
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - DiabloD3
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind
======
giardini
Undoubtedly the best nerd book title ever. When I first saw it I was struck
speechless with envy, knowing that, with it's publication, book titles had
peaked and that from then on any new publications' titles would pale in
comparison.

I once examined the tentative hypothesis that some people lacked consciousness
- that their behaviour seemed to be missing certain key components of
introspection. So this book caught my interest (and of course because it had a
great title). But "Origin" proved to be a tedious read providing weak support
for its hypotheses.

Nonetheless, when I find a copy in the wild (usually they're in great
condition, not much handling) I buy it and put it on the shelf. When someone
is IMO pestering me unduly, I hand them the book, ask them to read it and get
back to me. That's good for at least 3 months of peace, a small price to pay
for quiet time.

------
Gravityloss
Maybe this criticism is old hat, but I can't avoid thinking about it.

You would assume that there would still be lots of people living in this
bicameral state, as human populations have been very fragmented for the last
few thousand years.

But as far as I know, there aren't any.

It would seem extremely unlikely that such developments would have occurred
worldwide in isolated populations at the same time.

It is well documented that various people (be it indigenous or "western") use
hallucinatory drugs to get into states with reduced sense of reality. They do
not live like that all the time, and indeed could not survive so.

~~~
schizo
We had a discussion a while ago here (see my comment history) where I shared
my experience of schizophrenia (through a drug-induced schizoaffective
disorder which I subsequently got under control.)

I haven't read the book yet (it's on my Kindle by now though) but from what
I've read it's very similar to that state of mind and, if that is so, then
many 'mystics' actually do stil live that way.

~~~
Gravityloss
That is interesting, but, as far as I know, only a very small percentage of
people have schizophrenia.

I would imagine that in a primitive environment, you will be eaten if you
can't trust your hearing.

But I might be totally wrong, I haven't read the book.

~~~
brudgers
Schizophrenia is a clinical diagnosis. It is made on a scale and based on
thresholds both for specificly exhibited behaviors and aggregate number of
behaviors exceeding the threshold. In other words, a person could exhibit
several behaviors consistent with schizophrenia but not meet the clinical
definition.

E.g. clinical science does not pathologize people who claim to hear god during
prayer and admit acting upon what they heard when the claims are in the
context of organized religious practice and the behavior does not disturb the
peace too much.

~~~
schizo
That captures it very nicely.

In my experience religion/spirituality felt very much like controlled
schizophrenia (or my experience felt like an unconstrained version of it to be
precise.)

~~~
brudgers
Married to a clinical social worker, I am. One of my grandparents had 'a
breakdown' during the Great Depression, another fought what we would now call
PTSD from his combat experiences during the Second World War.

Mental illness is pretty common but remains somewhat taboo. That's
unfortunate.

------
dkasper
The set of posts at Melting Asphalt was where I was first introduced to
Jaynes. It's a great exposition of his ideas and had me pondering
consciousness for weeks.

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/mr-jaynes-wild-
ride/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/mr-jaynes-wild-ride/)

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/accepting-deviant-
minds/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/accepting-deviant-minds/)

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-
wild/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/)

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/hallucinated-
gods/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/hallucinated-gods/)

------
asimpletune
I remember really being blown away by this book when I first read it. Since
then, it has come up many times in other scenarios, when learning about other
things. For example, the origin of King Alfred's original Saxon laws. They
read totally differently if you've read Jaynes's work first.

Recently though this theory has come back in a new way for me. I'm very
interested in gamma waves and how they are by products of our brains
synchronizing it's many disparate compartments to create a single coherent
experience.

Also, a couple of weeks ago there was an article on HN about extreme
isolation. I saw many details in there that made me think of this book.

So king Alfred and Saxon law, gamma waves, and isolation are all interesting
things that have resurfaced for me with respect to this book. It's a great
theory, pretty sound argument if you read the whole thing and try to
understand it. It's just so unbelievable no one else has really taken a stand.
Someone famously once said (I'm paraphrasing) "Jaynes is either incredibly
wrong or is stupendously right but we don't know".

