Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you show up for class, and the professor starts lecturing incomprehensibly about a subject you don’t understand, but everyone else in the class is nodding happily and taking notes, and then you look down and notice you forgot to put on pants this morning? Neither have I, but I’ve lived it. Except for the pants part.
I arrived late at the conference — my wife is shopping for our trip to Korea, and so I got to play the part of the disconsolate husband sitting around in the Mall of America for a few hours. I’m not complaining, it was more fun than watching people make excuses for the paranormal. My plan had been to get there and get my double-dose of ufology that afternoon. It didn’t work out that way, because as usual, everything at the conference was running late. I was off by about an hour. So instead, I got to listen to Laird Scranton. Look him up on youtube — really, he’s hilarious, even though he doesn’t know it.
He pretends to be a scholar of language, when actually he’s a skilled practitioner of the art of false etymology: he takes a word in one language, finds that it sounds sort of like this other, unrelated word in a different language, and then builds a weird rationale for the connection. In this talk, he’s describing Skara Brae, an old neolithic settlement in the Orkney Islands. His usual wheelhouse is the pseudo-archaeology of the Dogon people in Africa; the Dogon are very popular among the Ancient Aliens crowd, because apparently (who knows how much of this is garbled wishful thinking) they have a myth about being visited by frog people from Sirius, and have “advanced astronomical knowledge“, although it seems that their ‘knowledge’ was actually cobbled up by unscrupulous Western con artists, and their culture is being co-opted to prop up pseudohistorical bullshit by a swarm of Ancient Aliens weirdos.
So what does this have to do with islands in the far north of Scotland? Everything is connected! Scranton is looking at the floor plans of four or five room houses of the Dogon people, and the floor plans of the four or five room houses at Skara Brae, and…OMG, they’re similar. Therefore, neolithic people living in the Orkney and Faroe islands must have had a culture just like that of Africans living in Mali. Furthermore, the Dogon are in Africa, just like the Egyptians, so the Dogon and Egyptian languages must be closely related, and since their houses have similar layouts, the Orkney islanders must speak a dialect of ancient Egyptian.
Do you find this logic credible so far?
And then Scranton starts examining the languages. Hold on to your hats, people, this will shake you to the core: the Faroe islands? Yes? Now note: Pharoah. These must be the islands of the pharoahs!
He went on and on finding similar correspondences. “Ness”, the word for “lake”, actually means “tongue” in Egyptian. When you translate “Skara Brae” with an Egyptian dictionary, it means “Capsized Boat”. Etc., etc., etc. For a minute, I thought he was going to make a case for the Scots being a lost tribe of Egyptians, but silly me, that would be absurd and insufficiently racist. He instead tried to argue that Egypt was founded by people from the Faroe Islands.
One of the early pharoahs, from the 4th dynasty, was named Sneferu, which obviously translates to “From the Faroe Islands” when you translate it ‘properly’. Furthermore, there were three pyramids built during his reign, and when you compare them to the rough hills of the Faroe Islands, they look exactly (for a Scrantonish version of “exactly”) alike. Also, when you look at the Egyptian hieroglyphics describing their ideal of heaven, they talk about a “field of reeds” — the Faroe Islands have marshes with reeds! — and the stylized animals in the glyphs kinda sorta look like the animals on the Faroes. Therefore, the Egyptians were transplants from the Orkneys/Faroes, pining away for the island hills, who regarded life on the Faroes as a kind of paradise.
I’m sitting there gawping in disbelief, but the audience was eating this up with a spoon. I just wanted to stand up and shout, “HAVE YOU ALL GONE MAD?”, but I restrained myself. Although I did regret my self-restraint when he proudly bragged in the Q&A that he has no problem translating modern Chinese using his handy Dogon/Egyptian dictionaries. I’m sure he can, but does it make sense when he does?
You will also be happy to know that he’s now at work trying to use modern astronomy and his understanding of ancient mythology to revive the corpse of Velikovsky.
OK, so Scranton was unbelievable and ridiculous, but at least it was entertainment of a sort. I was there because I don’t pay much attention to UFOlogy, so it was an opportunity to learn what is going on in the heads of the saucer-nuts. I would learn, unfortunately, that UFOlogy is easily the most fucking boring subject ever. It was going to be a long hour of me squirming in my seat trying to pay attention to the speaker, and eventually failing and nodding off. Good god, but UFOlogy is tedious and banal.
The speaker was Peter Robbins, who announced that he was going to tell us about a British incident that he considered the very best evidence for UFOs ever. Unfortunately, he didn’t start his talk by giving a summary of the event, or what his evidence was going to be, or even telling us the name of the incident, so for those of us (solely like me, that is) who don’t have a clue about famous UFO stories, it all started as a fog of words with no referents. Well, except one: he said this was like the British Roswell. I know about Roswell, at least. So it’s going to be a lot of bloated noise about a trivial incident?
He started by telling us about these two RAF bases, Bentwaters, now decommissioned, and its sister base, Woodbridge. He showed us photos of runways. He explained that this was an area with a lot of pre-Christian influence and Wiccans, which drew a pleased gasp from the audience.
There was a big storm in the fall of 1980 which knocked over over a million trees. It was not natural. What? How do you know? What does it have to do with anything?
He tells us an anecdote about seeing an SR71 fly overhead. B2 bombers flew out of Woodbridge. He’s got photos of all these things. Then he tells us that in 1980, there was a lot of unrest in Poland. He shows us photos of Lech Walesa. Of the Gdansk shipyards. Map of Poland.
I’m sitting there wondering, “What the fuck…?” He’s just going on and on about these irrelevant and ultimately mundane details without talking at all about the “incident” he’s supposed to be dazzling us with. It sinks in later that this is his modus operandi.
He’s describing all these details to establish himself as a credible narrator. He can cite all these dates, he’s got photos of the base, he’s got photos of Gdansk, he’s got photos of a forest, he’s got aerial photos of a farmer’s field, and he’s going to show them all to you and prove that he’s a detail-oriented guy. He will hammer you with them at dreary length.
Later, he starts talking about his primary witness to “the incident”, a guy named Larry Warren, who is going to be just full of fantastic bullshit. And what does Robbins do, for example? He shows a photo of a truck in a parking lot, and tells us that “this truck, or one just like it, was used to drive Larry Warren to the site”.
It was obvious what he was doing. He’s trying hard to pretend that he’s a meticulous, neutral reporter who has bucketloads of evidence for everything he’s going to claim. He is boring his audience to tears to overwhelm them with extraneous detail so they’ll welcome his ultimate pronouncement of alien phenomena with gratitude. It didn’t work on me. My notes are full of comments like “GET TO THE FUCKING POINT” and notes about the time — he babbled for half an hour before even giving me a clue what he was going to talk about. There is lots of profanity I have mostly removed from this summary.
So what was he going on about? It’s called the Rendlesham Forest incident. It’s all built around claims by one guy, Larry Warren, that he was transported by the air force to guard a grounded UFO in a field, and that he saw three 3-foot tall aliens hovering around it.
Of course, at this point there are no photographs. Just “artists’ renderings” and sketches by Warren. When it comes to documenting anything, Robbins has a photo of a letter Warren wrote to his mother in the US, stating that he saw a UFO, but can’t say more because the military would censor it. Then there are even more incredible claims of taking an elevator down to a giant cavern below the base, with little triangular UFOs and tiny aliens everywhere. Again, nothing but the ravings of Warren support any of this.
It was telling that even the stuff that ought to have been confirmable weren’t. Robbins claims that UFOs were flying around the base, hovering over weapons bunkers, and shining beams down that Robbins said “adversely affected the ordnance”, whatever that means. Somebody in the audience actually asked Robbins for details on what the adverse affects were, and he smugly told everyone that obviously it didn’t trigger the tactical nuclear bombs stored there, so it was something else.
This is the “very best evidence for UFOs ever”? Really? I am underwhelmed. This is even less convincing than the balsa wood and mylar recovered from Roswell. It was also the most boring, unpersuasive, digressive, conglomeration of irrelevant anecdotes I’ve ever heard. No wonder UFOlogy is dying out if this is the best they can muster.
I know I said I was going to listen to the notorious Travis Walton, too, but at that point I’d seen enough. UFOs are deadly dull. I couldn’t sit through another wearisome, unconvincing litany of mundane events wrapped around an incredible and totally undocumented tale of little green men. So I left. I don’t think I ever need to hear another UFO story for as long as I live. Another one might actually kill me with exasperation.
So today I think I’ll go in and listen to Scott Wolter, the archaeological fraud behind America Unearthed, the cable series on the History Channel’s H2 network. You know, the channel where they air the stuff that’s too embarrassing to be shown on their main channel. He’s kind of angrily demented, so at least I won’t fall asleep in his talk.
Right now I am in Scranton (Pennsylvania). When I read:
I laughed out loud.
And the guy in the picture you keep using? He looks like my daughter’s high school band director.
I guess I would have been one of the audience members, madly taking notes, writing down evey scrap of factoids falling from that speakers pie hole. Not because I believed he told us facts to support the UFO delusion; but to keep notes, for reference, when I write my mockery of it.
This is a nice example of “correlation is not causation” error. He jumps to wild conclusions simply because a word used *here* is phonetically similar to a word used *there*; then concluding that the word from *there* must have come from *here*.
The details is what I would have been intent on scribbling down during his talk.
Thanks, PZ, for sharing this agonizing experience, to spare us 1st hand torture..
re ^^: typos abound
Every one of those typos is actually a meaningful symbol. They tell me that you are allergic to frog’s legs, have a great-grandmother who is from Orion and a second cousin from Sirius, and that your chakras are misaligned.
That particular question isn’t a great example, as I think most historians of all types would agree it was bad weather that defeated the Armada. But it’s true that only the History Channel would have the courage to look into the question of whether those storms were caused by alien weather control technology.
Ness isn’t the word for lake, loch is the word for lake. The Loch Ness is Ness Lake. Inverness means “by the Ness”.
Oh, well then, obviously Loch Ness means Tongue Lake in Egyptian.
Apparently some of the other people involved in the supposed Rendlesham incident say Warren is full of crap, and his story doesn’t match up at all with that of other eyewitnesses.
Nobody tell him that ‘ness’ in British place names (and definitely in Orkney) usually means point or headland, from the old English or Old Norse depending which part of the country you’re in. Headlands… they’re a bit tongue-shaped.
We’re through the looking glass here, people.
Well, you would rubbish Scranton’s claims, wouldn’t you “PZ Myers from Morris, Minnesota”.
Pee – a colloquial word for urine. Clearly revealing of your connections to the powerful medieval tannery guilds, which were obviously a front for the illuminati/freemasons/lizard people etc.
Zed – a letter the Romans didn’t have, also a villain from the 1990s Power Rangers childrens’ series. Need I say more?
Myers – Mires are swamps or bogs. Orkney gets very boggy in the winter, and there is malarial marshland in the Nile delta too… coincidence? I don’t think so!
Morris – the Morris Minor is a famous three-wheeled fibreglass van. Three wheels… three legs on the Manx triskelion… The Isle of Man is just the other side of Scotland from Orkney, so this clearly goes back to those Orcadian settlers again!
“Minnesota” – mini means little, “Soter” was the epithet used by Ptolemy I, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty of pharaohs. Aha! The connection just keeps getting stronger!
Admit it, you’re up to your eyes in this! Stop trying to deflect attention! We know the truth!
cartomancer:
You forgot the link existing between Morris, MN and Morris Dancing. Not to mention Morris the Cat.
latveriandiplomat @ # 5: … most historians of all types would agree it was bad weather that defeated the Armada.
IANAHistorian, but all of the several books I’ve read about the Armada disagree. The Armada lost a lot of ships due to nasty storms, but that happened as they attempted to return to Spain by going around Ireland, after getting their asses kicked by Francis Drake’s superior tactics and their own poor planning, implementation, luck, and leadership.
It’s much deeper than that. Morris the Cat is clearly linked to Cat Stevens, who changed his name to Yusuf Islam sometime after visiting Marrakesh, which starts with M and completes the connection to all of the Morris, and to MN, and to Myers. And, of course, Mr Islam’s name ends with M, clearly a weak ruse, so looking at Yusuf spelled “backwards” we give Fusuy, which is must be the ancient gibberish for Sirrom, Morris spelled backwards.
Therefore, aliens.
(With apologies to Yusuf Islam.)
I once checked out a video called The Very Best Evidence For UFOs, or something like that. It was so frakking awful that I wanted to keep it to laugh at, but it made me despair for the human race. It really did.
I figured out was in each clip, I recall, except for the one where I couldn’t even tell what the narrator was gasping about. The sad ones were the ones where the camera-person clearly knew what they were recording, and were setting up the shot to look UFOish – the cocoon hanging from a strand of silk, and the streetlamp pole glaring under its lamps.
The people who “eat this stuff up with a spoon” looove the idea of making connections, finding correspondences, and being open-minded to possibilities. My woo friends think detail is data. Anecdote is data. And wild speculation is the heart of what it means to do “science.” Skepticism is a form of fear, and fear leads to self-doubt. Above all, it comes down to whom you place your trust in. You have your experts — and they have theirs.
It IS all connected. Not Egypt to the Orkneys, but apologetics in one bullshit spiritual area to apologetics in others. If the massive wall of “facts” doesn’t impress you, then it will eventually turn out that it’s all a matter of presupposition and suppressed knowledge. You know in your heart the aliens exist, but you deny them out of a selfish desire to make yourself important. Paradigm shifting requires humility.
