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Personally, I think that last week’s discussion was more philosophical than factual. Hence, I am actually very confused about the discussion now. However, from my point of view, we actually talked about the degree of imagination involved in our current scientific theories.  Actually, as I mentioned in my previous post that I was not educated to have doubts in our current scientific theories, but to believe them, the discussion conducted during our lessons stunned me to a large extent. As a scientifically educated student, I am very opposed to the idea of creation myths and only read the stories as entertainments.  However, I am very open to new ideas and opinions. I found the idea saying that the current scientific fact will become another myth in the next few hundred years was especially interesting. I think this idea is plausible and developed from this idea, the ancient creation myths are also plausible if you put yourself in the situation which ancient people simply summarize their observation into “story” which could help everybody at that time understand the primitive idea of nature and world.

 After the class, I reread the creation myths that I found. Surprisingly, I found that some of the ideas mentioned in creation myths were actually related to current scientific theories.  Creation myths are not purely supernatural and totally based on imagination. For example, quoted from myths “When all was ready the three brothers rushed at the sky, but they could not beat down the gates of steel that guarded the entrance. Then Licalibutan let loose the strongest winds and blew the bars in every direction. The brothers rushed into the opening, but were met by the angry god Captan. So terrible did he look that they turned and ran in terror. but Captan, furious at the destruction of his gates, sent three bolts of lightning after them. The first struck the copper Libulan and melted him into a ball. The second struck the golden Liadlao, and he too was melted. The third bolt struck Licalibutan, and his rocky body broke into many pieces and fell into the sea. From above sentences, there are actually two scientific facts included: firstly, naturally existed wind could provide a power source which is exactly being promoted nowadays to develop the clean energy production. Secondly, the ancient people also found that the lightening has a destructive power which may cause fire. This fact perfectly relates to what modern scientists have learnt about the lightning so far. Hence, I think that “rocky body” mentioned in the myths may be just other words used by ancient people to describe the land. They use another set of words to describe the same phenomenon as what we observe nowadays.

Back to the Thomas King’s book “Truth about Stories”. While reading this book, my whole mind is filled with two words: myths, science. Hence, I did not really pay attention to the part which Thomas expresses his unhappiness with prejudices and unfairness experienced by native American Indians in America. However, I am very attracted to the wide variety of stories told in the book and the author’s comments on telling and hearing stories. The sentences, Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous. So, you have to be careful with the stories you tell and you have to watch out the stories that you are told, provide me with constructive advices on how I should judge on what I hear from others and what I learn from lessons, textbooks and other stories. I think that we cannot just blindly believe in whatever stories we have heard.  We need to judge the fact based on our experiences and the school of thought we believe in. However, to my opinion, one needs to be open to ideas. If so, we can develop our own thinking, judgments and thus become unique individuals on the earth.
 
Cogito, ergo sum-----------I think, therefore I am.