Group Presentation: MAPS

The idea behind our project, atleast in my mind, was to not only relay information from the chapter but to give you guys possible representations of the story.  This class has made me realize that as humans we are constantly trying to gain understanding of the world around us, but the process of relating our findings and interpretations of our understanding are extremely difficult given our limited resources.  These tools of communication are speech, art, and literature and as the various material for the our course have demonstrated they often fall short.  To reiterate my favorite passage from Ong, words are always symbolic of a larger picture that they can never fully express.

The chapter of Maps is important in that it highlights several elements of myth telling which attempt to help shorten the gaps between humans as conscious beings bent on answer finding and the world we live in.  It seems strange to me that the main pursuit of knowledge is to essentially make the universe seem smaller.  However, this chapter highlights, in my mind, the notion that our seeming predispotion toward problem solving creates more issues that need further interpretation.  For instance, my section on the wisdom of plants gives explaination for the seasons and some of the various problems that arise in agrarian society.  These mythological theories for existence combine elements of the physical world with elements of religion or that of a vague, alternative consciousness.  Since there is no definite proof in regards to the other side of consciousness (death, god's grand design) various people's have created characters to interpret this alternate reality such as the crow who can transverse the boundaries between worlds.

It seems strange that by mapping the universe people invariably create, and instead of filling in space cultures invariably create more blank space that needs filled in with more stories.  In the oral tradition, with a lack of physical evidence or concrete preservation, the emphasis is not on the literal interpretation of the universe but what one might call the consciousness of the human experience.  Mapping is representative of but not specifically dependant on actuality.