If the boredom doesn’t get you, the smug will.
lack of any self doubt leads to absolute sureness which is a property of overweening pride
always an obstacle to knowledge and understanding.
it always has smelled of the fear of truth to me and the desire to have sure answers
I have no desire nor the endurance to actually go and listen to UFOlogists . thanks for the effort PZ better you than me
uncle frogy
Does this Larry Warren realize when you see three 3-foot tall aliens, it’s no longer a UFO, but three 3-foot tall aliens?
No of course he doesn’t.
Cartomancer @ 10
Your excellent exegesis of the multitudinous “M”s of Myers of Morris is unfortunately undone by the spurious selection of the Morris Minor, when you are thinking of the Reliant Robin (a completely different letter). The Morris Minor is, of course, a splendid example of British craftsmanship, strangely shaped like a flying saucer…..Ooops
I wonder if there’s a skeptical breakdown of the Roswell, NM incident. I’ve always seen the alien side of it, but never the (more realistic) skeptical side of it.
My grandpa actually has a videotape that purports to show the “autopsy” of one of the “aliens” supposedly found dead at the Roswell site, and really, truly believes it. I used to believe it myself, sadly, but I saw that same video online recently and I could not believe how ridiculously fake it looked. That “alien” was so obviously a prop it’s ridiculous.
Then I remember that, when I was a wee young’un, I actually thought the Irish women on “Touched by an Angel” was a real angel (I apparently was not yet aware of the concept of “special fx”)… so… you know… I was gullible back then…
Nathan, there was an issue of the Skeptical Inquirer that covered Roswell. IIRC, there was an explanation for everything physical, and a couple of glory-seekers to blame.
There was a balloon project called something that started with M – Majestic? It floated radiation meters over Russia to detect atom bomb testing. The debris found and photographed was flimsy foil and balsa wood from a test flight. The weird hieroglyphs were Christmas symbols on the sticky tape the low budget bought at discount. The project was secret, so there was a cover-up, yes, as UFO rumors were better than alerted Russians. The guy in the debris photos was out for publicity. Later, at the official press conference to reveal the truth, some higher-up officer grabbed the mic and the glory, and muddled the presentation so bad it sounded fake.
Some sighting of a live alien was a test pilot with a bruised and swollen face.
The autopsy vid shows people rapidly disassembling the alien, instead of studying it. There was a safety sign on the wall that wasn’t made until long after the autopsy was supposedly conducted.
Ye Pffft! of All Knowlege is a start, and I seem to recall Skeptical Inquirer, Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World, and Issac Asimov in one of his essays, plus others too vague(in my memory) to recall, have all discussed the incident, the absurd flying saucer claims, and how they happened. (I presume, but do not recall, the Condon Report also discussed the silliness?)
In summary: A then-classified nuclear surveillance balloon crashed. Early on, a jokey statement was issued by the Air Force that a “flying disc” had crashed (at the time, 1947, “UFOs” were a brand new fad), this was later “corrected” in a press release to a “weather balloon”.
Some years later various cranks and crooks discovered the by-now-forgotten incident and invented, von Däniken-style, whole new “facts”, such as “bodies”, and presumably made quite a lot of money. Lots of other eejits and con-artists jumped on board the fraudwagon; that obviously-fake “autopsy”-film mentioned is an example of the later inventions.
Eventually, the Air Force explained what really came down was a Project Mongul high-altitude balloon for detecting nuclear tests by sound. However, in woo-woo land, various (sometimes contradictory) stories have taken a firm grip, and presumably still generate revenue.
Enkidu @ 18
Blimey, you’re right! I’ve been making that mistake for years. Mind you, as a non-driver I find cars very hard to tell apart most of the time. “That one from Only Fools and Horses” was what I was really thinking of course.
Alien mind control. Definitely alien mind control.
The stories about “bodies” have their root in a series of ejection system tests in the same area where aircraft went up and what was pretty much a crash-test dummy was ejected. These dummies had to be collected for analysis and couldn’t be expected to land nice and neatly on a road. Thus, a couple of guys had to walk out and bring them back to a truck and what was the easiest way to carry them? Well, given that they were man-shaped, 6 feet tall and weighed 150-200 pounds the retrieval team used something designed for carrying things like that: A stretcher.
So people did indeed see the military carrying what looked like bodies which were loaded into trucks and driven off.
If my info is correct, there’s another thing about the Pharaoh/Faroe connection that’s ridiculous, beyond the obvious. it doesn’t work because the Egyptians did NOT call their rulers “Pharaohs”. That was what the Greeks called the Egyptian rulers, and it comes into English most likely via the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
Well of course it’s garbled. It is of course the dog people who come from Sirius!
Skara Brae is a recent (last few decades) corruption of Skerrabra. I have been unable to find the source of this name, but it’s probably Norse in origin, as are most Orcadian place names (any Scandinavians able to confirm or deny the plausibility of this?). We have no idea what language(s) the Neolithic inhabitants of Skara Brae spoke, but can be pretty certain it wasn’t Norse, or any Celtic language. Do go and see Skara Brae if you get the chance – looking down into the homes of people who lived 5,000 or so years ago is a touching experience, and a big storm could sweep it all away. Although according to one of the entries in the side-bar to this page, it’s a modern myth that the site was unknown until a big storm in 1850 exposed it. Interesting. I only recently learned that Stonehenge was extensively “restored” in the period up to the 1960s.
When reading the OP, I thought PZ had confused the Faroes – which are a long way (about 300 km) from the Orkneys – with the Shetlands, which are quite close, to the north. But presumably that was Scranton. There is no evidence the Faroes (which are now an autonomous county of Denmark) were inhabited in the Neolithic, or any earlier than 400 C.E. But it is not known where the earliest inhabitants came from – could it have been Egypt????*
The BBC weather forecasts got it badly wrong. This is clearly unpossible in the absence of extraterrestrial intervention.
*No, it couldn’t.
Scranton used the Orkneys and the Faroes interchangeably. He’d be talking about the shape of the foundations found at Skara Brae and how they’re just like Dogon houses, and then he’d tell us about the shape of the hills of the Faroes, and how they’re just like the pyramids.
He also uses “Egyptian” and “Dogon” interchangeably. You know, Mali is all the way on the other side of the African continent from Egypt.
His geography was as nonsensical as his etymology.
PZ Myers – I read and understand your observations about my presentation at the Paradigm Symposium 2016, and want to invite you to discuss them with me – either here, or on a thread I’ve opened on my Facebook page.
My first point regards my method of word correlation. I’m lucky, in that Dogon cosmological words carry multiple discrete meanings, distanced from one another so that knowing one won’t reasonably allow you to guess the others. When we find those same meanings attached to words in another language, my view is that we have a positive correlation, not an incidental one. As an example, the Dogon “hidden god” is Amma, whose name also means “to grasp, hold firm, or establish”. The name of the Egyptian “hidden god” Amen (whose mythic role and icons Serge Sauneron says are a match for Amma) also means “to grasp”. The Hebrew Amen (spoken at the end of prayer) comes from a root that means “to establish”.
Wherever possible, I use this same multiple-point-of-correlation approach to associating words. I understand that when I present a word comparison without going into the points of connection, it can sound arbitrary.
I wanted to ask if you approve of the approach I’m taking to this.
Why should any scientist, like myself, approve of an approach based on woo and presupposition? For example, how much contact with Europeans did the Dogon have prior to their incorporating the dog star into their mythology?
My next point regards the Skara Brae stone house structure. All of the original houses at the site were built to this plan, which archaeologists in Scotland have been unable to match to regional cultures. Among other things, it includes what researchers there call a “unique” feature, a round “beehive” room. The plan, which involves a round room toward one end, a square central room flanked on either side by a rectangular space, with entry through another small room at the bottom.
The Dogon built stone houses to a matching plan, but with the understanding that the plan is cosmological. It represents the body of a sleeping goddess. The round room is her head, the side rooms her arms, the central room her body cavity, and the entry her sexual parts. Words of one of the two local languages (Faroese – the other is a Norwegian-based language called Norn) give names for those rooms that are a phonetic match for the appropriate body parts. In other words, the body symbolism seems to have been intended.
Moreover, the Faroese language provides many matches to Dogon and Egyptian words. As an example, geographic place names on Orkney Island that have no cognates in the Scandinavian languages play right out when compared to Dogon and Egyptian words. Through those comparisons, we can understand why a specific place was named as it was.
Again, it would help to know if you approve of my approach to these questions – or if you can suggest a more workable one.
In Egypt, it’s understood that burial chambers such as mastabas were symbolic of houses. During the same 3200 BC – 2600 BC era in which Skara Brae was inhabited, we find a First Dynasty stone burial chamber at Minshat Abu Omar whose plan is a structural match for what the Dogon define as the “main house” – the round room, main room and entry room.
This structure is consistent with a long list of correlated Dogon and Egyptian mythic, civil and ritual traditions that I’ve tried to carefully correlate in a series of books – the seventh at the publisher as we speak.
At 3200 BC, most researchers will agree that it is unreasonable to think that the predynastic Egyptians somehow mounted an expedition to Scotland. Meanwhile during that same era in Scotland, there is a series of related megalithic sites that were built to a cross-generational plan. Those sites also have specific meaning for the Dogon cosmology – they represent stages of creation, set out on a human-sized scale.
One difference between the Skara Brae house plan and the Dogon plan is that the Scottish house includes a central square hearth where the heart of the goddess should be, metaphorically speaking. As researcher, I can surmise that the Dogon house reflects the original plan and that the Scots added a hearth, in keeping with the cosmological symbolism. Or I can surmise that the Skara Brae plan was original and the Dogon simply omitted the hearth when they moved to a subtropical climate.
Again, it would help to know whether you approve of my thought process on this.
Okay, so we can count linguistics, geography and archaeology as things that Laird Scranton does not understand.
And I write this while sitting in the city of Scranton.
Looks outside.
It fits.
Please explain your point as it pertains to what I’ve written.
lairdscranton
There is zero evidence the Faroes were inhabited before around 400 CE – approximately 3,000 years after Skara Brae was abandoned. there is zero evidence of any contact whatever between either Scotland or the Faroes (which are about 300km from the Orkneys) and either Egypt or Mali in Neolithic times.
I see no evidence of any thought process.
You need to google excavations at Skara Brae and check the dating.
My point isn’t about the Faroes, it’s about Skara Brae, which was inhabited from around 3200 BC.
And yes, we have no good evidence regarding the Faroes in the era.
@Brother Ogvorbis — If you feel Mr. Scranton’s understanding is incorrect, please demonstrate conclusively why.
@Nerd of Redhead — the reason why a scientist like you should examine Mr. Scranton’s approach and conclusions is because, as a scientist, you’re obliged to use the scientific method to determine the merit of a hypothesis. To assert that your authority — and yours alone — should be taken on faith is the mark of a priest, not a scientist.
So, as I said to Ogvorbis, please apply a research methodology before making conclusive statements.
As usual, I see the crank is entirely within his own delusional unthinking, and hasn’t cited (linked to) one bit of evidence outside of himself.
It is like I have to believe what he says, based entirely upon what he says without outside confirmation. In that case, I apply utter skepticism, and don’t believe a word without that outside confirmation.
Deflecting new evidence on the basis that there is no evidence is a disingenuous response.
There are chapter notes to support each reference in the upcoming book. Anyone can check whether the forms are what I say they are, the word meanings as I cite them, and so on.
Freeman550, you don’t understand the scientific method either. I dismiss his approach due to the fact it is a bunch of non-sequiturs and co-incidences thrown together to fit a presuppositional agenda. A cursory glance was all that was needed to confirm that.
Whether words in three languages are consistently in agreement one another is an objective observation, and by any reasonable evaluation, not a coincidence.
@Nerd of Redhead — Here are his books, containing his research, with citations. Please review them before jumping to conclusions. http://www.amazon.com/Laird-Scranton/e/B001JP8HUU
Ah, a book, which means it isn’t properly reviewed by academic anthropologists and experts in the evolution of language.
Ever hear of the difference between vanity publishing and the peer reviewed scientific literature? I don’t belief the former, but the latter will be considered.
Freeman500, thanks for falling into the crank trap.
Check my Simon and Schuster author page, and my articles in the University of Chicago’s academic journal Anthropology News, Tempie University’s Encyclopedia of African Religion, and the Encycopedia Brittannica.
Make that “Temple University”.
There are a limited number of sounds that the human vocal system can produce. There are many languages. There are many families of languages. To make a claim based on similarity of sounds from one language family to another is a major red-warning-flag-of-nonscientific-woo. To then latch onto words that sound similar in different language families and have a meaning that can be construed to be close each other is another red-warning-flag-of-nonscientific-woo.
Scientists (and historians), when they make a claim, are expected to do multiple things. First, they are expected to back up the claim with evidence that can be verified by a third party. Second, they are expected to try to shoot down their own findings — if I write a thesis and do not deal with contrary evidence, or alternate interpretations of the same evidence, my paper will be shot down in flames. Third, they are expected to publish in a peer-reviewed publication so that others, with knowledge of the subject, can try to shoot down the claim of the researcher or scientist.
Claiming that this small set of words has a similar sound and a similar meaning, while ignoring the remainder of the words in the disparate language families, does not fit what I was taught about the practice of either history or science.
In other words, correlation does not mean causation. That right there is sufficient to me to dismiss red-warning-flag-nonscientific-woo.
And that is it for me for today.
My daughter graduates tomorrow and I have to go home to cook for relatives from out of state.
I agree. That’s why multiple points of evidence are required to correlate two words, in the same way that we would correlate two deities, symbols, or ritual practices.
Using the gods Amma and Amen again as an example, the gods hold matching roles in parallel mythologies, are credited with matching acts, bear relationships to matching mythical characters. Their names are explicitly equated in the languages of various North African tribes. The names carry matching secondary meanings. It would be completely irrational to say that the god correlate but their names don’t.
