The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

JuliusCaesar

I'm a wee bit late to this, but am finding the whole thing fascinating:


http://www.acampbell.org.uk/essays/skeptic/jaynes.html

"Jaynes's central idea is that our modern type of consciousness is a recent development; indeed, that it began no more than 3,000 years ago. In earlier times human mentality was characterized by auditory and sometimes visual hallucinations, in which people heard the voices of the gods speaking to them and telling them what to do. Only when this process became internalized and recognized as coming from within the percipients' own minds did truly modern consciousness begin."

So, he's saying that the ancient Greeks of the Iliad (11-12th c. BCE) believed that their thoughts were actually the gods talking to them, in the same way as people with schizophrenia think their thoughts are "voices" ie auditory hallucination.

By the time we get to Ancient Greek philosophers, 600BCE, they had started regarding their thoughts/minds/consciousness differently.

So... what's the thinking on this? It seems amazing to me as I thought language and so a modern consciousness/self-consciousness was generally accepted as occuring 100,000 years ago. But then it's a long time since I studied any of this! Chomsky was our recent hero, back then.

JuliusCaesar

130 views and not one opinion! I am sadly disappointed, boardsies.

Anyway, here's another paper on the same kind of topic....linky: Imagination, Eliminativism, and the Pre-History of Consciousness.

slowburner

But consciousness, as we now conceive it, is supposed to be the most near-at-hand and directly observable of all phenomena. It is always right there to be noticed, at almost every waking moment. How could its existence have gone unremarked through thousands of years of history (not to mention the eons of pre-history before that)?

This comment, makes no sense to me.
In fact, I find it all a bit hard to swallow, but a bit interesting.
What is supposed to have happened 3,000 years ago which caused the demise of the bicameral mind?
It strikes me as a fairly arbitrary date which happens to coincide with the development of philosophy in Greece.

The minds of 'preconscious' humans were split in two (the 'bicameral mind'), probably as a result of a dissociation between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Does the bicameral mind live on only in the mentally ill, or drug induced states, or religious ecstasy?
Why does Jaynes view the hearing of voices in the Iliad as being a physical phenomenon rather than figurative?
The Iliad was never supposed to be a historical document.

hotspur

Could this not be considered the story of the journey towards science and rationality through animism and religion? The issue may be far less about brain structure and function and far more about cultural stances towards internally generated phenomena.

I think Freud wrote about it quite interestingly in Totem and Taboo chapter 3:
http://www.bartleby.com/281/3.html

slowburner

hotspur wrote: »

Could this not be considered the story of the journey towards science and rationality through animism and religion? The issue may be far less about brain structure and function and far more about cultural stances towards internally generated phenomena.

I think Freud wrote about it quite interestingly in Totem and Taboo chapter 3:
http://www.bartleby.com/281/3.html

I agree.
Reading the 'Totem and Taboo' link (briefly) made me wonder if Freud has not been plagiarised with this 'new' theory.

Wibbs

slowburner wrote:

What is supposed to have happened 3,000 years ago which caused the demise of the bicameral mind?

Well one could argue that the first system of writing triggered this. That by externalising thoughts on paper or stone the distinction was made. One could argue that but I wouldn't buy it. Why? Non literate peoples don't exhibit a lack of distinction. Look no further than the oral tales written down by the Irish monks back in the early medieval. Lots of inner life going on.

I dunno. Somehow I don't buy the whole thing. Why? Well for a start when actual examples of first contact has occurred with isolated hunter gatherers they don't exhibit this way of thinking. Their philosophies show distinctions between inner thought and voices of the Gods/Spirit world. Shamans make a specific journey from this world to the next. Plus while they might explain some forms of mental illness as possession by spirits they make the distinction that it's a different state to normal(though don't label it, or the person as bad as much as some in modern societies) That for me shows a clear separation. Even the oldest artworks out there seem to show, the individuals inner self at work. Handprints paint spat into the living rock. If this theory had legs surely one would see "living fossils" of this type of thinking among isolated aboriginal peoples around the world? And we don't. They act and strongly appear to think just like us. Only some of the subject matter changes.

