Since through comparative gross anatomy it has been shown all higher
apes (chimpanees, gorillas, and orangutangs) have like people, a
longer Sylvian fissure in the left than the right side of the brain,
and these are the parts of the brain that turned into language
centers, this possibly indicates some laterality [bicammerality] of
function in apes, and the evolution of further types of a division of
labor already present in the mammilan family brain, and at least if
humans heard these voices then some apes did to. The argument form is
weak also since by replacing the terms in it with different subject we
can argue some strange things. All that means is that the author
should have chosen a better way to say it. With that argument form I
can argue, absurdly, that stereoscopic vision, the uniting of both
eyes into one picture with depth, came about sooner than the mutations
necessary for such a change could have taken place. Lizards have eyes
that dart about independently from each other. This so they can see
the predator, while alot of predators have stereoscoptic univision so
they can pinpoint the prey and jump in for the kill.
http://www.dichotomistic.com/readings_intro.html
A reviewer summarizes the introduction of the book.
The problem of consciousness
A few basic theories on the nature of consciousness
1.Consciousness could be a property of all matter. This is also called
panpsychism and is a view held by various spiritual traditions.
2. Consciousness could be a property of living things as opposed to
lifeless matter. When amoebas are hunting for food or retreating from
pain this could indicate consciousness.
3. Consciousness may only be associated with animals that learn.
Jaynes believed that consciousness may be dependant upon learning,
however, he later dropped this idea. (B.Baars asked a better question.
Are learning and consciousness correlated?)
[Evolution and consciousness. Wallace thought that some metaphysical
force came into play at least 3 times, at the creation of life, at
consciousness and at culture. ]
Is consciousness an epiphenomenon?
William James makes a good argument against this. Why is consciousness
most intense when we need to make decisions and least intense when
action is habitual? Why would consciousness vary in this fashion is it
was just an epiphenomenon?
Consciousness and the Reticular Activating System. Jaynes feels that
is it is a waste of time to associate the RAS with consciousness
because it is one of the oldest structures in the evolution of the
nervous system. This is in contrast to Baars. [Reanimater like Baars
theory better] Baars suggests that the RAS may be one of the most
important and necessary brain areas associated with consciousness.
Because many animals possess a RAS, Baars argues that they are
actually conscious. The argument can be resolved if we focus on what
Jaynes vs. Baars mean by consciousness. Many individuals hold
consciousness to mean qualitative subjective states such as pain or
our inner experience while looking at the color red. This version of
consciousness is sometimes referred to as qualia. This simple level of
sensory consciousness is clearly not what Jaynes is referring to.
Jaynes’s view of consciousness seems to indicate a higher abstract
level of ego or self-consciousness. However this abstraction is still
totally dependent upon basic sensory processes.
http://members.aol.com/chris5264/jaynes.html
The Origin of Consciousness
in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
by Julian Jaynes
In this book, Jaynes theorizes that ancient consciousness was
radically different from modern consciousness. He suggests that
ancient human beings had no sense of an interior, directing self.
Rather, they accepted commands from what appeared to them to be an
externalized agency, which they obeyed blindly, without question.
This externalized self was a consequence of the split between the two
halves of the brain. Jaynes suggests that the left and right brains
were not integrated—"unicameral"—they way they are today. Rather, the
ancient brain was "bicameral," with the two brains working essentially
independently of each other. The left half of the brain, the logical,
language-using half, generated ideas and commands, which the right
brain then obeyed. These commands were subjectively perceived by the
right brain as coming from "outside"—as if a god was speaking.
Jaynes adduces evidence for this astonishing hypothesis from several
sources. One is the "voices" heard by schizophrenic patients, which
Jaynes interprets as a throwback to the bicameral mind of ancient
times. Another is evidence from neurosurgery, where patients hear
"voices" upon having their brains electrically stimulated. Another is
the polytheistic gods of ancient civilizations, which spoke directly
and intimately to individuals:
"Who then were these gods who pushed men about like robots and sang
epics through their lips? They were voices whose speech and directions
could be as distinctly heard by the Iliadic heroes as voices are heard
by certain epileptic and schizophrenic patients...The gods were
organizations of the central nervous system"(73-4).
Jaynes suggests that each person had his own individual "god", which
always told them what to do. The theory further accounts for why the
gods were so naturalistic and anthropomorphic, rather than
supernatural and otherworldly.
Where did the gods go, then? Jaynes proposes that a series of
unprecedented environmental stresses in the second millennium B.C.
forced the two halves of the brain to merge into unicamerality. (This
was a cultural, rather than a biological, transformation, Jaynes
notes.) The stresses might have included natural disasters (the story
of the Flood comes to mind), population growth, forced migrations,
warfare, trade, and the development of writing. A common denominator
among all these is the introduction of complexity and difference,
things the bicameral mind deals with only with difficulty. Jaynes
suggests, among other things, that traders in contact with other
cultures might have been forced to develop a "protosubjective
consciousness" to cope with the gods of unfamiliar people.
Jaynes suggests that the unprecedented stresses of the 2nd millennium
B.C. forced the individual into isolation, within which a sense of I-
ness appeared to fill the void left by the inadequacy of the god. This
hypothesis posits a relatively homogeneous and stress-free existence
prior to the development of consciousness. In short, Jaynes must posit
that there really was an Eden, from which humanity Fell.
