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the universe could blow up at any moment – see chapter 18 .
Thanks to the switching on of the Great Big Thing, Marjorie Daw has seeped into Discworld. Since she is a librarian, we suspect the seepage happened through L-space, the interconnected space of all libraries that ever have existed or ever could exist.
This may not be the first time something has seeped from Roundworld into Discworld either. Long ago, when the Omnian religion was founded, its adherents came to believe that Discworld, belying its name, is actually round. Where did
that
idea come from? For that matter, how did many early Roundworld cultures get the complementary idea that their world is flat?
We can gain some knowledge about early human beliefs from archaeology, the branch of science that examines evidence from our past. The artefacts and records that survive give us clues about how the ancients thought. Those clues can to some extent be clarified by another branch of science, psychology: the study of how people think. The pictures that emerge from the combination of these two sciences are necessarily tentative, because the evidence is indirect. Scholars can, and do, have a field day arguing about the interpretation of a cave painting or a stick with marks on it.
Ancient myths and legends possess a number of common features. They often focus on deep, mysterious questions. And they generally answer those questions from a human-centred viewpoint. The Discworld series takes Roundworld mythology seriously, to humorous effect; nowhere more so than in its basic geography and its magical supports – elephants and turtle. Here we’ll take a look at how various ancient cultures imagined the form, and purpose, of our world, looking for common elements and significant differences. Especially flat worlds and world-bearing animals. Here elephants turn out to be particularly problematic, most likely a case of mistaken identity. In chapter 20 we revisit some of these ancient myths, which will illuminate the science of human belief systems.
In a human-centred view, a flat world makes more sense than a round one. Superficially the world looks flat, ignoring mountains and suchlike and concentrating on the big picture. In the absence of a theory of gravity, people assumed that objects fell
down
because that was their natural resting-place. To prove it, just lift a rock off the ground and let go. So a round world seems implausible: things would fall off the bottom half. In contrast, there’s no danger of falling off a flat world unless you get too close to the edge.
There is one effective way to counteract this natural tendency to fall downwards: place something underneath as a support. This support may in turn need something underneath to support
it
, but you can iterate the process many times provided ultimately everything rests on something firm. This process, known as building, was effective enough to erect the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, built in 2560 BC and over 145 metres high. It was the tallest building in the world until 1300, when the architect of Lincoln cathedral cheated by using a lot more up and a lot less sideways.
A common feature of human-centred thinking is that it often works well until you start to ask questions that transcend the human scale. Then it has a habit of falling to pieces. The line of thoughtjust described seems fairly foolproof until you go for the big picture. Applying the kind of logical reasoning that drives so many Discworld stories, it is impossible not to ask:
What keeps the world up?
Human-centred thinking provides an obvious and compelling answer: something supports it. In Greek mythology, it was Atlas, bearing the world on his sturdy shoulders. Discworld sensibly plumps for a more plausible support cast: the giant world-bearing elephant. As belt and braces, there is not just one of them, but four – or possibly five, if the legend recounted in
The Fifth Elephant
is to be believed.
All well and good, but both
Thanks to the switching on of the Great Big Thing, Marjorie Daw has seeped into Discworld. Since she is a librarian, we suspect the seepage happened through L-space, the interconnected space of all libraries that ever have existed or ever could exist.
This may not be the first time something has seeped from Roundworld into Discworld either. Long ago, when the Omnian religion was founded, its adherents came to believe that Discworld, belying its name, is actually round. Where did
that
idea come from? For that matter, how did many early Roundworld cultures get the complementary idea that their world is flat?
We can gain some knowledge about early human beliefs from archaeology, the branch of science that examines evidence from our past. The artefacts and records that survive give us clues about how the ancients thought. Those clues can to some extent be clarified by another branch of science, psychology: the study of how people think. The pictures that emerge from the combination of these two sciences are necessarily tentative, because the evidence is indirect. Scholars can, and do, have a field day arguing about the interpretation of a cave painting or a stick with marks on it.
Ancient myths and legends possess a number of common features. They often focus on deep, mysterious questions. And they generally answer those questions from a human-centred viewpoint. The Discworld series takes Roundworld mythology seriously, to humorous effect; nowhere more so than in its basic geography and its magical supports – elephants and turtle. Here we’ll take a look at how various ancient cultures imagined the form, and purpose, of our world, looking for common elements and significant differences. Especially flat worlds and world-bearing animals. Here elephants turn out to be particularly problematic, most likely a case of mistaken identity. In chapter 20 we revisit some of these ancient myths, which will illuminate the science of human belief systems.
In a human-centred view, a flat world makes more sense than a round one. Superficially the world looks flat, ignoring mountains and suchlike and concentrating on the big picture. In the absence of a theory of gravity, people assumed that objects fell
down
because that was their natural resting-place. To prove it, just lift a rock off the ground and let go. So a round world seems implausible: things would fall off the bottom half. In contrast, there’s no danger of falling off a flat world unless you get too close to the edge.
There is one effective way to counteract this natural tendency to fall downwards: place something underneath as a support. This support may in turn need something underneath to support
it
, but you can iterate the process many times provided ultimately everything rests on something firm. This process, known as building, was effective enough to erect the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, built in 2560 BC and over 145 metres high. It was the tallest building in the world until 1300, when the architect of Lincoln cathedral cheated by using a lot more up and a lot less sideways.
A common feature of human-centred thinking is that it often works well until you start to ask questions that transcend the human scale. Then it has a habit of falling to pieces. The line of thoughtjust described seems fairly foolproof until you go for the big picture. Applying the kind of logical reasoning that drives so many Discworld stories, it is impossible not to ask:
What keeps the world up?
Human-centred thinking provides an obvious and compelling answer: something supports it. In Greek mythology, it was Atlas, bearing the world on his sturdy shoulders. Discworld sensibly plumps for a more plausible support cast: the giant world-bearing elephant. As belt and braces, there is not just one of them, but four – or possibly five, if the legend recounted in
The Fifth Elephant
is to be believed.
All well and good, but both
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