Jung Space, Collective Memory, Dna/cell Memory

[Ouroboros]

Unless it was early mans attempt to explain where socks go when they disappear.

They have transcended from real into the community awareness and do not exist as mere physical socks anymore. They have gone from particulars to forms, in the light of the all good.

[Grandpa Harley]

BTW, every culture seems to have a flying lizard archetype and a 'malign little people' one too... which could either point to a species memory, or to real little people and dragons...

 

Indonesian hobbits and Pterodactyls? Who knows, it is very curious though. Its not like people have some empty part of them that only tales of mischevious little people can satisfy.

 

Unless it was early mans attempt to explain where socks go when they disappear.

 

The little people one is something I studied, dragons less so... I seem to the only the Inuit and kindred tribes didn't seem to have any recorded little people legends... although their 'Ice dancers' bear a passim relation to a type of dragon (that blows cold instead of fire)

 

However, across the board, the 'little people' from Ireland to fly-shit islands in the Pacific (Easter Island being a notable one) have legends of a race of small people who were best not even mentioned much, let alone tackled... and it's more than mischief. Underpinning most of the legends I read, even the most facile ones had a breath of 'something' that wouldn't be out of place in an Arthur Machen tale... sort of alien = evil or at least inimicable... even with the 'good' intent they destroy the humans in contact with them.,, now why nearly every race with a narrative tradition has this 'little people' meme, I don't know, but the commonalities are

 

1) Extreme malignity/ just plain toxic to be near

2) small stature

3) atypical racial features compared to locals (staring eyes, hooked or no nose, large or no ears, black or bone white skinned)

4) the access to some sort of great power and the ability to wield it pretty efficiently (legend around vitrified forts and 'blasted heaths' are a theme)

5) Nocturnal or crepescular

 

Same with dragons

 

1) all are poisonous (links to poisoned wells, blasted heaths, methane ridden marshland, or other desolations)

2) all fly

3) all have treasures

4) cave dwelling (either cliff or aquatic, but always CAVE)

5) capricious, but generally possessors of great knowledge, that can be had for a price

6) all reptilian (at least scaly)

 

from polar ice to polar ice there be dragons...

 

now we're either looking at some form of 'race memory' of something 'real' or we're looking at something that seems to reside in the liminal world between our conscious or subconscious minds... what I call Jung Space... and it seems to be the source of why something can be transcendently beautiful or atavistically terrifying. It's like it's in the line where the hardware ends and the software begins... sort of firmware for humanity, but it's somehow wired into us...

 

and now I'm getting into Patrick Harpur/Lyall Watson territory...

[sojourner]

QUOTE (The-Doctor @ Feb 14 2008, 12:24 PM)

Unless it was early mans attempt to explain where socks go when they disappear.

 

They have transcended from real into the community awareness and do not exist as mere physical socks anymore. They have gone from particulars to forms, in the light of the all good.

 

ah that was very good Hans , afterall they have souls right?

 

man I loved that, it would make a great signature lol

 

sojourner

[Ouroboros]

ah that was very good Hans , afterall they have souls right?

Well, the shoe got soul, so why not socks.

[The-Captain]

However, across the board, the 'little people' from Ireland to fly-shit islands in the Pacific (Easter Island being a notable one) have legends of a race of small people who were best not even mentioned much, let alone tackled... and it's more than mischief. Underpinning most of the legends I read, even the most facile ones had a breath of 'something' that wouldn't be out of place in an Arthur Machen tale... sort of alien = evil or at least inimicable... even with the 'good' intent they destroy the humans in contact with them.,, now why nearly every race with a narrative tradition has this 'little people' meme, I don't know, but the commonalities are

 

1) Extreme malignity/ just plain toxic to be near

2) small stature

3) atypical racial features compared to locals (staring eyes, hooked or no nose, large or no ears, black or bone white skinned)

4) the access to some sort of great power and the ability to wield it pretty efficiently (legend around vitrified forts and 'blasted heaths' are a theme)

5) Nocturnal or crepescular

 

I'm not really up on my mythology but I was thinking more along the lines of brownies, pixies, and elves (they werent malevolent were they?).

 

Are these more the dwarves, goblins and Rumplestiltskin types we see in European tales?

