Bicameralism in Homer's epics

[Anonymous No.11585762]

What do you think of Julian Jayne's Bicameral Mind theory and its relation to Homer's poems?
Theory in a nutshell:
>until as recent as 3000 years ago, the human brain was structurally split in two, with one half "speaking" via auditory hallucination and the other "listening"
>humans lacked metaconsciousness, autobiographical memory, and conscious inspection of mental content
>instead of making decisions, humans were administered instructions by an internal voice and had consciousness of their own thought process
>at some point in the 2nd millennium BC, self-consciousness was developed in response to the bronze age collapse
>because of mass migration, the necessity of communicating commonly observed phenomena among individuals who shared no common language or cultural upbringing encouraged those communities to become self-aware to survive in a new environment

>Jaynes built a case for this hypothesis that human brains existed in a bicameral state until as recently as 3000 years ago by citing evidence from many diverse sources including historical literature. He took an interdisciplinary approach, drawing data from many different fields. Jaynes asserted that, until roughly the times written about in Homer's Iliad, humans did not generally have the self-awareness characteristic of consciousness as most people experience it today. Rather, the bicameral individual was guided by mental commands believed to be issued by external "gods" — commands which were recorded in ancient myths, legends and historical accounts. This is exemplified not only in the commands given to characters in ancient epics but also the very muses of Greek mythology which "sang" the poems. According to Jaynes, the ancients literally heard muses as the direct source of their music and poetry.

>Jaynes asserts that in the Iliad and sections of the Old Testament no mention is made of any kind of cognitive processes such as introspection, and there is no apparent indication that the writers were self-aware. Jaynes suggests, the older portions of the Old Testament (such as the Book of Amos) have few or none of the features of some later books of the Old Testament (such as Ecclesiastes) as well as later works such as Homer's Odyssey, which show indications of a profoundly different kind of mentality — an early form of consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11585775]

i'm always interested in far out fringe grand narratives, but that shit was too wacky, "the goddess versus the alphabet" is kind of similar but actually plausible and interesting rather than totally ridiculous

[Anonymous No.11585774]

>>11585762
>and had consciousness of their own thought process
fuck, *NO consciousness

[Anonymous No.11585777]

>>11585762
This assumes gods commanded humans the way a line of code might command a computer. But humans interacted with gods all the time as if they were merely just more powerful humans. Nothing suggests to me, reading Homer for instance, that Zeus is a series of foreign statements entering the limited consciousnesss of the heros.

[Anonymous No.11585781]

>>11585762
test

[Anonymous No.11585782]

>>11585775
It sounds insane but it isn't without some evidence. It's proven to be much harder to criticize as a hypothesis than it first appears

[Anonymous No.11585786]

I believe most people globally are still bicameral

[Anonymous No.11585796]

>>11585782
humans werent different biologically 3000 years ago what possible process does he think unified our brain? and why don't random people accidentally bicameralize their brains today, sorry its a stupid theory on the same tier as mckenna's dumb idea that psychedelic mushrooms lead to consciousness in humans

[Anonymous No.11585803]

>>11585786
it's not "bicameralness" its literacy, its the difference between people who are raised as readers from birth, and people for whom reading was always a "second language" learned later in life, which is what "goddess versus the alphabet" argues, no changes happened to humans biologically in the last 3000 years but writing technology was developed and disseminated over this time

[Anonymous No.11585805]

>>11585796
Comb through the reception and issues sections of the wiki page. If nothing else, it's an interesting read.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#Reception

[Anonymous No.11585818]

>>11585805
try actually reading it instead of skimming the wikipedia, it ain't that great, i went in wanting to like it, i didn't like it

[Anonymous No.11585817]

Evidence in support: schizophrenics who receive instructional voice hallucinations show increased activity in two parts of the brain that are largely vestigial now

[Anonymous No.11585824]

>>11585817
do u actually have a citation for that or its just some shit u saw on reddit

[Anonymous No.11585826]

>>11585818
Fair enough. I was assuming you were dismissing it on first sight, but you clearly know more than I do

What are your biggest issues with the theory?

>why don't random people accidentally bicameralize their brains today
Look to schizophrenia
> what possible process does he think unified our brain
The development of analogical language/metaphor, in part.

[Anonymous No.11585836]

>>11585762
>What do you think of Julian Jayne's Bicameral Mind theory and its relation to Homer's poems?

Mimetic desire, rivalry and scapegoating account for both the ancient, Christian and modern world views better. I would also prefer Heidegger over Jaynes. Still cool to think about though.

[Anonymous No.11585884]

>>11585762
What? No mention made of introspection in Homer? Did he just ignore that passage where Thetis makes a request of Zeus and he thinks silently to himself for a while?

[Anonymous No.11585898]

>>11585884
no mention of hinduism either, it's not a good theory, which is why it was a "pop hit" and "best seller" but not important academically

[Anonymous No.11586274]

>>11585777
Fair post.

[Anonymous No.11586714]

>>11585803
Then this should be testable on people not from literate societies or maybe on illiterates within ours. Has anyone even tried that, because otherwise it should be a sign to you even the author of this idea didn’t take it seriously.

[Anonymous No.11586757]

>>11585803
>>11586714
Ha, never mind anon. After reading the blurb for "goddess versus the alphabet“, this is some crazy woo woo you’ve found right there. Have you ever bought the Brooklyn bridge? Maybe some “great” land in Florida? Join Scientology? Because you must be one super credulous mofo to believe the nonsense this book is putting out.

[Anonymous No.11586780]

>>11585762
It would honestly be more plausible to me if the gods were real, one way or the other.

I have some /x/-level beliefs. I think the ancient world could be a spooky place. Active spiritual beings makes more sense than humans suddenly going through a tremendous evolution only a few thousand years ago, especially because he doesn't seem to account for what was going on in China or the Americas.

[Anonymous No.11586832]

>>11585796
>humans werent different biologically 3000 years ago what possible process does he think unified our brain?
Humans were psychologically different. Humans were psychologically different 100 years ago than they are today. Compare the "libido" of westerners with those in developing nations.

Though I'm not sure I believe in bicameralism, but it does make some sense from a Jungian perspective.

[Anonymous No.11586857]

>>11585762
Damn I'd never heard about this theory but it is really fucking interesting. Can anyone explain to me why it necessarily involves a split brain? Couldn't this kind of writing simply indicate a proto-self consciousness where ideas of ideas manifest in a schizophrenic way? Maybe this stage of humanity simply possessed an incomplete form of Lacan's mirror stage, the separation of subject and object having not been fully actualised. Therefore the affects coming from outside the body would be processed through the imaginary order, creating the illusion of many gods controlling causality. This would also explain the lack of self-reflection as each subject would still be partially embedded within the Other and thus the cause of affects stemming from the subject would also be muddled and confused.
>>11586780
Or maybe this proto-consciousness is actually more pure and the symbolic order is actually a prison that prevents us from seeing gods right in front of us.

[Anonymous No.11587484]

>>11585762
>Sing to me muse
This is a request. I don’t think they would be able to differentiate and separate their immediate experiences from the process of writing. Every kind of writing requiers introspection in some form