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Book: "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#Breakdown_of_bicameralism

Book: "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#Breakdown_of_bicameralism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#Brea... Theory: The brain has two hemispheres: One does the talking and one does the listening. Sometimes we react because the "self" is the last to know or just reacts not realizing it is a self evaluation below our awareness. (Dog goes to bite your hand and you react.) We then try to assign order to that chaos with a reason such as "god[s]", or "spirit[s] warned us or made us do so. Snippet: "..."... Leftovers of the bicameral mind today, according to Jaynes, include religion, hypnosis, possession, schizophrenia and the general sense of need for external authority in decision-making...."

nwatson 11y ago
The Bicameral-Mind theorist apparently claimed that before 3,000 years ago all/most people behaved as the article's author, receiving direction and correction from externally perceived voices. Only at some point around that time did people become meta-aware, conscious of their own thoughts.
pavel_lishin 11y ago
And it also inspired some of the concepts in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash".
vorg 11y ago
Are there any more recent works that develop on this idea with new research and historical analysis, or is this 40-year old book still the best there is?
- SCAQTony 11y ago
  "The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: a critical reappraisal of Julian Jaynes’ hypothesis" (2006) http://www.functionalneurology.com/materiale_cic/224_XXII_1/2108_the%20bicamiral/index.html http://www.functionalneurology.com/materiale_cic/224_XXII_1/... a Institute of Neurology, London, UK b Department of Neurology, Amedeo Avogadro University, Novara, Italy c Department of Classical Philology, University of Bologna, Italy Reprint requests to: Dr Andrea Eugenio Cavanna Amedeo Avogadro University Corso Mazzini, 18 - 28100 Novara - Italy E-mail: acavanna@ion.ucl.ac.uk Received: October 2006 Accepted for publication: January 2007

nwatson 11y ago

The Bicameral-Mind theorist apparently claimed that before 3,000 years ago all/most people behaved as the article's author, receiving direction and correction from externally perceived voices. Only at some point around that time did people become meta-aware, conscious of their own thoughts.

pavel_lishin 11y ago

And it also inspired some of the concepts in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash".

vorg 11y ago

Are there any more recent works that develop on this idea with new research and historical analysis, or is this 40-year old book still the best there is?

SCAQTony 11y ago
"The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: a critical reappraisal of Julian Jaynes’ hypothesis" (2006) http://www.functionalneurology.com/materiale_cic/224_XXII_1/2108_the%20bicamiral/index.html http://www.functionalneurology.com/materiale_cic/224_XXII_1/... a Institute of Neurology, London, UK b Department of Neurology, Amedeo Avogadro University, Novara, Italy c Department of Classical Philology, University of Bologna, Italy Reprint requests to: Dr Andrea Eugenio Cavanna Amedeo Avogadro University Corso Mazzini, 18 - 28100 Novara - Italy E-mail: acavanna@ion.ucl.ac.uk Received: October 2006 Accepted for publication: January 2007