[Grandpa Harley]

Mostly what you're citing is post Arthur Rackham. Before 1900 in the English speaking world, the 'wee folk' were pretty dark and nasty... The last examples of the meme appear in the Arthur Machen stuff (which has not aged well to a 21st century reader for the most part, the White Pyrmaid, The Great God Pan and the Tale of the Black Seal are seminal in the late spawning of the view of the fae folk) and Robert E. Howard's tales (Worms of the Earth being a good example, but the malign little people were a recurring theme in REH)

[The-Captain]

Mostly what you're citing is post Arthur Rackham. Before 1900 in the English speaking world, the 'wee folk' were pretty dark and nasty... The last examples of the meme appear in the Arthur Machen stuff (which has not aged well to a 21st century reader for the most part, the White Pyrmaid, The Great God Pan and the Tale of the Black Seal are seminal in the late spawning of the view of the fae folk) and Robert E. Howard's tales (Worms of the Earth being a good example, but the malign little people were a recurring theme in REH)

 

Hadnt a clue.

 

Danke. I'll read up.

[The-Captain]

Unless it was early mans attempt to explain where socks go when they disappear.

They have transcended from real into the community awareness and do not exist as mere physical socks anymore. They have gone from particulars to forms, in the light of the all good.

 

Oh you're one of those "transcendent universalist sock" heretics!! :ohmy:

 

You blaspheme the Son of Yarn and his fuzzy sacrifice!

[Grandpa Harley]

Mostly what you're citing is post Arthur Rackham. Before 1900 in the English speaking world, the 'wee folk' were pretty dark and nasty... The last examples of the meme appear in the Arthur Machen stuff (which has not aged well to a 21st century reader for the most part, the White Pyrmaid, The Great God Pan and the Tale of the Black Seal are seminal in the late spawning of the view of the fae folk) and Robert E. Howard's tales (Worms of the Earth being a good example, but the malign little people were a recurring theme in REH)

 

Hadnt a clue.

 

Danke. I'll read up.

 

folklore was an interest of mine for a while...

[Ouroboros]

Oh you're one of those "transcendent universalist sock" heretics!! :ohmy:

 

You blaspheme the Son of Yarn and his fuzzy sacrifice!

And you're obviously one of those dogmatics that love socks and shoes for more reasons than just for their pure goodness! Watch out so you don't become a terrierist. It's tempting when you're so categorical. You see, I don't want to wake up one morning, after an attack by you, in a poodle of blood.

 

(I guess they did put in one extra shot in my coffee...)

[sojourner]

a 'poodle of blood'

 

sojourner

[The-Captain]

Oh you're one of those "transcendent universalist sock" heretics!! :ohmy:

 

You blaspheme the Son of Yarn and his fuzzy sacrifice!

And you're obviously one of those dogmatics that love socks and shoes for more reasons than just for their pure goodness! Watch out so you don't become a terrierist. It's tempting when you're so categorical. You see, I don't want to wake up one morning, after an attack by you, in a poodle of blood.

 

(I guess they did put in one extra shot in my coffee...)

 

[Astreja]

BTW, every culture seems to have a flying lizard archetype and a 'malign little people' one too... which could either point to a species memory, or to real little people and dragons...

/me wonders if dragons are an artifact of our lizard brain...

 

To return to the problem of memory and DNA, RNA, we essentially have what amounts to a digital system with four "digits" (A, C, G, U) and 64 three-digit "codon" sequences ('ACG', 'UUA' and the like).

 

If we think of memories as static entities, it's hard to imagine how they could be stored in a protein sequence. However, if memories are actually "programs" that are normally quiescent but which can be triggered to re-play, then yes, I see genetically transmitted "memory" as a distinct possibility.

[Ouroboros]

Maybe the memories are stored in the "junk" DNA? Heck, most of what I know is junk anyway...

[Grandpa Harley]

"

/me wonders if dragons are an artifact of our lizard brain..."

The dragons of Eden...

[sojourner]

Hi Astreja

 

I will have to use a dictionary and some googling to decipher your post but it sure sounds interesting.

 

sojourner

[The-Captain]

To return to the problem of memory and DNA, we essentially have what amounts to a digital system with four "digits" (A, C, G, U) and 64 three-digit "codon" sequences ('ACG', 'UUA' and the like).

