[HN Gopher] 'Seven Sisters' Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
___________________________________________________________________
'Seven Sisters' Myths May Reach Back 100k Years
Author : akamoonknight
Score : 378 points
Date : 2021-01-17 07:17 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (singularityhub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (singularityhub.com)
| mellosouls wrote:
| It's a nice theory but sometimes simpler, less glamorous
| solutions might hold the truth.
|
| There are more than 6 "sisters" visible with the naked eye, but
| most people normally can't see them.
|
| It's more believable to me that the "missing" 7th sister is just
| the brightest of the less visible ones.
|
| Those less visible would certainly have been used as a test of
| prowess for determining the keenest-eyed, especially among early
| societies where such skills were important.
|
| "Ah, but can you find the hiding sister?"
| imglorp wrote:
| A third possibility is one of the stars used to be much
| brighter for whatever reason.
|
| Ancient drawings would help locate the 7th star. One would
| think star charts are a natural subject for inscriptions
| predating written language.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I would think these astronomers would have considered that
| possibility. One thing to note is that stars were probably
| less important prior to the advent of agriculture, at which
| point tracking the seasons became important.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I share your skepticism--myths don't seem very durable in
| general. Comparative linguists have reconstructed some proto-
| info-european myths, but those are probably in the vicinity of
| 8k years old or perhaps even younger (certainly nowhere near
| 100k years) and they're already about as generic as these 7
| sisters myths. The only thing that gives me some respite from
| my skepticism is that celestial myths likely have more
| durability given the relative stability, ubiquity, and
| importance of the night sky (it's one of the strongest cultural
| touchstones that ancient people had). That said, I have a
| really hard time believing that even celestial myths have 100k
| years of durability, and it seems like there must be simpler,
| more plausible explanations (like yours).
| autocorr wrote:
| Although it would super cool for the story to have a common
| ancestor across huge swaths of land and time on Earth, I think
| this has a higher likelihood of being correct.
|
| There are several stars in the 5-6 magnitude range close to the
| limits of human vision in the Pleiades. Seven is also often a
| sacred number. We also have precedent for cultures such as the
| Greeks and Arabs using double stars to test vision, namely
| Mizar and Alcor[1,2]. The typical limiting magnitude for
| unaided vision is about 6 under perfect conditions, but some
| people with exceptional vision can see to mag 7.
|
| So it seems highly plausible that most people could only see
| six, but they knew there were about 7 because some sharp-eyed
| people could see them and would tell them so.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizar_and_Alcor#Test_of_eyesig...
| [2]
| https://www.surveyophthalmol.com/article/S0039-6257(08)00119...
| ramraj07 wrote:
| If true then at least one of the stories should sound in that
| vein right?
|
| Let's consider your rule itself, though first modifying it to
| the real occams razor which says the simplest answer is
| probably the real one. Simple is probably more measurable than
| glamor anyway! So what's the simpler of the two explanations? A
| complex variation of the story as we now know independently
| arose in multiple cultures and then everyone forgot the same
| detail (find the seventh star it's still there), or we've been
| carrying this story with us since the beginning of humanity?
| Honestly the later sounds simpler to me. It's breathtaking but
| sounds entirely plausible so why not?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Actually the second version seems to make more novel
| assumptions. We have no (other?) proof of any cultural
| phenomenon older than maybe 50k years ago even existing,
| never mind being passed on. To imagine such a specific story
| surviving for such a huge amount of time while being
| disconnected from reality seems MUCH more unlikely than
| having similar stories arise independently about a hard to
| see but still visible star.
|
| Also, Occam's razor says nothing about which explanation is
| more likely to be correct. It is simply a sensible rule about
| which explanation is more useful to go with when you have two
| that explain the same facts equally well. It's a pretty clear
| rule in physics when you have actual mathematical models to
| chose between, it's much too hand-wavy in the soft sciences
| like anthropology.
| mellosouls wrote:
| I don't agree obviously - the seventh sister _is_ there, and
| not every story has her missing.
|
| And a common early eye-test seems far simpler and more
| believable than a common myth that possibly predates by tens
| of thousands of years the start of contemporary cognitive
| parity within our species.
| pferde wrote:
| Agreed. When hiking in mountains, on some nights the sky is so
| clear, air so still and light pollution so low that I can
| easily discern eight or nine "sisters" there. Such nights are
| usually in summer, but less frequently also during other
| seasons.
|
| Of course, in or near large cities, seeing five or six of the
| "sisters" is about the best one can hope for.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Of course, until a few centuries ago, there was no light
| pollution at all, if you stepped away from the campfire.
| dash2 wrote:
| Here is another story about myths being extremely persistent:
|
| https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/27/...
|
| Amazing if true. I got the impression, when I studied (a little)
| anthropology in the 1990s, that myths were related to the present
| structure of a society more than to its past, and that you
| couldn't expect reliable transmission of messages over such long
| time periods.
|
| Edit: here is a cool article about geomythology -
| https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/MayorGeomythology.pdf
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Your expectations are a function of what you know and your
| experiences. In your case, those are dominated by your
| immersion in literate cultures that rely on written
| communication formats for information transmission and
| archiving, not to mention education.
|
| But what if all that knowledge and experience of writing
| technology and writing based culture were to vanish? What would
| you be then? Helpless? Lost? Isolated?
|
| Actually, no. You'd still be capable of advanced
| communications, education, and data storage, using alternative
| modalities.
|
| It's like pre-internet humans. They still went out on dates,
| met up with friends, gossiped and bought things. They just
| accomplished all that with different tools to what people use
| today.
| sibeliuss wrote:
| Jung, amongst others, believed that myths are archetypal
| constructs that underpin the architecture of the mind, and are
| shared by all, which explains much about the uncanny cultural
| similarities across time and space.
| Garlef wrote:
| I don't think we need this kind of hocus pocus to explain
| this.
|
| Frist candidate for an explanation:
|
| * Stories get passed on and some are surprisingly stable.
|
| Second candidate for an explanation:
|
| * The underpinnings of the architecture of the mind cause the
| same stories to (re?)surface everywhere.
|
| Let's use occams razor.
|
| (I don't claim this argument disproves the "theory" of
| archetypes. But we should not jump to conclusions when
| applying it out of context.).
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >* Stories get passed on and some are surprisingly stable.
|
| That's reasonable. While certainly far from proven, the
| Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis[0] posits the possibility that
| the "Great Flood" story, which is part of many ancient
| traditions (and long predates Abrahamic[1] religions) _may_
| be from an oral tradition recounting a flood occurring at
| the end of the last glaciation in Eastern Europe and
| Western Asia.
|
| While that story certainly isn't anywhere near 100,000
| years old, if true, it does add credence to the stability
| of oral traditions over long periods of time.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
|
| Edit: Clarified hypothesized location of the Black Sea
| Deluge.
| Tistron wrote:
| What is the difference between your second point and
| "archetypes"?
| sibeliuss wrote:
| Precisely
| dash2 wrote:
| Right, but that would not explain why they are also similar
| to the actual facts. As an example, from the Stanford
| article:
|
| "... debate raged in the nineteenth century over Native
| American legends that seemed to contain ancestral memories of
| mastodons hunted until their extinction in the Ice Age 10,000
| years ago. The possibility was supported by twentieth-century
| archaeological discoveries of mammoth kill sites that matched
| local tribal lore about elephant-like monsters."
