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There was a book in the 1970s called "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes, where he argued that ancient civiliz

There was a book in the 1970s called "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes, where he argued that ancient civilizations -- and he used examples from Homer -- lacked the current modern sense of self-consciousness. If you look at their behavior, they interact with some external divine voice that drives their actions, whereas if you read modern literature you see people being driven by an inner voice which they associate with themselves. This shift from the "bicameral mentality" of the external voice to the modern mentality of the inner voice was hypothesized by Jaynes to be rooted in some biological changes in the brain. At the time there was split brain research that showed these two parts of the brain function independently almost as two different minds in the same skull. See this 2007 survey: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6323702_The_bicameral_mind30_years_on_A_critical_reappraisal_of_Julian_Jaynes'_hypothesis https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6323702_The_bicamer...

ProjectArcturis 8d ago
Okay but this article is about evolution hundreds of millions of years ago.
crooked-v 8d ago
> they interact with some external divine voice that drives their actions ...in a specific region, in a specific time period, immediately before the economic and then societal crash of the eastern Mediterranean that changed culture in the region forever. The hypothesis breaks down pretty hard when you realize he just kind of handwaves away people in the rest of the world not having any kind of abrupt cut-over in the styles of recorded literature that forms the backbone of his arguments.
- ViktorRay 8d ago
  Are you sure about this? If you look at the ancient stories in India you can similar phenomena
  - carefree-bob 8d ago
    Yes, Jaynes used a comprehensive approach, albeit one rooted in literature. I only threw in "Homer" as an example to be clear that "ancient civilizations" referred to bronze age and before, and that this was not the Joe Rogan kind of ancient civilizations.
  - glenstein 8d ago
    I think the trouble is once your category is loosey-goosey enough it could be open-ended to the point that anything can fit it. The fact that overall of recorded history you can find instances of any sort of interaction with something that's felt to be a voice that's independent from one's own subjectivity is open-ended to the point that it can fit the literary and cultural history of basically any civilization on Earth. What would be more impressive is some additional specificity, any sort of evolutionary mechanism, and any sort of supporting biological data. Otherwise the thing that is being described here isn't a theory, it's barely even vibes. This is to vibes what vibes are to coherently formed thoughts.
someguynamedq 8d ago
This is pretty fuzzy and woo woo
- plusfour 8d ago
  It's one of the craziest, most interesting books i've read on the mind. He makes a much stronger argument than can be summarized in a comment. He takes you on a wild journey you are surprisingly ill-equipped for. And as this complexity develops, there is the first unsureness, the first need for personal gods to intercede with the higher gods, who seem to be receding into the heavens where in one brief millennium they will have disappeared.
general_reveal 8d ago
This aligns with Christ’s redemptive work. Someone above even mentioned that a change had to happen to all humans about 3000 years ago, that’s about when Christ died (2000 years). It was told his spirit would enter the world when he died. The thing you are referencing is actually describing the alleged Holy Spirit entering the world: (With a little help from AI, don’t kill me) In Christian pneumatology (the study of the Holy Spirit), there is a similar paradigm shift between the ancient world and the New Testament. In the Old Covenant, God's presence was primarily external (pillars of fire, the Ark of the Covenant, stone tablets). With Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, God's presence moves inside human believers ("a new heart... and a new spirit within you," Ezekiel 36:26; 1 Corinthians 6:19). Development of Conscience: The transition from external command-driven behavior to an internal moral compass echoes the New Testament promise that God's law would be written directly onto human hearts and minds (Jeremiah 31:33). —- The change Julian Jaynes observes was actually divinely promised, interesting that it can be measured. Further, the original study that sees the merging of the two parts of the brain would also fit the Holy Spirit providing reconciliation of how your brain is even wired after it was imparted onto the world. This was all promised , if you believe Christ. It’s even more reassuring that that this biological reconciliation happened around when Christ died , plus or minus a thousand years.
vor_ 8d ago
It was a successful pop-sci book when it came out, but its conclusions continue to be met with a lot of skepticism today.
- simon-b 8d ago
  It's also explored in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash", which I assume many here have read. Interesting ideas that are probably more at home in fiction.