You are making some hugely implausible leaps from some pretty ordinary coincidences. Similar floorplans? Well, squares and circles are pretty simple to build, and there’s only a limited number of ways to combine them. I’d be surprised if people from different parts of the world didn’t come up with similar layouts. And the fire in the middle is probably not because of some spiritual significance, but because it’s fucking cold in the Orkneys, and putting the fire in the middle is the easiest way to warm the room without it filling with smoke. A fire in the centre of the main room is a pretty standard part of houses throughout the UK, from the stone age though to about the fifteenth century, when chimneys started being more common.
Also, your description of the layout doesn’t match that given here; looks like what you’re describing as “rooms” are actually beds and cupboards, and the shape is a lot less consistent than you suggest. There’s a plan here, which shows basically roundish buildings, some of them with smaller protuberances apparently used for storage or beds. It’s pretty cool, but the layout doesn’t look that different to the ancient village I’ve seen on the top of a mountain in Snowdonia. It’s pretty much what I’d expect from early architecture somewhere cold, wet and windy, with plenty of stone and not many trees.
@jefrir — what can’t be denied is the basic similarity between the various ground plans in terms of overt layout. You yourself have just shown that similarity.
Now, when more than one culture — separated by thousands of miles — uses the same layout, and at least one, if not more of them explicitly describe what the layout is supposed to mean and both cultures use the same words to describe the same things, Occam’s Razor demands that we at least consider the possibility that they’re using the same conventions.
Why exactly are you so opposed to even investigating the possibility?
@PZ Myers — in regards to the original post, I have to ask —
As a marine biologist, would you consider an astronomer qualified to denounce your research with Zebrafish?
If not, what on earth makes you qualified to denounce a line of research that combines the fields of archaeology, linguistics, cosmology, architecture, geometry and astrophysics?
If you’re going to do historical linguistics, do it right. It’s not enough to show a few coincidences across a couple of different languages and declare “there must be something there”! As one of my linguistics professors used to say, “you have to account for everything”. This is especially true if you don’t have any corroborating historical evidence showing the connection between the languages. It’s pretty trivial to show that Faroese and Norwegian are related, but the work that went into establishing Tocharian as an Indo-European language was much more complicated.
So show us your work. Not just a few coincidences–show us in detail, accounting for everything, how Faroese and the many Dogon dialects are related.
Otherwise, you got nothing.
jefrir – As a simplistic summary, the comparative house plans point us to a culture. The cosmology of the culture not only provides a rationale for the house plan, it also explains the sequence of megalithic sites on Orkney Island. The local Faroese language exhibits multiple points of correlation to the Dogon and Egyptian languages, specifically in relation to that same cosmology. Above and beyond that, the related languages explain the place names of the various sites on Orkney Island. By my standards, that’s a pretty substantive set of links for a site that previously offered no official theories of origin.
What a Maroon, living up to the ‘nym
The pending book shows the work. It’s unreasonable to expect that from an 75 minute group presentation.
Sorry, but I’m not buying your book. Show us the peer reviewed evidence that Faroese is a Niger-Congo language or, alternatively, that Dogon is Germanic. Without that, you’ve got nothing.
And by Dogon I mean all of the dialects of Dogon.
If you could demonstrate your hypothesis convincingly, you’d win a Nobel in Linguistics, if Nobels were awarded in Linguistics.
I was taught that when you bump up against the third coincidence, it’s time to consider that something besides coincidence is going on. Ask yourself how many compounding coincidences a careful researcher should be willing to tolerate. I’ve lost count of the number of seemingly coincidental circumstances are presented the Skara Brae/Dogon/Egyptian comparisons. My interpretation may not be a correct one, but based on the evidence it’s a reasonable one, especially because there are no viable competing theories.
One more thing–you keep talking about the Orkney Islands and Faroese. Is it your claim that Faroese is or was spoken on the Orkneys?
@What a Maroon, living up to the ‘nym
Again, the three dictionaries are publicly available to anyone who wants to objectively test my comparisons.
There are two ancient languages associated with Orkney Island. One is called Norn, and is based in Norwegian. The other is the Faroese language. My book demonstrates dozens of words in thej Faroese language that correlate, based on a variety of evidence, to Dogon and Egyptian hieroglyphic words.
The house plans are not similar. The houses at Skara Brae are roughly circular, single-roomed dwellings. The Dogon houses are not. The Orkneys are not the Faroes. Faroese is not, and has not been, spoken in the Orkneys. The Norn language did exist on the islands, and was similar to Faroese, but it wasn’t spoken there until the 9th century AD, four millenia after the settlement in Skara Brae was built. We have no idea what the original inhabitants called the parts of their houses, because their language has not survived.
I’m beginning to think you are not merely wrong, but lying.
According to Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, who conducted studies of the Dogon for three decades, the Dogon languages is technically unclassifiable because it consists of upward of 17 subsets of words, whose purity is carefully prioritized by the Dogon. Based on my studies, some of these relate to Turkish roots, some to the Dravidian languages of the Tamil, some to Egyptian hieroglyphic words. The Dictionnaire Dogon was compiled by Genevieve Calame-Griaule, and provides detailed insights into the various forms and meanings of the words.
Jefrir – All but one of the original Skara Brae houses has been rebuilt. You’re comparing to house plans from the wrong era.
Faroese is spoken in, where? Oh yeah, the Faroe Islands. It too derived from Old West Norse, so it’s closely related to Norn. Ancient? I suppose, if by “ancient” you mean “began its development around 900 CE”. Though compared to, say, Ancient Greek, that’s pretty green.
And “hieroglyphic words”? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
What you say about the Norn language is sensible, since there are few correlations to the words I write about. Meanwhile, the relationship of Faroese words is demonstrable in the context of the Orkney Island structures, locales, and artifacts.
Yeah, no. Faroese is also descended from Old West Norse, the same as Norn, and the two were probably mutually intelligible (we don’t know for sure, because no-one speaks Norn any more). It was spoken in, surprise surprise, the Faroes, not the Orkneys. And both Norn and Faroese were introduced to their respective islands with the Norse settlement from the 9th century, and so, again, had fuck all to do with Skara Brae.
@What a Maroon, living up to the ‘nym
If I have to explain what a “hieroglyphic word” is, you’re in the wrong discussion.
jefrir –
You only need to compare the dictionaries to see the lack of truth in your statement.
Or I could look to respectable linguists, who show that both Faroese and Norn fit comfortably within the Germanic language group. Wikipedia page here, with plenty of examples and links to stuff by people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Sorry, lairdscranton, your use of “hieroglyphic word” is just further evidence that you’re full of shit. Hieroglyphics isn’t a language; it’s a writing system used to represent a language. If you can’t understand such a basic distinction, why should we bother to listen to anything else you have to say?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that if the sequence of megalithic sites conform to the Dogon cosmological model, it’s completely sensible that the house plan could, too.
@What a Maroon, living up to the ‘nym
I hear the distinction you’re trying to make, but there are lots and lots of Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionaries filled with word entries.
If you like, substitute “word written with Egyptian hieroglyphs”.
Only to a True Believer™, not a real scientist. Which you aren’t.
No belief involved – just simple observation and comparison.
@Nerd of Redhead — given your penchant for personal attacks and your default “because I said so” commentary, I’m going to have to ask for your credentials as a scientist. You’re behaving in a manner more consistent with a theocratic priest than an honest person doing a real search for factual truth.
Okay, so so far, you are trying to link languages and cultures separated by both distance and time, based on incorrect facts and coincidences that turn out not to be particularly coincidental when given even a passing inspection.
Sorry, Lairdscranton, if you want us to take you seriously as a scholar at the very least you should learn to use scholarly language correctly. is as meaningful as .
Thanks, guys. I think we’re done here.
And there are lots of English Latin alphabet dictionaries filled with word entries.
Whoa, look at all the Latin words I’m using! I must be Latin!
The problem with defending the purity of the Dogon language is that the Dogon language is about as pure as a gray reptiloid anal-fetishist from Sirius. Dogon does not merely borrow words; on occasion, Dogon has used alien spacecraft to abduct languages from the far reaches of the Earth, leaving them to wake in the morning with patchy memories, strange scars, and missing vocabulary.
— (with tremendous apologies to the actual Dogon people, actual Dogon linguists, and to James D. Nicoll)
Real linguists study many aspects of language in addition to words.
@ chigau,
I dunno, I kind of like his way of doing linguistics. Applying the three coincidences rule, I know a language where:
The way to express ability is to add the affix -bil- to the verb.
The word for meat is “et”, which is clearly derived from the dialectal past tense of the verb “eat” (meat is the food I et).
The word for mother is “anne”, clearly derived from the English woman’s name.
Now you’ll just have to wait to buy my book in which I show the common origin of English and Turkish.
What a Maroon: of course! This is because of the Britii who marched through Europe to Galatia and founded Turkey around their capital at Ankara, so named because it was the anchor of their civilization.
I see lairdscranton brought his tame parrot with him.
The word for “dog” in the extinct Australian language Mbabaram, formerly spoken in north Queensland, was “dog”. The origin of the old English word “dogca”, which became “dog” is, mysteriously, completely unknown!!!! Clearly, natives of North Queensland voyaged to England around the 8th century – probably calling in on the Dogon en route.
[blockquote]According to Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, who conducted studies of the Dogon for three decades, the Dogon languages is technically unclassifiable[/blockquote]
Problem is, that was in the 1930s. Linguistics, like all scientific fields of study, makes progress over time.
Also, keep in mind that at the time, Mali was a colony. Griaule and Dieterlen may have been motivated, more or less consciously, to enhance the “uniqueness” of the Dogon people and their “advanced” culture because that felt it would make colonial administrators more respectful of their traditional way of like. Griaule, for one, live for years in Dogon country and had many friends there. He also tried to find ways for them to better their economic situation, by building a dam to irrigate their fields.
There’s one more twist, here. The Dogon live in Mali, a country that became an important centre of Muslim scholarship in the Middle Ages. (Remember the Timbuktu manuscripts and sanctuaries threatened by, sad irony, Islamic guerillas?) Muslim astronomers were at the forefront of their science at the time. So, while the Dogon kept their own religion and way of life, it’s not terribly far-fetched to think that they may have absorbed knowledge from the neighbouring peoples, if only through a handful of travelers and their tales.
The myth of the “pure” or isolated culture is just that: a myth. That’s not how humans live.
Irene – I appreciate your comments. From the standpoint of cosmology, we have two systems that in the current day are a symbolic/conceptual match for one another. The first relates to a Buddhist stupa, is given in Sanskrit, and was documented by around 450 BC. The second is the Dogon, given orally in Egyptian words that went out of use by around 750 BC. The difference in language implies that neither culture simply adopted its cosmology wholesale from the other. Various Dogon cultural practices place their relationship with ancient Egypt much earlier, at around the predynastic/dynastic boundary.
Because the Dogon and Buddhist systems as they are understood my modern authorities are a match today, it’s clear than neither can have changed significantly over the course of thousands of years – if either one had, they would not still present a match.
This is the same kind of coherence and purity that Griaule and Dieterlen claimed for the Dogon language, and that I demonstrate in various ways in my books.
Ok, numerobis, who leaked the advanced copy of my book?
Another way to demonstrate the relative coherence of Dogon language over the years is by comparing Dogon words to ancient Egyptian ones – a process that I’ve used exhaustively in my books. Differences of the sort we would expect from natural evolution of language are evident. As examples, the Dogon Sigi festival relates to an Egyptian word skhai, meaning “to celebrate a festival.” The name of the character who plays the role of light in Dogon cosmological myths is Ogo, while an Egyptian word for light and name of a Light God is Aakhu. While the meanings of the Egyptian terms have often been inferred, the Dogon are quite clear about the meanings of their corresponding words. When we extend the comparisons to other cultures who share the same word, we can essentially triangulate an original meaning.
In order to establish a basis of comparability, we need to demonstrate multiple points of evidence for a range of words. Once we’ve done that, and can demonstrate the intimacy of a relationship between the languages, we’re on ground to infer a relationship based simply on the resemblance of words.
LairdScranton #82
Every post beyond that shows a lack of honesty and integrity.
Still no science, simply non-sequiturs, coincidences, and outright mistakes. Nothing cogent to see here, and nothing cogent to discuss.
馬鹿
@Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
So I’ll ask again – please be specific about an approach of mine you disagree with, and how I should be approaching it instead.
@chigau
誰？
In Fijian, tamata ‘person’ in clearly derived from Adam.
also kolī ‘dog’ is derived from cōllie.
@chigau
I agree that merely pointing out a resemblance between two words and saying it implies a connection doesn’t constitute a valid comparison.
Comparing two words in a specific context also makes a big difference. As an example, when discussing the concept of an alphabet, it’s hard to deny that the Hebrew letters Aleph and Bet bear a conceptual relationship to the English letters A and B. On one level, the Dogon cosmology is essentially an alphabet of matter. When another culture understands matching stages of creation and assign similar terms to corresponding stages, the argument for correlation is a very strong one.
In Peru is the city of Lima. In Indonesian, the number 5 is lima. Both those are pronounced “leema”. In America, lima beans are pronounced “lye-muh”. In Ohio is the city of Lima – in Lima I asked someone how to pronounce the name of the place: she said “Burger King”.
Toss it all, read a book on how to be scientific, and only publish in the peer reviewed scientific literature. Only publish a book that describes those papers. DUH. Your ideas are so broken and disjointed, they can’t be fixed.
Now, show us your papers in the peer reviewed scientific literature that back up your pronunciation connections.
@Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
I’ll take seriously a specific suggestion. Without that, for me it’s simply naysaying.