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > ... May Reach Back 100k Years
|
| Or may not.
|
| One important fact: people get accolades and sometimes even
| direct monetary incentives for finding something that is
| supposedly "oldest of".
|
| Nobody gets famous or rich by revising "oldest of" dates to a
| more recent timeline.
| ncmncm wrote:
| You miss the point.
|
| They could as easily have been seven geese, seven pebbles,
| seven lakes, seven boats, seven eyes, seven villages, seven
| brothers... But they are almost everywhere, instead, seven
| sisters, across ten thousand miles and fifty millennia.
|
| If the story is _not_ that old, how did they so frequently turn
| out sisters? Morphic resonance? Without, you are left with
| nothing but a mystery. Citing a common tradition draws on the
| _least_ far-fetched explanation, as science demands.
|
| The same applies to stenciled handprints on cave walls from
| Spain to Sulawesi, and as many millennia.
| akiselev wrote:
| They're anthropomorphising the stars as gods, people, and
| animals that are familiar to them. Families with seven
| sisters in a tribe of 150 was probably a relatively common
| occurrence, far more familiar than animals traveling in
| groups of seven (none that I can think of that do so
| globally) or gods in a group of seven who they'd have to have
| previously imagined or imagine anew upon identifying the
| constellation.
|
| Convergent evolution is very common in biology, which has
| many more degrees of freedom. Why not in culture too?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Notions of "convergent evolution" and "degrees of freedom"
| fatally undermine your argument.
|
| Culture has overwhelmingly more degrees of freedom than
| biology, which is constrained by needs to survive and also
| reproduce. Culture can sustain things like Scientology,
| Anime, and Froot Loops, in some places even simultaneously.
| Similarly, convergent evolution occurs only where
| environmental forces, such as a precise ecological niche,
| drive development into a very narrow range of possibilities
| with radically limited degrees of freedom.
|
| In the total absence of any such constraints, the only
| viable explanation for detailed similarity across vast
| distances and dizzying time spans is common heritage.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Maybe there are other traditions where these stars are geese
| or brothers or villages or starbucks baristas but the authors
| are cherry-picking those cultures where they are women?
| Indeed, I would be surprised if there weren't, and if there
| really are no other such stories then I would be surprised
| that the authors don't mention that explicitly since that
| would be give enormous weight to their position.
|
| Also, TFA only says that the aboriginal stories _seem_ to
| predate European contact, but which is more plausible: that
| we found a story that is ten times older than the oldest
| previously reconstructed myth or that we were wrong and the
| aboriginal story is actually influenced directly or
| transitively by some European culture (or some other culture
| which had a similar myth)? This depends on the evidence back
| the "seems to predate European contact" claim.
| idlewords wrote:
| This is a profound insight and finally explains why history
| keeps getting longer.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Sure Pleione and Atlas used to be a little farther apart, but
| Maia and Taygeta are were also closer together according to their
| chart. Why could they tell the latter apart when we can't tell
| the former?
| nabla9 wrote:
| The distances are very similar but Pleione is much dimmer than
| either Maia or Taygeta.
|
| Apparent magnitudes: Pleione 4.77 - 5.50
| Taygeta 4.30 Maia 3.87
|
| (Apparent magnitude is a measure of the brightness of a star or
| other astronomical object observed from Earth, it's inverse
| logarithmic so smaller number is brighter)
| idlewords wrote:
| I am sorry to say you might have to go read the linked paper,
| where this is discussed. The upshot is, visually distinguishing
| two stars is a function of both their proximity and relative
| brightness.
|
| https://www.dropbox.com/s/np0n4v72bdl37gr/sevensisters.pdf?d...
| nabla9 wrote:
| I am sorry to say that after reading the paper, I found no
| discussion of this matter.
| idlewords wrote:
| "A second factor, called "glare function" by physiologists,
| is what prevents you from seeing details next to car
| headlights pointing at you. The glare function depends on
| the dynamic range and psf of the human eye. Imperfections
| in the human eye give it a psf which has a broad base a few
| arcmin wide (Ginis et al., 2012), which in turn limits the
| dynamic range. As a result, faint stars cannot be seen
| within a few arcmin of bright stars...
|
| Pleione is five arcmin from the star Atlas, which is about
| four times brighter than Pleione, and the resulting glare
| from Atlas prevents most people from seeing Pleione."
| dwighttk wrote:
| gotcha
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I'm surprised the article didn't mention one of the most popular
| names for the "Seven Sisters," Subaru, the Japanese name and
| vehicle manufacturer whose logo contains six of the stars.
| dade_ wrote:
| This has made the brand very popular with lesbians. Subaru has
| capitalized on it well.
|
| https://medium.com/th-ink/how-subarus-became-the-car-for-les...
| progre wrote:
| Subaru does not translate to "seven sisters" (or even six
| sisters) so bringing up Subaru would undermine the claim of the
| article
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| No, but the radicals in Mao (pleiades) are "sun", repeat,
| and "at same time".
|
| So even if we're being very literal, "the one with the two
| stars at the same time" is an accurate description of both
| the hidden sister story and the cluster.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Not directly. Translation would be "to govern" or "gather
| together", but Subaru is one of the constellation's names in
| Japan, like it would also be called Pleiades in the West,
| deriving from "plein", meaning "to sail."[0]
|
| [0]https://web.archive.org/web/20100411083646/http://www.suba
| ru...
| fireattack wrote:
| I think his point is while Subaru does mean Pleiades in
| Japanese (actually came from Chinese), it (the name) has
| nothing to do with "seven sisters".
| jcims wrote:
| >nothing to do with "seven sisters"
|
| I don't see anyone claiming that Subaru means seven
| sisters. It's just another name for the same
| constellation.
| dannyw wrote:
| I don't follow. The logo literally has six stars, which
| is the subject of what we are discussing here.
| jeofken wrote:
| They've identified the same stars, but do the Han or
| Korean or Japanese have a story about 7 sisters?
| jhvkjhk wrote:
| Chinese have a story called Tian Xian Pei , where a fairy
| maiden married to a mortal. That girl is called seventh
| fairy, as she's the last of 7 sisters.
|
| So it is very similar to the lost Pleiad, but the seventh
| fairy is taken back by her god father.
| szatkus wrote:
| Doesn't look like. According to Japanese Wikipedia they
| used to be also called Liu Lian Xing ("group of 6
| stars", I think?).
| nulbyte wrote:
| Subaru itself cited[1] Kojiki literature from the 8th
| century when talking about the origin of its name.
