The Ancients and Imagination

[ProphetofOccam]

(Disclaimer: This is not an invite for debate, arguing or view pushing. This is a probe meant to collect and enjoy the thoughts and considerations of those in the forums who participate. Thanks.)

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Recently, shows like "Ancient Aliens" have been popping up all over the various levels of broadcast media. The concepts in them aren't new. They're based largely on the written work of one particular fellow who doesn't require naming. These concepts are interesting, but their recent uptick in popularity bothered me. I couldn't figure it out, at first.

My friends who watch that particular show do so for the comedic value. In fact, everyone who I personally know who watches the show, with the exception of my dad, watches it for that reason. Obviously, there are many people who watch the show for educational purposes -- I just don't know these people.

That was part of what I couldn't figure out. Why something about it could still bother me. Then, during a discussion with my dad, it hit me; people pretend that ancient people were incapable of imagination.

Every cave drawing, every religious text, every oral history, for some reason, has to be anchored in reality. Nothing is even vaguely considered to be the result of imagination. Ancient people, in this view, were hopeless slaves of the literal.

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I thought I'd ask you guys, in this all inclusive forum: how do you feel, as an individual, regarding the ancients and their ability to produce art, culture and religion from the imagination? This would include hyper-embellished tales rooted in otherwise mundane events.

Are there some aspects you think are imagination and others not? What are some of your reasons for drawing those lines?

Why do you think that we, as a modern people, devalue the imaginations of ancient people by assuming a literal meaning to their art and writings? Do you not feel it is a devaluation? I'm interested.

Again, this isn't necessarily about evidence or debate. If you feel there is evidence for ancient art and/or culture originating in the supernatural (ufo's, cryptozoology, metaphysics, etc.), and that's your reason for your position, that's cool. I just don't want this to turn into a skeptics vs. nonskeptics borefest.

 

[mike]

wandjina - Bing Images

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Cool. Those have always been some of my favorite images related to the topic.

Mike, I'm guessing you are saying you like the idea of the cave-drawings as reality concept, given these drawings? If that's the wrong conclusion, let me know.

To get into more of the meat of what I've inferred is your view, why do you feel like these images are evidence for the ancient alien concept? More specifically, why do you feel like these images could not have been imagined?

Again, that's not a challenge. Don't feel compelled to phrase anything as a defense or argument, I just want to take a deeper dive into your perception.

 

[stonehart]

wandjina - Bing Images

Very compelling post Mike.

As for an answer on the imagination of early humanity the answer is yes of course they could and did use their imagination.
We in these "modern" times for some reason think of the ages behind us as primitives incapable of imagination but this could not be further from the truth.
All that has changed is the context and media in which we express this ability, take religious art for an example, for sure there is a reason for its creation but when you look at the art painted on the Sistine Chapel roof for example, there had to be a level of imagination to have come up with them. We would call it artistic license today, but the context is the same, and yes I know this is in all reality not really that old but the concept is what I am getting at.

A better example to use could be the Mahabharata (Indian Epic), yes it is a work of a religious nature but it is very imaginative, now you could say that they took this as a literal reality at the time and it is possible that they did. But if you read say stories on the birth of the Buddha or his teachings you come to understand that the story itself is just that a stories but it is the message that it contains that matters. This shows abstract thinking and use of imagination, the Christian equivalent would be the parables.

Humans today are not all that different than those a thousand years ago or more.

 

[Frank Stalter]

There's no doubt ancient cultures around the world were inspired by what they saw in the sky, especially at night and acted on it.

Think about it, they were able to time the snake effect down those stairs with the spring equinox. Just building the damn pyramid was enough but they took it that step further. Just amazing. Now for imagination, consider the constellations themselves. You see a lion or a bull in those few stars? . . . . OK, if you say so. But still the constellations are still with us today.

Now for imagination, Ancient Aliens is great. I really think it's the unbridled enthusiasm of guys like Giorgio and Childress and some others that really carries the show and raises it far above the sort of dark and scary movie tone of most of the contemporary UFO related shows. Another great advantage AA has is sites like above . . . . they are simply amazing and have this tremendous pull that modern UFO shows can't match. Flat out, they look great on TV. Add in some computer special effects and Giorgio's hairstyle special effects and it's a damn fine TV show, always worth a watch.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

stonehart, are you saying you don't think those ancient works are based on anything that happened in reality (at least, to the degree expressed in the works)?

Frank, you're saying you believe that the ancient people, Mayans in this case, built the pyramids on their own, without aid from extraterrestrials or advanced cultures, but their imagines were fueled by their reverence for celestial bodies?

 

[Frank Stalter]

stonehart, are you saying you don't think those ancient works are based on anything that happened in reality (at least, to the degree expressed in the works)?

