Bicameral Mind Theory - Attempt B.

[Obbe]

The last time I made this thread, it was destroyed by trolling unrelated to the thread and eventually locked by a mod. This time, I hope to generate some actual discussion on this topic, which I find very interesting.

I have recently started reading "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes. I find the subject extremely interesting and highly related to certain conceptions of God and the origins of religion. Julian suggests consciousness developed in humans as recently as only 3000 years ago. That it developed out of language and allegory, and that consciousness itself is an allegory of the physical world.

From page 74-75:

[After speaking on the Iliad and of Greek Gods]

The [Greek] gods are what we now call hallucinations. Usually they are only seen or heard by the particular heroes they are speaking to. Sometimes they come in mists or out of the gray sea or a river, or from the sky, suggesting visual auras preceding them. But at other times, they simply occur. Usually they come as themselves, commonly as mere voices, but sometimes as other people related to the hero.

Apollo's relation to Hector is particularly interesting in this regard. In Book 16, Apollo come to Hector as his maternal uncle; then in Book 17 as one of his allied leaders; and then later in the same book as his dearest friend from abroad. The denouement of the whole epic comes when it is Athene who, after telling Achilles to kill Hector, then comes to Hector as his dearest brother, Deiphobus. Trusting in him as his second, Hector challenges Achilles demands of Deiphobus to another spear, and turns to find nothing is there. We would say he had a hallucination. So has Achilles. The Trojan War was directed by hallucinations. And the soldier who were so directed were not at all like us. They were noble automatons who knew not what they did.

The Bicameral Mind

The picture then is one of strangeness and heartlessness and emptiness. We cannot approach these heroes by inventing mind-spaces behind their fierce eyes as we do with each other. Iliadic man did not have subjectivity as do we; he had no awareness of his awareness of the world, no internal mind-space to introspect upon. In distinction ro our own subjective conscious minds, we call the mentality of the Mycenaeans a bicameral mind. Volition, planning, initiative is organized with no consciousness whatever and then 'told' to the individual in his familiar language, sometimes with the visual aura of a familiar friend or authority figure or 'god', or sometimes as a voice alone. The individual obeyed these hallucinated voices because he could not 'see' what to do himself.

More quotes:

The words in the Iliad that in a later age come to mean mental things have different meanings, all of them more concrete. The word psyche, which later means soul or conscious mind, is in most instances life-substances, such as blood or breath: a dying warrior bleeds out his psyche onto the ground or breathes it out in his last gasp. The thumos, which later comes to mean something like emotional soul, is simply motion or agitation. When a man stops moving, the thumos leaves his limbs. But it is also somehow like an organ itself, for when Glaucus prays to Apollo to alleviate his pain and to give him strength to help his friend Sarpedon, Apollo hears his prayer and "casts strength in his thumos" (Iliad, 16:529). The thumos can tell a man to eat, drink, or fight ...

... a raging ocean has thumos ...

Perhaps the most important word is the word noos which, spelled as nous in later Greek, comes to mean conscious mind. It comes from the word noeein, to see. Its proper translation in the Iliad would be something like perception or recognition or field of vision ...

... essentially [mermerizein] means to be in conflict about to actions, not two thoughts. It is always behavioristic. It is said several times of Zeus (20:17, 16:647), as well as of others. The conflict is often said to go on in the thumos, or sometimes in the phrenes, but never in the noos. The eye cannot doubt or be in conflict, as the soon-to-be-invented conscious mind will be able to.

page 69-70

... consciousness is an operation rather then a thing, a repository, or a function. It operates way of analogy, by way of constructing an analog space with an analog 'I' that can observe that space, and move metaphorically in it. It operates on any reactivity, excerpts relevant aspects, narratizes and conciliates them together in a metaphorical space where such meanings can be manipulated like things in space. Conscious mind is a spatial analog of the world and mental acts are analogs of bodily acts. Consciousness operates only on objectively observable things. Or, to say it another way with echoes of John Locke, there is nothing in consciousness that is not an analog of something that was in behavior first.

page 65-66

From Wiki:

Brian McVeigh maintains that many of the most frequent criticisms of Jaynes' theory are either incorrect or reflect serious misunderstandings of Jaynes' theory, especially Jaynes' more precise definition of consciousness. Jaynes defines consciousness — in the tradition of Locke and Descartes — as "that which is introspectable." Jaynes draws a sharp distinction between consciousness ('introspectable mind-space') and other mental processes such as cognition, learning, and sense and perception — which occur in all animals. This distinction is frequently not recognized by those offering critiques of Jaynes' theory.