|
| [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20100411083646/http://ww
| w.subaru...
|
| Unfortunately, trying to find anything more online, such
| as what exactly the Kojiki says about them, doesn't seem
| to yield much.
| jug wrote:
| "The six of the stars" are in fact all the stars. :)
| not_knuth wrote:
| I can't help but feel that some combination of the Birthday
| paradox [0] and primates churning out stories [1] is going on
| here.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
| eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote:
| Can you explain why this is related to the birthday paradox
| please? I don't get it, sorry! :)
| gostsamo wrote:
| What accounts for the missing sister though? If the seventh
| sister was last visible 50000-100000 years ago, how the myths
| are trying to account for it now without the memory?
| sfifs wrote:
| Based on the analysis, it is very likely that the 7 stars
| were more distinctly visible but then gradually became harder
| and harder to see upto about 30-40k years ago. So cultures
| started making stories for why it disappeared. The fact that
| the stories of why the seventh sister disappeared seem
| different across cultures may possibly indicate the cultures
| had already separated when that happened.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Perhaps there was a long time where people with slightly
| better eyesight could tell them apart while others couldn't,
| or when atmospheric conditions would obscure it. That might
| seed stories of the last sister being missing or coming and
| going.
| gostsamo wrote:
| We need numbers to calculate the likeliness of such
| scenario, but you just change the scale of the time from
| 100000 to let's say 30000 years.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| I think the idea of the 100,000 years of memory is plausible,
| but I think it's likely to persist because the number seven
| seems to be universally important to humans.
|
| People _could_ potentially have superimposed the number seven
| on the story, as per the rainbow 's seven colours and Newton.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Since when is 7 important though? The species didn't have
| much of a math up until 5000-10000 years ago.
| josefx wrote:
| That is an interesting claim, the wikipedia articles
| about the history of math claim that the earliest written
| examples are from 3000 BCE. Finding a written record
| older is rather unlikely since that corresponds roughly
| to the oldest written texts in general. We do however
| have evidence of tally marks that date back to 35000
| BCE[1] with one use possibly being a lunar calendar.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_marks
| SSLy wrote:
| >Since when is 7 important though?
|
| Since one moon phase takes that long.
| chmod775 wrote:
| I'm going to go out on a limb here and claim that humans
| have been able to count since _before_ you 'd consider
| them human.
|
| Lots of animals are able to count and it's ridiculous to
| assume that any individual with even a rudimentary
| language wouldn't be able to.
|
| With which I mean to say that you don't need a formal
| understanding of 'mathematics' to count.
|
| Further there's nothing mathematically super special
| about the number 7. You might say "it's a prime, and also
| X, Y, Z", but there's pretty much an infinite number of
| properties you could find for any number you choose.
| copperwater69 wrote:
| I've been reading 'Worlds in Collision' by Immanuel Velikovsky -
| interesting book if you're drawn to comparative mythology.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| What do you make of it? I've been meaning to read it in part to
| make sense of mythological treatments of Saturn.
| jsrjenkins wrote:
| Fool The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a
| pretty reason.
|
| KING LEAR Because they are not eight?
|
| Fool Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good
| fool.
|
| (Shakespeare, /King Lear/, I, v)
| sgt wrote:
| Never heard of the seven sisters story, or if I did I might have
| forgotten about it. Do kids learn about this in school nowadays?
| Seems like it should be taught considering the potential age of
| the story.
| yreg wrote:
| We had a very kid-friendly book of ancient Greek myths[0] as
| part of mandatory reading (actually one of the first books I've
| read) and it includes this story.
|
| It's a great way of learning -- basically a fairy tale
| compilation, but the fairy tales are worthy of learning about.
| Also, the reader learns much about the historical setting.
|
| Would be amazing to write/popularize similar books on other
| cultures as well. Perhaps the Judge Di series[1] about an 18th
| century Chinese detective comes close to that.
|
| [0] Stare grecke baje a povesti
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16057997-star-gr-cke-b-j...
|
| [1] Judge Dee https://www.goodreads.com/series/50669-judge-dee-
| chronologic...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Perhaps the Judge Di series[1] about an 18th century
| Chinese detective
|
| No, the series is from the 18th century. Di Renjie lived in
| the 7th century.
| yreg wrote:
| You are right of course, thanks. I got a call as I was
| finishing my comment and didn't pay enough attention to
| what I'm typing.
| _emacsomancer_ wrote:
| Most of the series is from the 20th-c., based on the 18th
| century novel (about 7th-century detective).
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| TFA is speculative fiction - just enjoy!
|
| 100,000 year old stories would predate behavioural modernity,
| thought to have emerged 80,000 years ago.
|
| Maybe eyesight was better 80,000 years ago, so the seven were
| discernable to the naked eye - combined with zero light and air
| pollution. OTOH maybe we'll find further evidence to push back
| behavioural modernity.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Based on an academic article by the same author linked down-
| thread, the 100k year number is derived from when he thinks
| humans migrated from Africa. If you think that happened closer
| to 80kya (wiki estimate is around 60kya), I don't think that
| changes the fundamentals much.
| dash2 wrote:
| Possibly, but the author has gathered quite a bit of evidence
| for it. Here's his 2017 academic paper on the topic, along with
| much else: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-
| cambridge-core/c...
| ssr2020 wrote:
| I found this text from religios text(Islamic) Although the star
| of Sureyya(pleiades) is many stars, Arabs call Sureyya as a star.
| It is a community of seven stars. Six of them are visible and one
| is hidden. People test their eyesight by seeing or not seeing it.
|
| And Islamic history is 1400 years old.
| dotancohen wrote:
| From which text is this? If you are well versed in Arabic star
| lore, then I would be interested to discuss with you.
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| fascinating - but I can't make out those three stars in a row
| (the guys sitting in the boat) from the constellation depicted
| below. Neither for 2020 nor 100'000 BCE. Also not from
| Stellarium. Weird.
| scatters wrote:
| Orion's Belt? It's one of the most recognizable constellations
| (or parts thereof).
