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Author Topic: The origin of storytelling
Jeff C.
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I was just thinking about this. Human beings, as we're told, evolved the way we did because we needed to. Survival of the fittest. Crying, laughing, fight or flight; we do everything for a reason, or because at some point we had to do it because if we didn't we'd probably die.

So where did the idea of telling stories come from? I suppose if you really broke it down, you could say it is simply the act of lying, except that it is a known lie (most of the time), but if that's the case, why would anyone want to listen to the lie (or pay money to read 400 pages of it)? Why do we take such an extreme interest in stories to begin with?

It's interesting when you think about it. We do everything for a reason, but sometimes those reasons are difficult to see. I'd be interested to know when this whole business of telling stories began, and whether or not it originally played any part in our survival.

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AchillesHeel
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My mind goes to this.

A nomadic tribe that has a very wide circuit, sometimes not being in a certain area while in a certain season for years at a time. Lifespans are not very long by modern standards and the elders tell the strong young ones about when it rained so much that the low place between two mountains where the tribe was sleeping very quickly turned into a river and killed several of the tribe. In this little story of mine evolution would tell us that the kid with a better memory years later chose not to sleep in the valley while it was raining while the dumber one drowned in a flash flood.

Is that the kind of story you are talking about? or are you referring to telling a completely made up story with the intent to teach an abstract thought rather than a memory?

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Dan_Frank
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Explanations.

We evolved to be thinking beings, so all bets are off. Don't get caught up in evolution when trying to explain our behavior. Genetic determinism is popular, but I don't think it's really going to give you a good answer.

No, in a broad sense, I think most of science, religion, fables, etc. all tie back to our attempts to create explanations for the world we find ourselves in.

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Jeff C.
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Achilles, I'm talking about a completely made-up story, but I like your little tale you came up with, anyway.
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AchillesHeel
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Thanks, you are not the only one who day-dreams about how cromagnon man ended up building sky-scrapers for fun.
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GinetteB
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I love this question! It's a great question and I think the answer must certainly have many aspects.
I am not a writer, but I do know that writers sometimes have the feeling it's not them that tell the stories, it's the stories that want to be told through them.
And are stories 'lies'? I see them more as describing possibilities. Maybe that's the whole idea, to explore with the mind?
I can remember I have had a time where I absolutely could not read fiction. For a couple of years I only read all kinds of non-fiction. I really had an aversion against all those 'stories' But that passed.
I have always loved reading but I realize there are many people who don't. So how common is this interest in stories? I mean, are there any statistics on which part of the world population reads or listens to fiction?

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Szymon
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I think it has something to do with curiosity, that has a lot to do with survival of the fittest.

But you go way to far in your question, because societies now are far from evolutionary, so paying money for books is cultural not natural (as in nature).
How I imagine it
Way in the past humans had an average life expectancy of like 30. Anyone who is over 30 is a wise old man who knows things. How was it years ago, when they lived by the seashore, so he knows how to fish, knows how to survive a particularly frosty winter or what kind of animals live up south where they had to go twenty years ago after the frosts came. So when it's nighttime and they really got nothing to do, they are fed and warm and safe. One guy asks him how was it? And the old wise 33-year-old tells them, and tells a story how they went fishing. Sure as hell he adds things and removes things. To make it sound better.

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Darth_Mauve
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Information Gathering Theory.

One of the advantages of a big brain is that you can think of things to help you survive. Its cold--create a blanket, a fire, a coat.

However, there is a limit to how much one single brain can create. By sharing the creative thoughts of a group of brains one can create better tools for survival.

Hence language is created. Knowledge is shared and grows exponentially.

You can plot these new ideas on a 2 dimensional graph, with new ideas being dots, and lines connecting the ideas with people sharing them.

Stories allow us to go 3 dimensional, taking ideas and discoveries not only from different brains, but from wider different locations, and from different times. A discovery made a generation ago does not have to be rediscovered because it exists as a lesson passed down from generation to generation.