  - adolph 8d ago
    And Iam McGilchrist in The Master and His Emissary nearly 20 years after Stephenson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary
dinobones 8d ago
Not relevant to the article. Also, that study is extremely dubious/barring on fan-fiction. Homer (if he was even a person) recited oral epic poetry (that we've lost most of) and we've written down an extremely lossy version of it. Why should we take any of the mythical character's interactions with mythical gods as any insight for the brains of real humans??? It'd be like year 4000 historians citing World of Warcraft claiming the Lich King is a very obvious example that humans lack an internal monologue because he was not able to distinguish his own motives/actions between Ner'zhul/Arthas (both spiritual entities inhabiting the "Lich King" body).
- glenstein 8d ago
  I mean I definitely disagree with the book's argument, and you're right that it's making a different argument than the article, but I think straight up declaring it irrelevant is coming in way too hot. It's also an argument for a merging of separate mental structures that's sourcing the change in an event from recent natural history. Again, I don't agree with the book's argument, but declaring an argument proposing a similar convergence on the basis of entirely different reasons to be not even mentionable in response to the article is just getting way too overzealous with comment section policing.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8d ago
    Uh, no. The premise (and this is how the GP comment put it) was that humans around Homer's time had fundamentally different brain structures, and that differences in poetry and thinking processes could be explained by looking at how brains changed over the last few thousand years. That's not "overzealous comment section policing". It's rejecting a premise that is completely infeasible with everything we know about human evolution (or relative lack thereof) during that timespan.
    - glenstein 8d ago
      Uh, yes. It's overzealous because personally disagreeing with something doesn't mean that it's outside the scope of the subject matter that the article is speaking to. If anything, you're reaffirming the commonalities between the theory and what's proposed in the article because what they have in common is a proposed difference in brain structures followed by a convergence. The fact that you disagree with the truth of the theory has literally nothing to do with whether it's on point in response to an article that's about the same subject matter. I would have hoped that me saying multiple times that I disagreed with it would have made clear already that there's more going on here than just a matter of whether you do or don't disagree with it. Declaring that it's "not overzealous" mirrors my language back at me but without attaching an actual argument to it.
deleted 8d ago
[deleted]
nkrisc 8d ago
That would imply a biological change in all humans in the last ~3000 years after humans had already dispersed across the entire globe? That means whatever the change was would have to had occur simultaneously in separate populations all over the world within almost no time at all.
- mitxela 7d ago
  Not necessarily, could be a change in environment. E.g. teaching people to read by imagining a voice in their head teaches them the voice is their own. It's probably BS though.
  - nkrisc 7d ago
    That’s not a biological change.
    - mitxela 7d ago
      Learning anything biologically changes your brain.
      - rnewme 7d ago
        So basically "Reflections on Trusting Trust"? Children of changed society are also changed?
        mitxela 7d ago
        Obviously? That's why we all grow up addicted to tiktok now, when we didn't 30 years ago.
      - nkrisc 7d ago
        Writing and reading existed before the Ancient Greeks, including China and Mesoamerica.
  - graemep 7d ago
drdaeman 7d ago
It’s an interesting book for sure, but I had (minor, but still) issues even with the introductory premises. Just a few notes I made from the very first chapter: - Jaynes used the term “reminiscence” in a way very different from Ballard and claimed no animal is capable of reminiscence. That was a very odd claim overall. - Then he claimed that if we ever create a language that can express everything, metaphors won’t be possible. Which is, I think, almost obviously false, because many metaphors are constructed artistically, despite having exact terms. - And he talks about spatialization as a primitive aspect of consciousness, but he seems to talk about relations/connectedness at best. And so on - I misplaced my notes somewhere and only recovered a few random bits. Still, interesting reading, fun (albeit really questionable) core idea, but those papercuts were kinda off-putting for me.
spragl 7d ago
His theory was that the two brain halves communicated through inner voices. Wernickes Area, on the left side, communicated with the similar area on the right side. WA is where we comprehend speech, so Jaynes theorized that was why bicameral people experienced the communication as inner voices. The research in the new research paper is about a split between front and back of the brain. So something entirely different. That split is an old idea. Jaynes would most likely have known about it. But it wasnt part of his theory.

