If we say that myths or narratives are meaningful, what do we mean by that? We mean that they provide knowledge about things that matter, like how to live or make decisions. That's not scientific knowledge, but knowledge of whatever kind still involves questions of what is true.
We could not know if it was true without testing it. For the Hare Krishnas it is onions and garlic. For the ancient Hebrews, it was pork & shellfish. The former seems groundless. The latter can now be understood in relation to food poisoning & dealt with via refrigeration.
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People may or may not find dietary restrictions meaningful and this could relate to where they fall on the moral foundations - if they have strong sanctity/degradation intuitions, they could be more inclined to favor these rules regardless of evidence.
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So you're saying it is meaningful but not true.
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Some things people place meaning on are not true, yes. Thunder is not actually an angry god swinging a hammer about. The meaning given to it is false. People can still take pleasure in imagining it and perhaps it could even be useful but it is not true.
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People can place meaning on absolutely anything. This can be interesting and I study narratives because it is interesting. It also matters what is true and distinguishing what people find meaningful regardless of truth from what has been discovered to be true has advanced society
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I'm not arguing against truth. I'm saying that if tribe members argue about whether a plant makes you sick, and they argue in terms of that myth, they aren't arguing about whether the myth is meaningful but about whether it is true: that the right way to live is not to eat it.
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OK? So what? Where is this going? If you mean that sometimes people can find information and data in myths, I agree and have never claimed otherwise. This is not the point of the disagreement.
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Maybe a myth mentions that a certain war happened in a certain place and archaeologists use this as a starting point for seeking evidence for it. This is not what is being criticised as 'the affective reality of the mythic world,' is it?
End of conversation
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