Longterm members of our community know about myth, but new members might be scratching your heads.
Myth is old stories about why the sun rises etc.
Science fiction is the extrapolation of scientific FACT.
They are NOT the same.
Let’s talk.
In fact that idea about myths being stories to explain the sun rising (etc) is a product of colonialism. Myths never have such direct meanings.
Myths do answer universal, eternal questions. Like what comes after death, who made all this, what is reality, what is human, and more.
But the answers myth gives are not meant to be understood as fact. Instead myth gives us the
MYTHIC IMAGE
which lives in a strange space between truth and fiction.
A good example of a modern mythic image is the Big Bang. A singularity from which space and time emerge is 1) very like earlier mythic images of an All Father vomiting up twin sons of space and time
and 2) not a bang, or big
But we hold the mythic image of a Big Bang as a way to comprehend the incomprehemsible.
When we think about science fiction in relation to myth we see two things
1) SF is often based on myth. Frankenstein is a “Modern Prometheus”. 2001 is a “Space Odyssey”. It’s a very long list when you get into it.
2) SF has given us most of our modern Mythic Images. Some examples: The Human as Robot. The Afterlife as Virtual Reality. The Soul as Uploadble Data Construct. And this is another long list.
Sit and parse this out for a while and the idea that science fiction is in the business of myth making becomes inescapable. Science fiction is the mythos of modern scientific civilization in the way the Olympians and Homer were the mythos of ancient Greek civilization. Or Christianity was the mythos of Medieval civilization.
So you think you’re going to the cinema to be entertained by a movie about astronauts. But you’re really doing what humans have always done, taking part in a mythic ritual to experience the mythic images of your civilization.
Woah!
Which is why a smart movie maker like Christopher Nolan doesn’t make a realistic movie about interstellar travel. He makes a myth.
That gives as a new mythic image of the black hole. And combines real physics with the Uber myth of Western civilization.
And the character Matthew McConaughey was born to play…🤣
🔗👇👇👇👇👇
Damien Walter 