The Bicameral Mind | Kitty Johnson | TEDxTuscaloosa

Before the evolution of writing, man was not conscious; Rather, people had bicameral minds, made up of the two hemispheres of the brain. Kitty Johnson explains this theory posited by Julian Jaynes and describes how it relates to us today.
Kitty Johnson was a teacher from 1971 until her retirement in 201. She received a Master’s in English and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing at the University of Alabama. Kitty became an English Instructor at Shelton State Community College in 1980, until she had a life-changing revelation in 1985: she wanted to pursue a degree in art. She started taking art classes at Shelton while she taught English full-time. In 1994, she transferred to the University of Alabama to work on an equivalency of a B.F.A. in visual arts, and in 1999, she began graduate school at Alabama in photography. After 20 years of taking one course a semester, she received her Master’s in Art in photography in 2005. She and her husband Glen (now a retired librarian) moved to Greensboro in 2002 and are restoring an antebellum home on Main Street.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@johnPaul-qn3dg]

Reading the book for the second time, it still is an extraordinary piece of scholarship and I don't think the theory it has ever really being debunked but it's rather ignored.

[@danielclaro6049]

That's because it's not a theory. It's a hypothesis, which means it doesn't need to be debunked, it needs to prove itself before becoming a theory. It is a really interesting hypothesis tho

[@brianandsylvie]

Must be the first time Jaynes has been used as material for a stand-up comic!

[@Thomas_Geist]

I spent some time in Alabama on business. I would suggest after some of her comments she not go home. Doesn’st TED screen the speakers anymore?

[@user-ep3ed5jd7q]

Finally, a true goddess who can explain Jaynes Bicameral Mind theory that helps me understand it. Amen✝☮💟☮✝💟

[@yurizavorotny1553]

Two ways to live I think it all boils down to a simple question -- who is in control? On the picture @ 9:05, you are the left side,¹ and when you are in control you think for yourself,² you are calling the shots, you are the conscious one. The right side is at your command. You are using its creativity, intuition, the power of imagination to augment your native ability to reason, to figure things out. To gain the ultimate understanding, the ultimate knowledge of yourself, your life, and the world around. That's one way to live, the conscious way. The other way is that of the bicameral mind. It's when you cede the control to the right side. Letting it tell you what to do, letting it become the source of "your" thoughts, the internal monologue (or a whole conversation, if the right side entities cannot themselves agree). The problem is, the right side does not really know anything, except your own memories processed into your life's experience. It will never rise above what you have seen with your own eyes. Which isn't much -- a tiny spec, compared to the knowledge we, as humanity, possess. And even with your experiences, it stays completely superficial. See, figuring things out through logic and reason is not what the right side does. The "thoughts" it offers is its guesswork, an articulated intuition at best. And it knows that too. It knows it cannot see much, and it feels all that existential dread of being left to stumble through your life in darkness. It wants you to be in charge, but it won't cede control willingly. Not until you prove that you are worthy by wrestling it out from her. ¹ By left/right divide I refer to the functional divide, rather than physical brain mapping. Specifically, left vs right means the rational mind vs irrational/animal mind (of a neural net). Or Task Positive Network vs Default Mode Network. Or System 2 vs System 1, or lógos vs what’s-ancient-greek-for-idiots, or Ātman vs jiva… just to name a few. ² thinking for yourself is like daydreaming - you daydream various ways a situation can unfold, analyze what outcome is preferable and how you can influence the desired outcome

[@hermes896]

👏🏾👏🏾 VERY WELL ZPOKEN ENFP.Capricorn

[@justinwhite6159]

its cause and effect. its that simple.

[@zanefriedman2032]

You're talking about mindfulness. Mindfulness is the most powerful skill one can learn. It's also the most beautiful.

[@gordong2457]

Great comment!

[@zacharysedillo5340]

It's too bad Julian Jaynes himself isn't still alive to have been able to give lectures to the public.

[@DucatiKozak]

This doesn't look like anything to me.

[@DIAMINEO]

seize your all motor functions..

[@MsLucasrr]

genius

[@makaihana975]

Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. I choose to see the beauty.

[@Jordan6751]

Why did they cancel WW?

[@yurizavorotny1553]

thank you, Kitty Johnson! :)

[@MrCountrycuz]

I read about this concept way back in the 1980's in Science Diet Magazine.

[@frhythms]

I absolutely love this. What I despise about TED talks is that the authoritarians in charge felt the need to disappear Rupert Sheldrake.

[@nilucifar]

She spoke so well. The best teachers are those who can make teaching something a fun act. Love her intellect and humor

[@zachz1018]

Religion and politics! I have been saying that for so long. Why avoid the topics in society that affect society? Religion and politics should be our go to topics of discussion.

[@ednoisin]

I surprisingly enjoyed this talk; a nice way to explain the bicameral mind hypothesis by Julian jaynes. Good Job Ma'am!

[@MrLeonMagno]

If you give any validity to what she says you will be guided to all the wrong conclusions. Her argument is totally ridiculous based upon a lack of understanding and intellectual rigor.

[@papasitoman]

I don’t think the audience gets her personality or humour.

