I agree with the sentence you quote from Vervaeke (“[myths] are symbolic stories of perennial patterns that are always with us”) but mostly-disagree with “myths … encapsulate some eternal and valuable truths” (your paraphrase).
As an example, let’s take the story of Cain and Abel. IMO, it is a symbolic story containing many perennial patterns:
When one person is praised, the not-praised will often envy them
Brothers often envy each other
Those who envy often act against those they envy
Those who envy, or do violence, often lie about it (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”)
Those who have done endured strange events sometimes have a “mark of Cain” that leads others to stay at a distance from them and leave them alone
I suspect this story and its patterns (especially back when there were few stories passed down and held in common) helped many to make conscious sense of what they were seeing, and to share their sense with those around them (“it’s like Cain and Abel”). But this help (if I’m right about it) would’ve been similar to the way words in English (or other natural languages) help people make conscious sense of what they’re seeing, and communicate that sense—myths helped people have short codes for common patterns, helped make those patterns available for including in hypotheses and discussions. But myths didn’t much help with making accurate predictions in one shot, the way “eternal and valuable truths” might suggest.
(You can say that useful words are accurate predictions, a la “cluster structures in thingspace”. And this is technically true, which is why I am only mostly disagreeing with “myths encapsulate some eternal and valuable truths”. But a good word helps differently than a good natural law or something does).
To take a contemporary myth local to our subculture: I think HPMOR is a symbolic story that helps make many useful patterns available to conscious thought/discussion. But it’s richer as a place to see motifs in action (e.g.
the way McGonagal initially acts the picture of herself who lives in her head; the way she learns to break her own bounds
Those who have done endured strange events sometimes have a “mark of Cain” that leads others to stay at a distance from them and leave them alone
Could you please elaborate on this part? The “mark of Cain” has always seemed like pure fiction to me. I do not understand what it is supposed to refer to, if anything.
I agree with the sentence you quote from Vervaeke (“[myths] are symbolic stories of perennial patterns that are always with us”) but mostly-disagree with “myths … encapsulate some eternal and valuable truths” (your paraphrase).
As an example, let’s take the story of Cain and Abel. IMO, it is a symbolic story containing many perennial patterns:
When one person is praised, the not-praised will often envy them
Brothers often envy each other
Those who envy often act against those they envy
Those who envy, or do violence, often lie about it (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”)
Those who have done endured strange events sometimes have a “mark of Cain” that leads others to stay at a distance from them and leave them alone
I suspect this story and its patterns (especially back when there were few stories passed down and held in common) helped many to make conscious sense of what they were seeing, and to share their sense with those around them (“it’s like Cain and Abel”). But this help (if I’m right about it) would’ve been similar to the way words in English (or other natural languages) help people make conscious sense of what they’re seeing, and communicate that sense—myths helped people have short codes for common patterns, helped make those patterns available for including in hypotheses and discussions. But myths didn’t much help with making accurate predictions in one shot, the way “eternal and valuable truths” might suggest.
(You can say that useful words are accurate predictions, a la “cluster structures in thingspace”. And this is technically true, which is why I am only mostly disagreeing with “myths encapsulate some eternal and valuable truths”. But a good word helps differently than a good natural law or something does).
To take a contemporary myth local to our subculture: I think HPMOR is a symbolic story that helps make many useful patterns available to conscious thought/discussion. But it’s richer as a place to see motifs in action (e.g.
the way McGonagal initially acts the picture of herself who lives in her head; the way she learns to break her own bounds
) than as a source of directly stateable truths.
Thanks for the reply.
Could you please elaborate on this part? The “mark of Cain” has always seemed like pure fiction to me. I do not understand what it is supposed to refer to, if anything.