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Jean Neylon 02/7/2009(Thu)09:29:18 No.97360

What does /ssh/ think of the Bicameral Mind?

Basically it's the idea that around the dawn of civilization, around the theorized emergence of language, humans were driven by voices in their heads, auditory hallucinations, which compelled them to do everything. The Wiki link is in the email field. It sounds crazy, but really, give it a read. It makes a lot more sense to me now than it did when I first heard of it.

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Friedrich House 02/7/2009(Thu)09:48:34 No.97386

>>97360
This is interesting but I don't really find it logic. It's like language were created before language.

If this were true we would have some human tribes with Bicameral Mind.

There is a tribe in Amazon with 3 words for numbers, one owrd means 1, another means 2 and the las one means many. We have human tribes living in stoneage like organization and technology but I have never heard of a human tribe with Bicameral Mind.

Also, many animals have language systems, and I have never heard about it in them.

Jean Neylon 02/7/2009(Thu)11:06:53 No.97502

>>97386
In the article, it mentions someone saying consciousness is a social construct. How do we know that other people are conscious, and how do we know what forces are behind their agendas and wills? We don't, and I don't think it would be be apparent if someone's conscious thoughts were replaced by a voice in their head. Some schizophrenics are still functional, and these people were theorized to be civilized. I don't think that's much of an argument.

Friedrich House 02/7/2009(Thu)11:55:33 No.97563

>>97502

A social construction or social construct is any phenomenon "invented" or "constructed" by participants in a particular culture or society, existing because people agree to behave as if it exists or follow certain conventional rules. One example of a social construct is social status. Another example of social construction is the use of money, which is worth anything only because society has agreed to treat it as valuable.

If it were a social construction there would be some groups hearing voices instead of thinking.

Also, with moder technology we can see the brain reacting when someone hear a voice, be it real or not.

Jean Neylon 03/7/2009(Fri)03:20:10 No.97671

>>97563
>If it were a social construction there would be some groups hearing voices instead of thinking.

I don't agree with that, for several reasons. What I meant by it being a social construct was that it is assumed that everyone is conscious, and that consciousness is assumed to be the same for everyone. Really, if the speaking part of the mind told the listening part mundane, acceptable things, it would just not be apparent to an observer, and you could imagine that it would be almost undetectable without begging the question. Secondly, the article's description of the theory describes the mind state as already having shifted to consciousness, in both the Old and New Worlds. In the article, the breakdown of bicameralism was supposed to be stresses from the collapse and convergences of civilizations, social strains, and one could suppose that, given that he claims this took place 3,000 years ago in actual civilizations, that isolated tribes might have developed conscious thought as simply a bi-product of socialization, however limited, at least since that time. Thirdly, there very well may be groups hearing voices, because I don't think anyone has gone out and specifically checked. You can see that in primitive tribes, shamanism is more prevalent, which could really be construed as a leftover of bicameralism, in that prominent components are attempting to communicate with the spirit world and general superstitiousness linked with the need for external authority.

Friedrich House 03/7/2009(Fri)05:02:31 No.97718

>>97671
Consciousness is often used colloquially to describe being awake and aware�responsive to the environment, in contrast to being asleep or in a coma. In philosophical and scientific discussion, however, the term is restricted to the specific way in which humans are mentally aware in such a way that they distinguish clearly between themselves (the thing being aware) and all other things and events. This "self-awareness" may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, and dreams.
By this definition some animals have different degrees of consciousness. so this is not something created by human culture, it is a consequence to a complex brain.

>isolated tribes might have developed conscious thought as simply a bi-product of socialization

you mean socialization with modern culture or among themselves?

He based his study in extinct cultures. if he was right then we would have many confirmations in studies with primitive cultures isolated from modern world and his ideas would be mainstream.

Jean Neylon 03/7/2009(Fri)07:21:01 No.97762

>>97718
>so this is not something created by human culture, it is a consequence to a complex brain.

I don't mean to be an asshole, but I can't help but feel like you don't understand what I say completely. I wasn't saying that consciousness is unreal. I don't really want to repeat myself about it, because I think I explained it well the first time, in the second sentence of my last post.

>you mean socialization with modern culture or among themselves?
>He based his study in extinct cultures. if he was right then we would have many confirmations in studies with primitive cultures isolated from modern world and his ideas would be mainstream.

Among themselves. I can't think of any groups that are hunter-gatherer, nomad types that don't interact with other cultures at all. The primitive ones that aren't nomadic, such as all of the ones I've heard of in the Amazon, may be completely isolated, but still have things like agriculture and the division of labor, which would qualify them as civilization. What I really mean to say is that I believe all of humanity has literally evolved similarly over the course of recorded history, the bicameral mind being innate and biological rather than psychological.

I guess you were thinking the opposite about that last bit. It's not like there's a whole lot of proof of innate differences between people now and a few thousand years ago. I guess I think this theory just explains too many things too conveniently to not be based in fact, to some extent, even if the truth is just that humanity is gradually moving away from superstition and the need for external authority--not that I think that desire will ever really go away, because of the nature of absurdity.