According to the theory, the voice of God was a voice in our heads which replaced consciousness (defined as that which is introspectable) and is responsible for the development of civilization.

[Roxberry]

Originally Posted by Obbe

The last time I made this thread, it was destroyed by trolling unrelated to the thread

Maybe karma exists after all.

[Obbe]

I think the significance of this theory coincide with many of the videos collected in this thread.

[PastorSehmish]

Julian suggests consciousness developed in humans as recently as only 3000 years ago. That it developed out of language and allegory, and that consciousness itself is an allegory of the physical world.

No matter how good a case your friend Julian makes, you will find this is wrong. God created humans fully physically, intellectually and spiritually developed.

For further reading, see Genesis.

God Bless,
Doctor Pastor Emeritus Wayne Sehmish

[Obbe]

Originally Posted by PastorSehmish

God created humans fully physically, intellectually and spiritually developed.

Then why are you required in asia?

As reasonable as you may think your beliefs are, your reasons are made-up. Sorry.

[PastorSehmish]

Then why are you required in asia?

From your answer I can see you didn't look into the further reading.

If only I could pass on all my knowledge to you, you would surely understand. But as this is impossible in such a small space of time and text, I can merely point you in the right direction.

Genesis ---> The fall ---> The Flood etc.

Perhaps this will assist.

God Bless,
Doctor Pastor Emeritus Wayne Sehmish

[Obbe]

Originally Posted by PastorSehmish

Genesis ---> The fall ---> The Flood etc.

And in which part do you enter the picture?

As "right" and "correct" as you think you are, you've made it all up.

[BrokeProphet]

Originally Posted by PastorSehmish

God created humans fully physically, intellectually and spiritually developed.

Proof?

--------

You must have knowledge or proof of this if you are going to assert that the bicameral mind theory is wrong.

Since you have KNOWLEDGE of what God did or did not do, I ask you, why does the bible bother preaching about faith? You obviously have none, so do you just skip over the multitude of places that speak of faith?

[Obbe]

There are several words in ancient Greek literature which, over time, have come to indicate aspects of conscious functioning. But the further back we search, the more concrete and bodily meanings these words have.

Such words are: thumos, phrenes, noos, and psyche all of them variously (mis)translated in modern times into as mind, spirit, or soul, and kradie, ker, and etor are often translated as heart or sometimes as mind or spirit. The translation of any of these seven as mind or anything similar is entirely mistaken and without warrant whaetver in the Iliad.

Earlier in the book julian finds that the physiological cuing of an hallucinated voice, whether in bicameral mind or in a contemporary schizophrenic, is the stress of some decision or conflict. Now, as the voices of gods become more inadequate and suppressed during the social chaos of the breakdown period, we may suppose that the amount of stress required to occasion an hallucinated voice would be raised.

Such increased stress would be accompanied by a variety of physiological concomitants, vascular changes resulting in burning sensations, abrupt changes in breathing, a pounding or fluttering heart, etc. responses which in the Iliad are called thumos, phrenes and kradie respectively. This is what these words mean, not mind or anything like it. And as the gods are heard less and less, these internal response-stimuli or progressively greater stress are associated more and more with men's subsequent actions, whatever they may be, even coming to take on the godlike function of seeming to initiate action themselves.

