"Gods"Once Spoke to Most of Us? The Bicameral Mind

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Has human brain structure/wiring, its connections, actually changed significantly in the last 10,000 years, OR do we "just" USE it differently, involving learned cognitive tools? OR has there been no change at all except in the words/concepts we use for our experience of its functioning?

Been reading about Julian Jaynes, and his book, "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". 1974. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Jaynes

"Ancient peoples/humans were not conscious ( as we know it) but instead their behaviour was directed by auditory "hallucinations", interpreted as the voices of their chiefs, kings or gods."

A very interesting and thought provoking article by A Campbell is at: http://www.accampbell.uklinux.net/essay ... aynes.html

and several useful readers reviews are to be found at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN= ... kuijstensp

I hadn't heard of this theory before. It posits a relatively recent transition period between "instinct-driven/directed" animal state, and our present one of the conscious "free" I. And suggests that, for example, much of the lamenting and grief in the Old Testament refer to the increasing loss of this "connection" with what was experienced as gods voice.

I am still thinking about this. It feels weird as an idea, as if can suddenly remember a previous state of being. Did our brains really change that significantly, that recently? Did we pass through a stage during which we were no longer just products of our instincts, but in which we still experienced powerful authorative injunctions to certain behaviours?

OR have we just learned another way to use our brains? Developed cognitive tools, sophisticated language, etc, which has suppressed this process, perhaps only occurs in unusual states of dream, mental illness ( so called), fear, exceptional brain states etc.

What do people think?

Last edited by ouinon on 05 Mar 2008, 8:16 am, edited 7 times in total.

This was spoken circa 810 BC, certainly before the last canonical prophet, the Apostle John. I would say the human mind has always been about the same within limits and ranges.

That is exactly the sort of thing Jaynes was referring to as evidence for a relatively recent loss of this faculty. He places the change over a period somewhere in the last 3,000 years BC, though commentators think that if there is anything in his theory it was probably closer to the end of the last ice age, around the beginning of the Neolithic revolution in fact.

Jaynes apparently suggests that the faculty may have hung on for a while, for hundreds of years or more, in a minority of people, long after the majority of the population had "lost" it. ( whether by suppression as result of language capacities/use, or by being genetically selected against)

Seems to me rather another postmodernist hand waving attempt at the Bible... although the guy seems less evangelistic than Dawkins.

"What Lamarck was to biology, Dawkins is to theology."

I don't think Jaynes has an agenda like that. I get the impression that he was genuinely, and imaginatively, exploring a possible past of humans.

It doesn't need to mean the negation of god, just that the previous "door" is almost totally shut now. Perhaps.

Re: Dawkins; he used to be one of my heroes. I wrote a long letter once to Robert Pirsig, shortly after reading his book "Lila. Metaphysics of Quality", 16 years ago, in which i used Dawkins' arguments to dissect his book!! I got an irrritated postcard back in reply! Now I know why.

Last edited by ouinon on 05 Mar 2008, 8:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

Until people began to use complex language they may not even have been aware of this mechanism. I wonder what it seemed like when they began to talk to each other. Did it simply disappear the more they talked to each other?

When would they have had to explain it, if it persisted? When different kin groups began to work together on more complex projects?

About 10,000 BC, at the start of the neolithic revolution, the first evidence of exteriorisation of "gods" occurs. Clay/earth breasts on walls and elevated sections of the first rectangular houses, ( sometimes with tusks/horns, buried in the clay, apparently!) and bulls heads.

Last edited by ouinon on 05 Mar 2008, 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

IMO Jaynes's main thesis itself is nonsense, but the notion that sociological-economic-cultural changes can change the way our brains develop is very valid, literacy is a good example. I've been reading an excellent book on the neuroscience of written language and literacy named Proust and the Squid. The book talks about how the brain understands written language, how different writing systems use different parts of the brain, what happens in the brain as kids learn how to read, how literacy in childhood impacts brain development and memory, and the neuroscience of dyslexia.

I don't think his thesis depends on there having been an actual physical change, just that it was written ( 1974 ), before many of the modern discoveries about neuroscience were made so he imagined a genetically driven change to account for such a revolution in "Self" consciousness.

Whereas several recent commentators think that could be language use and/or literacy dependent/induced.

As you say, literacy, language use, etc, has remarkably powerful effects on how our brains are used, and experienced, and also how they grow from birth or earlier ( thinking of how some people say talking to their child while still in womb has an effect too). Which might be able to explain such a transformation as he proposes.

I too think that any significant change as recently as that is probably explicable from "nurture" point of view, though selection of certain people, more successful at the "new" use of their brain because of other genetic factors, might have also happened.

I was thinking that, if it is not the result of a genetic difference, an experience of "guiding voices from god(s)" is possibly something that could be reproduced "at will", with the right cognitive tools.

That, as various religious and spiritual leaders have suggested over the centuries/millenia, the door is still there, and we can open it if we choose, if we think that such a faculty is of any use.

