Thrill to the Stunning Bicameral Mind Hypothesis | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

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Thrill to the Stunning Bicameral Mind Hypothesis | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW
Psychologist Julian Jaynes came up with a stunning hypothesis in 1976, that human consciousness only developed in the last 3000 years. And he seemed to have proof in ancient texts. Scholars have been picking it apart ever since and today we join the club.
Original Air Date: August 4, 2022
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered, a podcast by iHeartRadio.
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[@mliittsc63]

I read the book when it came out, and should probably read it again, but I remember the theory being vague on nuts and bolts mechanics of the transition to modern consciousness. However, he is very specific about what he means by the word consciousness. He's not referring to the subjective experience of sensation. His description of consciousness is about the creation of a mental space inside your head where you can examine your thoughts. This raises the questions: 1) what were the new things that enabled the creation of the space? 2) how is it constructed during development?

[@bretta7057]

Slowly working my way through the book at the moment..as you guys briefly pointed out, one of my biggest doubts/hang ups about this theory is how to explain how it relates to tribal people today (such as “undiscovered tribes”). Wouldn’t they still have the “bicameral mind”? If not…why not? Did it happen suddenly, and worldwide? I listened to a Q and A with Jaynes where he confirmed that they (isolated tribes today) are “conscious” like we are.

[@operaguy1]

25:20 "Metaphor." This would have been the perfect spot to inject the objectivist epistemology of Ayn Rand. She used the term "concept" and most crucially explained how concepts/metaphors are formed through reason via induction.

[@operaguy1]

31:30 I agree he should not have used "consciousness." He should have named the book 'The Discovery of Objectivity with the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." 'Theory of mind" does not work.

[@i_smoke_ghosts]

i like christmas tree water.

[@ZeroStateReflex]

I really like people like you. This made me lol. 8 months later you touched a soul, nice.

[@nosuchthing8]

How about turtles?

[@nosuchthing8]

The origin of consciousness with the breakdown of the bicameral mind?

[@christopherhamilton3621]

“IN” not with

[@nosuchthing8]

​@@christopherhamilton3621ok then.

[@PeterCombs]

I've read the book several times after having it recommended to me shortly after it was published around 47 years ago. In the end, along with many other things, you realize that ALL religions are 100% superstitions and are nothing more,

[@nosuchthing8]

Another problem: there are tribes of humans that have been cut off from contact with modern humans. They live the same as humans lived many thousands of years ago. We should expect them to not be conscious. But they are.

[@cacadores3955]

Are they? Or are they only conscious of primary sense-data with no ability to analyse? When you follow intuition, there's no time for reflection and the conscious mind serves only to put the breaks on.

[@dunyahali8926]

There was one tribe discovered very lately. One europen discovered they have different understanding of time.

[@cacadores3955]

@@dunyahali8926 @nosuchthink8 Exactly. If a new tribe is conscious is not something we can tell very well, because contact alters the subject. By "conscious", Jayne meant self-conscious. So thoughts spring to our mind and we are conscious of those thoughts if we're not engaged in activity and we ascribe those thoughts to ourselves, or to our "conscious mind" or our "ego" or whatever. Actually thoughts originate from the environment or from upbringing and our language from people we've heard such as our parents. You can easily ascribe these voices as being your own voice, or being your parents or even gods. In the end it's a description. But it's perfectly possible to spend hours in activity while not being self-conscious at all: while playing sport for example. We're trained in school to be self-conscious and examine ourselves and think about ourselves with long periods of non-involved inactivity sitting at a desk. It's not a natural state. So the idea of ascribing the thoughts that pop into our heads to the gods may even be a more realistic concept that the unrealistic one of supposing they come unbidden from some imaginary "self".

[@christopherhamilton3621]

Not by the definition laid out by Jaynes, though. They would best be described as having Type 1 consciousness whereas populations who have been subjected to civilizational psychotechnologies have since developed what we westerners recognize as Type 2, or introspective consciousness. Simplified, but the notion that consciousness evolved is fundamentally at issue. You probably couldn’t just bring a Neanderthal or even early homo Sapiens kid up today expecting it to become like the average human of today. There’s WAY more to it than a talk like this can hope to cover.

[@nosuchthing8]

@christopherhamilton3621 wow, top one million responses on you tube to you! Thank you, those are some excellent points you made!! To say I'm a neophyte in this area would be a stretch. To be completely honest, my first 'exposure' to the book was a comic book I read as a young child. An erudite superhero called 'The Beast' was reading the book in question. Hanging upside down, as one does. Fast forward some 20 years later, I saw the book in a book store and read it on a whim. I should reread it, but I wonder if any actual evidence has been found to support the claims. Take care!