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| true - the canoe is interpreted into orion - my mistake
| jeofken wrote:
| Would you maybe share a screenshot from Stellarium?
| alisaus2 wrote:
| Top burny busty chicks only on this site! Follow the link, and
| you won't be sorry! - https://adultlove.life
| johndoe42377 wrote:
| Bullshit. We know nothing and have literally no way to know (only
| speculate) about anything 10k years ago.
|
| Besides, every text is being altered at each rewrite (before
| printing technology) and even no story is told two times exactly
| the same.
|
| Any decent scholar of ancient texts will tell you that. Indian
| ancient literature is the canonical case study.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| > Bullshit. We know nothing and have literally no way to know
| (only speculate) about anything 10k years ago.
|
| I think you're missing the mark here. Advances in
| archaeogenetics and newly found well preserved specimens have
| added an enormous amount of detail and color into the origins
| of anatomically modern humans, even in the past decade or two.
| I mean, the stone age itself began 2.6 million years ago, and
| we found that out through archaeological evidence.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| And the story's key theme of a missing sister, presented as a
| missing star in the sky, is apparently as salient as ever. Even
| today in the year 2021, countless people have come together (in
| their contemporary medium) to wonder and speculate.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| In Indian astrology, the lunar mansion of Krittika is the same as
| Pleiades.
|
| In Vedic astrology, there are 12 houses and 27 lunar mansions or
| nakshatras. They are the daughters of Daksha, one of the
| progenitors of humans. He was also responsible for the
| procreation of the universe, stars, gods, demons and all things
| living.
|
| The world is born and destroyed again and again. One day of the
| creator is one epoch. When he closes his eyes to sleep and rest,
| a great flood engulfs all the worlds he has created and erases it
| all.
|
| He dreams up the next world and when he wakes up, he assigns a
| progenitor to recreate that world. Daksha was one such
| progenitor.
|
| He gave his 27 daughters in marriage to Chandra, the moon god.
| Each one of them is a lunar mansion..or part of what we see as a
| constellation of star in the night sky. The moon visits each one
| of them every night. That's why the lunar calender month is 27.
| There is also a 28th sister who disappeared.
|
| The third daughter is Krittika whose mythology is tied to
| pleiades. The story goes that Agni, the fire god was the
| representative of all the gods in heaven. When anyone made a
| sacrifice, it had to be made to agni who will take it to the
| heavens and distribute it to all the other gods.
|
| All sacrifices to gods were shared amongst them all and the
| blessings from the gods will be divided equally amongst those who
| made the sacrifices. They were consigned to the flames of agni
| and agni ate up the sacrifices.
|
| Agni was beautiful and resplendent. He was also single and
| because of his nature coveted everything and ate everything.
| Every epoch has Seven Sages. They were the ones who represented
| humans and made sacrifices on their behalf.
|
| The Seven Sages each had a wife. And Agni coveted them all. His
| flames of desire leapt higher and higher at the sacrifices as he
| wanted the seven wives for himself. There is also a verse in the
| vedas that says Agni is the fire with seven tongues. seven
| flames.
|
| Unbeknownst to Agni, one other daughter of Daksha was infatuated
| with him. She watched him with unblinking eyes as his flames
| danced for the seven pious wives of the sages. The desire he
| could never reach. Just like her...because he didn't even notice
| her.
|
| Her name was Swaha. Being a celestial herself, she had the power
| to shape shift. So one day, she changed her form to resemble the
| first of the wives. Agni was delighted. They snuck to a celestial
| magical grove and had a jolly good time. The next day, Swaha took
| the form of the second wife and went back to their love nest. And
| again and again. She has taken the form of all six of wives. But
| try as she might..she couldn't transform into the seventh one.
|
| Anusuya..the wife was Sage Atri was so chaste that even by
| sleight of hand and in someone's imagination, she couldn't be
| seen as the illicit lover of a man who wasn't her husband.
|
| So now the secret was out. Swaha was reprimanded and Agni is now
| smitten with Swaha. But the lovers are together now. The alter
| egos Swaha created were left behind in the celestial grove but
| because they can't wander in a world where the real wives
| existed, they were prisoners inside the glorious celestial grove.
|
| Swaha didn't trust Agni still and insisted that she will be
| present too at all sacrifices made to agni henceforth so he
| wasn't making side eyes at the sages wives. She becomes the
| gaping mouth of agni who will swallow all the sacrifices. That's
| why..even today..all sacrificial fires are fed with incantations
| that end with 'swaha'. It is not a sacrifice if Swaha isn't
| present.
|
| Meanwhile the six shadow wives live in the grove called
| Saravana.(sara = thicket of reeds. vana = grove/forest. it was a
| forest with lakes and a lot of water bodies with thickets of
| reeds) Shiva and Parvati start visiting it for their love making.
| Their lovemaking created a spark so bright and hot that it
| couldn't be contained in any of the worlds. It was dropped in the
| cooling waters of Sara Vana. There the krittikas each picked a
| piece of it and raised them as six babies. When the children were
| old enough, they merged as one. With six heads and twelve arms to
| become the warrior god, Muruga aka Kartikeya. The one who came
| from the krittikas.
|
| The sisters feel that they have nothing else to do and ask that
| they become stars in the heavens. So muruga flings them into the
| skies and they become the pleiades cluster. They become one. They
| are now known as Krittika.
|
| Many snapshot predictions are possible when krittika star is
| present in astrological chart. The mythology helps me remember
| them. Without going into details, Elon musk..for example..has a
| prominent Krittika. And the snapshot techniques archetype fits
| perfectly. There are many examples.
|
| Tesla, for example..has a moderately similar chart to Elon
| Musk(and so it was a neat coincidence his star company is called
| Tesla..they share the same Birth date too altho diff years.)..but
| it shifts by one nakshatra pada which took his life in an
| entirely different direction even though they shared ascendents.
|
| I like to think that we are all living in a simulation. And I
| would very much like astrology to be the code that hacks it. But
| who knows? I am just reading and learning for now. I don't know
| exactly what astrology is but I am certainly not dismissive of it
| anymore.
|
| Anyways..that's the Krittika/Pleiades myth in Indian mythology.
| mssundaram wrote:
| Thank you for sharing. Also Murugan comes from the Pleiades,
| thus his name Kartikeya
| sradman wrote:
| The Pleiades[1], also known as the Seven Sisters:
|
| > It is among the star clusters nearest to Earth... and is the
| cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.
|
| Only six stars in the cluster are visible to the naked eye yet
| mythology from several ancient cultures share the idea that one
| of the seven "sisters" is hidden. The article _The world's oldest
| story?_ , originally published in TheConversation [2], states:
|
| > The star Pleione... was a bit further away from Atlas in
| 100,000 BC, making it much easier to see.
|
| These two stars now appear as one to the naked eye which the
| author proposes is the source of the hidden sister. This dates
| the story to 100 kya.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades
|
| [2] https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-oldest-story-
| astronom...
