Myth

I want to further explore the multiplicity behind the linguistic term “myth.” In class we discussed how Myth=story and also Myth=Lie. I want to dive deeper into these terms and flesh out the characteristics behind the duality of Myth. Of course my first stop is Google which reveals multiple definitions:

1.A traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events

2.Such stories collectively

3.A widely held but false belief or idea

4.A misrepresentation of the truth

5.A fictitious or imaginary person or thing

6.An exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing

While these are all altered versions of both story and lie, the first definition brought new information to light; specifically the idea of myth being a state of phenomenon. Greek mythology is perceived to exist or to have happened right? Not so much, Greek mythology and its origin are in question. A phenomenon is also something of grand magnitude that is perceived to exist yet questioned by some. But perhaps it is the mystery and skeptics that bequeath mythology with the untouchable beauty these stories posses. To go even further—I would go as far as to say the reader wants to be lied to; taken to an alternative universe, the universe of Greek mythology. A world in which Gods and Godesses have flaws and seem even more humanistic than humans themselves. A world in which love can conquer (or defeat) all.

I stumbled upon an interesting article from wired magazine. Jonah Lehrer wants scientists to bone up on the classics. A former neuroscience lab drone, the 26-year-old Rhodes scholar would devour pages of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way whenever he wasn't spinning down DNA. In the process, he made a discovery: Artists have something to teach researchers. In his new book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer argues that many artists have foretold the scientific future — Proust revealed the inaccuracy of memory, chef Auguste Escoffier anticipated the fifth taste sensation we now call umami, and post-impressionist Paul Cézanne proved that the brain fills in what a painting doesn't show. Wired asked Lehrer to explain why the white coats should go all black-beret.

The article is so facinating (and so English inclined) I want to include the question and answer session Jonah Lehrer participates in:

Wired: Do you really think that we'll find answers to science's Big Questions in the arts?

Lehrer: Virginia Woolf isn't going to help you finish your lab experiment. What she will do is help you ask your questions better. Proust focused on problems that neuroscience itself didn't grapple with until relatively recently — questions of memory that couldn't be crammed into Pavlovian reinforcement: Why are memories so unreliable? Why do they change so often? Why do we remember only certain aspects of the past?

Wired: Has the separation of the disciplines held them back?

Lehrer: It has affected both cultures adversely. You read the diary of Woolf and the letters of Cézanne and realize they thought they were discovering something true — in the same real way that science is true — but we don't think of artists that way anymore. The separation has also led science to neglect this other side of the mind. It's important to acknowledge that when you discuss the brain only in terms of proteins and enzymes, you're missing something.

Wired: Which artists are making the discoveries of tomorrow?

Lehrer: Maybe my next book will be Kanye West Was a Neuroscientist. He's making use of the same musical principles as Beethoven, the same idea of building toward a pattern but then denying the listener that pattern by injecting randomness, because that unexpectedness is what your auditory cortex really craves.

Wired: What scientific advances are affecting artists today?

Lehrer: Neuroscience has come up with some amazing things in the past couple of decades, like the idea that there is no you in the brain, no neuron that is you or that cares about you. You're just a massively distributed parallel network. And the idea that from the perspective of DNA we're all so incredibly similar. That feels very novelistic to me.

Wired: Which of today's artists and scientists would you pair up?

Lehrer: Sculptor Richard Serra should read about string theory and figure out a way to simulate what 11 dimensions might be like. I would love to put Serra and physicist Brian Greene together.

So while myth can have a duel sense, I think story and lie need not walk hand in hand, but rather separately, each owning the character role they play for the reader, society – and science. Dictionaries don’t define words; they define how we use them.