However, lessons degrade with time. Something is needed to help our brains remember those lessons. One discovery is that lessons told as a story stay with us longer. Why?

Well because that is how we originally learned--through trial and error. We can now use someone else's trial and error as related in a story to support our own. We remember stories better than facts.

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Darth_Mauve
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Information Gathering Theory.

One of the advantages of a big brain is that you can think of things to help you survive. Its cold--create a blanket, a fire, a coat.

However, there is a limit to how much one single brain can create. By sharing the creative thoughts of a group of brains one can create better tools for survival.

Hence language is created. Knowledge is shared and grows exponentially.

You can plot these new ideas on a 2 dimensional graph, with new ideas being dots, and lines connecting the ideas with people sharing them.

Stories allow us to go 3 dimensional, taking ideas and discoveries not only from different brains, but from wider different locations, and from different times. A discovery made a generation ago does not have to be rediscovered because it exists as a lesson passed down from generation to generation.

However, lessons degrade with time. Something is needed to help our brains remember those lessons. One discovery is that lessons told as a story stay with us longer. Why?

Well because that is how we originally learned--through trial and error. We can now use someone else's trial and error as related in a story to support our own. We remember stories better than facts.

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Sa'eed
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Okay, just so story mode...


One thing I find interesting is the idea that the human brain has been significantly shaped by sexual selection -- the exhibition of traits that signal fitness and people selecting each other for mating on the basis of such cues. The ability to tell a story need not serve a purpose other than to indicate that the storyteller is a clever individual. Art making, singing, storytelling, etc, are just a way for an individual to have stood out in the tribal settings of human evolution, and people would have needed to develop both refinement in discriminating between which cues signaled fitter individuals and a way for themselves to give such signals. This would explain both art making and art appreciation.

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777
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Ever looked into mimetic theory? It's all about representation, imitation, and why stories are told the way they're told. I mean, why do we tell stories the way we do nowadays, as compared to say, Homer or Shakespeare?

I'd argue that we imitate naturally, and story-telling is just another form of that. There's probably a lot more to it than that, but I find it fascinating how constantly and thoroughly we imitate each other--whether in stories, myths, religions, etc.

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Kwea
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quote:
Originally posted by Sa'eed:
Okay, just so story mode...


One thing I find interesting is the idea that the human brain has been significantly shaped by sexual selection -- the exhibition of traits that signal fitness and people selecting each other for mating on the basis of such cues. The ability to tell a story need not serve a purpose other than to indicate that the storyteller is a clever individual. Art making, singing, storytelling, etc, are just a way for an individual to have stood out in the tribal settings of human evolution, and people would have needed to develop both refinement in discriminating between which cues signaled fitter individuals and a way for themselves to give such signals. This would explain both art making and art appreciation.

Not really. It's a gross oversimplification at BEST, and is highly inaccurate because it doesn't address a number of things. It may be part of what started it, but it doesn't even explain a 10th of the process.

I think that looking for any ONE reason these things happened is bound to fail for that very reason. When you try to simplify complex behaviors you often end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

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GinetteB
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I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research. ~Albert Einstein


maybe that's why we love stories?

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by Sa'eed:
Okay, just so story mode...


One thing I find interesting is the idea that the human brain has been significantly shaped by sexual selection -- the exhibition of traits that signal fitness and people selecting each other for mating on the basis of such cues. The ability to tell a story need not serve a purpose other than to indicate that the storyteller is a clever individual. Art making, singing, storytelling, etc, are just a way for an individual to have stood out in the tribal settings of human evolution, and people would have needed to develop both refinement in discriminating between which cues signaled fitter individuals and a way for themselves to give such signals. This would explain both art making and art appreciation.

Ahh, evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetic determinism at its worst.

Edit: Okay, maybe not its worst. Eugenics and all.

Still, this is pretty silly.

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