@Menyambal
I agree that word resemblances can be fortuitous or meaningful. For me, it would be as nonsensical to discard the meaningful ones because some aren’t, as to think that every resemblance is meaningful.
The next point of PZ’s that I wanted to address relates to the comparability of ancient Chinese and Egyptian hieroglyphic words. The traditional view is that that the Egyptian glyphs were primarily phonetic, while the Chinese glyphs are understood to have been primarily conceptual – essentially that each glyph represented an idea, object or action.
My outlook is that, with 40-some phonetic values represented in most written languages, it seems clear that a written language that requires 4000-some glyphs is probably NOT primarily phonetic. The easy demonstration of that in ancient Egypt is a word for “week”, written with two glyphs. These are the sun glyph (circle with a dot). which can represent the concept of a day, and an upside-down U, representing the number 10. To me, the obvious symbolism of the word was that it referred to “ten days”. I did some quick research and learned that the ancient Egyptians had a ten-day week. In essence, I could see that, substituting concepts for glyphs, the form of the word explained its intended meaning.
In ancient China, the word for “week” was written with the Chinese sun glyph (originally a circle with a dot) and the number 10. A little research showed that the ancient Chinese also observed a 10-day week. In other words, we have direct equivalence in the way the words were formulated, the glyph shapes used to represent concepts, the way they were properly interpreted, and their correct expression of civic practices in both cultures. From this starting point, it is quite easy to demonstrate on-going parallels between the cosmological words of both cultures.
The situation in ancient China is that practices that occurred at around 3000 BC are only known to us through texts set down at around 300 BC. The wide gap between those eras has produced endless infighting among scholars as to what was actually meant by various ancient Chinese terms of cosmology.
In case after case, it’s possible to show that Chinese concepts of cosmology align with the Dogon and Egyptian, and are expressed using similar words. However, whereas the Chinese word meanings are often obscure, we have resources to understand the original intent of the Dogon and Egyptian words.
One of the purposes of the study of comparative cosmology is precisely to learn more about obscure practices of one culture by comparing them to demonstrably similar but less obscure practices of other cultures.
Menyambal #101
I thought it was ‘Dairy Queen’.
[citation needed]
[citation needed]
The reference is to a Shang dynasty term “shi ri”, interpreted by scholars to mean “ten suns” (the Egyptian sun glyph can represent the concept of a day, the sun, or appears in words that relate to periods of time). It’s also related to ancestral kings in China whose names are understood to represent days of the week.
The extended rational and supporting evidence appears in Chapter 3 of my book China’s Cosmological Prehistory, with noted references.
Also, most people I know are not in the habit of footnoting blog discussion posts.
Laird Scranton, what EVIDENCE would it take for you to admit your idea is bogus, and you should quit talking about it? Scientists are able to answer that question.
For example, my disbelief in Bigfoot can be changed by 1) capture of the animal, 2) carcess of the animal, 3) skeleton of the animal, and 4) hair or dung with unknown primate DNA. I’m not holding my breath.
@Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
I’m awaiting a specific example from you of one of my methodologies you disagree with.
lairdscranton
What is wrong with you?
[citation needed] means you need to provide a citation:
a link, if it’s available online,
a journal name, volume, edition, entry title, page number, for paper journals
.
citing your own, vanity-press books does not count
I’ll repeat that there is no routine requirement to provide citations for a blog posting. Meanwhile ,”see my book” is a reasonable alternative to rewriting one’s book in a blog post.
Sarah Allen cites Lun heng jiaoshi , juan 25, p. 1027 (Alfred Forke, Lun Heng, New York: Paragon Book Gallery, 1962, p. 412.
you are trolling
Bless your heart.
Be advised that I have a low tolerance for abuse.
Be advised that I have bunions.
and chronic sacroiliac pain
The next point of PZ’s that I wanted to address is the question of Dogon astronomical knowledge. The Dogon are a modern-dayprimitive African tribe from Mali who came to public attention because of a 1975 book by Robert K.G. Temple called The Sirius Mystery. The book’s focus is on Dogon knowledge of astronomic facts about the stars of Sirius that should have required technology, such as telescopes. The Dogon knew of the existence of a small white dwarf star known to astronomer’s as Sirius B, paired with a bright Sun-like star known as Sirius A. They also knew the correct orbital period for the two stars. Carl Sagan proposed that the Dogon has obviously learned about the stars from some modern visitor, and adopted the knowledge as part of their mythic tradition.
There are two primary difficulties with Sagan’s view. First, the Dogon knowledge is given in ancient Egyptian words. Second, in ancient Egypt, Isis is known to have represented Sothis/Sirius (Sirius A). In order to understand that, we tacitly agree to play a symbolic game that I call, “When I say goddess, you say star.” However, in that same tradition, Isis was understood to have a dark sister named Nephthys. In other words, we have supporting evidence that the Egyptians were also aware of the second star.
lairdscranton
Have you read this book?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%27s_Stonehenge
I haven’t read it, but have heard some good reports about it. Would you recommend it?
Gordon Freeman is barking mad so I would not recommend that you read anything by him.
For that reading of “bear a conceptual relationship to” that means “are the direct antecedents, by a process that has been documented at every step”, no less!
What is an “alphabet of matter” (a periodic table of elements?) and how does it relate to the documented history of the Latin alphabet?
Again with the “hieroglyphic words”.
Actually, the “traditional” view (for several centuries at least, up to the early 19th) of the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system was that it was primarily conceptual and theological, and consequently undecipherable. Champollion demolished that idea by publishing a systematic and verifiable phonetic decipherment that could be applied to hieroglyphics of all periods.
Not the understanding of anyone who actually knows something about the Chinese writing system. Some characters (maybe as many as 5%!) are conceptual, but the word “logosyllabic” exists for a reason.
Laird Scranton, only loons/cranks refuse to answer the simple question “What evidence would it take to refute your ideas, and cause you to say you were wrong?” Scientist will answer that question.
Thank you for playing. You will never be a scientist. You are a loon.
@richardh
If a child can recite the letters of the alphabet, and either point to or draw the letters as they recite them, it’s pretty much universally agreed that they know their alphabet. The Dogon can correctly recite and draw the stages of matter, from waves to atom.
Both Thomas Young (the British polymath who laid the foundation for Champollion’s work) and Champollion himself were of the belief that something more than just phonetics was reflected by the Egyptian glyphs. Champollion actually delayed announcing his findings for several months because he wasn’t convinced that a phonetic solution was a full solution.
@Nerd
If I propose a scientific theory, say, that the sun moves around the earth, there are lots of predictive effects that could be used to test the theory. If those fail, the theory fails.
The situation here is more akin to the Dogon having been documented as stating that the earth moves around the sun, an outlook that has already been tested and accepted as scientifically correct. I can test their statements against the science to see if their understanding aligns with the science. Short of interviewing a group of Dogon priests who claim the opposite, I’m not in a position to invalidate the fact of their statement.
I’m simply an observer here – all I’ve done is test the reasonableness of their documented statements. I’m not offering a theory to be proved or disproved.
@richardh:
It depends on what you mean by “Hebrew”, there. The Hebrew writing system(s) used today derive from the Assyrian, which transformed the glyphs of the more ancient Phoenician/Proto-Canaanite alphabet in particular ways. Paleo Hebrew, as found in inscriptions such as the ostraca letters of Lachish and Arad, used a writing system that is arguably Phoenician/Proto-Canaanite, or very similar to it.
Or in other words, a modern Aleph and Bet are the cousins of the English (Latin) A and B, rather than being antecedents, with a particular phylogeny deriving from Proto-Canaanite, which is the actual antecedent of both writing systems.
@richardh
. It’s OK if you want to nitpick my example, but Facebook logic doesn’t apply here.
An interesting and perhaps relevant link:
http://skepdic.com/dogon.html
The paper by van Beek that is cited above is not linked to, but I see a few copies available as PDFs by a Google Scholar search. Expanding on the quoted section from the above page:
(where RP=Griaule and Dieterlen 1965, Le renard pâle )
Reference:
van Beek, Walter EA. Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Griaule. Current Anthropology Vol. 32, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 139-167
(The PDF also contains comments and replies by: R. M. A. Bedaux, Suzanne Preston Blier, Jacky Bouju, Peter Ian Crawford, Mary Douglas, Paul Lane and Claude Meillassoux)
@Owlmirror
To my knowledge, the most recent word on this subject was mine – an article entitiled “Revisiting Griaule’s Dogon Cosmology”, published in the April 2007 edition of the academic journal Anthropology News, published by the University of Chicago.
Like other Dogon researchers over a period of 60 years – including Griaule himself – Van Beek missed the direct parallels between a Buddhist stupa and a Dogon aligned shrine referred to symbolically as a “granary”. Both shrines serve as the grand symbol of matching detailed cosmologies. For Van Beek’s outlook to be a correct one, we’d have to believe that the Dogon priests casually invented Buddhism.
For Van Beek’s outlook to be a correct one, we’d have to believe that the Dogon priests casually
invented Buddhismdecided to build tall structures.For anyone who subscribes to the Wiley On-Line library, here’s a link to the article.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/an.2007.48.4.24/full
Van Beek tried to argue that Griaule’s Dogon cosmology is not a legitimate form. However, because it matches the Buddhist cosmology, which has long been accepted as a legitimate form, long observed all across India and Asia, that argument doesn’t hold water.
I am also writing a book – I have been inspired by lairdscranton. And will now grace you with a short excerpt:
After giving a few cursory thoughts to the matter, I have realized that the Dogon most certainly travelled through Latvia, as evidenced by the name of the largest river that almost exactly bisects the country, the river Daugava. Obviously, the local peoples of the time recognized the importance of these travellers and, having never noticed the river previously, named it after them. My research has not yet revealed if they were on their way to or from Scotland, though.
Further: my house has been built according to the ancient Livonian cosmological model. The kitchen clearly faces precisely East, where the sun rises – and what better place to spend one’s mornings than a kitchen fully lit by early morning sunshine? Second, the bedroom faces west, and – what’s more! – is placed on the second floor. There are two cosmological reasons for this. The first one is that the dying light of day can be observed for a longer period of time, and thus one’s evening ablutions can be completed before total darkness sets in. Second, as the sun goes to sleep in the west, so we go to sleep in the west-facing bedroom. Next, the chimney is clearly not centred but is placed slightly towards the northward side of the house, pointing pretty much exactly at the north star, a clear navigational sign if I ever saw one. See, the ancient tribes of this land were also renowned for their seagoingness, and once they settled on land, they had a hard time letting such north-pointing objects go.
I would like to argue against the following statement (from comment 55, I believe):
Um, no. Ogo is the character who takes care of berries (see Latvian word oga) and growing (see Latvian verb augt), therefore a fertility god, not directly associated with light. Possibly a distant connection could be made with the roundness of berries and the sun, as well as emerging from darkness, but the link is tenuous at best. And:
The origin here is not similar at all to the previous, and, in fact, in this second case, means quite the opposite of light, as evidenced by the ancient Latvian word for ‘well’ (aka), and the word for ‘blind’ (akls) – two things most certainly not associated with light, but with darkness. Again, this concept is difficult to even tentatively identify with such concepts as enlightenment, since the word there is apskaidrība, and with very different roots.
More seriously, I do take issue with the phrasing here:
… and would like to see a definition of how the word ‘primitive’ is being defined in this context.
While to my knowledge the Dogon have no word for “parody”, I’m pretty sure they appreciate the concept. The term “modern-day primitive” means that the tribe still exists, and have not embraced modern technology.
Dogon culture makes an excellent starting point for comparative studies, because it is a crossroads for several different ancient traditions. The Dogon observe rituals like Judaism (wear skullcaps and prayer shawls, circumcise, and celebrate a Jubilee year). They have civic traditions like ancient Egypt (establish villages and districts in pairs called Upper and Lower, observe the same diverse set of calendars, and express their cosmology using ancient Egyptian words). Their cosmology is a conceptual and symbolic match with Buddhism.
From that starting point, when can check the coherence of Dogon cosmological words by cross-checking them to ancient Egyptian words. We can check the coherence of Dogon cosmological concepts by cross-checking them to Buddhism. We can often triangulate on Dogon rituals and beliefs by comparing all three cultures. In Judaism, the Kabbalist tradition preserves many of the same concepts – so provides yet another level of cross-check.
In the typical case, it’s hard to argue that the Dogon have a concept or outlook wrong without also arguing that the Buddhists, Egyptians and Kabbalists also had it wrong.
lairdscranton @134:
In England, Bedfordshire alone has Upper and Lower Caldecote, Dean, Shelton, Stondon, and Sundon. Spooky.
It would be interesting to see if any ancient rationale exists in Bedfordshire for why that practice was observed there.
And then there are the Rias Baixas and Altas in Galicia.
lairdscranton @136: It’s not just Bedfordshire. Pick a county.
I suspect the rationales have much in common the world over. Peasant farmers move from isolated farmsteads to more concentrated areas, for protection and/or other reasons. In some places, the movement stops when there are two or more nearby focal points, and geographical or other reasons lead to calling them Upper and Lower, Great and Less, etc. Nothing particularly Egyptian about it.
It is said that if you turn a mirror so that it faces the clear night sky and say “Graham Hancock” three times, Graham Hancock will appear and bore you to death explaining the deep cosmogonic significance of everything in your locale.
@Rob – The Upper and Lower designations have specific cosmological symbolism in some cultures, expressed and understood in matching ways.
The Upper ones tend to be closer to the stars while the Lower ones, stuck in the valley, are a few hundred metres further. Then there’s that whole bit if they’re near a river someone is always upriver or downriver from each other, which is still kind of a higher/lower ground concept… This is pretty deep cosmological symbolism, and probably matches across several cultures. How does one select those which were part of the ancient Dogon network of wisdom, and which ones just named places geographically?
