
Bicameralism (Psychology) - fipar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)
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eckmLJE
"It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of
consummate genius; Nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my
bets." \- Richard Dawkins

I think the theory's genius lies in its radical approach to what primitive
consciousness might have been like to experience subjectively, however wildly
off the mark the theory may be. That experience is likely to have been so
different from the modern mind that imaginative hypotheses like Jaynes's
should be welcome food for thought.

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empath75
I don’t think you need to posit bicameralism to salvage parts of this theory.
People developed language gradually, and I’m sure there was a period of time
where it sat uneasily in the mind, and then a point in time where people had
something like an internal monologue for the first time, and without having
any theory of consciousness or souls or the brain or anything of the kind, it
must have been a world shattering, all consuming miracle for the first people
that experienced it.

It makes sense to me that some people would have externalized the source of it
and understood it to be spirits or gods or ancestors or whatever kind of
disembodied force, and imagine being the first person who could understand it,
and control it and help others achieve it — imagine the power and respect that
gets you — unlocking a kind of consciousness or divinity in other people. You
can see how priesthoods develop from it.

Think about that and go back and read Genesis, and think about how it’s a
story about naming things, and categorizing things, and learning about the
world. And how it’s knowledge that drives people from a state of paradise, an
enternal now where there is no passage of time, no thought, no awareness of
ones own mortality.

~~~
dboreham
I suspect you have this backwards: I bet cats have an internal monologue
thinking about the next mouse or fresh tin of food. It'll be experienced by
them as the same experience as when they're actually chasing a mouse. I think
the concept of experiencing a replay of an experience predates language by
tens of millions of years. Language just adds a new codec onto that mechanism.

~~~
empath75
An inner monologue is when you’re talking to yourself. I don’t think that can
exist without language. What would you say to yourself with no words?

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Wistar
Jaynes's "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind"
was used as a significant reference for the design of the Boeing 757 and 767
cockpits. Even though the flight decks of the two aircraft were of
significantly different scales, Boeing managed to design the two so that they
appeared identical to the flight crew, for example, larger windows in the 767
but further away so that they covered the exact same field of view. The goal
was to, for the first time, create two quite different aircraft with identical
certification so that a pilot certified in one is also certified in the other.
It was successful.

~~~
GuiA
I’m not sure i get how a theory of the human mind being divided in a
master/follower model relates to designing cockpits that appear identical
despite being different sized. Could you elaborate?

~~~
Wistar
I cannot elaborate. I once interviewed one of the Boeing design team execs who
told me about the book and its key role in designing for human perception but
that is all I know. I wish I knew more.

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Terretta
Catching up on Westworld?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicameral_Mind](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicameral_Mind)

~~~
booleandilemma
Nope, submitter posted about it on HN earlier in response to a story about
hearing voices:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20363387](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20363387)

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omeze
This concept was explored by the show "Westworld" (don't worry if you haven't
seen it, this point isn't all that relevant to the plot). From what I can
tell, this theory, like most theories of consciousness, has fallen out of
favor as more materialist views take hold. But it seems like that's only
because we abandoned studying a more colloquial definition of consciousness
(consciousness = subjective experience) in favor of one that we can observe
(consciousness = integrated information theory). It seems to me that these
arent mutually exclusive, i.e. we have a physical reality that lends itself to
the emergent behavior of language, and language gives us a rich inner life of
experience? Or is what Im saying nonsensical, or already how people look at
things?

~~~
SirensOfTitan
A lot of the criticisms of the Jaynes hypothesis tend to surround the word
“consciousness,” which Jaynes defined very precisely for the sake of his
argument (internal mind space, analog I, and something else, been a while
since I read origin of consciousness).

Either way I’d heavily recommend Origin of Consciousness, it’s an endlessly
entertaining piece of work.

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mevile
Though it originates from oral traditions, the Iliad is literature. It is a
work of wonder and triumph. Does this story appear to some people as just a
list of enumerated events and nothing else?

If the Iliad is not the product of a whole mind then whatever created it is
its equal in every regard.

~~~
fipar
I agree, but in terms of the theory, Jaynes spends some time at the start of
his book explaining what he defines as consciousness, as it is only with that
definition that the rest of the book makes sense.

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jamesdmiller
Bicameralism seemed a lot sillier to me before I found out I had aphantasia
(lack of a mind's eye), and most people see imaginary images while awake.
Hearing the voices of imaginary gods doesn't seem all the different from
seeing false images.

~~~
mevile
I don't see false images when I use my mind's eye. My actual sight is not
impacted by using my imagination to picture something in my head. There's
nothing floating in midair or covering my vision. It's like recalling a
memory. Can you not recall a memory of a past event?

~~~
jamesdmiller
I can recall memories easily, but I don't see pictures of them.

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mlpinit
First thought that came to mind was Westworld. That's where I've first
stumbled on the hypothesis.

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Zenst
How does this compare in terms of Muscle Memory
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory)
and instinct reactions, things we do from inputs without thinking about at the
time of doing. People tend to react if you shout "Timber" near tree's, and
rightly so. They react first and think after they have already started
reacting.

Is Bicameralism just another way of trying to define primal instinct and how
that gave way to intelligent thinking as the main driver in the human
evolution I wonder.

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cat199
wow seriously..

So ancient hebrews were just writing stories about their hallucinations for no
reason at all other than entertainment? Because some fragment of the hebrew
canon doesn't contain language concerning introspection means that
introspection doesn't exist? What do blockbuster movies then say about
southern californians living in the proximity of hollywood ca 2019??

Ditto for greek mythology and all of the other pseudoscientific grasps that
are made here..

If one wanted to make the argument that pre homo sapiens had this mentality,
as purely a theory of cognitive development, fine, but holding on to this
until the freaking bronze age and using random cultural tidbits out of context
and ignoring the vast philosophical/cultural/spiritual/psychological teaching
precisely related to managing ones own conciousness that these tidbits were
bound up in seems more than a little bit far fetched..

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fnord77
> The views expressed in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the
> Bicameral Mind employ a radical neuroscientific hypothesis that was based on
> research novel at the time, and which is not now considered to be
> biologically probable

