bonifartius ๐ผ๐
maybe theres someone versed in history and linguistics here:
is anyone aware of research to reconstruct/validate mythology using neighboring mythologies by representing them as ontologies like "persephone is the daughter of zeus and demeter" and searching for similar logical patterns?
to give an example, the similarity of some of the norse gods and the roman and greek gods is accepted. i wonder if there might be other hidden similarities to be found by comparing those things systematically. the _concepts_ these mythological systems had might be much more old than either of those specific myths. i'd venture that at least for the larger language families there should be similarities and basic concepts to view the world. would be pretty interesting to search for those concepts, not only discovering them by accident.
i have the feeling this is a rather low hanging fruit aside the leg work of doing the transfer of the source texts into a logical system. this must already have been done by someone :)
@niclas
i'll take a look at aron ra.
my idea is to transfer the various sources into a logic representation, like "daughter of" etc. only with more complex structures represented. then compare these logical systems for similar relations. completely ignoring the textual representation of the source material.
imho, there is quite the risk of "tainting" things with modern interpretation and beliefs if you do analysis like this with the sources side by side. this is why i think representing things as logical system might be interesting. the source texts are often beautiful works of art, but that is also very capable of clouding the perception.
also, i'd venture that a computer might find patterns overlooked by humans. just don't use machine learning for the pattern search or you will end up with complete bullshit :P
@genmaicha
interesting! all of them are already applying some kind of interpretation to the texts though. an interpretation is - imho - always colored by personal beliefs and by extension beliefs of the epoch.
clicking though on wikipedia i found this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_mythology#Approaches
the structural and linguist approaches are kind of what i meant :)
seems like i have to buy some books,
cc:
@niclas
@bonifartius @genmaicha @niclas
Rene Girard, "things hidden since the foundation of the world" is very good
@bonifartius @genmaicha @niclas and Jung has interesting stuff on archetypes and symbology, more psychological than structural though
@pthenq1 the abstract looks kind of what i meant, yeah! thanks!
@bonifartius Not sure if I understand the question exactly;
I know that Aron Ra (YouTuber, atheist activist) has a lot of material comparing Bible stories to older texts from Babylonian, Persian and Indian religions and myths.