There are also many places which have been a crossroads for ancient traditions – this just means they were heavily influenced by several different ancient traditions, but in the absence of specific historical records, this does not explain which parts of their culture are completely independent. Or antecedents to the arrival of strangers bearing those similar ancient traditions. Language is a notoriously fickle beast, changing and absorbing vocabulary, grammar, and many other nifty and confusing things; it is not a good measure for historical accuracy.
@owlmirror 125
OK, I was being inexcusably sloppy. Cousins, not descendants. But my real point stands (and you confirm it!) – which is that the steps from one to the other are systematic and well documented, not the “prediction” of a just-so story.
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[…]
[…]
Reference:
van Beek, Walter EA. Haunting Griaule: Experiences from the Restudy of the Dogon. History in Africa Vol. 31 (2004), pp. 43-68
@richardh #142: No real disagreement. I am just sometimes deeply pedantic.
@Owlmirror
Van Beek, whose specialty was ecology, not religion, made a several year restudy of Griaule and Dieterlen’s three-decade study. While it’s not unusual for an anthropologist to restudy some aspect of another anthropologist’s work, it’s highly unusual for them to attempt a short term restudy of an anthropologist’s life work. Griaule had reported a Dogon esoteric tradition that was very closely-held, with information carefully guarded from outsiders. This quality is also seen in other cultures like the Maori of New Zealand,who share many of the same traditions. It’s indicated in places like ancient Egypt, where students reportedly spent upwards of 20 years with an Egyptian priest before being granted trusted initiate status. From that perspective, I compare Van Beek’s situation to that of a parent who visits a college on Parent’s Weekend and comes away having seen no evidence of drug or alcohol use.
We have ample comparative sources, including neighboring tribes who share key aspects of the Dogon tradition and language, but over whom Griaule had no sway, to verify that the Dogon information was correctly reported. Nevermind that every key point has comparability in at least one of the three major religious traditions reflected in Dogon culture.
@rq
The way we distinguish which cultures intended a reference to be cosmological and which ones didn’t is based on clear statements of intent from the culture itself. If they said is was cosmological, we take it as cosmological.
@lairdscranton
So is this what you’re claiming:
1. The alphabet is a sequence that can be recited
2. The “stages of matter, from waves to atom” are a sequence that can be recited.
3. Therefore the stages of matter are an alphabet.
?
Yes, and guess what? Then he did announce them. Because…
[fx: drumroll] he had become convinced that they were indeed phonetic!
I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.
Must have missed that. What on Earth does it mean? Do the Dogon know about quarks, leptons, gauge bosons and the Higgs boson? It would be great if they could tell us about stuff beyond the Standard Model. But I’m not holding my breath. Funny how supposed Ancient Wisdom never seems to have much to say beyond what we already know.
Yes you are. What will disprove your “theory”? Either put that out or your methodology isn’t scientific, it is loon/crank buffoonery. Which it is. You won’t allow yourself to be wrong. Which makes you wrong.
@richard and rob –
You can surely grasp that the ability to correctly describe and diagram the stages of matter is a demonstration of positive knowledge. It’s fine if you want to nitpik the alphabet metaphor.
@richard
My point about both Young and Champollion is that there have been sincere doubts by key players that the Egyptian glyphs were primarily phonetic.
@rob –
Yes, the Dogon describe such things as what structures preceded the formation of the universe, and how it is that an act of perception can transform the wavelike behavior of matter into particle-like behavior,.
lairdscranton @150: It’s too easy to claim that Ancient Wisdom knew what we know now. It would be truly impressive if it could tell us about what we don’t know. So, supersymmetry, yes or no? Loop quantum gravity, yes or no? String theory, yes or no? Eternal inflation, yes or no? At what energy can we expect new physics? When you can tell me something I don’t already know, I’ll be impressed. Until then, it’s just numerology or word games.
@rob –
I’ve written about much of what the Dogon have to say on various topics that seem to go beyond our science.
Knowing that a primary purpose of the esoteric tradition was as a system to insure that deep knowledge be offered to the sincere, I invite you to read through this block and its thread of comments and ask yourself objectively whether you see the least sign of sincerity here. Personally, I haven’t seen much.
lairdscranton @152: If I doubted your sincerity, I wouldn’t bother commenting. What I doubt is the basis for your sincerity. If you can give a prediction about something we don’t know, I would at least be impressed, if not convinced. If you could tell me the energy at which we will see something beyond the Standard Model, there would be something testable to look for.
@lairdscranton:
So… Just to make sure that I understand you… The Sirius business ¹ was so very tip-top secret that not a single individual Dogon elder that van Beek discussed that matter with let slip the slightest clue as to its existence, while at the same time it was so publicly known–so very not-secret–that Dogon neighbors knew all about it?
Are you sure that’s what you want to go with?
1: Am I Siriusly the first one to use that phrase in this thread?
Ooh! I think I get it. So when you say “Eris”, I say “Betelgeuse” (Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!), and a male avatar of the goddess of Chaos appears!
@owlmirror
The way the Dogon esoteric tradition works, if a person asks a question that a priest deems appropriate to their initiated status, the priest is required to give a truthful response. If someone asks a question that is inappropriate to their initiated status, the priest is required to remain silent, or lie if necessary to protect the tradition.
The upshot of that is that any person – native or outsider – who makes a careful and persistent study of the material can eventually learn it. Others can’t.
Van Beek called the Dogon aligned granary shrine “a chimera known only to Griaule.” In truth, it’s a structural, conceptual and symbolic match for a Buddhist stupa, known to cultures across the world. He also concluded that the Dogon priests had obligingly fabricated a cosmology to accommodate Griaule’s questions. But the cosmology is also a match for the cosmology that’s associated with a Buddhist stupa. Unfortunately based on the outlook, Van Beek’s assertions don’t have credibility.
@lairdscranton:
So it’s reasonable to infer that they lied to Griaule (or really, that Griaule confabulated with them), and told the truth to van Beek, and every other anthropologist they worked with (even students and co-workers of Griaule were unable to get what he did).
Yes; as van Beek did, over the course of a decade or so of establishing a rapport and doing fieldwork and asking questions on material in Le renard pâle, demonstrating clearly that he had “initiated status”, if such a thing actually existed.
Why would random neighbors be considered to be of “initiated status”?
We’ve gone past moving goalposts.
We’re into Calvinball.
@owlmirror
Griaule actually received the funeral and burial of a Dogon citizen when he died. Far and beyond simple initiated status for an outsider.
@lairdscranton:
Reference:
(Scranton, Laird. “Revisiting Griaule’s Dogon Cosmology: Comparative Cosmology Offers New Evidence to a Scientific Controversy.” Anthropology News 48, no. 4 (2007): 24-25.)
So. . . where in the latest physics research are the spiders?
For physicist, the interaction of strings that weaves matter looks like this:
https://joolzey.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/string3.jpg
The spiral of matter that the Dogon compare to the work of a spider is found in a version of string theory called Torsion Theory, and represents a tiny vortex, thought to exist at each point in space/time. Spider symbolism associates with surrogates of the Egyptian goddess Neith (for example, the Greek goddess Athena). Neith is said to “weave matter”.
You know what, lairdscranton? This discussion is fascinating and all, but unless you can establish how and why extraterrestrial beings would come to the earth in the first place, everything else is pointless.
So, lairdscranton, here’s my questions to you:
To start, I do actually believe there’s other life in the universe. In fact, I think it’s entirely plausible, based on the law of large numbers (there are too many galaxies, too many stars, and too many planets for us to be completely alone, imo), that there is life more intelligent than us out there.
However…
I also believe very strongly that anyone who claims that we’ve ever been visited by extraterrestrial beings have no understanding of just how big the universe is, and here’s why:
I think we can safely say, at this point, that the earth holds the most intelligent, and perhaps most complex, life in our solar system. I also think the odds of us humans being the most intelligent life in our galaxy and the Local Group (that’s the local galactic group the Milky Way, our galaxy, resides in; it contains about 54 galaxies including ours and spans a diameter of around 10 million lightyears) are extremely high (Sagan, Drake, and others have done tons of theorizing, research, and maths on this).
We also know (thanks in large part to Einstein) that the Speed of Light is perhaps the most fundamental law of nature, or at least one of them. In order for our universe to exist at all, only a photon (a particle of light) can travel as fast as it does (that is, the speed of light). Anything even slightly more massive simply cannot travel as fast, let alone faster. The universe simply won’t allow it (that is not to imply that the universe is conscious… I certainly don’t believe it is, and I’ve yet to see testable, verifiable evidence that has convinced me otherwise). On top of that, the universe is so big that we have to use time to measure it (a lightyear is a measure of distance, yes, but it uses time as the measurement), and the universe is getting bigger every day at around 74.2 kilometers (45.105 miles) per second per megaparsec (which means it can, in fact, expand faster than the speed of light), which means that while the universe is around 13.8 billion years old, it was last estimated to be around 46 billion lightyears in diameter (but again, keep in mind that it’s constantly expanding at around 74.2 km/sec/Mpc) so that size is just a snapshot of when it was measured; it’s most definitely much bigger now).
(FYI… a megaparsec is about 3 million lightyears in length)
In short, traveling the universe is just shy of impossible (sorry Star Trek fans). It is entirely probable that no life form could reasonably travel outside of its own solar system. And if it is at all possible to find a way to move through shortcuts across the universe (like warp drive or wormholes), it probably requires knowing basically every single thing this universe has to teach us, including what dark matter, dark energy, and dark flow are and how to harvest them, what caused the Big Bang, etc. And as the universe is only around 13.8 billion years old, it’s entirely possible that any life anywhere in the universe simply hasn’t been around long enough to achieve that level of technological and scientific advance, yet. I mean, it took earth life just a little less than 4.5 billion years to get to where we are today… how many more thousands, millions, or billions of years will it take us to understand everything I listed just above in this paragraph? Will we even be the same species we are now when we finally answer those questions?
Given that the closest place another intelligent life form might possibly be located is 65 million lightyears away (I’m speaking of the Virgo Cluster, here), which means that a photon traveling at its fastest speeds would take 65 million years to reach us (and that’s ignoring the expansion of the universe), please explain how an intelligent life form from there gets to us here and gets back there in short amounts of time.
In other words, how do we get from point A to point B and back if a) we can’t travel anywhere near as fast as a photon and b) the two points are, in fact, moving away from each other at opposite directions at speeds not even a photon could reach, let alone us?
Further, assuming for the moment that I’m correct and it requires knowing essentially everything the universe has to teach us to pull this off, why the hell would any intelligent species that advanced give a crap about the earth, instead of… oh, I don’t know… figuring out how to reach other universes (assuming there are other universes and they can somehow be reached)? Isn’t it awfully anthropocentric to assume that any species of life that intelligent would give a crap about us humans?
And if they did come to earth, why would they focus on humans? Why not dolphins? Or ants? Or bees? Or… I don’t… viruses and bacteria? Are we really so conceited as to think that we would have anything to give or teach them?
I honestly really don’t care about the interesting lingual coincidences and such until you can establish that traveling the universe in this fashion is even remotely possible in the first place, and then that it would be earth, and humans, these ridiculously advanced beings would waste their time on.
For the record, even if you do think the MIlky Way is teeming with life (however improbable that actually is), and more intelligent life at that, the Speed of Light barrier is still the same massive problem that it already is.
Also also! If you think it’s possible that these beings are from another universe, and not our own, you still have to explain, again, why it’s earth and us they’re interested in and not, say, life forms way more advanced.
It actually comes down to the same question I have for theists: why us? In this giant, ever-expanding universe full of other stars, planets, and possibly life, why are we the special ones?
@Nathan –
I understand your outlook and hear your points. Meanwhile, the Buddhist flatly claim the the “most sacred” of their symbols were given by a non-human source. The Dogon credit non-human teachers who they add were also “non-material” in a complex way – with specific material effects and concerns.
One motivation for the careful way in which the Dogon system correctly describes things they seemingly shouldn’t know – most specifically the structure of matter – is to establish credibility for statements that eventually go beyond that. Otherwise, anything that steps outside of what we already can verify scientifically has an inherent credibility problem.
There are two stated goals that relate to the ancient instruction: The first is to help us understand humanity’s true relationship to the larger processes of creation. The second is to foster what is called “discriminating knowledge.”
From the perspective of that bigger picture – the one in which our situation is placed into context – there are vital concerns humanity shares with the group that ostensibly tried to help us.
lairdscranton @162: Sorry, that’s just gobbledygook. And we’re gonna need a bigger mirror.
@rob
Not I problem – I can dumb it down. Before telling us things we might not be inclined to believe, they told us a string of knowledgeable things we can actually verify. They worked with us because doing so is vital to both groups.
lairdscranton: Before you talk about esoteric topics like torsion fields in M-theory, you should get your basic physics right. From a book of yours;
The weak interaction is responsible for most particle decays, the strong interaction binds quarks into hadrons (including protons and neutrons). The force binding nucleons together in a nucleus, aka the nuclear force, is a residual strong interaction, not a separate force.
@Rob – I apologize. I was working from definitions given at the time by Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene.
wait… you’re singling out JUST his post at 162 for that?
I hope Scranton is enjoying himself at least.
I’m pretty sure I hear snickering from his current audience… lot’s of hushed snickering…
yup… there’s that snickering again..
lairdscranton @168:
Neither Hawking nor Greene would have made that mistake, so you must have misread what they wrote.
lairdscranton @ #164…
That… doesn’t answer any of my questions.
Nearly every religion on the planet claims to have gained knowledge from an outside source; from gods. I don’t believe in gods… not even the one Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in. Changing “gods” to “extraterrestrial aliens” doesn’t change what I see as the fairy-tale nature of religion.