That would seem to say their would used to be some physical trait which enable humans to communicate with God (inter dimensionally or whatnot), I would say that it is probably not the case although still possibly so. God is able to communicate with us still if He wills to do so. I think in some cases I have "heard" from God, although not in words per se, but in complete thoughts. Communication with God is not an always thing, but when He deems necessary kinda thing. I don't think there are prophets today, but if there were they should be held accountable to:



And



Both of these tests would apply. Event happen and accordance with the previous historical revelation. There may be cases where these tests are both past but the prophet could still be false, such as if the event were rigged and the message made to be "doctrinally correct."

Since you seem to be open to the idea of God, I would like you to note that "G"od refers to THE God whereas "g"od refers to ANY god. Pronouns referring to "H"im are also capitalized.

I read the Jaynes book quite a while ago - I picked it up as a discard in a second hand book stall and then it seemed like nonsense and I haven't changed my mind. Since I am Aspy the overwhelming part of my thinking involves manipulating sensual memories - sound, sight, taste, touch much the way non-linguistic animals think and although I also think in language that is not my main way of thinking. Since this site is involved with a great many people who think outside of language it seems a peculiar place to find support for Jaynes.

why is the bible being brought up on the way the human mind functions logically? half the stuff in it is a fairy tale im shure and ripped off from older storys

What distinguishes aspergers from autism is that "there is NO clinically significant delay

in language acquisition/development or use" compared to the general population. Very peculiar!

I thought that the subject might nevertheless be of particular interest to this site because the Campbell article on Jaynes goes on to talk about a girl with autism gifted with extraordinary drawing ability, like the cave paintings of Lascaux etc, which disappears as she learns to speak. Not that she hears voices from god , just that an impressive earlier human capacity which we DO know about for sure, is suppressed by language use.

NB: Debate, not support. * * * * * * *

* * * * etc ! !

Last edited by ouinon on 05 Mar 2008, 2:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Because it is a cultural artefact from ancient times; one of the first ever collected writings of humanity, which may be considered a guide of sorts to how people in the past thought and behaved in some/many areas of life, one of which being religious belief, custom, and experience, including mythology.

Jaynes' idea is that the frequent reference in both the Bible, the tale of Gilgamesh, and in the oldest of greek myths, to god's' speaking to people, may have been not just a figure of speech as we imagine it today, but an accurate account of what people then,( sometime in the last 10,000 years BC or so), experienced. That they literally heard voices telling them things.

The question is whether this was just a figure of speech/a different way of describing things, OR whether it was a real difference because brains developed/were used differently before the widespread use of complex language to communicate which we are mostly used to today.

Jaynes based his ideas in part on studies with people who heard voices in modern times. Some modern commentators believe that being brought up in a world of concentrated language use, and literacy, may have suppressed this previously completely normal phenomenon.

Jaynes argues that the Bible's recording of frequent lamentations about the increasing "silence" of god(s) was proof for its disappearance as people spoke more.

Last edited by ouinon on 05 Mar 2008, 3:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

How would that account for the book of Job which was recorded in 1635 BC? They talked a great deal back then.

Although the core tale may be as old as Sumer, the version we know of today was only written down in the 5-6th century BC, after the last (?) major change in hebrew writing/alphabet.

But the very fact that the central story had already survived from the second millenium BC, ( or before, if there's anything in the sumerian traces), in a world almost without writing, suggests just how unusual/special stories and complex extended thought or talk was in ancient times. People conserved it preciously. Certain people in each tribe/group learned/trained their minds to memorise tales and wisdoms, because they were like jewels of great value. They were maybe like science, a "stunning" (! ) new way of approaching "reality". . ( Not like the non-stop blatherings of today!! )

Which gradually took over completely, wiping out the previous methods. It will probably inevitably have centralised wisdom/understanding/data. Increasingly cut off from their old internal sources of guidance ( which were now dismissed/declared unsound unless certified! ) people probably became dependent on the "memorisers" for certain kinds of "information", and this may have been useful for imposing social order. Loss of individual authority/autonomy replaced by increasingly complex social organisations/"States". Ants.

This reminds me of Edgar Morin's analysis ( in the context of complex systems) that "Not only is the whole greater than the sum of its parts, but it is at the same time LESS than the sum of its parts". Because quite often the most complex systems require the most suppression of individual capacities in the units which compose it. DNA for instance is good example. And direct individual guidance from/by god(s) being suppressed and replaced by dependence on a central data base (language) may be another.

PS: But since people have been taking over the language base and setting up independently with it to the point that its currency value is seriously reduced, Science has been busy forging a new kind of central authority on which we are to all depend for guidance.

NB: Neither Jaynes theory, nor participation in this thread, or my own interpretation of it, require belief in god(s). ( Though i do, believe in god.) But you can argue that it is too!

Consider the voices of god(s) as exteriorised parts of the unconscious, or as simply parts of our brain, as do many psychologists working today who refuse to classify hearing voices as mental illness anymore. Not even belief in the Collective Unconscious of Jung is necessary to the argument.

The point is that a fundamental, subjective, part of human experience/mental activity may have been largely, if not completely irreversibly, suppressed, OR "relocated" in slightly different form, to a less apparent, less concretely audible/visible, area of the inner world , replaced by language, in "recent" times, ( within the last 5,000 years perhaps). Is this the "sacrifice" which the New Testament is all about? ( with instructions on how to stay in touch) And/or to prepare us for another one to come?

Last edited by ouinon on 05 Mar 2008, 5:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.