ProjectArcturis 8d ago

Okay but this article is about evolution hundreds of millions of years ago.

crooked-v 8d ago

> they interact with some external divine voice that drives their actions ...in a specific region, in a specific time period, immediately before the economic and then societal crash of the eastern Mediterranean that changed culture in the region forever. The hypothesis breaks down pretty hard when you realize he just kind of handwaves away people in the rest of the world not having any kind of abrupt cut-over in the styles of recorded literature that forms the backbone of his arguments.

ViktorRay 8d ago
Are you sure about this? If you look at the ancient stories in India you can similar phenomena
- carefree-bob 8d ago
  Yes, Jaynes used a comprehensive approach, albeit one rooted in literature. I only threw in "Homer" as an example to be clear that "ancient civilizations" referred to bronze age and before, and that this was not the Joe Rogan kind of ancient civilizations.
- glenstein 8d ago
  I think the trouble is once your category is loosey-goosey enough it could be open-ended to the point that anything can fit it. The fact that overall of recorded history you can find instances of any sort of interaction with something that's felt to be a voice that's independent from one's own subjectivity is open-ended to the point that it can fit the literary and cultural history of basically any civilization on Earth. What would be more impressive is some additional specificity, any sort of evolutionary mechanism, and any sort of supporting biological data. Otherwise the thing that is being described here isn't a theory, it's barely even vibes. This is to vibes what vibes are to coherently formed thoughts.

someguynamedq 8d ago

This is pretty fuzzy and woo woo

plusfour 8d ago
It's one of the craziest, most interesting books i've read on the mind. He makes a much stronger argument than can be summarized in a comment. He takes you on a wild journey you are surprisingly ill-equipped for. And as this complexity develops, there is the first unsureness, the first need for personal gods to intercede with the higher gods, who seem to be receding into the heavens where in one brief millennium they will have disappeared.

general_reveal 8d ago

This aligns with Christ’s redemptive work. Someone above even mentioned that a change had to happen to all humans about 3000 years ago, that’s about when Christ died (2000 years). It was told his spirit would enter the world when he died. The thing you are referencing is actually describing the alleged Holy Spirit entering the world: (With a little help from AI, don’t kill me) In Christian pneumatology (the study of the Holy Spirit), there is a similar paradigm shift between the ancient world and the New Testament. In the Old Covenant, God's presence was primarily external (pillars of fire, the Ark of the Covenant, stone tablets). With Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, God's presence moves inside human believers ("a new heart... and a new spirit within you," Ezekiel 36:26; 1 Corinthians 6:19). Development of Conscience: The transition from external command-driven behavior to an internal moral compass echoes the New Testament promise that God's law would be written directly onto human hearts and minds (Jeremiah 31:33). —- The change Julian Jaynes observes was actually divinely promised, interesting that it can be measured. Further, the original study that sees the merging of the two parts of the brain would also fit the Holy Spirit providing reconciliation of how your brain is even wired after it was imparted onto the world. This was all promised , if you believe Christ. It’s even more reassuring that that this biological reconciliation happened around when Christ died , plus or minus a thousand years.

vor_ 8d ago

It was a successful pop-sci book when it came out, but its conclusions continue to be met with a lot of skepticism today.