In fact, it makes them less probable. At least gods don’t have to deal with the problem of the Speed of Light.
@Nathan –
That’s where cross-cultural comparison helps. Where the ancient Egyptians saw deities, the Dogon see stages or concepts of creation. There’s a 15 page table in my second book that cross-compares Dogon cosmological terms with names of Egyptian deities, the traditional role played by the deity in Egyptian myth, and the phonetic value of one or more Egyptian glyphs. The Egyptian deity roles agree with the Dogon cosmological concept.
The Dogon had the presence of mind to ask their mythic teachers if they were gods. The response was, “No, we’re not – but if it helps you to think of us as agents of god, that’s alright.”
The Dogon tradition traces back to two archaic philosophies in India that are also expressly non-theistic. God’s not an issue here.
So it’s vital that we work together – but they gave this information to one particular group of humans, who keep it secret from anyone insufficiently initiated?
So far, my comparative studies have progressed from Africa to Egypt to India, to Tibet and China, to Turkey and (next) to Northern Scotland, demonstrating in many different ways that the same information was presented to many different groups. Within those groups, it’s only for those who sincerely wish to pursue it.
You still aren’t answering my questions.
Forgive me if I seem indignant at pushing them, but you cannot simply say “aliens are here” and then work everything from that premise. You first have to establish that a) it is actually possible for extraterrestrials to get here in the first place and b) that it is a given that they would choose to interact with us humans.
You have not sufficiently established those two things for this conversation to have any meaning. So please… establish how and why first. Then we can move on to these fascinating historical coincidences.
(I’m allowing that extraterrestrials exist because I do think they exist… I just don’t see how it is even remotely possible for them to ever visit us in any way, shape, or form.)
@Nathan –
You’ve misunderstood the nature of my work. It’s not my assertion that aliens interacted with humans. I’m reporting correlated statements from groups such as the Buddhists and Dogon, and exploring the reasonableness of those statements.
Nathan@162:
Why am I hearing Eric Idle here?
We’re 30 000 light years
From galactic central point,
We go round every 200 million years
And our galaxy is only
One of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding Universe.
As fast as it can go,
At the speed of light you know,
12 million miles a minute,
And that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember when you’re feeling
Very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there’s intelligent
Life somewhere up in space
Because there’s bugger all down here on Earth.
Correction: Nathan @ 163.
I wouldn’t want to attribute 162 to you.
The difficulty is this: The Dogon say that their cosmology describes how matter forms, and present a detailed, scientifically-reasonable view of how matter forms. In fact, many of the symbols and concepts involved represent the archetypes that Jung found in pretty much every ancient culture. No credible researcher believes that any ancient culture had the technical advancement to learn about these on their own.
The reasonable alternative to that is one that was proposed by Carl Sagan (he actually said it was the obvious solution) – that this information was acquired from outsiders. When we pursue the information in various ancient cultures, we consistently bump up against overt beliefs on the part of these cultures that they learned it in ancient times from outsiders.
The primary obstacle to those statements being taken as true, even in the absence of any other real alternative, is our reluctance to believe it. And in my line of work, our reluctance to believe something doesn’t count as a reason.
lairdscranton@164:
[citation needed]
Which “Buddhist”s,by the way?
Certainly not Theravadins, the oldest surviving strand of Buddhism. It’s not a claim you’ll find in the Pali Canon, and the Buddha portrayed there would have rejected any such speculation as not relevant to the elimination of dukkha.
One of the leading world authorities on Buddhist architecture and symbolism is Adrian Snodgrass, of the University of West Sydney, Australia. He wrote a book called The Symbolism of the Stupa. It is against his definitions of the Buddhist stupa shrine and its associated cosmology that I correlate the symbolism and cosmology of a Dogon aligned shrine, which is given by Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, primarily in their study of the Dogon religion, called The Pale Fox. Snodgrass flatly states on page three of his book that the “most sacred” of the Buddhist symbols are “deemed to have been given to the tradition from a non-human source.”
The Vedic, Buddhist and Hindu traditions rest on a cosmological philosophy called Samkhya, the same essential philosophy that underlies the Dogon tradition. Ultimately what’s essential to the cosmological outlook is what is defined in that philosophy, not what was accepted or discarded by any particular sect of Buddhism.
Ah, so it’s not “Buddhists” who flatly state it, it’s Snodgrass.
And what he actually says is this. The chapter is entitled “The Nature of Architectural Symbolism” and begins “In the traditional Indian view…” I’ll cite the surrounding paragraphs to give the reader an idea of the style and context.
Anyone who can jump from that disquisition on generic Indic metaphysics and mythology to the highly specific “Buddhists believe the stupa came from aliens ” has a tin ear or a considerable talent for quote-mining.
Damn. Timeout followed by tag failure. It’s only the Latin part that should be in italics.
A leading authority on Buddhism states it to be true, yes.
An “adequate symbol” is a symbol that, regardless of the integrity of the chain of generational initiates, cannot lose its meaning. The implication is that its shape and meaning inheres in nature, and so with proper technology, can always be seen and understood. From the Dogon perspective, a good example is the shape of an electron orbit. From the Egyptian, an example would be the shape associated with the complex string interaction that “weaves” matter. It’s the same shape as the final glyph in the name of Neith, the goddess who “weaves” matter.
I reread the final statement in your post asking how anyone could interpret the phrase “given by a non-human source” to imply an interaction with someone who isn’t human. In trying to sort out how to interpret that, I compared to what the Dogon say on that same subject. The Dogon describe specific interactions with a group of teachers who are not human. Pretty sure I’ve got that one right, and corroborated.
Interesting. ‘Outsiders’ automatically equals aliens, and ‘non-human source’ also automatically equals aliens. Interesting. It’s like these cultures never interacted with other cultures, or never interacted with the non-human world around them (that is, animals and plants of various types from which inspiration for symbols may be acquired).
Of course, the alternate interpretation would be divine inspiration. We could go with that one, if you think it more likely. Meanwhile, the Samkhya philosophy is expressly non-theistic.
Also, please note the distinction between source cultures specifically claiming interaction with non-humans and modern observers overlaying that interpretation.
Now let’s see…how many other cultures make claim after claim of interaction in ancient times with groups more capable than humans. Should we say ALL of them??
lairdscranton @186:
Which electron orbit? There are lots, you know.
It really makes a difference which one? Any of the correct shapes given in context with a correct definition provides the same corroboration.
@rq –
The term “outsiders” doesn’t have to refer to an alien or non-human group, just one who might have had technological knowledge in ancient times.
@186
The Dogon describe a primary component of matter, from which all things are made, which they call the Po. It is comprised of Sene Seeds, that surround the Po by crossing in all directions to form a “nest”. The drawing they make to support the concept of the Sene Seed looks like this:
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTjsSxuIloNBmRCgXZ0w7mOcJ2YjrenmD0UhbxdLMOj42zgOng6
Bullroar. No group had technological knowledge. No evidence for aliens or old technological civilizations, and what you blather about isn’t the evidence needed. You have nothing but your faith, like any Xian. You won’t accept the truth.
Nerd –
It’s nonsensical to assert that no one had what, through comparative studies, we can demonstrate that – to one extent or another – pretty much everyone had an awareness of in ancient times.
The common cultural thread is that this awareness was introduced by someone who understood the science. Again, it would be meaningless to try to claim that someone inadvertently got the structure of matter specifically right.
lairdscranton @193: Well, if there’s only one, why that one? If someone came across the infinity symbol ∞, should they conclude that the writer knew about p orbitals?
@195: That drawing looks a bit a d orbital. Why d? And where is the missing d orbital (the middle shape in the third row down, here)?
Let’s require textbook precision from sand-drawings, OK?
No, that isn’t what I asked. I asked how anyone could interpret the entire passage I quoted (of which that phrase was only a very small part) in that way. Context matters.
The nature of the Dogon cosmology is that we can set their descriptions and drawings side-by-side with modern definitions and diagrams and demonstrate an intuitive match.
The upshot is that matter begins as waves, is expressed as vibrating threads, creates a primary component of matter that’s akin to collapsed bubbles, forms membranes, produces 266 fundamental particles that can be grouped into four classes based on symmetry, and that culminate in what looks an sounds like electrons surrounding what could accurately describe an atom.
It is the Dogon priests who specifically claim that they are describing the stages of matter. The system is given in ancient Egyptian words and creates a symbolic system that is parallel to one preserved in Buddhism in an entirely different language.
Both the Dogon and Buddhists claim to have received their symbolic cosmology as an instructed tradition in ancient times.
The reasonable inference is that someone in ancient times understood the details of how matter forms.
vs:
sigh. Yet another blockquote failure…
Nitpick any of the details you like, the big picture doesn’t change.
Care to name them? Or even the “four classes”.
I’m curious about the origin of this “266 fundamental particles” trope. It certainly isn’t a prediction of the Standard Model, and only seems to appear on woo sites. Can anyone here not named Scranton explain it?
Modern astrophysicists claim the existence of “more than 200” fundamental particles – the Dogon say 266. Modern astrophysicists group them into four classes based on a complex property called “spin”, which essentially rests on symmetry, or how the particle looks from different perspectives. One class looks the same from all side, another must be turned around 180 degrees to look the same, a third must be turned around 360 degrees to look the same. The last (referred to as 1/2 spin particles) must actually be turned around twice to look the same.
The Dogon represent the classes with symbols – three that share the symmetry that can be represented in a sand drawing, and one whose odd shape defines it as different. However, the symmetry of the odd particle is more precisely described and represented elsewhere, in ways that specifically match a 1/2 spin particle.
richardh @205: Yeah, the Standard Model gives max 61.
I can only guess that Scranton is including the particle multiplets arising from Murray Gell-Mann’s Eightfold Way. This would include octets and decuplets, but if course the particles here are not fundamental, but composites of quark-antiquark (mesons) or three quarks (baryons).
[citation needed]
I’m familiar with the spin-statistics theorem, thank you. That produces two classes, not four.
And you haven’t answered my question: can you name either the “266 particles” or the “four classes” you keep referring to?
lairdscranton @206:
Sure, four: Bosons can have spin 0 (Higgs), 1 (gauge bosons; photon, W and Z bosons, gluons), or 2 (graviton, which is still hypothetical). Fermions (quarks and leptons) have spin 1/2.
I don’t see 266 there.
Hawking identifies more than 200 elementary particles revealed through nuclear bombardment – some of which exist only momentarily.
Bosons are assigned an integer spin (0, 1, and 2,) Particles that comprise matter, such as (leptons, quarks, protons, neutrons) are fermions with spin 1/2. Four categories.
You’re all looking for the Dogon to get an exam question wrong, when, based on overall framework, they’ve already passed the test.
lairdscranton @211: “quarks, protons, neutrons” is redundant, since protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. Can you just give a source for Hawking’s “more than 200 elementary particles”?
I don’t have the page reference at hand, but it comes from his chapter on elementary particles in A Brief History of Time.
The same concept is referenced here:
http://gphs.sharpschool.net/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=26383934
Elementary Particles:
The search for the origin of matter means the understanding of elementary particles. And with the advent of holism, the understanding of elementary particles requires an understanding of not only their characteristics, but how they interact and relate to other particles and forces of Nature, the field of physics called particle physics. The study of particles is also a story of advanced technology begins with the search for the primary
constituent. More than 200 subatomic particles have been discovered so far, all detected in sophisticated particle accelerators. However, most are not fundamental, most are composed of other, simpler particles. For example, Rutherford showed that the atom was composed of a nucleus and orbiting electrons. Later physicists showed that the nucleus was composed of neutrons and protons. More recent work has shown that protons and
neutrons are composed of quarks.
lairdscranton @216: Well, thanks for the lay overview, although I’m not sure what you mean by the “advent of holism” in this context. But you seem to have trouble distinguishing between “subatomic” and “elementary”. The former includes baryons (protons, neutrons, etc) and mesons (pions, etc), while the latter are the fundamental particles. Including the graviton, there are only 62 elementary particles (using the most liberal counting method) so far.
Sorry not to have been clear that that last post was an excerpt from the linked article.
Meanwhile, the Dogon count of 266 particles is of a scale with “more than 200” particles. Also, “elementary particles” was the term Hawking used. But I’m sure he’ll appreciate the correction.
In common usage:
el·e·men·ta·ry par·ti·cle
noun
any of various fundamental subatomic particles, including those that are the smallest and most basic constituents of matter (leptons and quarks) or are combinations of these (hadrons, which consist of quarks), and those that transmit one of the four fundamental interactions in nature (gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak).
I’ve been following along silently. These threads usually do prove educational on subjects like particle physics but I still cannot fathom how anyone could truly believe that the stories the Dogon politely told the silly anthropologist are ancient sacred knowledge of physics, handed down orally from Old Kingdom Egypt/Aliens/Atlantis.
Many cultures have folk tales associated with the Pleiades. Agrarian societies called them planters and harvesters all over the world. Sailing societies tended to associate them with navigation. Maya and Inca cultures also built sacred granaries and associated it with the rising constellation. Did those ancient Egyptian aliens then time travel and cross the ocean to share this esoteric knowledge after they were done educating the Dogon, the first Buddhists, and someone in the UK?
lairdscranton @218 & 219: Congrats on finding a dodgy definition. Those are so rare.
Er, no. The book is online. A bit of Chapter 5, ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND THE FORCES OF NATURE:
The quote I’m referring to, which I believe is from the same book by Hawking reads: “Modern nuclear theory is based on the notion that nuclei consist of neutrons and protons that are held together by extremely powerful “nuclear” forces. To study nuclear forces physicists have to disrupt neutrons and protons by bombarding nuclei with extremely energetic particles. Such bombardments have revealed more than 200 so-called elementary particles, or tiny bits of matter, most of which exist for much less than one hundred-millionth of a second.”
