If (a), (b), or (c) turn out to be the eventual winner of this race – if there is no mystery left – it points the way to a chilling realization for the future of humankind. If there is no mystery left, we will most likely figure out a way to create ‘human consciousness’. Now I’m not talking about ‘a...