simon-b 8d ago
It's also explored in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash", which I assume many here have read. Interesting ideas that are probably more at home in fiction.
- adolph 8d ago
  And Iam McGilchrist in The Master and His Emissary nearly 20 years after Stephenson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary

dinobones 8d ago

Not relevant to the article. Also, that study is extremely dubious/barring on fan-fiction. Homer (if he was even a person) recited oral epic poetry (that we've lost most of) and we've written down an extremely lossy version of it. Why should we take any of the mythical character's interactions with mythical gods as any insight for the brains of real humans??? It'd be like year 4000 historians citing World of Warcraft claiming the Lich King is a very obvious example that humans lack an internal monologue because he was not able to distinguish his own motives/actions between Ner'zhul/Arthas (both spiritual entities inhabiting the "Lich King" body).

glenstein 8d ago
I mean I definitely disagree with the book's argument, and you're right that it's making a different argument than the article, but I think straight up declaring it irrelevant is coming in way too hot. It's also an argument for a merging of separate mental structures that's sourcing the change in an event from recent natural history. Again, I don't agree with the book's argument, but declaring an argument proposing a similar convergence on the basis of entirely different reasons to be not even mentionable in response to the article is just getting way too overzealous with comment section policing.
- hn_throwaway_99 8d ago
  Uh, no. The premise (and this is how the GP comment put it) was that humans around Homer's time had fundamentally different brain structures, and that differences in poetry and thinking processes could be explained by looking at how brains changed over the last few thousand years. That's not "overzealous comment section policing". It's rejecting a premise that is completely infeasible with everything we know about human evolution (or relative lack thereof) during that timespan.
  - glenstein 8d ago
    Uh, yes. It's overzealous because personally disagreeing with something doesn't mean that it's outside the scope of the subject matter that the article is speaking to. If anything, you're reaffirming the commonalities between the theory and what's proposed in the article because what they have in common is a proposed difference in brain structures followed by a convergence. The fact that you disagree with the truth of the theory has literally nothing to do with whether it's on point in response to an article that's about the same subject matter. I would have hoped that me saying multiple times that I disagreed with it would have made clear already that there's more going on here than just a matter of whether you do or don't disagree with it. Declaring that it's "not overzealous" mirrors my language back at me but without attaching an actual argument to it.

deleted 8d ago

[deleted]

nkrisc 8d ago

That would imply a biological change in all humans in the last ~3000 years after humans had already dispersed across the entire globe? That means whatever the change was would have to had occur simultaneously in separate populations all over the world within almost no time at all.

mitxela 7d ago
Not necessarily, could be a change in environment. E.g. teaching people to read by imagining a voice in their head teaches them the voice is their own. It's probably BS though.
- nkrisc 7d ago
  That’s not a biological change.
  - mitxela 7d ago
    Learning anything biologically changes your brain.
    - rnewme 7d ago
      So basically "Reflections on Trusting Trust"? Children of changed society are also changed?
      - mitxela 7d ago
        Obviously? That's why we all grow up addicted to tiktok now, when we didn't 30 years ago.
    - nkrisc 7d ago
      Writing and reading existed before the Ancient Greeks, including China and Mesoamerica.
- graemep 7d ago

drdaeman 7d ago

It’s an interesting book for sure, but I had (minor, but still) issues even with the introductory premises. Just a few notes I made from the very first chapter: - Jaynes used the term “reminiscence” in a way very different from Ballard and claimed no animal is capable of reminiscence. That was a very odd claim overall. - Then he claimed that if we ever create a language that can express everything, metaphors won’t be possible. Which is, I think, almost obviously false, because many metaphors are constructed artistically, despite having exact terms. - And he talks about spatialization as a primitive aspect of consciousness, but he seems to talk about relations/connectedness at best. And so on - I misplaced my notes somewhere and only recovered a few random bits. Still, interesting reading, fun (albeit really questionable) core idea, but those papercuts were kinda off-putting for me.

spragl 7d ago

His theory was that the two brain halves communicated through inner voices. Wernickes Area, on the left side, communicated with the similar area on the right side. WA is where we comprehend speech, so Jaynes theorized that was why bicameral people experienced the communication as inner voices. The research in the new research paper is about a split between front and back of the brain. So something entirely different. That split is an old idea. Jaynes would most likely have known about it. But it wasnt part of his theory.