Philosophers, psychologists, anyone with a brain - get in here and tell me if you've read this book. Do you think he's on to something? Or is it total bunk? selfdefinition.org
Julian Jaynes - Bicameral Mind Hypothesis
Jayden Morales
Aiden Myers
I don't think it is bunk exactly. There have been advances in neurology that suggest he might not have had the physiological stuff completely right, but there is no question that he was on to something. I just don't think the research has been done to figure out exactly what. But his research and evidence is fascinating and enlightening, at least to me.
Ethan Lee
yeah, i think it would make good material to inspire a science fiction story (if it hasn't already). 40 years on or so it still is sitting in a field of neurology/psychology which is kind of mysterious.
On another note, I recall reading that Richard Dawkins thought Jaynes was either completely correct or batshit crazy - I'm positive that the reactions to this book sit mostly squarely in either of these two categories.
Jacob Ortiz
I think it is possible to accept the cognitive dissonance that comes with believing both. It's funny that Dawkins would say that because the only other time I heard that formulation, it referred to Jesus (from someone who thought Jesus was correct). It really sucks that Jaynes never wrote that second book.
Connor Garcia
yup, from what i recall Jaynes was kind of a screwball (alcoholic? I could be wrong). But he seemed to have pretty good credentials & published a lot more than just this book. He also apparently inspired others to do research & also some authors as well, so there's that.
Colton Wright
BTW, I think this hypothesis desperately needs attention from an anthropologist of hunter-gatherer societies, and from scholars in general who have studied pre-agricultural societies (Jaynes seems to ignore this type of human existence in his book, but I think it is important for the bicameral mind hypothesis to find supporting evidence in hunter-gatherer society - one would expect a linear continuity from "huntergatherers->unconscious society->conscious society"
Kayden Young
There's a Julian Jaynes Society that still has meetings and releases papers, so the project isn't dead, but no one really has the drive and insight that he had. To be fair, I think Origin was the kind of book that happens once in a lifetime and that anything else he did would have been a disappointment. Even if it is technically wrong in a lot of the details, it is still brilliant and insightful on another level.
Juan Adams
Iain McGilchrist seems to have picked up where he left off: en.wikipedia.org
John Cox
It honestly seems like a good explanation for so many elements of ancient religion, like visions and voices from god, oracles, prophecies of the future, etc.. Sure, it's crazy, but it's a good kind of crazy.
I mean, you could also go in the equally crazy direction of assuming it was all real, which would ALSO explain all the things I listed.
Connor Hughes
It's very convincing. However I think that it hinges a bit too much on the validity of Jaynes' reading of history & his interpretation of the Homeric and other ancient epics. That being said I don't think very many writers and scientists have used psychology to explain human history the way he has, and for that I consider Jaynes vindicated.
Wyatt Ramirez
It is extremely refreshing, though, because so often you just don't see thinkers account at all for stuff like prophecy and divine guidance. They assume it's lies and fabrications in the historical records, or just deep mistakes. However, I think that really undersells how hugely present the divine and the supernatural is in ancient history. It's fucking everywhere, and Jaynes' hypothesis is so neat because it's one of the few I've seen that actually tries to explain this.
William Evans
addendum: I just think the major chink in Jaynes' theory's armor is that, according to his hypothesis, modern hunter-gatherer societies presumably would still think bicamerally. I'm assuming that there's a lot of evidence that they don't, although a proponent of Jaynes might say that they acquired consciousness from neighboring societies - I'm sure anthropologists when confronted with JJ's book would dismiss it as total bunk
Adam Ross
Yep, I think there's been little attention paid (by the evo-psych folks at least) to the purpose and origin of various practices like prophecy or divination in pre-scientific societies. Maybe I'm wrong. This field is definitely not my area of expertise but it's been on my mind lately - I haven't been in on it long enough to absorb much of the relevant literature (let alone a satisfactory knowledge of psychology - I deal with stuff which is at best only tangentially related to psychology)
Joshua Phillips
Q who ?
Xavier Rogers
philosophynow.org
This rebuttal of Jaynes seems to be one of the best - it gets pretty solid in the "Without the Gods" paragraph.
Dominic Robinson
What's MY age again ?
Jaxson Green
>yeah, i think it would make good material to inspire a science fiction story (if it hasn't already)
Neal Stephenson takes it on in Snow Crash as a premise for the big baddies' evil master plan to reconfigure everyone's brain and make them Urslaves.
Jeremiah Roberts
Nolan Sullivan
...showing how the world is experienced according to the left, right and whole of the brain...
Alexander Edwards
>I recall reading that Richard Dawkins thought Jaynes was either completely correct or batshit crazy
It's on Wikipedia.
>Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion (2006) wrote of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind that, "It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my bets."[9]
Evan Butler
yup. that's the quote
Mason Gray
Twice the Dubs, help the embrace ?
Blake Garcia
He was a madman who didn't know what he was talking about. Ancient people seizing, having visions and prophetic dreams and seeing ghosts is all explained by PTSD of warriors and war victims. Seeing people who are dead in visions, shaking and dreaming seeing oceans of gore, unable to stop it or to escape, waking nightmares of slaughter orgies that are fulfilled at the next battle. It's all there.
Nathaniel Harris
I definitely got the impression that life was somehow more orderly and peaceful under bicameralism from the book - but I like your post a lot. I think PTSD could have been immensely important in the cultural lives and legacies of very martial, warlike ancient societies.
Austin Martin
Of course. Just as today, PTSD was probably rare, and even not so common among soldiers. In the pre-collapse (his theory's based off the Bronze Age Collapse, right?) period something like 90% of all people in the area were farmers, and of the men who fought very few saw an extraordinary amount of gore.
Another explanation for visions is that fasting and dehydration are a cause. Anybody who's gone 24 or more hours hungry will tell you about the dizziness at the slightest physical activity, let alone walking all day. Compound that with being in a semi-arid area like Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, and you've got problems.
Aiden Butler
I don't think fasting or dehydration are really adequate at explaining hallucinations - there are plenty of triggers for it and that's one of them. Dizziness experienced while starving has nothing to do with auditory hallucinations, anyways. On second thought, I also think PTSD probably would have a *negative* contribution to the "Axial Age" (period of enlightenment following the Bronze Age collapse) if only because of the pitiful mental state of the veterans of the crisis - but I think my timing is off. But, PTSD doesn't necessarily need exceptional gore to affect people - ancient subsistence farmers led rougher lives than their predecessors, and in the bronze age period things like rape, state-imposed violence or coercion (separation of families, for example), or general misfortune of various kinds, could lead to mental states which would intensify and cause profligate mystical or religious experience.
Landon Williams
Oliver Sullivan
Daily reminder that panpsychism is correct.
Hudson Morales
i think non-psychism is a better term
Aaron James
Elaborate.
Mason Nguyen
i mean nothing has a mind in the traditional Cartesian sense. not even people
Alexander Rivera
>in the traditional Cartesian sense.
Perhaps not, but that's an extremely narrow definition of "mind" is it not?
Adam Gray
yeah i was joshin :^)