Meanwhile, the definition for the term “elementary particle” I posted above, specifically allows my usage.
It’s really interesting to me that, perhaps as long as 12,000 years ago someone convinced cultures all around the world that there was something so significant to the system of cosmological symbols that they should strive to preserve the system intact, down through the generations. Several cultures succeeded in doing that. The irony is that they did it for the sake of an audience that is more interested in finding ways to deny any possible significance, than in actually exploring it.
Möbius Calvinball.
lairdscranton @222: That quote is not from the same book. I just looked. I did however find this in the glossary;
This would exclude hadrons, which include protons and neutrons.
Use whatever you want. Just don’t misattribute it.
Yes, several cultures came up with symbols to represent stars and constellations. Their symbols and stories are all different so how could this be evidence of anything other than the human ability to use abstract symbolic language to communicate? Calendars and clocks were also invented independently by multiple cultures worldwide. The two commonalities are human brains ( and their tendency to see agency in natural phenomenon), and the sky.
The Dogon people have a rich oral religious creation tradition that holds that people were original all born as twins. They live where they do because they refused to convert to Islam. Islamic scholars invented Astronomy centuries ago, so I find it wholly unremarkable that a Dogon person told a story about a star with an invisible dark twin in 1945.
lairdscranton @222: I’m calling shenanigans on someone. The quote is in your book, The Science of the Dogon, and there you say it is from Hawking’s book. I couldn’t find it there, but I did find something almost exactly the same here.
Someone (not saying you necessarily) seems to be plagiarizing.
You’re right that there’s been a mis-attribution that I’ll need to track back. A chapter note may have been misassigned in my original manuscript, or it may have been transposed during original self-publication via Xlibris, or perhaps introduced in error during the republication process by Inner Traditions. My apologies for that – even in cases when I have made mistakes, editors at Inner Traditions have typically caught it.
Meanwhile, since in no case have I claimed the text to be original to me, the concept of plagerizing wouldn’t apply.
Speaking of “leading world authority on Buddhist architecture” Snodgrass, I note that the only reference to spiders and webs are on pages 117 and 118 of his book, which are available via Google Books. It certainly seems quite clear, in reading those pages, that he is specifically describing occurrences of spider and web analogies and imagery that occur in the Upanishads.
At no point that I can see does he make any connection to stupa architecture.
So there’s nothing there to even connect to any putative spider symbolism in Dogon granaries.
Of course, even if there were, I am baffled as to how anyone who as ever looked at an orb-weaver spider spinning its web could think that there’s anything magical about such imagery appearing in two different cultures independently.
The spiders make cross lines that form something like an asterisk (“emerging like rays of a star”), and then make the rest of the web by making a spiral from the center of the “star” outwards (“conceptualized as a spiral”). They have a world-wide distribution, and can easily be seen in both Mali and everywhere in India.
Watching spiders make their webs is neat, and religious leaders might well use the experience of such observation in making symbols and in religious texts.
There’s no fundamental physics to be learned from magically watching spiderwebs, though. You can’t get anything about electron orbitals or whether protons can decay.
Wikipedia on Funk and Wagnall’s:
Did Laird Scranton get his information on particle physics from Encarta?
Oops. There should be no apostrophe in “Wagnalls”.
I’ve tracked back to my original manuscript, written more than 15 years ago, and found that the mis-attribution was definitely mine. As originally written, I mistakenly attribute the 200 particle quote to Hawking, which is clearly not correct. Meanwhile, I’ve posted a secondary link here (above) that affirms the fact that nuclear bombardment has identified more than 200 particles. My sincere apologies for the error.
@owlmirror –
Looking for Dogon spider symbolism in Buddhist culture is a false perspective, because we’re seeing from culture to culture reflections of different eras, languages and regional incarnations of traditions. As an example, the Dogon tradition has no reference to any of the Hindu gods, and yet its cosmology provides a direct foundation for their symbolism and attributes. We can overtly explain the eight incarnations of Ganesha, Siva and Sati, among other Hindu deities, through comparison to Dogon constructs. Similarly, where the Dogon define stages of creation, the Egyptian define deities who are symbolic of those stages. In Egypt direct symbolism of the Dogon spider hasn’t survived, but it’s reflected in related goddesses in places like ancient Greece.
The place to begin the Dogon and Buddhist comparisons is with their aligned shrines, which evoke the same sequence of geometric shapes in the same order, with the same symbolism, as the foundation upon which comparable concepts of cosmology rest. It’s not a simple case that, simply because the Dogon symbolize a concept with a spider, a correlatable cosmology also will.
@lairdscranton:
Are you forgetting where the spiders came in? That was from you, in your article, published in 2007!
I mean, I agree that it’s a “false perspective”, but it’s your false perspective.
I don’t see why should anyone believe this, given that the only example you offered in your own paper was spider symbolism — which you are now distancing yourself from as being a “false perspective”.
@owlmirror
It’s not the case that the cosmology is expressed outwardly in matching ways in every culture, and I’ve never represented that to be the case. Both Neith and the Dogon spider Dada (or Nana) weave matter, and the cosmological terms that define that act of weaving match, often down to specific related symbols and symbolic attributes. In some cultures the concepts are deified and anthropomorphized, in others they aren’t.
It’s even not true, in cases such as comparisons between the Buddhists and the Dogon, for example, that the words are expressed in the same language. What allows us to correlate the concepts in that case is the set of common meanings that attach predictively to cosmological concepts.
You can’t expect to examine two cultures from different eras and different regions and align the outward expression of the cosmology point for point. Still, we have positive ways to demonstrate that they correlate.
@Owlmirror
Also, in the case of Snodgrass, his spider symbolism aligns conceptually with that of the Dogon. In the Dogon symbolic view, matter is woven as if by a spider; in their myth it is woven by the spider Dada. Snodgrass writes in The Symbolism of the Stupa (p.116) “The weaving of the [spider’s] web is the world’s manifestation…the radii and concentric rings of the spider’s web are the warp and weft of the world.”
@lairdscranton:
Your orginal contention was not that the spider symbolism was written about in a book about the stupa; your contention was that the symbolism was in the stupa itself, when it is not.
@lairdscranton:
Isn’t that exactly what you have been contending, though?
lairdscranton
Did you ever define “cosmology” for us?
@Owlmirror
I’ve said that we can positively correlate the creation traditions of various ancient cultures, not that it is always outwardly expressed by those cultures in matching ways. I’m sure you can understand that distinction.
When it comes to an ultimate definition of the term “cosmology”, that’s an understanding that you can come to by sincerely exploring it. You surely won’t come to it by batting it away.
lairdscranton @ #176:
Then what were you doing at a UFO symposium?
I admit I haven’t read your books (I have very little money, so purchasing books is a rare thing that I’m incredibly choosy about), but from what I gather, you do, in fact, believe, or at least seem to believe, that all of this is the result of extraterrestrials interacting with humans.
You can’t make all these claims, give talks at UFO conferences, etc, and then claim your work is only about studying similarities between cultures. We don’t need extraterrestrials to explain similarities between cultures. And yet you do seem to be thinking in that direction.
I’m challenging you to justify that thinking by answering my two questions. You might think they have nothing to do with your work, but if your work truly revolves around extraterrestrials interacting with humans, then my two questions are obstacles you have to overcome before you can go any further.
So… again… how are extraterrestrials breaking the Speed of Light barrier, and why are they so interested in us as opposed to other life?
Also… on a separate note…
Can you explain why Ancient Alien enthusiasts (apparently such as yourself) are so convinced that ancient societies were so primitive that they needed outside help to discover and create things? Why can’t it be entirely possible that more modern humans have historically underestimated the level of knowledge and advance ancient cultures had, rather than they were entirely “primitive” to the point that they needed help from life forms “not of this earth”?
Why does ancient Egyptian culture need ETs to build the pyramids? Why do the Dogons and Egyptians and others need ETs to come up with a cosmology that is similar to what we understand today (which any cursory study of history from an anthropological perspective [I have a Bachelor’s in Anthropology, by the way; I’m looking for a fellowship to get my Master’s and PhD] would prove is really not that surprising, actually)? Why aren’t they capable of doing it on their own, either in a case of convergent cultural evolution, or because they interacted with each other on some level at some point in their histories?
But even after you answer these latter questions, if you’re still going by the idea that it’s all because of ETs, you need to first establish how it’s possible that they got here in the first place, and then you need to establish why they’d want to.
@nathan –
One primary principle of my work is that interpretations should begin with an overt statement on the part of the culture being studied, and either be affirmed by other cultures with similar practices, or be restated in more than one way in a single culture.
I explained in a post above that the Dogon and Buddhists each specifically credit aspects of their knowledge to a non-human source. My job is to test the reasonableness of their statements. In that concept, the work has nothing to do with whether or not I personally endorse the existence of aliens nor is it reflective of my attitude about the relative primitiveness of the cultures. I’m pursuing statements they’ve made.
Nathan @241:
The symposium wasn’t just about UFOs, was it?
I don’t understand why you think these are questions that Scranton should answer. If you have (what you consider to be) compelling evidence that someone had breakfast in London and lunch in New York, you shouldn’t then be required to explain jet propulsion, or the person’s motivations.
The symposium was on a range of topics that included two UFO researchers. Also present was Maria Nilsson, the youngest woman to ever be granted 40-year exclusive rights to excavate a major Egyptian archaeological site.
lairdscranton #240
I was trying to ask “What do you mean by ‘cosmology’?”
I did not ask for an .
Your notion that sincere exploration is needed to find the definition of a term is fucking ridiculous.
@chigau –
My apologies for misunderstanding your question. From an ancient view, the term “cosmology” refers to concepts and processes of creation. More specifically, it relates to three creational themes: How the universe forms, how matter forms, and how biological reproduction happens.
These processes are seen as parallel to one another – so much so, that all three processes are defined by a single progression of symbols, terms and drawings. Likewise, we can see it as a demonstration of knowledge, capability and ingenuity on the part of whomever established that symbolic system that they were able to describe all three simultaneously.
Consequently, when we ask what a given symbol represents, ,we really need to specify which creational theme we’re talking about. From a biological perspective, the shape of a hemisphere represents an expanded womb. In relation to the structure of matter, it represents the expansion of mass.
lairdscranton
[citation needed]
especially for something that includes ‘biological reproduction’ in ‘cosmology’.
Only by you. Not anybody here, as without your presuppositional input, our conclusions radically differ from you, and are closer to reality.
Just because you believe in imaginary things is no reason why we have to do so. I know I won’t….
lairdscranton #246
To quote myself, “fucking ridiculous”.
chigau –
You asked for my definition of cosmology, which I gave you based on my understanding of the ancient perspective. I’m not quoting an ancient source, I’m synthesizing for you – at your my request – my understanding of the meaning of the term. No citation is called for or could be reasonably given for that. Neither is it offered up for critique. It’s given solely on my authority.
make that “at your request”
lairdscranton
How does, mean ?
is not the same as
“I see these processes as parallel to one another”.
Also, I understand that “fucking ridiculous” is only your way of saying “thank you”.
chigau, lairdscranton clearly refers to religious cosmology (aka mythos).
(Matthew Segall was more cogent, though)
lairdscranton #253
Thanks for the belly larf
Bless your heart.
John Morales #254
No. That was not .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_cosmology
Rob Grigjanis @ #243…
But we’re not talking about a person we can prove exists. We’re talking about a hypothetical being that, as of right now, is no more a reality than God (even if their existence itself is more probable).
I mean… if you don’t think this stuff is needed to have a meaningful conversation about ETs and evidence for them, fine. That’s cool. But I do think it’s needed, so… you know…
I want to understand where the conclusion of “extraterrestrials” even comes from in the first place.
Rob Grigjanis @ #243…
But if asked how this person did that, the person should be able to respond with something like “They flew on a plane” A plane is something that clearly exists here. You don’t need to explain jet propulsion, because we have planes that fly around all over the place.
But if your answer is something like “aliens!” then people are going to want *actual* proof.
As another example of the parallelism of ancient creational themes and symbols, just as biological reproduction begins with an egg, so the universe is characterized as beginning with cosmogonic egg, and matter with the geometry of angular momentum – a figure the Dogon describe as the “egg-in-a-ball”. Parallelism, like the concepts of duality and the pairing of opposites, is considered to be a principle of the tradition.
@lairdscranton, #240:
But you have indeed said that the stupa and granary, products of Buddhist and Dogon culture respectively, are outwardly expressed in matching ways. That’s your whole point! That’s why you claim that the alternative is “Dogon priests casually invented Buddhism”.
You in 2007:
lairdscranton @#91:
lairdscranton @#128:
lairdscranton @#157:
lairdscranton @#233:
The first coherent structure of matter that forms (a conceptual correlate to the Calabi-Yau space in string theory) is a bundle of collapsed dimensions. These can be alternately characterized as seven rays of a star of increasing length, or represented by the spiral that can be drawn to inscribe the endpoints of those rays.
A macrocosmic correlate is the type of spiral presented by Barnard’s Loop, a very faint spiraling birthplace of stars that centers on the belt of Orion. The Dogon refer to it as the Chariot of Orion. When imaged using timelapse photography, it gives the impression of the wheel of a chariot in which Orion the Hunter stands.
Similarly, from the perspective of biological creation, an embryo is characterized as growing in the shape of a spiral.
@Owlmirror
It’s fine to ask me to explain what I meant in a certain statement. It’s not fine to twist what I say to your meaning and then try to blame me for it.
