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One of my favorite speculative hypotheses is Bicameral Mind Theory, which asserts that something like schizophrenia was relatively common until relatively recen
by DevX101 2y ago
One of my favorite speculative hypotheses is Bicameral Mind Theory, which asserts that something like schizophrenia was relatively common until relatively recently, about 3000 BC. It argues that it was relatively normal for humans to hear voices in their head directing them. So when we read religious texts about the gods commanding so-and-so to do such-and-such, it wasn't just a spiritual metaphor, but an actual voice people heard in their heads and interpreted as higher powers.
- Gooblebrai 2y agoI thought it had been debunked already?
- jumping_frog 2y agoRichard Dawkins called Julian Jaynes’s 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind “either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between”
- nabla9 2y agoIdea or theory can be great, well constructed and intellectually interesting without being true. Aquatic ape hypothesis is similar. It's a initially a great theory and explains many things. Only when you start to investigate other explanations, the theory starts to fall a apart. Endurance running hypothesis on the other hand seems to hold. Incidentally it explains many of the same things as aquatic ape hypothesis, and there is more supporting evidence.
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- mensetmanusman 2y agoWith a Time Machine?
- jerf 2y agoIt's really a non-scientific idea, in the Popplerian sense. How would you debunk it? How would you confirm it? It's not in that class of idea. A lot of people have been taught to read that as "therefore it's false" or "therefore it's true" or "therefore it's unimportant", but really all it means is that it is not amenable to scientific confirmation or debunking. That, and nothing more. Many things are not amenable to scientific confirmation or debunking that are true and false and important and unimportant and everything else.
- swayvil 2y agoIt is false and unimportant, thus it deserves no attention, thus we withdraw our attention from it, thus it fades and disappears. Thus reality is carved away, leaving only the important part. Which we call "reality" of course.
- jerf 2y agoOh, you've debunked it? That's pretty cool. I look forward to your published interviews with people from the time. You have an opinion that the hypothesis is false. I share that opinion. We probably have fairly radically different reasons for our opinions, though. Either way, they are just opinions, however well informed. We don't have proof.
- swayvil 2y agoThat isn't a debunking, it's a description of the mechanism. For good and ill. Read it again.
- kelseyfrog 2y agoWalk me through how you concluded it is false, please
- swayvil 2y agoBy "it" I refer to reality. Not the model. (Gotta underline everything for you people, I swear.)
- uh_uh 2y agoWhy did the schizophrenia become less common according to this theory?
- cultofmetatron 2y agopeople drank a lot more alcohol back in the day.
- aleph_minus_one 2y agosource?
- tetris11 2y agoI don't know how far back "back in the day" is, but the UK sources below seem to show that alcohol (particularly spirits)[1] seemed to be quite popular in the late 1800s[0], and that in the 1550s it was Ale, 1650s it was Gin, 1750s saw a drop during the industrial revolution. Before that, who knows? 0: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmhealth/151/151we19.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmhe... 1: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-alcohol-1890 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-alcohol-1890
- soco 2y agoThe two hemispheres started to communicate (better) so wouldn't feel each other as strangers anymore. Or at least that was my understanding, in very simple words and without asking any AI :)
- mapt 2y agoIn market economics and evolution alike, when we posit that an organism/industry became more effective through some kind of change, we also require an explanation for "And why hadn't it already done this? What was stopping it from doing so earlier, and what was the mechanism that this constraint was removed?" Genuinely unexploited niches and entirely novel strategies exist, but they are extraordinarily rare. Do other primates show strong bicameral connectivity in terms of physical brain structures?
- tetris11 2y agoMy mother did a lot to keep us fed, clothed, housed when we were growing up. She wasn't happy, but she wasn't sad either. I asked her once, decades later, how she coped with it all, and her answer still freaks me out sometimes. She said she didn’t know she was a person who had choices, or could think about the situation she was in. She just did as she was expected to. She’s in her 60s now and is far more in tune with her emotions, thoughts and feelings than I remember her when I was a kid. She was virtually in catatonic autopilot most of her life, because no one encouraged her to think. There's a quote from Helen Keller in this vein, after she was taught to communicate, though I can't find the full text: "When the sun of consciousness first shone upon me, behold a miracle!"
- jumping_frog 2y agoOperators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic I think you should read the above book.
- tetris11 2y agoApparently it's free to read: https://selfdefinition.org/hearing-voices/Barbara-O'Brien-Operators-and-Things-the-Inner-Life-of-a-Schizophrenic.pdf https://selfdefinition.org/hearing-voices/Barbara-O'Brien-Op...
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- gnramires 2y agoVery touching ;) In buddhism (I'm not a specialist by any means), I think awareness and consciousness is a central concept too. "The light of awareness", "awakening" is seen as holy. I really think that awareness is essential to enabling us to have hope to improve and specially understand our life and our problems; besides making us more connected, participating in reality. I like Thich Nhat Hanh's saying of a "serene encounter with reality" he finds through meditation. Different, each in its own poetry, ways of saying the similar things. And I think the profound realization and awareness of the reality of others can bring no other outcome than compassion. That's why I think awareness is extremely important too for living in a society and enable living in a civilization.
- Biologist123 2y agoI’d speculatively propose the reverse: that a change occurred that led to our suppressing these “voices” to our subconscious, where they are still present but suppressed below the threshold of conscious awareness. Interestingly, in parts of the world, these voices persist (eg Ethiopia where a high percentage of people report regularly hearing voices in their heads). Also interestingly, this book you mention was one of David Bowie’s favourites - yes, he of the multiple pop personas.
- webstrand 2y agoHumans migrated to the Americas by at the latest 8900 BC when the land bridge disappeared, and we have evidence for migrations way before that. There's no way any kind of genetic change that occurred around 3000 BC could have made it to the Americas, and the indigenous population does not seem to exhibit such divergent modes of thought. They are essentially modern humans. So this date needs to be pushed way back.
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- squidgedcricket 2y agoIIRC, the bicameral mind theory speculates the change occuring ~70 kya.
- poizan42 2y agoNo, Jaynes posits it happened as recently as 3000 BC, and bases the hypothesis on evidence from sources that are far more recent than 70 kya (not that we have any literary sources that are 70 kya old)
- histories 2y agoBest summary of Jaynes' theories: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/01/book-review-origin-of-consciousness-in-the-breakdown-of-the-bicameral-mind/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/01/book-review-origin-of-...