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Pleiades myth of the sisters come from Babylonian star
| catalogues:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_star_catalogues
|
| [..] Babylonian astronomy collated earlier observations and
| divinations into sets of Babylonian star catalogues, during and
| after the Kassite rule over Babylonia. These star catalogues,
| written in cuneiform script, contained lists of constellations,
| individual stars, and planets. The constellations were probably
| collected from various other sources. The earliest catalogue,
| Three Stars Each, mentions stars of Akkad, of Amurru, of Elam
| and others. Various sources have theorized a Sumerian origin
| for these Babylonian constellations, but an Elamite origin has
| also been proposed.[..]
|
| MUL is 'three stars each' and Pleiades was a cluster of stars
| which is 'star of stars'. MUL.MUL. While star was depicted as
| three star(looks like three asterisks), Pleiades was
| represented as twice that.. two MULs or six stars.
|
| This could be the reason why Pleiades was depicted as six stars
| even though the cluster has more than 6. Everything came to us
| from Sumerians tho'
|
| On Sumerian constellations and star names:
|
| http://members.westnet.com.au/gary-david-thompson/page11-4.h...
|
| (I am still reading up on this. Haven't completed..but pinning
| the link for ref here if anyone is interested)
| credit_guy wrote:
| Wait a second, this doesn't sound right. According to your
| wikipedia link, the "Seven Sisters" constellation actually has
| 9 stars (named after the 7 sisters + parents). They are all
| visible with the naked eye.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| idk about you but when i look at it I see 6. been trying to
| spot #7, no luck so far.
| pegasus wrote:
| I imagine hunter-gatherers, whose life depended on their
| eyesight acuity, would be find it easier to spot than most
| modern humans do.
| bee_rider wrote:
| They also probably didn't Netflix subscriptions so the
| only way to entertain themselves was "Star look and
| chill."
| comboy wrote:
| Plus light pollution and air pollution. Maybe some other
| changes in the atmosphere. And very careful looking. You
| don't need lenses, just looking through a hole in a leaf
| could be helpful.
| pegasus wrote:
| For skeptical downvoters: http://darwinian-
| medicine.com/the-perfect-eyesight-of-hunter...
| lolinder wrote:
| Do you live in the middle of nowhere, far away from any
| light pollution? If not, your inability to see more than 6
| means nothing about what someone 2000 years ago would have
| been able to see.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Not the OP, but I have been observing the naked eye sky
| for decades from many different locations, including
| locations far from light pollution. In my best nights,
| when I was young, and far from light pollution, I could
| never make out more than 6 stars. And I'm able to spot
| Alcor very easily, even in suboptimal conditions.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| no matter where I am, if i have the night sky, I check
| for Pleiades and take note of how many I can see.
| sometimes it's fewer than 6 depending on light pollution,
| but I have never been able to see 7, even on nights in
| deeply rural areas where the milky way is stunningly
| bright and clear.
| nsilvestri wrote:
| Being technically visible to the naked eye does not mean they
| are easily discernable. It's like how the Galilean moons are
| technically visible to the naked eye, but Jupiter's
| overwhelming brightness makes them nigh on impossible to see
| except in specific circumstances.
| lolinder wrote:
| Right, but that they are ever visible to anyone means that
| the story could just as easily be inspired by the rarely-
| seen 7th sister, rather than the last-seen-100k-years-ago
| 7th sister.
| sradman wrote:
| The abstract of the preprint [1] starts:
|
| > There are two puzzles surrounding the Pleiades, or Seven
| Sisters. First, why are the mythological stories surrounding
| them, typically involving seven young girls being chased by a
| man associated with the constellation Orion, so similar in
| vastly separated cultures, such as the Australian Aboriginal
| cultures and Greek mythology? Second, why do most cultures
| call them "Seven Sisters" even though most people with good
| eyesight see only six stars?
|
| Most people see six bright stars, like those depicted in the
| Subaru logo. Yet, you are quite correct to point out that the
| overlapping stars in question, Atlas and Pleione, are named
| after the parents of the seven sisters in Greek mythology.
| Six-vs-Seven or Eight-vs-Nine are valid criticisms and raise
| the question of when the names of the stars were first used.
|
| The narrative-based approach is imprecise but, like
| Historical Linguistics [2], it might be useful in identifying
| origins and connectedness. Regardless, knowing that the
| bright stars Atlas and Pleione were separated in the past is
| a useful fact for generating and testing hypotheses.
|
| [1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/np0n4v72bdl37gr/sevensisters.pd
| f?d...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_linguistics
| tiagod wrote:
| The pleiades are a cluster, not a constellation.
| umanwizard wrote:
| What is the difference?
| SkittyDog wrote:
| From the WP article, under "Folklore and Mythology": "Some
| Greek astronomers considered them to be a distinct
| _constellation_ , and they are mentioned by Hesiod's Works
| and Day..." (emphasis mine) So it would appear that they
| are both. FWIW, I have no idea if there is some
| astronomical technical jargon distinction between
| "constellation" and "cluster" that inspires your comment.
| But to this layman, your correction comes across as
| pedantix and unnecessary. The term "constellation" is
| clearly valid, here, as common everyday English is spoken.
| cedilla wrote:
| There is a difference: a constellation is an area of the
| sky where some stars appear to belong together to form an
| image. Their actual distance may be vast.
|
| A cluster on the other hand actually is a group of stars
| that formed from the same material and are thus very
| close to each other.
|
| So there is a difference, but it's only a problem to
| interchange the terms the other way round.
| vivekd wrote:
| I wonder if this means there is something we are missing
| here. Like maybe there was a 10th star in the cluster long
| ago that for some reason is no visible to us today
| heikkilevanto wrote:
| Seven is a common story-telling number. Seven days in a week,
| sailing the seven seas, the seven wonders of the world, the seven
| continents, seven deadly sins, etc.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| It would be pretty odd to add one they couldn't see though,
| right?
| lolinder wrote:
| Yes, but as has been noted multiple times in this thread,
| there are more than 6 visible stars in the cluster. They're
| just not visible at all times of year, and certainly
| impossible to see for most of us who live in/near cities.
| dotancohen wrote:
| This is not true. The Pleiades cluster looks the same all
| year round.
|
| Depending on how one defines the limit of what can be seen,
| there are either 0 stars, or 6 stars, or 9 stars, or
| hundreds. But only someone with very, very exceptional
| eyesight under very, very exceptional conditions can
| actually see seven stars but not nine.
|
| Source: I've been observing the cluster, and the sky as a
| whole, for decades. I'll draw the locations of the six
| notable stars just as easily as some will draw the big
| dipper. And I've never, in decades of observing under many
| different conditions from different latitudes, ever seen
| seven stars.
| cgriswald wrote:
| I think the underlying question is, "Can Pleione be
| observed with the naked eye today?"
|
| > And I've never, in decades of observing under many
| different conditions from different latitudes, ever seen
| seven stars.
|
| This really only tells us about you. Even if your vision
| is 20/20, your experience doesn't preclude the
| possibility of someone else discerning Pleione. And if
| they can, that ability can definitely be determined by
| time of year; which affects not only where the Pleiades
| are in the sky ( _e.g._ how much air mass you 're looking
| through), but also things like turbulence and humidity.
| VintageCool wrote:
| Seven colors.
|
| There is a whole spectrum of color, but there are only a
| handful of colors that most humans distinguish and talk about.
| It has always seemed odd to me that we elevate Indigo into the
| spectrum of named colors.
|
| However, Newton was fond of the occult, and numerology, and the
| number seven. He wrote papers about appearances of the number
| seven in the Bible.
|
| I think that Newton made Indigo an official color just to bring
| the number up to 7.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Why did you stop at 6 examples?
| tome wrote:
| Seven is a common story-telling number 1.
| Seven days in a week 2. sailing the seven seas
| 3. the seven wonders of the world 4. the seven
| continents 5. seven deadly sins 6. seven
| sisters 7. the seven canonical examples
| Anthony-G wrote:
| The old tropes are the best and continue to reincarnate in new
| forms, e.g, _Hary Potter: Why 7_
|
| https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/106582/harry-potte...
| njharman wrote:
| 7 days (and almost certainly the cultural popularity of 7) is
| due to there being 7 regular, unique moving make eye objects in
| sky.
|
| Sun, moon, mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, mercury.
|
| https://astronomy.com/news/2020/01/why-does-a-week-have-seve...
