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Mermaid
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New project
« on: 2004-01-26 10:29:00 » |
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I have a proposal for a new project. Something I'd like to call Project Mythologia.
What are the mythological concepts that seem futuristic to you?
Here are some 'weird' mythical narrations:
In the Mahabharata, Queen Gandhari(princess of Gandhar kingdom--and married to the blind king Dhrithirashtra gives birth to a hard ball of flesh.(or a huge ball of iron..diff versions) She had obtained a boon that she would have a hundred sons and when she despaired, the royal guru breaks the ball of flesh(or iron) into one hundred pieces. He places each of them in a vat of ghee and asks her not to open them for the next two years. After two years, when she breaks open the vats, she had a hundred sons. This reminds me of the modern equivalent of test tube babies. At least in concept.
In Hindu Mythology, the gods and the demons are always fighting each other. Lord Vishnu's "chakara" is a twirling ring of fire that chases and terminates its victims. Lord Vishnu's chakra will obey his will, "lock" its target and will not return back to Vishnu without completing its task.
In Ramayana, the demon king Ravana kidnaps Rama's wife Sita and whisks her away to Lanka. He crosses the lands and the ocean in his 'flying chariot'.
Most South Indian temples have something called a 'vimana'(which is also the translation for 'plane'). It is the pyramid like structure over the sanctum santorum. It's one of Eric Von Daniken's inspiration for his infamous "aliens descended as gods" theory. The vimana is the 'spaceship' or as the temples say..the god's vimana..the god's flight machine...
The Akshayapataram which is a vessel that can feed any number of people, the elixir of immortality and finally ardhanareeshwara who came to being when lord shiva gave half of his body to his consort, shakti, is an early effort to create feminism.
All this is in no way 'science' or even 'technology'. They are ideas. What it conveys to me is that people have been dreaming of the same concepts for a long long time. Man has been trying to find solutions or at least imagining the solutions to the oldest problems..infertility, flight, aliens, poverty, gender equality etc.
I would like to hear from other mythologies. Not urban legends or folklore, but mythology and well established literary works. Considering that the Bible is all myth, its even ok to pick something from the Bible. What can you think of....
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MoEnzyme
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RE: virus: New project
« Reply #1 on: 2004-01-26 18:18:12 » |
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Hello Mermaid,
I have a mythology, or rather perhaps an eschatological story, futuristic
in nature and so not really part of these more traditional passed down
mythologies that you speak of. I think this may be the challenge of a new
religion such as Church of Virus strives to be. We claim to offer an
alternative to tradition, and so this obviously isn't a vision handed down
from generation to generation (hence getting some benefit as a story told
by parents, grandparents etc.
Some of the CoV membership has ridiculed it in passing, but I simply think
its a case of not having thought it through thoroughly enough yet.
My eschatological myth is the futuristic story of space monkeys (tm). Yes
it sounds a little wacky at first to those who haven't thought through the
entire scenario. Indeed the last time a number of virions gathered IRL
(yourself included) I received a little bit of friendly ridicule about the
whole idea, like I had gone off the deep end or something, but I would like
to take your little project as another opportunity to talk about this
mythology/self-fulfilling prophecy.
So far in the news of cloning, there have been some discussions about the
problems about cloning monkeys and hence other primates compared to your
average mammals or other animals. The problem appears as I last kept up
with it, shared in common with humans and for this reason space monkeys
seem all the more likely in light of these common problems we share with
them in perfecting cloning techniques for both humans and other primates.
The historic pattern that we have seen in almost all biological experiments
on humans, that other primate experimentation has often preceded nearly
identical experimentation on humans. The latest achievements in genetic
engineering and cloning (two technologies that have traditionally gone hand
in hand so far) seem to naturally converge on the perfection of these
technologies in other primates which we naturally will want to eventually
use on ourselves. This also has historical precedent in our (US) own space
program with our sending of chimps into orbit before we eventually decided
on using humans for further space programs earlier in our history of space
exploration.
When we think of purposes against which to consider further genetic
enhancements, space exploration provides us with the ultimate goal against
which to evaluate the necessity/desireability of genetic enhancements.
