Anticipation of Judicial Inquisition of Humans by Extraterrestrials (Part #3)

 

Human deep cultural memory of universal associations?

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There is a faint possibility that humans have an unrecognized relation to the universe which surrounds them -- suggested by the manner in which humans have related to the stars and constellations over millennia, and the process of naming those features. This may well have been reinforced by the elaboration of memorable mythical tales, as suggested to a remarkable degree by the argument of Joseph Campbell (The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: myth as metaphor and as religion, 1986), or perhaps as anticipated by Henryk Skolimowski (The Participatory Mind: a new theory of knowledge and of the universe, 1994).

Deprecation by mainstream science of this possibility ignores the discoveries which scientists of the future may make -- given the millennia of human creativity which could be usefully imagined. The explanatory closure implied by any hypothetical Theory of Everything of physics may be obliged to adapt to such development.

There is therefore a case for recognizing how the named features of the universe "translate" into the names of the species of animals which are the concern of this argument. A set of 88 constellations has been designated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Arguably half of these can be related to animals, as indicated below. Given the clarification above, these merit comparison with animals with which humans have a particular relationship -- as suggested by the right-and column below.

As noted by Wikipedia with respect to Chinese constellations, traditional Chinese astronomy has a system of dividing the celestial sphere into asterisms or constellations, known as "officials". These are generally smaller than the constellations of Hellenistic tradition, as now recognized by the IAU. One articulation presents a total of 283 asterisms, comprising a total of 1,565 individual stars. Specific correspondences to the IAU articulation are given in the Wikipedia summary, including those to the 336 star names in the current List of IAU-approved Star Names (Lists of stars by constellation).

The correspondences shown are of course purely indicative, notably highlighting questions about the crude clustering of the animals and whether those animals not mentioned might be appropriately related to the significance of constellations otherwise understood. 

Of particular relevance to this argument are the culturally significant associations offered by the extensive set of myths and tales associated with both constellations and many stars.

Correspondence between constellations and animal species (rough clustering of species)
	Constellations / Nebulae	Corresponding animal species	Questionable treatment by humans?
Birds	Apus	Bird of Paradise	Symbolic misappropriation?
	Aquila / Eagle Nebula	Eagle	Symbolic misappropriation?
	Columba	Dove (Pigeon)	Symbolic misappropriation? / Racing / Warfare / Consumption
	Corvus	Raven
	Cygnus	Swan	Symbolic misappropriation?
	Grus	Crane	Symbolic misappropriation?
	Pavo	Peacock	Symbolic misappropriation?
	Tucana	Toucan
	Southern Owl Nebula	Owl	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License