Nathan @258:
Right. That’s the nub. If the arguments for that aren’t convincing (and in this case they’re not at all), end of story.
If someone did find convincing evidence of ET visits in the distant past, the question of how they got here would certainly be pertinent, but it shouldn’t fall upon the archaeologist/linguist/astronaut who found and/or deciphered the evidence. Why would it?
@lairdscranton:
It’s definitely not fine to say something with a clear meaning (using words like “same” and “match”), and then claim, when I quote you, that I am “twisting” what you say. Take responsibility for your words.
@lairdscranton:
Oh, this should be good. Please feel free to elaborate on this, here.
So pose the questions you have and I’ll try to answer them. Please do NOT insist that I mean something that I flatly say I do not.
Rowan @259:
The point was that evidence could exist that was independent of how or why the journey was made, and Nathan was asking for travel specifics and motivations.
For example, if someone dug up, or found in deep space, something like the Voyager Golden Record, I’d think that would be fairly compelling. But why should the discoverer/decipherer have to answer questions about how or why it was brought here? Good questions, yes, but most likely for someone else.
The embryo question is easily answered:
http://embryo.soad.umich.edu/carnStages/stage17/Opticals/10307_lftLat_slide.jpg
@Owlmirror –
Yes, the stupa and the Dogon granary are formulated in matching ways. It’s not always the case with other outward presentations that we can count on that to be true.
If you have to explain your meager and utterly insufficient “evidence” to back up your claims, you have a bad idea that should be trashed, and should have been trashed years ago. Except you believe it with religious fervor, which raises our skeptical flags.
Your idea is extraordinary, and requires extraordinary evidence. Evidence so blatant it doesn’t need you to interpret it. It plainly says what you want it to say. Your “evidence” doesn’t even reach normal scientific evidence.
When it comes to the question of how teachers who are characterized as having been non-human and/or non-material to have arrived here, there is an extended rationale to support that, but not one that I’d choose to discuss in this format, or in this conversational climate.
@lairdscranton:
That’s not the shape of a spiral.
So we’re agreed, Nerd. I won’t be trying to answer questions for you.
This is the approximate shape we’re comparing to:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/BarnardLoopHunterWilson.jpg/220px-BarnardLoopHunterWilson.jpg
http://embryo.soad.umich.edu/carnStages/stage17/Opticals/10307_lftLat_slide.jpg
@lairdscranton:
So you’re changing your tune back again? I thought that was a “false perspective”.
That’s not a spiral either.
lairdscranton @262:
As with the electron orbitals, you’re making associations that are, to put it extremely mildly, highly questionable. Exactly how can the Calabi-Yau dimensions be characterized in the way you describe? Why seven rays, when there are six C-Y dimensions?
@Owlmirror –
In the Dogon conception of matter, this first coherent structure is comparable to a stellar bubble in the macrocosm, which is how Barnard’s Loop is classified. From their perspective, the microcosmic structure is essentially the seventh of a series of bubbles, the earlier ones too insubstantial to hold their own weight. Like Barnard’s Loop, which is calculated to eventually burst, the Dogon egg has an eighth conceptual stage in which it bursts. The Dogon information is not presented as theory.
Nope, there is no rationale, based on evidence, to support that. It is based on a fallacious presuppositions, like all religions.
@Owlmirror
One other important point of understanding we need to arrive at. I can bring things down to intuitive comparisons for you, such as the embryo and Barnard’s Loop images. (By the way, Barnard’s Loop is understood to be a spiral). If I can’t count on you to ackcknowledge those, we don’t have a basis for discussion.
@rob
The Dogon explicitly say that they are describing how matter forms, and then lay out the stages and concepts, often supported with drawn images. My job is to test whether those align with the views of modern astrophysicists. As it turns out, they do. The spiraling Dogon egg falls in the same conceptual position in the series as a Calabi-Yau space does in String Theory, and is assigned the same essential functions. The associations are a by-product of the on-going match.
lairdscranton #223
Perhaps? Can you explain why you think 12,000 years ago, and be more specific as to which set of cosmological symbols have been preserved intact?
Graile himself recounted the origin of the Dogon as a people at about 1000 years ago, and some of the granaries they use are based on the Tellem design. The oldest Tellem structures aren’t even 3000 years old, so I am skeptical of your 12,000 figure.
We can demonstrate that the the Dogon and Buddhist symbolic systems have been a match since at least 450 BC, when the Buddhist system was documented. We can infer that the match goes at least as far back as 750 BC, when the Egyptian cosmological words that define the Dogon system went out of use. In my book Point of Origin, I present rationales to connect the same symbolic system back to the era of Gobekli Tepe, at around 10,000 BC, or 12,000 years ago.
If you don’t acknowledge they are meaningless and refuted, you aren’t discussing with the possibility of being wrong, you are preaching.
Again, what evidence is required for you to consider your idea WRONG? If none, you are preaching, and have admitted that truth. Your choice.
@lairdscranton:
No, it is not.
The scientific references to the Wikipedia article describe it as an “arc” or “crescent” (visually) and a “bubble” or “shell” (three-dimensionally).
e.g:
“Barnard’s Loop is now understood to be only the bright eastern portion of a much larger irregular shell of material of 41◦x 27◦ (380×220 pc) oriented east-west and thought (Reynolds & Ogden 1979) to be expanding at between 15 and 23 km s⁻¹. The entire object is called the Orion-Eridanus Bubble.”
Reference:
O’Dell, C.R.; Ferland, G.J.; Porter, R.L.; van Hoof, P.A.M. (2011). “Physical Conditions in Barnard’s Loop, Components of the Orion-Eridanus Bubble, and Implications for the Warm Ionized Medium Component of the Interstellar Medium”. The Astrophysical Journal 733 (1): 9
Why should anyone acknowledge what is false?
(I searched through one of the other papers on Barnard’s Loop, and the only occurrence of the word “spiral” was in one of the references, “The Spiral Structure of our Galaxy”.)
@lairdscranton:
No, it is not. The Orion-Eridanus bubble is expanding slowly. Assuming nothing else happens to the material in the bubble, it will eventually cool down and become too tenuous to continue interacting with light. That is not “bursting”.
Repeating #276:
@lairdscranton:
So you’re changing your tune back again? I thought that was a “false perspective”.
me, above:
Or rather, too tenuous to continue interacting noticeably with light, as an observable structure.
And more to the point, “bursting” implies that internal pressure is being opposed by the tension of a surrounding structure that then fails.
A balloon has the pressure of air or water opposing the tension of the rubber containing it; it bursts when the integrity of the rubber fails.
A soap bubble has the pressure of air opposing the surface tension of the film of the bubble; it bursts when that film is disrupted.
But there’s no surrounding structure to the Orion-Eridanus bubble. It’s just matter expanding outward from a point. There’s nothing to burst.
@Owlmirror
I’m not going to fight you on this for every point. Thanks for the discussion.
I have spent some time researching Gobeki Tepe. Finding articles with actual archaeology to go along with the photos was a bit of a challenge, but this one has good photographs and didn’t make me roll my eyes too much. Gobeki Tepe
I see a lot of animals and multiple women giving birth. The link is written by a dude who has clearly never seen a woman give birth because he labeled the triple goddess giving birth to herself as an anthropomorph holding a penis and the picture of a women giving birth to a breach fox (which is also depicted on a pillar) as “possibly depicting a sex act”.
It do not see any symbols that could be writing, much less an entire cosmology that got handed down to a tribe that wouldn’t even exist for thousands of years via similarly non-existent Buddhists.
I do find it very fascinating that terrazo flooring is found at Gobekli. There is another site called Lepenski Vir that is about 8000 years old which also has man-made poured floors, but was only occupied on a seasonal basis. They also have carved egg boulders and fishy looking carved stone anthropomorphic household objects.
http://www.donsmaps.com/lepenski2.html
No, it is not.
As everyone familiar with crank embryology knows, it grows in the shape of a torus.
Of course, those of us who know embryology in considerable detail know that both the spiral and donut views are stupid bullshit.
@PZ: How soon poor Fleury is forgotten.
It’s hydrodynamic!
I suspect that in the end, all religious structures are vaguely sex organ shaped, therefore showing a common origin as being invented by horny humans.
OK, spirals, donuts, and vortices, the holy trinity of crank science.
And seriously, Scranton, I’d really like to know how you can say things like
What does that even mean? You set it up like you’re talking from a privileged position of understanding the perspective from a pair of words, , that doesn’t make sense. You’re about to describe the form of an embryo; how else would you do it but from a biological perspective. And why is the word even in there? It’s a real word salad.
And then this:
This is simply, flatly wrong and does not reflect the views of any legitimate scientist, except maybe in the specific case of spiral cleavage in mollusc embryos. There’s nothing at all in a human embryo. It’s as if you’re just spitting up words that sound profound to you, with no regard for whether they’re true or not.
So why do you do it? Why do you appear on a developmental biologist’s blog to make simple, stupid statements about embryology with such confidence, when they’re totally false? I, and no one else here, will not be bamboozled by your pseudo-scholarly air. We’re seeing right through you, and the fact that you’re a fake is made even more clear when you make these counterfactual claims.
@lairdscranton:
At first I thought this looked like a concession, but then I realized that it was probably an evasion.
Why are you not conceding that you were wrong about Barnard’s Loop being a spiral?
Why are you not conceding that you were wrong about the Orion-Eridanus bubble being calculated to “burst”?
Why are you not conceding that you were wrong about Buddhist stupas having spider symbolism that matched Dogon granaries?
Why are you not conceding that you have been contradicting yourself on whether the Dogon granaries and Buddhist stupas “match”?
As one final parting point, Thesaurus.com defines the term “loop” as a noun that means “spiral.”
Holy shit. Thesaurus.com? The thesaurus.com? I guess that routes all your critics.
By the way, that site gets from “loop” to “circuit” to “orbit” to “apogee” to “climax” to “orgasm”, so clearly the aliens arrived from space in search of great sexual experiences.
But seriously, the fact that you think connections made by thesaurus are at all significant is another black mark against your goofy methodology.
Good grief. What’s that first synonym? The one that comes before “spiral”?
Thesaurus.com:
Synonyms for loop
noun circle, spiral
⇑⇑⇑⇑⇑⇑
@richardh, #295
I was wondering about that myself. One of the papers I downloaded on the Dogon appears to have the source of the number:
Claiming that the Dogon’s Amma’s twin’s signs have some sort of connection to the real world of particle physics is no doubt the result of deeply confused people thinking that the Dogon mythological cosmology is magically the same thing as real world cosmology and physics.
Reference:
Flam, Jack D. Graphic Symbolism in the Dogon Granary: Grains, Time, and a Notion of History. Journal of African Studies; Spring 1976; 3, 1
Jack Flam’s references for what I cited are, unsurprisingly, Le renard pâle and Signes graphiques soudanais, both by Griaule and Dieterlen. Note that as best I can tell, neither he nor his sources are the ones making the claims about particle physics — that appears to be from a different generation of kooks reading far too much into this stuff.
test
I blame Joseph Campbell’s book ‘The Inner Reaches of Outer Space’ for the silliness of magical numbers and ancient astronomers. He has an entire chapter devoted to sacred cycles, astrology, equinoxes, and the number 432. He does mention math and our “sexagesimal unit of astronomical measurement that is still in use for the measurement of circles” but it’s buried in deep gobbledygook about parallels between Babylonian and Hebrew traditions.
Mr. Campbell doesn’t attribute the fact that math equations have one correct answer, or that maps of the sky made by different people depict the same stars to alien visitors, but he goes on at florid length about how wondrous it is that people everywhere are guided by magic underlying mythos.
Chigau, I am also having issues with time outs and cloud flare.
I have a question, and perhaps you can answer it? At Gobekli Tel there are numerous small depressions cut into the tops of some of the pillars, and around the portal stone with animal statues in this photo gallery. I have seen similar ‘cup marks’ in Irish sites and in a native flint quarry in North America. Any idea what function these served? I can imagine them as bowls, or being filled with oil and a wick inside the structure, but since they also seem to be associated with quarrying that seems unlikely. I haven’t come across any attempts to test Gobekli for chemical residues.
Tethys @304:
Could they be mortises that fit tenons in lintels that have since disappeared?
Tethys #304
Are you asking me about flint quarries?
Sorry, I’ve never seen one.
Rob
No, they are shallow bowl shaped depressions ground all over the top surface of some posts. I can’t see how they could have a mechanical function. There is a porthole stone at the link #304 that has a section of floor with two rectangular holes surrounded by a raised base which has shallow depressions of various sizes around its top surface. Similar depressions but usually larger, are randomly carved into the top of the bedrock all around the quarry area in my link about Gobekli Tel at #292.
He notes they could have caught rainwater, but I’m sure these people had hides and containers that would have been better methods of collecting rain than carving little bowls in solid rock.
Been skimming through Laird Scranton’s facebook post, and comments…
Some of those comments:
. . . Because. . . ? Really, is there anything new on Sitchin at all that anyone with actual expertise is taking seriously?
what is this i can’t even
Huh. Never heard of the Declaration of Arbroath, but Wikipedia has a page . . . that links to a site with the full text . . . which says that the Scots, OH WOW HOLY SHIT, THEY BELIEVED THEY CAME FROM EGYPT! Oh, wait, no, they believed they originated in . . . Scythia. Which is not Egypt. Very far from Egypt, actually.
Reading comprehension, you do not have it.
(Relevant passage from the Declaration; English translation: Most Holy Father, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. It journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain […].
Because . . . making up bullshit is like sex? And pointing out that the bullshit is made up is like not having sex?
Analogies, how do they work?
Oh, dear.
Uh-huh. And Laird Scranton responded to this with thanks.
(PS: Band name: Lobotomized by Schooling)