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| This reminded me of a theory came up with as a teenager, that the
| Vaanaraas of Ramayana (a group to which the famous "monkey god"
| Hanuman belongs) may actually be an early hominid that had ape-
| like features, that lived in parallel with humans in different
| territory. They were intelligent enough to help the human princes
| in their quest, which got them a place in their story - a story
| which went on to become an oral tradition, and got embellished
| with time to become the Ramayana. If, as proposed here, stories
| can be orally passed down for tens of thousands of years, that
| makes it slightly more likely that this outlandish theory
| actually has some merit to it.
| iamsb wrote:
| Interesting but I doubt it. Vaanaras do not appear prominently
| in any of epics/puranas following Ramayana. Only Hanuman is
| present in Mahabharata and he is clearly living a solitary life
| when he meets Bheem.
|
| By no means expert, so happy to be proven wrong.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| That's an interesting point (no idea why you've been
| downvoted for it). I have a few theories why that might be:
|
| 1. Groups like these were more likely to survive if they were
| isolated and not occupying territory that the (presumably)
| more sophisticated Homo Sapiens coveted, so maybe they just
| didn't get interacted with otherwise. Rama had a Vanavasa
| (forest-living) and a generally weird out-of-pattern life for
| the time, so had a slightly higher chance of encountering
| them.
|
| 2. If people in later stories did come in contact with them,
| they were probably trying to expand their territories or
| otherwise conquer the land. In that case, the stories are
| going to mythologize them as savage Asuraas, to give further
| justification to the conquests.
|
| 3. We only have a few stories, of unknown time origin,
| remaining out of hundreds of thousands of stories told by
| different groups in different places over the millenia. So
| even if a significant portion of the stories featured
| Vaanaraas, it's plausible they might all have been lost
| before they could reach us.
|
| 4. In particular, given that such groups were declining in
| numbers over time, and the fact that more recent stories are
| more likely to survive, it makes sense that stories featuring
| them are more likely to have been forgotten and lost to time.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| There is also Jambavan who appears in both Ramayana and
| Mahabharata. Jambavan's army fought alongside the Vanara army
| in Ramayana.
|
| Even though he is depicted as part of the monkey army, he was
| really known to be a bear. A bear like giant creature.
|
| He appears again in Mahabharata as the possessor of the
| Syamantaka Gem that was stolen and was in his possession.
| They live in a cave and hidden from the rest of the people.
| He is defeated by Krishna and he accepts defeat. He also
| offer Krishna his daughter Jambavati's hand in marriage.
|
| In the Puranas ..after the Ramayana war, all the monkeys and
| bears who lost their lives were brought back to life and they
| returned to their abode. Mahabharata is to have happened in a
| different yuga.
|
| Hanuman keeps appearing in all puranas because he is
| Chiranjeevi..one without death. And hence more of an
| archetype than a character in every yuga.
| tikwidd wrote:
| This might not be quite as outlandish as it sounds, because we
| now have plenty of evidence that early humans were living
| alongside and interacting with other archaic homo species.
|
| I have a pet (similarly highly speculative) theory that the
| Nephilim[1] of the Bible might be a earlier oral history of
| Neanderthals. But I'll just leave it at that, speculation.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim
| pcmaffey wrote:
| I also have a theory that the Titans were the gods of
| Neanderthals.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Huh, I have that same pet theory.
| generalizations wrote:
| And same.
|
| I believe there's also a theory that the neanderthals were
| smarter than our ancestors of the time. That would also fit
| the story. I can imagine the _homo sapiens_ of the time
| interacting with the far stronger and smarter neanderthals
| and describing them as 'sons of god'. I wonder if that's
| also where the old Greek myths of Hercules (etc) came from.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| "Sons of god" is a translation of the Hebrew by non-Jews
| and is just plain incorrect. It gets passed around as
| legit probably because it enforces the idea that Christ
| is a son of God.
|
| But If you ask Jews, who wrote that section of the Bible,
| benei elokim translates as something like "those who are
| free":
|
| "Who or what exactly are the benei elokim? Who are the
| nephilim? How are they related to each other? And what
| does it all mean?
|
| One thing benei elokim does not mean is "sons of G-d." In
| fact, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai would "curse" anyone who
| translated the term benei elokim as the "sons of G-d."1
| The word elokim in Scripture, while generally referring
| to G-d, is in essence merely an expression of authority.2
| Similarly, the term benei does not necessarily mean
| "sons," but is often just a title. Benei chorin, for
| example, means those who are free--not "sons of freedom."
|
| https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/1987422/je
| wis...
| generalizations wrote:
| That was an interesting read. Thanks. I'm not sure how
| the linked article expresses more than an alternate
| translation, though. It says that _benei_ doesn 't
| "necessarily" translate to sons, which doesn't rule out
| the translation but merely suggests an alternative. The
| word _elokim_ also refers generally to God, as it says,
| but can be translated differently. It 's an interesting
| alternative, but the claim that the translation "sons of
| god" is specifically wrong only seems to be based on the
| declaration of a single earlier source.
|
| > It gets passed around as legit probably because it
| enforces the idea that Christ is a son of God.
|
| I've never heard of that before. Not sure where you would
| have, or how it even does reenforce that idea.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > how it even does reenforce that idea.
|
| It reinforces "Christ as the son of God" because, if the
| phrase is translated as "sons of God", that sets a
| precedent in the Old Testament that God has sons. The
| Jews do not believe God has sons. Christians do. So it is
| in the best interest of Christian translators to
| translate that phrase as "sons of God".
|
| > but the claim that the translation "sons of god" is
| specifically wrong only seems to be based on the
| declaration of a single earlier source.
|
| No, I only provided one source (Chabad), but there are
| many others, including all Jewish translations of the Old
| Testament (Torah) from the original Hebrew to English.
| You'll never see it translated as "sons of God" in a book
| translated by Jews.
| spijdar wrote:
| > You'll never see it translated as "sons of God" in a
| book translated by Jews.
|
| Do the 70 Jewish authors of the Septuagint not count? In
| the LXX, it clearly reads "oi uioi tou Theou", "the sons
| of God". The LXX precedes Christianity by quite some
| time.
| tyfon wrote:
| Now I am confused, maybe because I am not religious.