[@amiranieves5254]

In short, humans were robotically surviving a treacherous world. Somehow, mastery happened slowly and it gave space for downtime. Those humans didn’t have a point of reference for thought or understood the concept of inner voice. They then named that sound God.

[@MountedDragoon]

I've been learning about bicameral mind today, and I'm not quite satisfied with the idea. It sounds to me a lot like many of Freud's ideas; false, yet fascinating and true-sounding enough to form the basis of a tradition of art. However, Mrs. Johnson's presentation, to my mind, raises some implications which she doesn't adequately address. Primarily, Jaynes' original claim that the bicameral mind collapsed at some point in history and that its only vestiges are in certain mental illnesses, particularly schizophrenia. Mrs. Johnson seems to imply here that people who have a particularly religious personality or worldview are more in touch with their right brain, or in other words, are closer to having a bicameral mind. But is bicameral mind envisioned by Jaynes as a spectrum or a collapsible state of being?. The implications are that people with such personalities are either mentally ill or that they lack consciousness (she said that the Catholic Church is directing people who experience hallucinations to seek medical treatment, but if Jaynes is right, a person with a bicameral mind like ancient people had would likely have nothing pathologically wrong with them, that is, they would simply mentally function in a different way and would not have an illness). However, if this were true, I would think neuroscientists would have already established that extremely religious people thought in a fundamentally different way, lacked a strong sense of self, were more impulsive, and were generally lacking in conscious volition. Or at the very least, that bicameral mind is, for her, a convenient explanation for listlessness in some people's lives, rather than being caused by a concatenation of social and economic variables. If the former were true, this would fundamentally disrupt the current understanding of the mind-body problem. This has not occurred. If the latter were true, studies of how constructs such as gender or capitalism affect society would be largely pointless. Instead, the leading theories seem more convincing to me: that some people have a more authoritarian personality, that environment and instruction in formative years play a large role in how a person perceives and interprets the world, and that everyone lives in their own reality tunnel. The fact that authoritarian movements and governments come in ebbs and flows of two to three decades seems to imply that authoritarian mindsets are based on a complex matrix of variables and not on whether somebody has a "bicameral mind" as Jaynes originally hypothesized. To me, Mrs. Johnson's thesis seems to be a cherry-picked misunderstanding of Jaynes' thesis, wherein she picks out what she likes about his hypothesis as a means to explain human behavior in a way that isn't empirically supported and as a result obfuscates a hypothesis that, while quite possibly false, deserves to be investigated rather than simply ignored further. In short, this TEDx Talk sounds like New Age nonsense.

[@bsadewitz]

It is a total misunderstanding.

[@bsadewitz]

Why on earth would she choose to use a functionally lateralized brain as a metaphor for a functionally non-lateralized brain? One wonders if she's even read the book. I suspect she prepared this talk, then learned that this left/right brainedness nonsense is just that. Wanting to salvage the talk, she added a layer of abstraction. It's been many years since I read the book, but IIRC Jaynes usually put the more speculative stuff at the end of each chapter after he'd written about his theory proper.

[@bsadewitz]

Personally, I think that Jaynes's thesis is probably ultimately incorrect, but that he has most likely identified *something*, and that his work should be taken seriously on that basis. Talks like these undermine the efforts of those who do serious work on this.

[@bsadewitz]

It isn't about whether they have an illness or not so much as what is actually done to help the people suffering and whether it is effective. FWIW, you can't reason based on what neuroscientists WOULD have done if ... How do you know? Perhaps nothing would have been different. Also, we have no evidence that there is anything pathologically (that is, something a medical examiner can find upon post-mortem) wrong with schizophrenics at all. Medicine is also moving away from a strictly pathological conception of disease because it's inadequate.

[@bsadewitz]

I also don't understand what this has to do at all with the mind-body problem.

[@MGTOW_Modality]

People from the south are so down to earth.

[@MrLeonMagno]

Yes, she exemplifies the link between modern man and Cromagnon man.

[@thebrickton1947]

like the mafia being given forgiveness in a catholic church with a few hail Marys for brutal murders, so too a politician to appease a flock, I'm not convinced.

[@catman4471]

If I remember rightly, the book formed the basis of 'Neo Tech' by Frank R Wallace, which was popular in the 80's/90's but which seems to have disappeared now.

[@yassinedrk8203]

you can still find it as PDF

[@catman4471]

@@yassinedrk8203 I'll search it. I did have the complete works at one point, paid a fortune for them but couldn't understand them. They seemed to be hand written notes that made no sense to an un-initiate.

[@yassinedrk8203]

@@catman4471 I got some books and it took quite a while to understand Dr Frank Wallace. Till now I have agreed with what he discovered, very powerful knowledge. It's basically a brain hacking tool.

[@toobalkain]

that stuff was weird, I could never decide whether it's very helpful mindhacks or an elaborate mail order scam. Might have been both, good ideas turned into a seemingly endless series of books.

[@catman4471]

@@toobalkain Yes, I ordered the complete package way back in 92 and received a poorly packaged bundle of really weird stuff, much of it being printed copies of handwritten notes. Never did understand it and have no idea what i did with the books!