At the very beginning of the Iliad, Agamemnon, king of men but slave of gods, is told by his voices to take the fair-cheeked Briseis away from Achilles, who had captured her. As he does so, the responce of Achilles begins in his etor, or what is suggested a cramp in his guts, where he is in conflict of put into two parts (mermerizo) whether to obey his thumos, the immediate sensations of anger, and kill the pre-emptory king or not. It is only after this vacillating interval of belly sensations and surges of blood, as Achilles is drawing his mighty sword, that the stress has become sufficient to hallucinate the dreadfully gleaming goddess Athene who then takes over control of the action and tells Achilles what to do.

We may call these mind-words that later come to mean something like conscious functioning, the preconcious hypostases. In any novel situation, when there are no gods, it is not man who acts, but one of the preconcious hypostases which causes him to act. They are thus the seats of reaction and responsibility which occur in the transition from the bicameral mind to subjective consciousness.

It is suggested the temporal development of the preconcious hypostases can be roughly divided into four parts:

Phase I: Objective: Occurred in the bicameral age when these terms referred to simple external observations.

Phase II: Internal: Occurred when these terms have come to mean things inside the body, particularly certain internal sensations.

Phase III: Subjective: When these terms refer to processes that we would call mental; the have moved from internal stimuli supposedly causing actions to internal spaces where metaphored actions may occur.

Phase IV: Synthetic: When the various hypostases unite into one conscious self capable of introspection.

More on this theory later...

[Obbe]

Recently got started on chapter six, The Moral Consciousness of the Khabiru (known in later times as Hebrew). I find this chapter particularly interesting in it's focus on the Old Testament.

The main point of the chapter is of course to examine the bicameral nature of the people who lived during various millenniums BC, and the development of consciousness as the old bicameral hierarchies collapsed due to complexity.

However, there were a few points mentioned which I would like to highlight here, as I find them to coincide with certain implications of the videos posted in this thread. Those points are:

The Elohim. Usually incorrectly translated in the singular as God. 'Elohim' is a plural form; it can be used collectively taking a singular verb, or as a regular plural taking a plural verb. It comes from the root of 'to be powerful', and better translations of 'elohim' might be the great ones, the prominent ones, the majesties, the judges, the mighty ones, etc. From the point of view of the present theory, it is clear that elohim is a general term referring to the voice-visions of the bicameral mind.

At the particular time in history that we pick up the story as the Pentateuch has put it together, there are only a few remaining elohim in contrast to the large number that probably previously existed (think ancient Greeks). The most important is the one recognized as Yahweh, which can be translated as He-who-is. Evidently one particular group of the Khabiru, as the prophetic subjective age was approaching, was following only the voice of He-who-is. Other elohim are occasionally mentioned throughout the older parts of the Old Testament, the most important of which is Ba'al, usually translated as the Owner.

Paradise Lost. A further observation could be made upon the story of the Fall and how it is possible to look upon it as a myth of the breakdown of the bicameral mind. The Hebrew arum, meaning crafty or deceitful, surely a conscious subjective word, is only used three or four times throughout the entire Old Testament. It is here used to describe the source of temptation. The ability to deceive, we remember, is one of the hallmarks of consciousness. The serpent promises that "you shall be like the elohim themselves, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5), qualities that only subjective conscious man is capable of. And when these first humans had eaten from the tree of knowledge*, suddenly "the eyes of them both were opened," their analog eyes in their metaphored mind-space, "and they knew that they were naked" (Genesis 3:7), or had autoscopic visions and were narratizing, seeing themselves as others see them. And so is their sorrow "greatly multiplied" (Genesis 3:16) and they are cast from the Garden where He-who-is could be seen and talked with like another man.

*It may be important to note here what was meant by "the tree of knowledge", a topic discussed in the Pharmacratic Inquisition and other videos on the subject, available in this thread. Here is a short commercial-like video on the very same topic.

Also: That idols were common in the period is shown by the casual reference to what must have been a life-sized "image" that, with the help of some goat hair, is made to resemble David in bed (I Samuel 19:13). The casual presence of such an idol in David's house may point to some common hallucinogenic practice of the time that has been suppressed from the text.

Interesting implications, very interesting.