Then I'd look at other animals that appear to be self aware(dolphins, some primates). Animals that appear to have a clear notion of the self looking out.

Funny enough in literature it's quite late before people talk at length about their inner lives, the "I" in a philosophical sense is rare enough. IIRC Augustine of Hippo would be an early example and that's right at the arse end of what was left of the Roman world. Someone like Plato who had a mind the size of a planet leaves his "I" out of it. This doesn't mean Plato didn't have shítloads of "I" going on.

For me the origin of modern consciousness would have come from language, specifically the invention of tenses. The idea that there is a you that is consistent in linear time. Like everything it probably evolved. I doubt it fell into place in a one off burst or anything like it. I'd suspect Neandertals had it or damn close to it, but would be far less sure of Erectus. Maybe as I said earlier the invention of writing, the concrete externalisation of thought sped up this process later on? That said some of the greatest thinkers among the Greeks were illiterate.

slowburner

Wibbs wrote: »

Well one could argue that the first system of writing triggered this. That by externalising thoughts on paper or stone the distinction was made. One could argue that but I wouldn't buy it. Why? Non literate peoples don't exhibit a lack of distinction. Look no further than the oral tales written down by the Irish monks back in the early medieval. Lots of inner life going on.

Maybe the fact that things only begin to be written down in this period is what has given rise to this theory. Kinda begs the question - where does the information come from to support Jayne's theory? How can he make such a judgement if there is no written record? I think that much of prehistory is open to speculation like this.

I dunno. Somehow I don't buy the whole thing. Why? Well for a start when actual examples of first contact has occurred with isolated hunter gatherers they don't exhibit this way of thinking. Their philosophies show distinctions between inner thought and voices of the Gods/Spirit world. Shamans make a specific journey from this world to the next. Plus while they might explain some forms of mental illness as possession by spirits they make the distinction that it's a different state to normal(though don't label it, or the person as bad as much as some in modern societies) That for me shows a clear separation. Even the oldest artworks out there seem to show, the individuals inner self at work. Handprints paint spat into the living rock. If this theory had legs surely one would see "living fossils" of this type of thinking among isolated aboriginal peoples around the world? And we don't. They act and strongly appear to think just like us. Only some of the subject matter changes. Then I'd look at other animals that appear to be self aware(dolphins, some primates). Animals that appear to have a clear notion of the self looking out. Funny enough in literature it's quite late before people talk at length about their inner lives, the "I" in a philosophical sense is rare enough. IIRC Augustine of Hippo would be an early example and that's right at the arse end of what was left of the Roman world. Someone like Plato who had a mind the size of a planet leaves his "I" out of it. This doesn't mean Plato didn't have shítloads of "I" going on.

One of the finest Wibbsisms I've seen for a long time .

For me the origin of modern consciousness would have come from language, specifically the invention of tenses. The idea that there is a you that is consistent in linear time. Like everything it probably evolved. I doubt it fell into place in a one off burst or anything like it. I'd suspect Neandertals had it or damn close to it, but would be far less sure of Erectus. Maybe as I said earlier the invention of writing, the concrete externalisation of thought sped up this process later on? That said some of the greatest thinkers among the Greeks were illiterate.

If written language is symbolism, and if say the paintings of Lascaux are a form of symbolic communication, then surely this is as good as written language - not as refined or eloquent, but it gets the job done. If 17,000 years ago we were capable of dealing with and using symbols, would it not follow that there was a consciousness of the self?
Perhaps I am naive but I tend to think that our predecessors were no different to us in terms of mental capacity. Each generation adds a little to its successors, learns a little more, figures out a bit more, and invents new stuff. That's what we have and what we know - the inheritance of all those that have gone before us.
A dude 16,000 years ago can't know the stuff we know, (and I suppose he knew stuff we will never know). If you took an adult from this far back, put him in a suit and stuck him behind a desk - there would be some problems - but I doubt that an infant taken from 16,000 years ago and brought up today would appear any different in mental capacities.