Way to measure the probability a story evolving in a given culture

Question

I am wondering if there exists a way to get a numerical estimate of the probability of whether or not a given society will evolve a story with certain characteristics within a certain amount of time. For example: what is the probability that the Mayans, given 1000 more years, would have evolved some kind of story like Atlantis (i.e. involving a sinking city)? I'd also be interested in a cumulative probability that predicts how often you'd expect a type of story to evolve in any culture in the world ever (ex. how many Atlantis stories would you expect to be independently evolved worldwide within 1000 years?). I don't want to calculate the probabilities using just historical comparison, because I don't think enough mythological evolution has taken place in history to achieve statistical regularity for every type of story (i.e. it's too small of a sample size to use for reliable predictions).

Does the kind of measure I am looking for exist?

EDIT: my motivation for this question, (in case it somehow helps) is to find out the likelihood that a myth would have evolved with the characteristics "contains unusual event", "has important practical implications", and "claims to have been witnessed by a approximately every member of the society (at the time) which believed in the myth" (an approximation of that probability of import to me because I am looking into a claim that said that the probability for this is so low that it shouldn't have happened even once in any society in history)

Answer 1

In myths, humans follow a limited number of patterns, regardless of their cultural background. This field of study is called Comparative Mythology. This has uncovered a number of parallels, or archetypes, between the myths of different cultures, including some very widespread recurring themes and plot elements, like:

• Creation of mankind from clay
• Acquisition of fire for the benefit of humanity
• Flood myths
• Dying/Mortal gods & resurrection
• Creative sacrifice
• Axis mundi
• Titanomachy
• Giants
• Dragons and serpents

Comparative mythologists come from various fields, including folklore, anthropology, history, linguistics, and religious studies, and they have used a variety of methods to compare myths:

• Linguistic
• Structural
• Psychological
• Phylogenetical

The probability of a culture developing a myth on these archetypes is high, since these archetypes have been found all over the world.

There are no mathematical models to predict probability of this AFAIK.

EDIT: Answer to added motivations & comment question:

Phylogenetics will give you models for the origin and evolution of languages, that is, the vocabulary and grammar. The grammar of a language will have some influence on the myths generated by that language, but not to the extent you ask for in your comment. A simple example would be:

If a language's grammar mandates a subject for a verb in a sentence (e.g. "it rains"), then what we see in mythologies stemming from such a language is a higher percentage of creator & intervening deities than in languages that do not have this rule.

As to your motivation criteria:

• contains unusual events: myths by definition are about unusual events, otherwise they are just stories.

• has important practical implications: on what do you base this? Myths, other than a source of religious control by a clergy, have very little practical implications

• claims to have been witnessed by a approximately every member of the society (at the time) which believed in the myth: we know from anthropology and literary criticism that eye-witness and hearsay accounts are the most unreliable sources of historical information available to us. And regardless of that fact, there are - to my knowledge - no myths that entire societies claimed to have witnessed.