Frank, you're saying you believe that the ancient people, Mayans in this case, built the pyramids on their own, without aid from extraterrestrials or advanced cultures, but their imagines were fueled by their reverence for celestial bodies?

At the very least, they did it on their own but I don't rule out some Ancient Alien guidance/interaction along the way. If it's happening today, it's been happening all along. The key question is if aliens were so unambiguous in their interactions way back when, why did it change?

 

[stonehart]

stonehart, are you saying you don't think those ancient works are based on anything that happened in reality (at least, to the degree expressed in the works)?

Frank, you're saying you believe that the ancient people, Mayans in this case, built the pyramids on their own, without aid from extraterrestrials or advanced cultures, but their imagines were fueled by their reverence for celestial bodies?

No not at all, the inspiration for the works "could" be inspired by things they had seen or real events.
The answer I gave was one to say yes ancient peoples had imagination and such works as the great Indian epics are examples of this. Were these works based on real events? probably not (and if they are then the real events have been lost with embellishment), but what they are based on is religious/spiritual zeal and faith expressed in story form... Takes imagination to write a story you see

I personally think humanity's greatest gift is the power of imagination.

As for wall and rock art that depict what the modern eye sees as alien, a word of caution must be taken when assuming that this is the case.

I am not saying that they could not be and for all I know that is what they are.. but we could also be taking them out of context.

Having said that the Pictures that Mike posted are very compelling indeed.

 

[Frank Stalter]

This guy agrees with you . . . .

Full quote:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Having said that the Pictures that Mike posted are very compelling indeed.

Yeah, I like the wandjina. The only thing that makes them less compelling, for myself, is the fact that they are regularly repainted by new generations. What could have started out as a vague, large eyed concept could have been steered more toward the classic "alien" concept due to external influence. The depiction of the figures has changed over time.

I'm also a fan of the idea that has been suggested by some in the psyche fields that the idea of the big-headed, large-eyed construct is an innate manifestation of the subconscious. We might be hardwired to see this construct in various ways (fearsome, cute, etc.) for various reasons (predator avoidance, infant attachment, etc). Some of these ancient conceptualizations of gods and spirits might be an attempt to capture all of these feelings in one being.

What about images of spacecraft and other objects that appear to be bizarre devices? How does everyone feel about those?

I'd still like to hear more from mike. Any of the "nonskeptics" have any feelings about this stuff, or are the folks in the forum not really fans of this area of the paranormal?

 

[exo_doc]

I think we do not give enough credit to our ancestors. These paintings show a tremendous amount of imagination, in style if nothing else.
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[Frank Stalter]

You all might like this . . .

 

[Wade]

Well not being very knowledgeable on the subject my two cents is rather mundane, but just as there are some great western works of art that make great use of the imagination (surrealism ?) there is no reason to think they have the market cornered when it comes to imagination. But offhand I can't give any examples, it's probably fair to say that many images in the wandjina traditions are grounded in their mythology (which is very real to them although we might consider it imaginative )

It's a pretty intriguing question and considering the wandjina mythology is so rich in imagery in the first place it probably would take a scholar to be able to distinguish any differences between artwork for arts' sake and artwork for a purpose (storytelling) or more precisely in their view recordkeeping. so maybe the question here could also be were the ancients capable of art work that is akin to our mindless doodling or was their a purpose behind all of it.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Very briefly, the reason I don't mind Ancient Aliens (AA) is that whether or not it is all mumbo-jumbo, it does highlight what I think are totally undeniable gaps in knowledge as history is now written and taught.
I don't just mean the things we are yet to discover, as the gaps I mention but there are loads of examples where basically academia has either ignored or hidden things which would contradict their current teachings.

For example, the Antikythera mechanism - that pretty much puts a spanner in the works as to when say, clockwork metalwork came about. In South America, there is ample evidence of advanced pre-Columbian culture work but the institutions there don't like 'biggin' that up cos I think they think it diminishes them.

Ask any schoolkid in America who discovered America? How many people here think that is correct? What about the cocaine and nicotine found in mummies?

I find the collection of Klaus Donna to be quite compelling as evidence some civilisation knew the world map long before we taught it as being known.

Did aliens use Nazca as an aiport? jesus christ, no! -that is an utter embarrassment but AA can certainly teach us that it is totally ok to question history as it is taught thesedays.

I actually seriously think Von Daniken knows most of his stuff is wrong - he is knowingly cashing in on the type of person that likes to swallow all that stuff. But I don't think it is all 100% wrong.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Oh, I forgot to include my thoughts on those images Mike posted. They are far too close to human-like images to ever say they are anything but a little artistic license but it is quite strange how those 'grey alien' type drawings exist from cultures that were unknown to eachother. There does seem to be quite a lot of ancient art that seem to depict men in 'spacesuits' or some kind of ET-like beings. There is zero evidence those paintings and petroglyphs were of anything out of this world but they are strange enough and look similar enough sometimes to give pause for thought IMO.