|
| But I have always been under the impression that the
| christians claim jesus is the only son of their god?
|
| Wouldn't other sons conflict with this and not reinforce
| it?
| _Microft wrote:
| Well, actually it is a bit more complicated than just God
| having a (or more than one) son:
|
| ,,The Christian doctrine of the Trinity [...] holds that
| God is one God, but three coeternal and consubstantial
| persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy
| Spirit. The three persons are distinct, yet are one
| ,substance, essence or nature'. In this context, a
| ,nature' is what one is, whereas a ,person' is who one
| is", from [0] where you can also read a lot more about
| it.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity
| stareatgoats wrote:
| AFAICT, the Greek pantheon (Hercules etc) is commonly
| assumed to belong to a religious belief system that in
| large part aligns with the spread of the Indo-European
| language, probably (maybe) originating with the Yamnaya
| culture on the Pontic steppe north of the Black sea
| according to what is called the Kurgan hypothesis [0][1].
|
| The culture and language seems to have spread across
| large parts of the Indo-European landmass starting maybe
| 6000 years ago, eventually displacing many older European
| and Indian cultures respectively among others. It is
| assumed to be the reason that such disparate pantheons as
| the Roman, Greek, Norse and Hindu have many common
| characteristics. One reason for the relative swift and
| wide spread of the culture is currently speculated to be
| that the Yamnaya were the first to domesticate the horse
| and use them to pull wagons (chariots).[2]
|
| While it could be possible that the original pantheon
| referred to Neanderthals a more rational interpretation
| seems to me to be that the pantheon is a deified memory
| of some prominent people in a small group that roamed the
| plains of present Ukraine many thousands of years ago, a
| group that came to conquer other groups because of their
| advanced horsemanship, establishing traditions that in
| turn achieved a life of their own as traditions and
| beliefs commonly do. But hey, it is little more than
| speculation at this point.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamnaya_culture
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-
| European_mythology
|
| [2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/1805091
| 85446.h...
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Only a quite small number of the Greek pantheon have
| Indo-European forebears and were brought to Greece with
| the expansion of the Indo-European languages from the
| Pontic Steppes. Most of the Greek deities derive from the
| non-Indo-European autochthonous culture of Greece, or
| from interaction with the Greeks' neighbors in Anatolian.
| Your own linked article emphasizes this:
|
| "Despite the popularity of Greek mythology in western
| culture, Greek mythology is generally seen as having
| little importance in comparative mythology due to the
| heavy influence of Pre-Greek and Near Eastern cultures,
| which overwhelms what little Indo-European material can
| be extracted from it."
| abacadaba wrote:
| Similar pet theory, but that other hominids are remembered
| as dwarves, elves, and trolls.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| Trolls, in Scandinavian folklore, also fit the profile of
| neanderthals:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll
| goto11 wrote:
| How so?
| Bakary wrote:
| I don't think this theory is outlandish, just speculative. That
| said, given that language itself tends to be hopelessly
| distorted at such a time-scale there are some significant
| obstacles to oral histories not getting completely distorted to
| the point where no original content remains.
| [deleted]
| danans wrote:
| > may actually be an early hominid that had ape-like features,
| that lived in parallel with humans in different territory.
|
| Perhaps, but it's impossible to prove one way or another. More
| plausibly, they observed that primates possess a type of
| intelligence of a kind similar to humans, and therefore were
| readily adaptable to that role in the story.
|
| What we do know is that fantastical characters with human level
| sentience in the Ramayana exist primarily to engage the
| audience and to drive forward the epic's central themes of good
| vs evil. Fantastical creatures are a pattern of this sort of
| storytelling across the world. Modern storytellers have used
| the same technique to great effect, like the various species of
| JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth or George Lucas's Galaxy Far Far
| Away.
|
| In this way, there is a striking contrast between the Ramayana
| and the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata, despite emerging from the
| same cultural milieu as the Ramayana, is a complex human
| sociological drama without clear lines of good and evil. It
| makes little use of fantastical species, as their presence
| would detract from the story's fundamentally human themes. The
| only non human characters of consequence are gods, but even
| they are far from perfect and instead exhibit the same flaws as
| the humans.
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| Some people think the same about the Basajaun [1], a big, hairy
| hominid from the Basque mythology. The myth says he taught
| humans to use (some) tools (or humans stole tools from him).
| Keep in mind the Basque language is so old and rare [2] it's
| not connected to any Indo-European language.
|
| Of course many also think the same of Yeti, Bigfoot, etc.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basajaun
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Basque_language
| marton78 wrote:
| Also, as far as I remember Basque people have an unusually
| high proportion of Neanderthal genome.
| themgt wrote:
| In "Eaters of the Dead", Michael Chrichton's fictionally-
| historicized retelling of Beowulf, it's speculated the monsters
| are a relic Neandertal tribe. It's a minor point in the novel,
| but it stuck with me (and has become much more scientifically
| plausible since the 1970s when he was writing), so I always
| think of Beowulf as being about Neandertals.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I find it highly doubtful multiple coherent narratives could
| survive over a hundred thousand year span of oral storytelling.
| njharman wrote:
| But there exists a nightly reminder and guide for the two
| relevant story points. The count and that count changed.
| gandalfian wrote:
| Seems to fit with Seveneves novel quite well. Seven woman
| escaping into space. Wonder if deliberate?
| reedf1 wrote:
| Title seems to have no correlation with the article.
|
| Edit: My bad - I clicked through to another link on the page
| accidentally
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Did you read all the way down?
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Similar Myth in my culture too. Burmese.
| timkam wrote:
| I must say the Singularity Hub web presence looks snake-oily to
| me. Why do they call it a "university"? Why do they call some of
| the members "faculty"? Why do they claim Ray Kurzweil has "a
| thirty-year track record of accurate predictions"?
| (https://singularityhub.com/experts/)
|
| Any idea why they brand it like this? Who is supposed to take
| this seriously?
|
| I'm EU-based and here you're not allowed to claim that your
| organization is a university if it is not recognized by the state
| as such (roughly speaking).
| gcatalfamo wrote:
| It might have started in good faith, but now there are local
| chapters at least in EU, where people basically advertise
| themselves.
|
| So yeah it is snake oil now.
| [deleted]
| skrebbel wrote:
| I don't disagree, but you have to understand that _because_
| "university" isn't a protected name in the US, it also doesn't
| carry the same status and thus calling the Singularity
| organization a university is less preposterous.
|
| Eg you learn to run a team of hamburger flippers at the
| McDonald's University. Many SaaS startups have a tutorials page
| named $BRAND University. In that context, a bunch of atheistic
| reli-nuts calling their clubhouse a university isn't that far
| off.
| timkam wrote:
| Thank you for clarifying, then the main issue comes with
| global scale (a point that one of the other comments here
| makes).