[@MastermindX]

The Code of Heemurabuh.

[@brendantannam499]

I was surprised that the speaker is a Catholic who knows about the bicameral mind. I thought that would be like a person worshipping the right hemisphere of their brain.

[@wantanamera]

A Catholic from the south who knows about the bicameral mind ..tf? 😂

[@SamGarcia]

who says that it actually comes from your right brain, and not God using the right brain as something like a phone?

[@brendantannam499]

@@SamGarcia or universal consciousness

[@MaskOfZer0]

Wouldn't religion in politics lead to women's bodily autonomy being stripped away? Oh wait... that literally happened.

[@RobbieSalome]

THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TUMB NAIL, NON SENSE?..LADY, WHAT YOUR POINT?...

[@jodo6329]

Brilliant talk

[@jodo6329]

L6915 It's not a theory, it's a hypothesis. A theory is something that is well-substantiated. As with most psychological concepts, bicameralism is not and likely will never become scientific theory. Just like Freudian and Jungian concepts. When listening to talks on psychology it's always more interesting when the speaker believes in the topic at hand. It gives us a glimpse into their reality. If you want cold, hard facts stick to the 'real' sciences.

[@jodo6329]

L6915 I think you might not understand what a scientific theory is. A scientific theory has reams of evidence. Can you give an example of a theory you think lacks evidence?

[@GuMkAkAciK]

why do you need insult someone publicly when there is just disagreement between your worldview and hers ? in turn, you are turning yourself into an evangelisator with such harsh stances

[@jodo6329]

L6915 Do you consider the Big Bang theory to be bad science? What do you postulate as an alternative?

[@jodo6329]

L6915 That's not what I was suggesting. Bad science is the assumption that my second question was implying that an alternative must be given. Now instead of following you down a rabbit hole of trivialities, I'll ask you again do you believe The Big Bang Theory itself to be bad science? Also, why do you believe an unquestioning acceptance of it exist?

[@ccornil2]

This is what passes for a TED Talk these days?

[@herbertschmerbert]

TEDx

[@user-qd6uc4gh4h]

God dos asbeck to us aol

[@aaronvannatta9329]

This was actually quite good. Speaker doesn't look or sound particularly intelligent but is actually quite.

[@MikkoHere]

Aaron Vannatta-yes, she badly needed a stylist; looks like she slept all night on her sofa and walked straight to the lecture hall. That said she is a charming and intelligent speaker and I could listen to her more.

[@MrCountrycuz]

I hear a slight tone of Northern Snobbery.

[@cameron8619]

whoever did audio at this ted talk should find a different job

[@jvincent6548]

A number of 'hypotheses' all superficially intertwined here. 1. Consciousness - what it is, how did it develop, biologically/evolutionary etc. 2. Creation/God/its existence and influence of mankind 3. Beginnings of mass rule based societies / laws For me, evolution - biological, genetic evolution will yet provide the answer. God is an invention of mankind - an invention to 'explain' things in our world we could not even begin to understand. The Laws? Oh, we had laws since we first evolved. There were innate laws and developed laws whilst we were small hunter/gathering tribes. It was only with the 'discovery' of agriculture and its impact on man that we began to develop more complex constructions of societies fixed onto the land which, necessarily required more complex systems of governance, recognition, counting etc. And through it all people and their genetic carrying bodies sat on a spectrum between the inert and the genius.

[@happyfase]

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you." - Werner Heisenberg

[@jvincent6548]

@@happyfase Not God. Just unanswered questions.

[@MrLeonMagno]

@@happyfase Guess you are an alcoholic.

[@saketg5954]

We may have bicameral minds, but why do we need 4 cameras in our cellphone?

[@jvincent6548]

Oh, I can't listen to this slow, stuttering, laborious, effortful delivery of this woman.

[@markkram3519]

Maybe reflect on yourself

[@MrLeonMagno]

It is obvious this woman does not know what she is talking about. According to Julian Jaynes, she so grossly misquotes, the bicameral age has disappeared long ago excepting for those with neurological disorders. I guess she has a bone to pick.

[@Jklunderful]

Mother of god did your read his book? It has nothing to do with anything... It is a simplistically complicated teaching... A thesis of work ... It does not matter how it makes you feel or how you think it makes you believe... Simply a realization that nothing we say has merit .... Stop finding patterns in life when the man found psychological profiles in modern humans.... Destroyed his point with your gathering of ideals of what it means to you....

[@justinwhite6159]

Are you serious? because you didn't get much out of it? I will tell you now everything from man... all teachings of all things damn near and this is facts. two hemispheres are operating. the notion of 3 6 9 is a lie. it is meant to confuse. 1/3 .333333 2/3 .6666666 3/3 .9999999????? a 2 z. same thing. the language and number system along with how we have been led to intrepet things are all things to take away your power. the power you won't know if you're not familiar.

[@zdime]

waste of time ...

[@looper2586]

@Love I love you love

[@floydsmith3456]

He is NOT indian, but my grandfather was real. You are so fake Don wattrick

[@scottedwards1209]

What a terrible speaker.