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>so perfectly explains the obsession with physical idols Those primitives! (clutches cross around neck and looks out window at the towering skyscrapers, all of

>so perfectly explains the obsession with physical idols Those primitives! (clutches cross around neck and looks out window at the towering skyscrapers, all of them flying American flags on the ground level). Personally, I think the narrative of ancients being that different from us is fairly out there and deep into crackpot territory. Seems to me that a lot of STEM majors haven't read the ancient sources. The idea that Herodotus, Plutarch, or Aurelius had some pre-modern mind is asinine. I can't see how someone who sat down and read The Meditations would walk away with such a conclusion. Jayne's Illiad argument stating that every character has no freewill and playthings of the gods is super weak sauce. Greeks simply weren't that devout in real life, and stuff like he's seeing is a story telling narrative. Not understanding something that simple about the Greeks further discredits him. Imagine if our society and entire conscious structure was judged by the Twilight books. Even if we step back another couple thousands years, Egypt had a full blown society with professional tradesmen, government, militaries, etc 2500BC. Before that, Mesopotamia had all those things in 3100 BC. The Code of Hammurabi invalidates this guy's thesis pretty easily, although I can imagine him weaseling a more technical and strict definition of "consciousness" to avoid being completely discredited, but at that point this is all useless sophistry. Also, are we ignoring ancient Hinduism and Buddhism's near obsession with consciousness here? > perfectly explains I find geeks seeks out "perfect" and "simple" solutions, which make sense in code, but in the world of history, anthropology, etc are reductionist and wrong. There's also quite a bit of atheistic evangelism here, which I think is why its on HN and not in the dustbin of bad history.

gipp 11y ago
There's no need to be so confrontational about this. Everyone agrees it is speculation; I think we need to have room for people to speculate and discuss speculation without being ridiculed about the fact that it's not fact (which of course everybody already knows). Herodotus, Plutarch, and Aurelius all lived thousands of years after the period discussed by the book. And a considerable portion of the book is devoted to exploring the possibility of consciousness being something very different from what we imagine it to be, yes; something not necessarily required for civilization or law. Calling that "useless sophistry" isn't really proof otherwise, it's just dismissing the idea out of hand. Hinduism is made of a large array of different traditions evolving together over thousands of years. The early texts do not have that "obsession with consciousness" (and this, also, is discussed extensively in the book). Buddhism, also, post-dates his proposed "bicameral" period by millenia. Nobody thinks this explanation is true, just extremely interesting and worthy of discussion.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  >Herodotus, Plutarch, and Aurelius all lived thousands of years after the period discussed by the book. The article cites him citing the Iliad as evidence of his theory. That's a 1200BC story. Homer lived around 800BC.
  - mistercow 11y ago
    Jaynes uses the Odyssey as a post bicameralism work. The Odyssey was written well before any of those people were alive.
    - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
      Article: So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to look for signs of people who aren’t capable of introspection—people who are all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad. He writes that the characters in The Iliad do not look inward, and they take no independent initiative. They only do what is suggested by the gods. -- The Iliad is from 1200BC story, so that means he calling a good chunk of written history and those civilizations (Egypt, early Greece, Mesopotamia) as having this ridiculous pre-modern consciousness.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - mistercow 11y ago
        > So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to look for signs of people who aren’t capable of introspection—people who are all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad. Right, not in the Odyssey. And I've read the book; he specifically contrasts the Iliad with the Odyssey. >The Iliad is from 1200BC story, so that means he calling a good chunk of written history and those civilizations (Egypt, early Greece, Mesopotamia) as having this ridiculous pre-modern consciousness. Yes, that is correct. But not the people who you listed.
  - 11y ago

gipp 11y ago

There's no need to be so confrontational about this. Everyone agrees it is speculation; I think we need to have room for people to speculate and discuss speculation without being ridiculed about the fact that it's not fact (which of course everybody already knows). Herodotus, Plutarch, and Aurelius all lived thousands of years after the period discussed by the book. And a considerable portion of the book is devoted to exploring the possibility of consciousness being something very different from what we imagine it to be, yes; something not necessarily required for civilization or law. Calling that "useless sophistry" isn't really proof otherwise, it's just dismissing the idea out of hand. Hinduism is made of a large array of different traditions evolving together over thousands of years. The early texts do not have that "obsession with consciousness" (and this, also, is discussed extensively in the book). Buddhism, also, post-dates his proposed "bicameral" period by millenia. Nobody thinks this explanation is true, just extremely interesting and worthy of discussion.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>Herodotus, Plutarch, and Aurelius all lived thousands of years after the period discussed by the book. The article cites him citing the Iliad as evidence of his theory. That's a 1200BC story. Homer lived around 800BC.
- mistercow 11y ago
  Jaynes uses the Odyssey as a post bicameralism work. The Odyssey was written well before any of those people were alive.
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    Article: So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to look for signs of people who aren’t capable of introspection—people who are all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad. He writes that the characters in The Iliad do not look inward, and they take no independent initiative. They only do what is suggested by the gods. -- The Iliad is from 1200BC story, so that means he calling a good chunk of written history and those civilizations (Egypt, early Greece, Mesopotamia) as having this ridiculous pre-modern consciousness.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - mistercow 11y ago
      > So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to look for signs of people who aren’t capable of introspection—people who are all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad. Right, not in the Odyssey. And I've read the book; he specifically contrasts the Iliad with the Odyssey. >The Iliad is from 1200BC story, so that means he calling a good chunk of written history and those civilizations (Egypt, early Greece, Mesopotamia) as having this ridiculous pre-modern consciousness. Yes, that is correct. But not the people who you listed.
- 11y ago