2.2.3: Neurological

Neurological Theory holds that the miraculous organ of human fancy, the brain, also creates the structure and patterns of myth as one of its primary functions: the need to make order of sets of information. The theory finds its roots in the evolving awareness of the brain’s functions brought to us by neurological science. Scientists Eugene D’Aquili and Andrew Newberg in their research into the meditative state and its effects on the human brain found that the organs seek to create structures of meaning from observations: "and to attribute cause-effect relationships to perceptions from immediate to the cosmic, an attribute D’Aquili termed the “cognitive imperative.” We have, it seems, a biologically conditioned need to construct stories to explain the nature of our world and our place in it. The fact that myths worldwide share preoccupations with the mysteries of creation, life and death, and the nature of the cosmos, these theorists argue, is biologically driven" (Harris and Platzner 54-55).

Literary researchers Elizabeth and Paul Barber further develop this theory in their book, When They Severed Earth From Sky, finding that the human brain, given a set of informational facts, will rationalize a cause to justify the visual effect: a massive tree falling within a forest is the result, not of billions of microscopic lifeforms that undermine the root systems, but of an angry giant or a god who willed the tree to fall. Their theory, subdivided as principles, also explores the compression needed within foundational knowledge–information needed for survival in pre-literate cultures–and the necessity of an apparatus like a story or myth to convey that information in transmittable format. Hence, the essential information of a volcanic explosion that drove ancestors from living in the shadow of said volcano is more likely to survive if it’s carried in a compelling narrative about a beautiful maiden who denied the marriage proposal of a fiery spirit who lived within the mountain.

More local to Greek mythology, the king of Olympus, Zeus, being forewarned of a prophecy that a son of his and Metis’ would be greater than him, thus a likely threat to overthrow his rule, conceives of a way to avert this catastrophe. He consumes Metis, his first wife, assuming her intelligence along with the baby she carries. He then gives birth to his perfect child, the goddess Athene, who is born fully formed and armored, like an idea from his head. Being female, she cannot fulfill such a prophecy, and better still, will be her father’s champion by supporting his (male) favorites in situ. She is literally the “brain child” of Zeus.

The spontaneous spark of genius in birthing a child who both averts the prophecy and aligns with him in all ways also parallels the neurological process of synapse firing, when new knowledge is born from a spark in the brain. Or, what we call “the light bulb moment.”