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I really enjoyed this theory when I was introduced to it about 10 years ago. A lot of ancient literature talks about voices and gods in a way where this seems p

I really enjoyed this theory when I was introduced to it about 10 years ago. A lot of ancient literature talks about voices and gods in a way where this seems plausible. But then there is the idea that the bicameral mind completely disappeared across the world in a somewhat uniform fashion.. that was hard to swallow. We simply don’t evolve like that.

alisonkisk 4y ago
Zanni 4y ago
Jaynes claims it wasn't physical evolution but an adaptation to changing social conditions, i.e. the hardware (brain) remained the same but the software (mind) changed.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  To me it's the references. Can raise awareness of the likelihood that when right-handed people learn to read & write from other right-handed people, that a certain amount of verbal concentration can be made exclusively to the left side of the brain in some kind of a self-perpetuating pattern. The numerical predominance of right-handed people makes this into an underlying mainstream development. Going back quite a ways but who knows how far? OTOH those who are left-handed often do not seem to conform as uniformly in this respect, and those having a tradition of large vocabularies but without reading or writing might even have the advantage of some verbal or other skills handled by both sides of the brain simultaneously far differently than the mainstream. Some types of thinking may or may not be accomplished in a relatively verbal way at all.
- naasking 4y ago
  There are plenty of isolated tribes this old and they don't seem to be much different from modern humans, behaviourally.
limbicsystem 4y ago
My bet would be 'reading'. Reading is essentially a type of synesthesia that we force onto children which turns external symbols into sound (at least initially). My interpretation of Jaynes is that he posits a direct 'voice' from the fast pattern matching systems of the brain (this, in turn possibly a maladaptation to the emergence of language earlier in our rescent evolution). Perhaps reading disrupts this pathway or teaches us to regulate it much more tightly? A prediction of this might be that voice hearing could be far more prevelant in illiterate people that we suspect.

alisonkisk 4y ago

Zanni 4y ago

Jaynes claims it wasn't physical evolution but an adaptation to changing social conditions, i.e. the hardware (brain) remained the same but the software (mind) changed.

fuzzfactor 4y ago
To me it's the references. Can raise awareness of the likelihood that when right-handed people learn to read & write from other right-handed people, that a certain amount of verbal concentration can be made exclusively to the left side of the brain in some kind of a self-perpetuating pattern. The numerical predominance of right-handed people makes this into an underlying mainstream development. Going back quite a ways but who knows how far? OTOH those who are left-handed often do not seem to conform as uniformly in this respect, and those having a tradition of large vocabularies but without reading or writing might even have the advantage of some verbal or other skills handled by both sides of the brain simultaneously far differently than the mainstream. Some types of thinking may or may not be accomplished in a relatively verbal way at all.
naasking 4y ago
There are plenty of isolated tribes this old and they don't seem to be much different from modern humans, behaviourally.

limbicsystem 4y ago

My bet would be 'reading'. Reading is essentially a type of synesthesia that we force onto children which turns external symbols into sound (at least initially). My interpretation of Jaynes is that he posits a direct 'voice' from the fast pattern matching systems of the brain (this, in turn possibly a maladaptation to the emergence of language earlier in our rescent evolution). Perhaps reading disrupts this pathway or teaches us to regulate it much more tightly? A prediction of this might be that voice hearing could be far more prevelant in illiterate people that we suspect.