 

[exo_doc]

Very briefly, the reason I don't mind Ancient Aliens (AA) is that whether or not it is all mumbo-jumbo, it does highlight what I think are totally undeniable gaps in knowledge as history is now written and taught.
I don't just mean the things we are yet to discover, as the gaps I mention but there are loads of examples where basically academia has either ignored or hidden things which would contradict their current teachings.

For example, the Antikythera mechanism - that pretty much puts a spanner in the works as to when say, clockwork metalwork came about. In South America, there is ample evidence of advanced pre-Columbian culture work but the institutions there don't like 'biggin' that up cos I think they think it diminishes them.

Ask any schoolkid in America who discovered America? How many people here think that is correct? What about the cocaine and nicotine found in mummies?

I find the collection of Klaus Donna to be quite compelling as evidence some civilisation knew the world map long before we taught it as being known.

Did aliens use Nazca as an aiport? jesus christ, no! -that is an utter embarrassment but AA can certainly teach us that it is totally ok to question history as it is taught thesedays.

I actually seriously think Von Daniken knows most of his stuff is wrong - he is knowingly cashing in on the type of person that likes to swallow all that stuff. But I don't think it is all 100% wrong.

Spot on Goggs! Have you ever read "Forbidden Archeology"? I don't agree with everything in it, but it does put the falsehoods of the archeology world in a spotlight.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

I often have Ancient Aliens on in the background. I like the stories they weave. It does what it's supposed to do. Sometimes they present false information, or information about instances that have been resolved through mundane science, but I don't think it matters. It serves several different audiences in different ways.

Ancient astronaut stories were some of my favourite as a kid. I like stories built around strange interpretations of cave art and religious text.

It just makes me wonder if in a few thousand years, if we experience some kind of loss of recorded history and record (harddrives only live so long), people will people having shows explaining how the DC and Marvel universes were based on historical events involving real interaction with extraterrestrials and hyper-advanced science.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Interesting.

Nah, he just believes anything that doesn't require reading a book or text that might also require reading several other books or texts.

He not only believes everything on those types of shows, even competing hypotheses, but that science fiction, primarily the Star Gate series (or any show he happens to like a lot), is written by a secret sect of people who are trying to inform mainstream humanity of the hidden truths that a black government hides from us -- like Star Gates, alien contact, advanced technology, etc. He just kind of makes stuff up to believe, from time to time. It just depends on when you catch him.

I think he only recently started getting into that kind of thing five or six years ago.

The people who find it funny just like the path of reasoning most often exhibited by Tsoukalos:

Step 1. Ancient artifact or drawing A looks kind of like modern object B, sorta'.
Step 2. Maybe ancient people saw B due to time traveling aliens and A is their ignorant interpretation of what they saw.
Step 3. Given that i thought both Step 1 and Step 2, A undoubtedly must equal B -- Step 2 is now Working Theory.

He'll literally say things like "Maybe ancient people drew these spacecraft because they were mimicking something they'd seen in person. And that's exactly what happened, here." You have to chuckle a little.

 

[Randall]

It just makes me wonder if in a few thousand years, if we experience some kind of loss of recorded history and record ( hard drives only live so long ), people will people having shows explaining how the DC and Marvel universes were based on historical events involving real interaction with extraterrestrials and hyper-advanced science.

My History Prof at university once suggested something similar, posing the question that if archaeologists in the distant future began uncovering large stainless steel and yellow plastic arches, might they assume that they had stumbled upon places of worship, possibly to some sort of bovine deity?

 

[stonehart]

It just makes me wonder if in a few thousand years, if we experience some kind of loss of recorded history and record (harddrives only live so long), people will people having shows explaining how the DC and Marvel universes were based on historical events involving real interaction with extraterrestrials and hyper-advanced science.

Sort of the point I was making in regards to the Indian Epics as we know for sure that the Ramayana is more or less a work of fiction and the same can be said for many of the other Epics. But having said that many have a small amount of historical truth in them, an example is the Bhagavad Gita.

Arjuna we can be sure was not a real person (open for debate), but Krishna may have in fact been a real person but has had layers of myth pasted over him.
The Story in which they appear is a work of the religious imagination but at least one of the people involved existed.

I am sure we can think of places such as Troy as other examples of possible real events and places having myth and story's attached to them.

For me that was the fun part of my university studies, peeling away the layers of myth hunting for the grains of truth hidden inside.