Here we are not talking about vanity (one of the often asserted deadly sins
against genetic enhancements) but rather downright necessity to mission
issues. In other words, we can genetically engineer some primates to
fulfill our (and eventually their) ultimate goals, or we can simply fail.
And of course we not only fail for ourselves for our lack of effort but
also for whatever species of primate we choose if we do not choose to give
them the necessary tools for their own success as well as our own.
I have listened to the current US administration make their public
relations appeals for sending humans to Mars, and have found them woefully
lacking in scientific vision. . . . VISION one of those CoV virtues dontcha
remember. What is the point of sending humans to Mars other than offering
them as some sort of scientific sacrifice of life for something that we
really haven't thought through in the first place? We could be taken much
more seriously if we would spend a little effort beforehand to actually
engineer a being, human or otherwise, to take the trip rather than simply
sending a raw individual better suited for terrestrial existence on a
mission that he/she/it has no hope of succeeding at. And since humans have
almost always demonstrated a greater enthusiasm for trying this stuff out
on other species, it would seem much more rational and consistent with our
history to try this out with another closely related species. Indeed the
current US administration as well as other temporal powers have already
demonstrated their varying degrees of opposition to using humans for such
purposes, especially since such advances will inevitably require a certain
amount of cloning technology to succeed.
So in a nutshell here is my version of mythology which I think will take
humanity into the relevant (nonextinctual) future. We shall through
genetic engineering and cloning technology succeed in creating a species of
space faring animals capable of spreading our own values if not our own
genetics in some degree (ever consider the possibilities of hybridization?)
across the cosmos. We certainly haven't yet succeeded with our own genetic
stock, so what is prevent us from using mixed/genetically-engineered stock
in spreading across the cosmos in a way that satisfies us in memetically
relevant ways. I think the future belongs to our space monkeys.
That is my mythology. What do you think? Or what is your alternative? I
would love to hear and respond to any contrary/alternative ideas. I will
argue for food/money/respect etc. on this point. Your responses are most
welcome.
Love,
Jake
> [Original Message]
> From: Mermaid <hidden@lucifer.com>
> To: <virus@lucifer.com>
> Date: 01/26/2004 7:29:01 AM
> Subject: virus: New project
>
>
> I have a proposal for a new project. Something I'd like to call Project
Mythologia.
>
> What are the mythological concepts that seem futuristic to you?
>
> Here are some 'weird' mythical narrations:
>
> In the Mahabharata, Queen Gandhari(princess of Gandhar kingdom--and
married to the blind king Dhrithirashtra gives birth to a hard ball of
flesh.(or a huge ball of iron..diff versions) She had obtained a boon that
she would have a hundred sons and when she despaired, the royal guru breaks
the ball of flesh(or iron) into one hundred pieces. He places each of them
in a vat of ghee and asks her not to open them for the next two years.
After two years, when she breaks open the vats, she had a hundred sons.
This reminds me of the modern equivalent of test tube babies. At least in
concept.
>
> In Hindu Mythology, the gods and the demons are always fighting each
other. Lord Vishnu's "chakara" is a twirling ring of fire that chases and
terminates its victims. Lord Vishnu's chakra will obey his will, "lock" its
target and will not return back to Vishnu without completing its task.
>
> In Ramayana, the demon king Ravana kidnaps Rama's wife Sita and whisks
her away to Lanka. He crosses the lands and the ocean in his 'flying
chariot'.
>
> Most South Indian temples have something called a 'vimana'(which is also
the translation for 'plane'). It is the pyramid like structure over the
sanctum santorum. It's one of Eric Von Daniken's inspiration for his
infamous "aliens descended as gods" theory. The vimana is the 'spaceship'
or as the temples say..the god's vimana..the god's flight machine...
>
> The Akshayapataram which is a vessel that can feed any number of people,
the elixir of immortality and finally ardhanareeshwara who came to being
when lord shiva gave half of his body to his consort, shakti, is an early
effort to create feminism.
>
> All this is in no way 'science' or even 'technology'. They are ideas.
What it conveys to me is that people have been dreaming of the same
concepts for a long long time. Man has been trying to find solutions or at
least imagining the solutions to the oldest problems..infertility, flight,
aliens, poverty, gender equality etc.
