Is the Greek Titan Cronus the first reference to a black hole?

In Homer's Iliad Achilles spoke of his swift black ship?

catalog.lambertvillelibrary.org...

There have been reports of apparent superluminal star velocities near Sagittarius A, the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Are these two things related?

Originally posted by Cauliflower
In Homer's Iliad Achilles spoke of his swift black ship?

catalog.lambertvillelibrary.org...

There have been reports of apparent superluminal star velocities near Sagittarius A, the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Are these two things related?

Would it not be far more likely Achilles just painted his ships black? Hell might have made it easier to find them after a hard day of killing...

Hanslune said it best in this thread...if you look at ancient mythology long enough you can fit it into just about anything. I really don't think any of the ancient historical people who came up with the myths had any idea about black holes or made gods out of them.

Black holes are a significant X ray radio source at much higher frequencies despite the fact that visible light cannot escape their gravity.

Homer wove a lot of narrative out of lunar and possibly other astronomical activity so my guess is the night sky was just sort of a convenient theater stage setting.

Greek Kronos applies in both instances, but I'm not sure what the OP had in mind.

reply to post by Cauliflower


I don't think Achilles ship has a part in the night sky. Even though I have a pretty good imagination, I tend to draw the line somewhere. When old myths speak of creation, there you can look for similarities, but if the myth is about war and heroism on earth, well then it has nothing to do with anything beyond this planet.

And of course it is easy to mirror our comtemporary knowledge into ancient texts. Even though it is easy, won't mean there couldn't be connections.

My favorite line is from Emo: "Monotheism is the greatest thing ever invented by the gods." Maybe all of this is simply trying to put a name on something that can not be named. So, then what? We are like the eye trying to look upon itself.

As the great and late Alan Watts said; you can't talk and talk about talking at the same time. Thinking a thought is the same thing as thinking.

Originally posted by OnWhiteMars
reply to post by Byrd

 

You might find Wikipedia a better reference for this... and Uranus isn't "stars", but "the sky"

There are sources that connects him with the starry sky.

Yes, and even the Wikipedia article points this out. I'm familiar with him as a "starry sky" deity, though I'm not sure when (in Greek depictions) he went from "sky" to "starry sky" (or vice-versa.)

Well, I never really pointed out that Greeks knew cosmology. What if the story itself is older?

Then we'd see it in other forms in other civilizations, including depictions of that. I'm not familiar with any material similar to this from an older culture of that area -- on the other hand, I haven't read everything out there.

Anyhow... weird that they somehow came up with a story with such resemblance to the beginning of our universe. Even the terms (deity names) match quite good.

Err... you're aware that the English language is the child language of both Greek and Latin (and German), right? In any child language you find a lot of the root words (or whole words) of the parent languages.

But in your honest opinion, wouldn't Cronus' manners be just right for black hole?

If you were doing a poem, you could probably sustain something interesting in the ways of analogies there. But as a scientist, I gotta say there's no match there. Otherwise we'd have Cronus magically pulling everything toward him and eating everything that came into his range (event horizon.) And everything he ate would have to spray milk around the sky in a ring (the spiral arms of our galaxy.)

...and then you have to account for the rest of the story where Zeus imprisons all the titans.

Some interesting source material here that you might enjoy reading: www.theoi.com...

reply to post by Byrd

Err... you're aware that the English language is the child language of both Greek and Latin (and German), right? In any child language you find a lot of the root words (or whole words) of the parent languages.

Yep, I was aware of the linguistic connection. What I tried to imply was a connection to matching cosmological 'events' or behaviors, not a connection to English. But my choice of words or explanation was rather poor. I'm no master in expressing my thoughts in English

Some interesting source material here that you might enjoy reading: www.theoi.com...

Thank you for the link, I will certainly read it through.

What comes to the original idea, maybe it was a too far fetch. Somehow it connected with a basic understanding of the creation event, and there certainly was a resemblance, well in my mind anyway, between a black hole and Cronus. Not on all levels, but enough for me to see it.