Friedrich House 03/7/2009(Fri)05:09:12 No.97981

>>97762
There are many nomad tribes isolated, and according to the Bicameral Mind hypothesis civilizations like the Greeks, Maya, Aztec and Egypt's Intermediate Periods would have this feature. If advanced civilization like Greeks would still have this feature civilizations like tribes would have them too.

Jean Neylon 03/7/2009(Fri)05:51:09 No.97989

>>97981
You didn't understand my post. Stop it. You're just saying the same thing over and over again.

Friedrich House 03/7/2009(Fri)06:05:49 No.97996

>>97989
Why don't you explain it them?

Jean Neylon 03/7/2009(Fri)06:24:48 No.98004

>>97996
Because I already did. Read my post again.

Friedrich House 03/7/2009(Fri)06:41:49 No.98014

>>98004
Already did it and I don't know what you think I don't understand.

Jean Neylon 03/7/2009(Fri)07:41:18 No.98073

>>98014
This conversation is one-sided, then. I'm not a xenophobe, really, I'm not, but don't try to discuss complex subjects in a language that you aren't fluent in. It's like I've been talking to a wall.

Friedrich House 03/7/2009(Fri)11:06:14 No.98164

>>98073
This is how you answer?

Eraldo Brunestud 04/7/2009(Sat)12:14:27 No.98250

I just think that you are too fixed with "auditory hallucinations"

The philosopher Daniel Dennett suggested that Jaynes may have been wrong about some of his supporting arguments, especially the importance he attached to hallucinations, but that these things are not essential to his main thesis.

I agree with him at this point
_________________________________________

Jaynes asserts that, in the Iliad and sections of the Old Testament, no mention is made of any kind of cognitive processes such as introspection, and he argues that there is no apparent indication that the writers were self-aware. According to Jaynes, the older portions of the Old Testament (such as the Book of Amos) have little or none of the features of some later books of the Old Testament (such as Ecclesiastes) as well as later works such as Homer's Odyssey, which show indications of a profoundly different kind of mentality�an early form of consciousness.

On the other hand the Gilgamesh Epic was recorded centuries before the Old Testament, and though its setting is contemporaneous or earlier than the Old Testament stories, the Gilgamesh story describes such features as introspection.

Jean Neylon 04/7/2009(Sat)12:54:52 No.98383

>>98250
Yeah, you're right about my being fixed on auditory hallucination. I really think his ideas about how bicameralism lead to religion and other things of that nature, which are really the problem he was trying to explain, in a way, give it as much credit as the way that people acted in stories. I mean, "what came before consciousness" is something that needs researching, because I don't think it makes sense that people just woke up all at once, and really ritualism is too when you view it with that in mind. With the iceberg model in mind, you could easily speculate that perhaps, at an earlier stage of humanity, the subconscious had more responsibility and engaged in actual rational yet subconscious thought, because for some reason open to speculation, the conscious mind was not fully developed to handle that.

Thank you for replying.

Eraldo Brunestud 04/7/2009(Sat)02:44:21 No.98745

>>98383
Even today most of our actions are not conscient. We don't think to open doors, walk/drive to work/school/campus. Most of our actions are automatic and our conscient mind just tell you that "you" did it.

Jean Neylon 04/7/2009(Sat)03:05:18 No.98839

>>98745
It's a lot more complex than that, to be sure, and that is more in the area of cognitive-behavioral psychology, but I do agree.

Jaroslav Van Houten 04/7/2009(Sat)03:38:55 No.99656

>>97360

Very interesting concept.

Fatima Neylon 18/7/2009(Sat)06:21:31 No.125353

Consciousness evolved gradually and I don't expect having a big brain was always an evolutionary advantage. Brains consume a lot of energy and require an array of complex proteins, the cro-magnon man who inhabited ice age europe was a lot more intelligent than modern humans with a larger brain size/body size ratio, at the end of the ice age they came into contact with the caucasian sub-species and interbred diluting the genes for large brains, though people in the more isolated nordic regions still have 40% of their genes.

Anonymous 01/9/2009(Tue)06:42:39 No.235941

On another note, many oracles, prophet and religious leaders use some sort of mind state to contact their gods be it trance or drugs. Maybe some of them were just nuts like those crazy hobbos.

Gurumayi Ellicott-Chatham 06/9/2009(Sun)09:47:34 No.242566

>>97762
>consciousness is unreal
With broad ambiguous statements like that I'm not suprised no one knows what you're saying.

Jean Neylon 19/9/2009(Sat)01:17:24 No.264968

>>242566
>unreal
>created by human culture
as opposed to
>if the speaking part of the mind told the listening part mundane, acceptable things, it would just not be apparent to an observer

Quit your shit. I wasn't being ambiguous at all.

Kurz Hume 11/12/2009(Fri)02:51:00 No.419985

Why have the hallucinations and voices stopped since then?

Boo 12/1/2010(Tue)03:59:19 No.454595

>>419985

Have they?

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