>
> I would like to hear from other mythologies. Not urban legends or
folklore, but mythology and well established literary works. Considering
that the Bible is all myth, its even ok to pick something from the Bible.
What can you think of....
>
> ----
> This message was posted by Mermaid to the Virus 2004 board on Church of
Virus BBS.
>
<http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=298
77>
> ---
> To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to
<http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
--- Jake Sapiens
--- every1hz@earthlink.net
--- EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet.
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To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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David Lucifer
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Enlighten me.
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Re: virus: New project
« Reply #2 on: 2004-01-28 09:33:17 » |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Mermaid"
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 10:29 AM
>
> I have a proposal for a new project. Something I'd like to call Project Mythologia.
>
> What are the mythological concepts that seem futuristic to you?
There may be some disagreement on whether The Lord of the Rings is old enough to
qualify for myth status. Tolkien lamented the fact that the English lacked the
myths he loved to study from other cultures so his solution was to invent one.
The evil wizard Saruman possessed a wireless long distance communications device
known as the palantir. I wonder what its bandwidth capacity was and if it had a
built in firewall.
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hkhenson@rogers...
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back after a long time
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Re: virus: New project
« Reply #3 on: 2004-01-28 10:32:42 » |
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At 09:33 AM 28/01/04 -0500, you wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Mermaid"
>Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 10:29 AM
>
>
> >
> > I have a proposal for a new project. Something I'd like to call Project
> Mythologia.
> >
> > What are the mythological concepts that seem futuristic to you?
>
>There may be some disagreement on whether The Lord of the Rings is old
>enough to
>qualify for myth status. Tolkien lamented the fact that the English lacked the
>myths he loved to study from other cultures so his solution was to invent one.
>
>The evil wizard Saruman possessed a wireless long distance communications
>device
>known as the palantir. I wonder what its bandwidth capacity was
At least a megabit. Provided a full visual display. Could go back in time
as well.
>and if it had a built in firewall.
Definitely not from Pipin's experience. Talk about malware!
Keith Henson
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Mermaid
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RE: virus: New project
« Reply #4 on: 2004-02-01 04:49:15 » |
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Quote from: Jake Sapiens on 2004-01-26 18:18:12 We could be taken much
more seriously if we would spend a little effort beforehand to actually engineer a being, human or otherwise, to take the trip rather than simply sending a raw individual better suited for terrestrial existence on a mission that he/she/it has no hope of succeeding at.[...]So in a nutshell here is my version of mythology which I think will take humanity into the relevant (nonextinctual) future. We shall through
genetic engineering and cloning technology succeed in creating a species of space faring animals capable of spreading our own values if not our own genetics in some degree (ever consider the possibilities of hybridization?)
across the cosmos. |
[Mermaid]Hi Jake. From what I understand, you are suggesting an outline for virian mythology consisting of the space monkeys. I do appreciate the idea of creating virian mythology. I encourage and would appreciate entries for virian mythology. It can be fantasy with a vision.
Although, I have to add that mythology usually follows a certain formula. I recommend Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth for easy reading. Online, you can find www.pantheon.org for world mythology and the cast. To write about space monkeys is just sci-fi, but to weave the ideas and foresight around a framework for life is mythology.
For Joseph Campbell:
Power of Myth
Hero with a thousand faces
www.jcf.org
I'd also recommend looking into Mircea Eliade's works. His novels were mostly 'wet' and dreamy. Pass unless you are into that kind of fiction. Unlike Campbell, he did boldly go into the fiction arena. While Campbell wasnt openly irreligious, some took sides, but most of them walked the rope. While we might not always appreciate these authors and their ideas(I also recommend reading emile durkheim's sociology of religion), it is important to understand what we really need and seek is the underlying philosophy that is the tit for our own infant mythology to suckle. If cov is to be a modern religion and if we insist on creating and nurturing our own mythology, it has to be done in the right way.
Eliade's major works:
Patterns in comparitive religion
The Sacred and the Profane: nature of religion
The myth of the eternal return
Images and Symbols.
I believe that without a full understanding of mythology and how mythology operates, one should stay away from creating a new mythology. I havent read most of the above titles. I invite reviews for any Campbell/Eliade works. However, I am looking forward to reading The Saga of the Space Monkeys as sci fi..
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