I know that hard core science has a habit of rebuking (maybe a too harsh word) ideas that can't instantly be written into formulas, or doesn't count for every variable. But that's the way it goes. That is why I never could devote myself completely into strict science, in my blood runs a desire to connect things outside the grid of norms. Fortunately I don't instantly believe every connection I see

Thanks for your very well put answers!

reply to post by Byrd


I don't think what the Greeks "knew" at the time really matters as it relates to their Gods/religion. Religion is one of those things that has always been handed to the people by someone else, typically in a duad of knowledge.

In the "ancient" world (during classical times) there was The Mysteries. In essence, it was a secret playbook to the religion of the area and time. In any religion, for the most part, there are two sets of teachings. One set, the one most know of, is meant for consumption of "the profane", or the regular everyday user. The other set is for the "initiated". This is the source of just about all secret societies (as the Mysteries moved into a secular study).

Alexander the Great was known to have studied under the mystics of both Greece (Aristotle) and Persia. Aristotle was quite dismayed at Alexanders embracing of the Persian lifestyle.

Having said all of this.....there is highly speculative conversation, as you know, regarding the Hindu understanding of Cosmology and Physics. IF (and it is a big "if") just a portion of the CT view of Hindu cosmology is true, there would be no reason that the OP couldn't be true.

Now....one thing I can say I have gained from years of studying what I can find regarding the ancient esoteric schools is that there was a deeper level of knowledge held by a certain few in any nation and any time. To what degree this knowledge extended, I don't know

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by Byrd

 

Having said all of this.....there is highly speculative conversation, as you know, regarding the Hindu understanding of Cosmology and Physics.

Well, if you read their other works and look at what they did with the concepts, the nature of their idea becomes a lot clearer.

IF (and it is a big "if") just a portion of the CT view of Hindu cosmology is true, there would be no reason that the OP couldn't be true.

Or it could be that they're grafting meaning onto something that "sounds similar." Just as with this idea. It's clear from other Greek writings that they saw the sky as sort of a "shell" around the Earth and had no idea that the stars were so very far away. While you might impart a mystical idea onto one story, when you examine the whole body of writing, it's clear that the idea (while lyrical and poetic) doesn't actually hold up as being original to them.

Now....one thing I can say I have gained from years of studying what I can find regarding the ancient esoteric schools is that there was a deeper level of knowledge held by a certain few in any nation and any time. To what degree this knowledge extended, I don't know

You should try (as I've done) looking up the original sources... tracing back the lineage to an origin. In other words, take something like an ancient Greek concept from the Mysteries and find out who wrote about it first and which Greek documents (in the original) they got the information from.

It will give you some additional insights.

Originally posted by Byrd

You should try (as I've done) looking up the original sources... tracing back the lineage to an origin. In other words, take something like an ancient Greek concept from the Mysteries and find out who wrote about it first and which Greek documents (in the original) they got the information from.

It will give you some additional insights.

I do this. But it is difficult. Pythagoreas is a major source, but his writings are mostly lost.

Also unknown to me is the encryption used by each individual. I guess its the antiquity. By "encryption" i refer to the numerology and other symbolism that is meant to tell the underlying story.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
I do this. But it is difficult. Pythagoreas is a major source, but his writings are mostly lost.

In this case, the historians look at the oldest sources and see which agree. Pythagoras, by the way, is fascinating and I have a project that is going to make me go look up his material again.

Also unknown to me is the encryption used by each individual. I guess its the antiquity. By "encryption" i refer to the numerology and other symbolism that is meant to tell the underlying story.

If it's in the Mysteries, then study the culture itself and what its common symbols were. In general you will see a lot of these things used (as you know) in a more sophisticated way... however, the members of the society often give hints in their writings. The Pythagorean material, for instance, covers a lot of ground -- but has a lot of limitations as well (it didn't have access to modern concepts such as hyperdimensions, branes, manifolds, genetics, and so forth.)