To establish the gods' disappearance, Jaynes cites a number of
illustrations and cuneiform tablets dating from Sumerian times. He
shows a stone-carven image of the King of Assyria kneeling in
supplication before an empty throne, from which his god is
conspicuously absent. The accompanying cuneiform script reads, "One
who has no god, as he walks along the street,/ Headache envelopes him
like a garment." Another tablet reads,
My god has forsaken me and disappeared,
My goddess has failed me and keeps at a distance.
The good angel who walked beside me has departed.
Jaynes interprets this as evidence of a new subjectivity in
Mesopotamia. The bicameral mind has begun to collapse into the modern
unicameral mind of the self-willed, self-aware "I", and as a
consequence the gods no longer speak to people, as they did in the
days of old (223).
These lamentations sound remarkably like the nam-shubs mentioned in
Snow Crash.
The nam-shubs also mourn something precious, and speak of confusion
and loss. It is not at all hard to guess that the loss of bicameral
tranquility may have been accompanied by unprecedented linguistic
disruption (irrespective of any causal relationship between the two.)
The Tower of Babel story—which the nam-shubs strongly resemble—may
have happened at a time when bicamerality was breaking down.
Be this historical truth or not (and the thesis has not been widely
accepted), Jaynes has fashioned a brilliant myth of human origins.
Like the authors of Snow Crash and Macroscope, Jaynes reaches far back
into the past for an authentic story of a Fall from wholeness. And
like them, he reaches specifically for Mesopotamian myth.
http://deoxy.org/alephnull/jaynes.htm
Through comparative gross anatomy it has been shown all higher apes
(chimpanees, gorillas, and orangutangs) have like people, a longer
Sylvian fissure in the left than the right side of the brain. This
possibly indicates some laterality of function in apes, and the
evolution of further types of a division of labor already present in
the mammilan family brain.
http://www.dichotomistic.com/readings_intro.html
> According to Jaynes, ancient people in the bicameral state would
> function in a manner similar to that of a modern-day schizophrenic.
> Rather than making conscious evaluations in novel or unexpected
> situations, the person would hallucinate a voice or "god" giving
> admonitory advice or commands, and obey these voices without question.
> Others have argued that this state of mind is recreated in members of
> cults.
>
> In his 1976 work The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the
> Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes proposed that human brains existed in a
> bicameral state until as recently as 3000 years ago. Jaynes builds a
> case for this hypothesis by citing evidence from many diverse sources
> including historical literature. He took an interdisciplinary
> approach, drawing data from many different fields.
>
> Jaynes asserts that until roughly the times written about in Homer's
> Iliad, humans did not generally have the self-awareness characteristic
> of consciousness as most people experience it today. Rather, Jaynes
> argued that the bicameral individual was guided by mental commands
> believed to be issued by external "gods"—the commands which were so
> often recorded in ancient myths, legends and historical accounts;
> these commands were however emanating from individuals' own minds.
> This is exemplified not only in the commands given to characters in
> ancient epics but also the very muses of Greek mythology which "sang"
> the poems: Jaynes argues that while later interpretations see the
> muses as a simple personification of creative inspiration, the
> ancients literally heard muses as the direct source of their music and
> poetry.
>
> Jaynes inferred that these "voices" came from the right brain
> counterparts of the left brain language centres—specifically, the
> counterparts to Wernicke's area and Broca's area. These regions are
> somewhat dormant in the right brains of most modern humans, but Jaynes
> noted that some studies show that auditory hallucinations correspond
> to increased activity in these areas of the brain.[4]
>
> For example, he asserts that, in The Iliad and sections of the Old
> Testament in The Bible, no mention is made of any kind of cognitive
> processes such as introspection, and he argues that there is no
> apparent indication that the writers were self-aware. According to
> Jaynes, the older portions of the Old Testament (such as the Book of
> Amos) have little or none of the features of some later books of the
> Old Testament (such as Ecclesiastes) as well as later works such as
> The Odyssey, which show indications of a profoundly different kind of
> mentality—an early form of consciousness.[4]
>
> Jaynes noted that in ancient societies, the corpses of the dead were
> often treated as though they were still alive (being seated on chairs,
> dressed in clothing, and even fed food) and he argued that the dead
> bodies were presumed to be still living and the source of auditory
> hallucinations (see ancestor worship).[4] This adaptation to the
> village communities of 100 individuals or more formed the core of
> religion. Unlike today's hallucinations, the voices of ancient times
> were structured by cultural norms to produce a seamlessly functioning
> society. In Ancient Greek culture there is often mention of the Logos,
> which is a very similar concept. It was a type of guiding voice that
> was heard as from a seemingly external source.
>
> In ancient times, Jaynes noted, gods were generally much more numerous
> and much more anthropomorphic than in modern times, and speculates
> that this was because each bicameral person had their own "god" who
> reflected their own desires and experiences.[5]
>
> Even in modern times, Jaynes notes that there is no consensus as to
> the cause or origins of schizophrenia (the subject is still hotly
> debated). According to Jaynes, schizophrenia is simply a vestige of
> humanity's earlier state.[4] Recent evidence shows that many
> schizophrenics don't just hear random voices but experience "command
> hallucinations" instructing their behavior or urging them to commit
> certain acts. As support for Jaynes's argument, these command
> hallucinations are little different from the commands from gods which
> feature so prominently in ancient stories.[4] Indirect evidence
> supporting Jaynes's theory that hallucinations once played an
> important role in human mentality can be found in the recent book
> Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and
> Meaning of Auditory Hallucination by Daniel Smith"
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Break...
