Assignment:
Are there similarities between the creation myths/legends? What parallels did you note? Please describe.
What questions do you think the people during the era were trying to answer? Do you believe this question was conceived by their conscious experience? Why or why not? Please use examples when possible.
Do you see influences or similarities in these myths/legends with your personally learned myths/legends of creation?
Do your personally learned myths/legends influence your consciousness? How so? If not, how has your conscious experience altered your thoughts/perceptions of your personally learned myth/legend?
Reading
Creation Myths: Let us begin…at the beginning! For the next two weeks, we will be covering the humanities in Creation & Empire mythologies. In the following week, we will look at the formation of empires and societies. We will look into why they come to be and our role in society. During our first week, this week, on this topic, we will look at mythologies that surround how people came to be on this planet and their experiences. When we are born and flow through into our childhood and adolescence, one of the very first things we ask about ourselves is how we came to be. We are interested in our bodies and their formation and use our surrounding environments to shape our little selves. We are going through our unique conscious experience with the surrounding world. So what exactly are creation myths?To say it simply, they tell us where we came from, and where are bodies are produced from. Creation myths answer the question of our existence.Check out this excerpt from Introduction to Mythology: "Creation myths address the most fundamental concerns of existence. Just as children ask, "Where did I come from?" adults continue to try to fathom the beginnings not only of their own existence, but also of all of their surroundings. At the same time, these stories represent a way of knowing and a way of structuring experience. That is, they focus our attention not just on the origin of aspects of our world, but on the priorities and categories that seem important to the tellers of the creation myths. We learn a great deal about the daily lives of people and the hopes and fears that they experience, from the ways they structure their stories of how the world came to be." (23)We are urged to seek out the meaning of our beginning, middle, and end. The creation myths tell us how we begin. All cultures have a type of creation myth, they are our primary myths. They explain who we are in relation to the world and are used as an explanation during the 'pre-scientific' age. "The largest group of creation myths has roots at least as early as the Neolithic civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. These myths, from Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Greece, and the followers of the *Abrahamic *God, tell of creation from nothing (ex nihilo) or from chaos, or from some sacred substance by a single sky god, *supreme being, or *father god. The group shares several dominant characteristics besides creation by the sky father. The creator is always male and all-powerful, and the world he creates is hierarchical. Humans-especially men- are the creator's representatives there." (Leeming 85)This week we will read two myths, one from Aztec mythology and the other from Norse Mythology. As you read these myths, take into consideration the basis of creation myths and what they answer.
Leeming, David. Oxford Companion to World Mythology. Oxford University Press, 2009.Thury, Eva, and Margaret Devinney. Introduction to Mythology: Contemporary Approaches to Classical and World Myths. 4th ed., Oxford University Press, 2016.
Consciousness: The average human does not constantly consider consciousness but consciousness is constantly present for the average human. When thinking about consciousness, we cannot put a physical, scientific aspect on the theory. The conscious mind is something to be conceptualized and interpreted based on the human experience. The more consciousness is tasked to carry a physical portion of the brain, the harder it will be to interpret the mind. There will always be an issue to define exactly what the conscious is, but it is always existent. The brain does produce consciousness, but consciousness cannot produce brain functions, not anything physical. The mental states are not physical as they are a product of consciousness. If there is a shared consciousness of the individual, there is a creation of the self.
As long as we are alive, consciousness will always receive information provided by our life experiences, then produce our thoughts and imaginations. The totally unconscious person also may be credited with memories. He also can be said to have skills, including purely mental skills such as an ability for mental arithmeticA totally unconscious person may be credited with likes and dislikes, attitudes and emotions, current desires, and current aims and purposes. He may be said to have certain traits of character and temperament. (Armstrong 56) Consciousness is similar to a storage unit, it has a multitude of items that it constantly puts away and then pulls out. Items are constantly going in and out. The gloriousness of consciousness is the level of production. We are given access to memories, access to imagination, and access to intelligence through even minimal consciousness.
Please read the following on the theory of consciousness:
Armstrong, David M. (1981). What is consciousness? The Nature of Mind. Cornell University Press. 55-67
Aztec Creation Myth
The Aztec Empire, c. 1345-1521, covered most of northern Mesoamerica. The historic region of Mesoamerica comprises the modern-day countries of northern Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and half of Mexico. Watch the video below for an introduction to the Aztec Empire.
https://youtu.be/RH_8Q5rs8c0
Keep in mind the ideals and experiences of the Aztec people as you read the following:
Norse Creation Myth
Norse Mythology is from the Viking Age, c. 790- c. 1100 CE. Watch the Video below for a brief introduction:
https://youtu.be/uj6t5AO_650