| garmaine wrote:
| You can pay them money to attend classes they hold (which
| you can find example Youtube videos of--basically 50min TED
| talks), and at the end of it you get a certificate. It was
| modeled after the International Space University, which in
| France, and shares a co-founder.
|
| I may be swayed that this is more of a "summer workshop"
| and not as academically rigorous as I'd like, but otherwise
| I'm not sure why you claim it doesn't deserve the title
| "University."
| simonh wrote:
| In many countries outside the US the term University is
| protected in law for institutions meeting some very
| rigorous criteria, so clarifying on what basis it's
| called a University on a very international forum like
| this is useful for those not aware and who might make
| assumptions about what is meant by University.
|
| The ISU is an accredited University which offers formal
| Masters degree programs, while Singularity University is
| not accredited and does not offer formal graduate or
| undergraduate degree courses.
| weare138 wrote:
| >but otherwise I'm not sure why you claim it doesn't
| deserve the title "University."
|
| Just because they can use that title doesn't mean they
| necessarily should, especially an organization rooted in
| academia that wants to be taken seriously. Even if it is
| legitimate and well intentioned, spuriously using the
| term 'university' and having a disclaimer like '
| _Singularity University is not a degree granting
| institution_ ' in fine print definitely doesn't send the
| right message. I don't think it's an issue of whether
| they deserve to use that term but it gives the illusion
| that they're in company with other dubious non-accredited
| 'universities'. It's just bad optics.
| kf wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_University In America,
| university holds no special branding, and American companies
| aren't great about respecting EU branding law. See California
| Champagne and Kraft Parmesan cheese. I don't think anyone
| attending Singularity University thinks it is a real
| university; their paying audience generally already has a
| university degree.
|
| Singularity University is basically an overpriced executive MBA
| program, mostly paid for by non Americans excited to visit
| Silicon Valley. For people with infinite money looking for a
| taste of Silicon Valley and wanting to invest in cutting edge
| stuff here, their actual educational materials are totally
| acceptable.
|
| I used to work with their current law and blockchain lecturer.
| garmaine wrote:
| > See California Champagne
|
| You mean the labeling that the EU agrees (if reluctantly) to
| be legal?
|
| https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/loophole-california-
| champagne...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I know nothing at all about this, so cannot comment on the
| Singularity University, but in the US, it's actually fairly
| common to attach the word "university" to all sorts of training
| series. My old company's HR added "university" to their regular
| internal training series (complete with a "certificate" that we
| would get after each mandatory class).
|
| I took seminars throughout my career, and a number were dubbed
| "university" (Like Apple's famous --and long-defunct--
| "Developer University" --DU. I still have the certificates they
| gave me).
|
| Personally, I find it potentially misleading, but seldom
| actually nefarious. It does dilute the cachet of the word,
| though.
| neiman wrote:
| I also live in the EU, but the EU did not invented
| universities, and hence whichever bureaucratic definition it
| made up, shouldn't be used as a measure for universities
| outside the EU.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Universities were invented in medieval Europe and, to my
| knowledge, they were always supported by ruling authorities,
| be them kings, emperors or popes, who granted them their
| legitimacy.
|
| Of course a sovereign country can define (or refrain from
| defining) a university in any way they like, but the
| historical argument really doesn't help much there. The
| historical notion of a university is very much tied to ruling
| powers.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| The earliest universities were in Asia and Africa,[1]
| evolving from madrasas founded by religious patrons,
| similar to how early European universities evolved from
| monastic schools.
|
| 1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/university
| coldtea wrote:
| It's what we call a "cult". A light one, as far as cults go,
| but still a cult.
| russellallen wrote:
| I don't know anything about the Singularity Hub, but this
| article is just a repost of a Creative Commons licensed article
| from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-
| oldest-story-astronom...
|
| Ideally this story should be changed to this URL which has
| further comments by the author attached to it. Also The
| Conversation is a legitimate Australian academic site.
| baxtr wrote:
| wow. they basically copy & pasted the conversation article...
| or the other way around?
| scbrg wrote:
| The Conversation literally has a button you can click to
| help you copy & paste the article. And there's attribution
| at the end of the Singularity Hub repost. There's nothing
| shady going on here.
| trailynx wrote:
| Comments from the Conversation article also contain a link to
| download the paper from the author: https://www.dropbox.com/s
| /np0n4v72bdl37gr/sevensisters.pdf?d...
| mellosouls wrote:
| This is the correct link, but unfortunately The Conversation
| often features on HN only by proxy via reposts of its
| articles.
| timkam wrote:
| By adding an author profile and a list of other Singularity
| Hub articles by the author, they make it look like the author
| is part of the Singularity Hub community, but the two
| articles that he has written are both from The Conversation.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| > Singularity Hub web presence looks snake-oily
|
| That be as it may, I fail to see anything deceptive in the
| linked article. The widespread notion that the Pleiades have 7
| stars while only 6 are visible is definitely interesting.
|
| Not sure I buy the explanation though (that Pleione would have
| been visibly separable from Atlas 100.000 years ago, and that
| the memory of that time has lived on in myth). But they do put
| a question mark after the claim.
| cmroanirgo wrote:
| Diversion aside, the article is a publication by one Ray
| Norris, who works in the Astro physics department at CSIRO,
| Australia's Government funded science org, and also is a
| Professor for Western Sydney University.
|
| I've met him and listened to his public lectures at Macquarie
| University. He has been researching Aboriginal Australian
| Astronomy for decades and is well published in the arena. He
| and his wife have traveled all over Oz, gathering stories from
| the Elders of tribes.
|
| I've heard him talk about the Seven Sisters story from
| Aboriginal accounts, but one particular story stuck out:
|
| Ray mentioned how one particular elder could individually name
| 50,000 stars, and he dared any Astrophysicist to mention 5,000.
|
| I'd recommend that the baby not be thrown out with the bath
| water.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Norris_(astrophysicist)
|
| http://www.emudreaming.com/Further_reading.htm
| Jabbles wrote:
| Did that elder offer some proof that they had significantly
| better eyes than most humans? Because the generally accepted
| number of visible stars is ~5000 in each hemisphere.
|
| https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/how-many-
| stars-n...
| akdor1154 wrote:
| I have read that some indigenous Australians had/have
| ridiculously good vision, by western standards. (Brb
| googling :)
|
| Edit: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-08/prince-harry-
| may-stru... (popsci but generally reliable journalism)
| Jabbles wrote:
| Thanks, my initial scepticism is weakened.
| LaundroMat wrote:
| The only experience I had with the Singularity University is an
| exec at a client of mine who -- after studying there -- told
| everyone his company needed a moonshot. His idea of a moonshot
| was simply "triple profits by next year" by telling people they
| needed to believe it was possible.
|
| So yeah, he probably did not grasp what he was taught, but then
| again, you'd expect a self-proclaimed university to teach its
| students better than that.
|
| To me, the Singularity University's target audience seems to be
| execs who need to convince others they are capable of
| developing a vision.
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