>Jaynes wrote that ancient humans before roughly 1000BC were not reflectively meta-conscious and operated by means of automatic, nonconscious habit-schemas. Instead of having meta-consciousness, these humans were constituted by what Jaynes calls the "bicameral mind". For bicameral humans, when habit did not suffice to handle novel stimuli and stress rose at the moment of decision, neural activity in the "dominant" (left) hemisphere was modulated by auditory verbal hallucinations originating in the so-called "silent" (right) hemisphere (particularly the right temporal cortex), which were heard as the voice of a chieftain or god and immediately obeyed.
What does Veeky Forums think of this theory? Nonsense or brilliant? Is it tenable?
Just another wannabe historian philosopher. His ideas are bogus and should be treated as such.
Jack Morgan
...
Ryder Brooks
what's his evidence?
does he have brain scans of people who can't read to show they react differently?
Daniel Rogers
So what's his evidence? Also maybe, just maybe, they heard the voice of a chieftain because the chieftain was screaming at them?
Christian Foster
I haven't been able to get my hands on the book yet, but a quick google search says that his evidence is that ancient texts make no mention of consciousness, and that people in those texts often mention being communicated to directly by gods
Charles Nguyen
Literacy existed before 1000BC and we've never seen this observed in primitive, isolated populations
Nathaniel Johnson
I just take that as evidence that ancient worldviews were vastly different from ours in terms of knowledge and experience. The similarities are huge when it comes to intimate social interaction (children-parents, lovers, etc) but so much was different. Imagine if you viewed lightning as literally a god doing something. Then multiply this by 100x.
The differences in worldview between contemporary people's in different world regions is huge enough as it is.
Ethan White
They didnt have lsd for a start
Ethan Rodriguez
Not that many people have done lsd though
Austin Jenkins
How would they even communicate such a distinct sensation?
And in any case, you have millions of people all over the world that claim to hear gods and shit. asking someone and particularly someone from a primitive population whether they they can hear/feel god urging them will only result in useless data
Kayden Cook
This. Many of these bastards live for the sake of their '''''''''''career'''''''''' and create all kind of fancy bullshit to get some praise as '''''''''''thinkers''''''''''.
Grayson Martinez
He's right. The Emperor is just giving humanity the time to evolve into psychers.
Liam Allen
Our perception of our freedoms is an illusion. There is no conscious self, just sophisticated instinctive behaviour. You only think you do as you want, you only think you make free choices about what you do
Parker Johnson
>people believe in gods >DUDE HALLUCINATIONS LMAO
Logan Wilson
Absolute bullshit. Look at the personal writings/correspondence of people from the bronze age. Akhenaten's letters to and from his vassal kings at very least use phrasology that suggests deep thought. One king describes his sadness at his daughter being mistreated, and yet another talks of how he feels like a caged bird, trapped by the responsibility of his position of power.
Does that not sound like modern people?
Isaiah Moore
The words of the Buddha come to mind (perhaps inevitably): 'I came in a dreamlike manner to dreamlike beings to teach a dreamlike dharma; in reality, I never came, I never taught.'
Kayden Carter
I wouldn't use the term "people" then
Parker Martin
What a fucking hack, what a stupid arbitrary date, garbage.
Jaxson Ramirez
its total and complete bullshit, there is nothing to back it up whatsoever
hes quite literaly using literary styles and narative models from thousands of years ago to make conclusions about human neurology he cant observe, and the implication is basicaly that the ancients were schizophrenic autists that halucinated meta-egos to get them trough the day
that theory is so stupid id like to punch the fucker if i ever met him, dont uderstand how come its even got this popular
Henry Diaz
That's very dumb, why are you reading or caring what dumb people say?
Julian Jenkins
So humans as advanced animals?
Sounds like something great for an RPG, videogame or fantasy novel desu.
Although the Pirahã use canoes every day for fishing and for crossing the river that they live beside, when their canoes wear out, they simply use pieces of bark as temporary canoes. Everett brought in a master builder who taught and supervised the Pirahã in making a canoe, so that they could make their own. But when they needed another canoe, they said that "Pirahã do not make canoes" and told Everett he should buy them a canoe. The Pirahã rely on neighboring communities' canoe work, and use those canoes for themselves.[5]
Pirahã build simple huts where they keep a few pots, pans, knives, and machetes. They make only scraping implements (for making arrowheads), loosely woven palm-leaf bags, bows, and arrows.[3] They take naps of 15 minutes to, at the most, two hours throughout the day and night, and rarely sleep through the night.[4](ppxvii, 13,70,79)
They often go hungry, not for want of food, but from a desire to be tigisái (hard).[4](pp76
Ryder Fisher
It happened at some time. 1000 bc is a bit premature, IMO.
Chase Gonzalez
>According to Everett, the Pirahã have no concept of a supreme spirit or god, and they lost interest in Jesus when they discovered that Everett had never seen him.
they sound like wise people
Sebastian Scott
>They require evidence based on personal experience for every claim made.[5] However, they do believe in spirits Sound pretty retarded
Carson Bell
most forest people believe 'theres something out there' its hard to live in a forest and not get the feeling somethings looking at you or moving about at night or generaly massing with your mind, especialy if theres large animals and other people somewhere around, forests kind of do that to you, its just basic psychology
Jeremiah Fisher
It's just saying "Were you there?". That's not particularly wise. There are better reasons for not caring about Jesus.
Christopher Sanders
>Everett reported one incident where the Pirahã said that “Xigagaí, one of the beings that lives above the clouds, was standing on a beach yelling at us, telling us that he would kill us if we go into the jungle.” Everett and his daughter could see nothing and yet the Pirahã insisted that Xigagaí was still on the beach.