 

If we think of memories as static entities, it's hard to imagine how they could be stored in a protein sequence. However, if memories are actually "programs" that are normally quiescent but which can be triggered to re-play, then yes, I see DNA "memory" as a distinct possibility.

 

Adanine, Guanine, Thyamine, and Cytosine I thought, whats the "U"?

[Astreja]

Adanine, Guanine, Thyamine, and Cytosine I thought, whats the "U"?

Oops, listed the RNA components by mistake. In RNA, uracil (U) takes the place of thymine. Got my info from here.

 

(Oh, and Gramps, funny you should mention The Dragons of Eden -- It's sitting on the bookshelf not five feet away from my desk. I have a truly amazing backlog of books-to-be-read. You wouldn't happen to know of a reliable speedreading course, would you?)

[Guest Marty]

I always thought the dragon tales were inspired by finding dinosaur bones and not knowing what they are.

[Grandpa Harley]

there is a theory that the morbid taste for bones the RCC has comes from the Greek's having the bones of Titans and Golden Age heroes in the their temples... Greece and turkey are a hot bed of dinosaur and gigo-mammal bones...

 

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...675787309884393

[HuaiDan]

The brain functions like a hologram. It has been posited if you were to bisect the brain and keep both halves alive in separate bodies, both would have a complete set of memories, just as if you cut a hologram in half you would have 2 complete holograms. There'd have to be something really freaky and really complex (multi-layer encoding?) going on for memories as we know them to be stored in DNA/RNA. Something far beyond our current understanding, which for utilitarian purposes is correct.

 

 

However, our brains could be hard-wired through genetic encoding to receive certain predictable stimuli during its development: some pleasurable, some terrifying, some humorous, etc. Ever watch an infant and wonder what the hell is going through its head? Behavioral and emotional encoding. Looking for expected sensory patterns and putting them with the proto-emotional impulses that are somehow most compatible. If the infant succeeds, healthy baby. If baby fails, mal-adjusted baby.

 

Genetic analysis of the deranged could provide some nifty clues on these genetic "memories".

[R. S. Martin]

I'm half Irish and a lot of Viking... neither culture appeals at any level...

 

The Vikings have always appealed hugely.

[Ouroboros]

I'm half Irish and a lot of Viking... neither culture appeals at any level...

Well, here's a brother.

 

I'm a lot of Viking too. We have some polish blood mixed in too, but mostly the Swedish, east-coast vikings, who traded in Russia and traveled inlands down to Europe.

 

We lived about 4 miles from Ulva Kvarn, which has burial mounds from the viking age, and just 10-20 miles South of Upsala they started an archaeological dig during the late 80's, early 90's, for (what they think) is the oldest settlement ("city") from the viking era. (Damn, can't remember the name of the place... hopefully it'll come later.)

 

The Vikings you're related to most likely came from "Thule", Norway. They traveled more by the famous boat out on the ocean, and went ashore along the European coast (and especially on the British islands).

 

But you know that already...

 

I have to find my pictures from the judge rings and rune stones from my hometown... It's pretty cool. Many times I took the bike or walked to one of the most famous places. It's a ring of 7 (or was it 9?) stones. That's the judge ring. They believe it might be from the really early time, maybe a religious place used by the druids. No one knows.

[Legion]

I am coming in way late on this thread. But I wanted to throw my two cents in on the OP.

 

and since you're making wild assertions, prove it... prove we're not just an over engineered feeding, breeding, survival machine... after all it's a mighty high falutin' opinion for a bald ape who used to have an imaginary friend...

I am not yet capable of duplicating the argument, but theoretical biologist Robert Rosen argues that organisms and machines are of two different natures.

 

Are people special? I think they are for many reasons. I have little doubt that some of these reasons are sentimental self-aggrandizement. But some of the reasons seem as “objective†as you might wish.

 

Collective unconscious? I don’t know, maybe. Campbell says that the myth is the public dream and that the dream is the private myth. I never much cared for Jung, but that doesn’t automatically mean all his ideas are bunk.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[Grandpa Harley]

Without Jung, we'd not have Campbell... and saying one does not care for Jung is akin to saying that one doesn't care for the methods used by Champollion to open the way for our understanding of Hieroglyphs or De Gama's voyage to India, which was a failure in many ways but proved it could be done...

 

Jung did the best he could do with the tools available, in a country as unexplored and more dangerous than upstate New Jersey