 
                         20060505.00

     To suggest that myth has a "role in how we know who we
are," is to state a proposition which is self-evident, on the
assumption, eminently plausible to me, that the individual
experiences his own past as he experiences (a) myth, [the
experience of self and the experience of myth have this in
common: that they are uncorroborated by objective experience]
that the individual is not an objective but a mythical
character to himself, The understanding of self is enhanced
by the understanding of myth, and myth becomes meaningful as
an expression of the awareness of self.

     To suggest that myth "informs our experience of Self,"
is to state a more complex proposition: namely that an
undefined function (informs our experience) of two undefined
variables, myth and self, each of which, on closer inspection
turns out to be another function, with multiple parameters.
The analytic function, therefore, is of no mean difficulty.

     To start out with the notion of the Self: das Ich,
consciousness, all these terms suffer from the same fault: to
make objective, tangible, definite something which is
inherently non-objective, intangible, indefinite (undefined).
an experience to which language is but a pointer.

     The significance myth is that it is a bridge between
present awareness and the distant and the past.  The
acknowledgment of myth is the acknowledgement objective non-
reality; at the same time it is the assertion of subjective
reality.  The myth is _real_ to me although it is not
_objectively_ real.

     It is important to make the distinction between
individual consciousness which is always in the present;
which in fact is a definition of present, the only definition
we have; and the awareness of individual identity which is
always in the past.  My present consciousness is very non-
specific.  I see a cloud moving across the sky; I hear the
singing of a bird, the wind rustling the leaves.  I can
perceive all this without knowing where I am or what time it
is, or reflecting on who I am.  Consider the dream, or the
process of waking, a variant of this present consciousness.

     But if you ask me what I am doing, who I am, where my
home is, when I have come and where I am going, the mental
activity required to answer these questions is more
protracted.  The answer, of course, is in language.  To
answer I speak words, sentences.  I refer to, I summarize the
past.

     Although the summary is becomes a public statement which
is open and accessible to everyone; in its genesis, the
account of self is private; is not accessible to, is not
observable by anyone other than myself, is not publicly
accessible.  And in this respect my account of myself
resembles my account of the myth.  What distinguishes the
myth from the historical account is the absence of witnesses.

     History, then is an account which has been (potentially)
witnessed.  The account of self is an account not susceptible
to having been witnessed.  The myth differs from history, in
that history was witnessed, but myth is a story not witnessed
which has its source in story (rather than history) which is
denominated myth to indicate and to acknowledge its origin in
mind (language), which is the same oriigin as the experience
of self.  Clearly the distinction between myth and history is
problematic.

     This then is why the account of self has the
characteristic of myth: like myth, the account of self is a
product of mind rather than of observation.

                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