~~~
da02
Can you briefly summarize the Saxon/Bicameral connection? This is all new to
me. I first remember reading about the bicameral mind on a online book called
"Saturnian Cosmology". But I had no idea it could overlap with Saxon law.

------
noobermin
One strange possibility this may imply is that some people still untouched by
the modern world are really not conscious and introspective. What a weird
proposition.

Also, those of us who do not share direct ancestry with modern cultures (I am
a pacific islander), our cultures would possibly not have had consciousness
until our contact with outsiders...for my culture, that would be around the
late 1700s.

Our oral history does talk about gods, demigods and such. Looking back at most
of the oral legends, they tend to be about the gods and mythical events that
teach us morals. I think there was one story that might show introspection (a
god child who was found in the woods and was raised by human parents) although
something like true higher order thinking? I'm not sure, I'd have to think a
bit.

Still, it's such an interesting idea. Perhaps that is one way to test the
hypothesis, comparing notes with first contacts with indigenous, uncontacted
peoples.

~~~
mantrax5
I wish we'd stop confusing what we can prove with what is.

Chances are not only all people are conscious and introspective, but most
animals are to some degree (it's not an on/off switch, it's an emergent
property, the sum of all your reasoning skills).

As for bicameralism, it's just a demonstration of the lengths at which our
wrong assumptions can reach when the subject we're creating conjecture about
(ancient people) are no longer around, or otherwise unable to explain
themselves.

There are plenty of people in the modern day, which claim to have heard the
voice of god (or the devil, or aliens, or what have you), which might be a
mental disturbance, or quite often is a simple confusion (a dream taken for
reality, and so on).

It's just how the mind works to this present day. Sometimes we misinterpret
input and make up reasons.

Heck, the theory of bicameralism seems like an example of making up reasons.

------
nova
The great thing about this hypothesis, even if it happens to be false for homo
sapiens, is that it separates the concepts of "intelligence" and
"consciousness". Jaynes shows that it is at least logically possible for a
being to be intelligent, but not conscious.

I think this has clear implications to AI.

~~~
mantrax5
Did we honestly need this to know both aren't related? We have plenty of proof
in the AI scene.

Also, it hits me as some awful mutation to be using your "external protocol"
(voices) for internal communication.

Is the claim they were literally hearing voices? Can't be right.

First you'd constantly be getting startled or confused whether someone in your
head said something, or someone outside your head said something.

Second there's an inherent lag in converting speech to information and back,
when the brain is interconnected well enough with much more efficient ways of
communicating internally.

Speech is also highly inaccurate. Same sentence can have multiple meanings.
Imagine the hilarious misunderstandings between you and your internal voice.

Which brings another point. How do you answer back? Do you speak out loud, or
does the mind have a dedicated "internal speaker" for you to say things into?

Another awkward redundant apparatus.

~~~
mbrock
All of these obvious questions are quite well addressed by the actual book in
question, as would be expected from a serious and respected work, since its
entire raison is to explain why this seemingly counterintuitive idea does in
fact make sense and fits much evidence.

Here's a simple intuition pump to get you started: Do you think that you don't
hear voices? Do you know about the concept of "internal monologue?"

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
Most of my "internal monologue" is visual. I see things. Language enters into
it when needed, but it's much less common for me.

------
jchrisa
This was my first adult pop-sci read. A little bit thick but after middle-
school me read one crazy science book I went on a tear: Richard Dawkins,
Steven Pinker, Dan Dennett, Hofstader, and never really stopped. Fun to wake
up and see it on HN.

------
EGreg
One of the necessary components of consciousness is short term memory. Have
you ever driven spaced out and then "came to" and realized you've been doing
it on "autopilot" for the last few blocks?

[http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/o...](http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2006/august-06/memory-
and-consciousness-consciousness-to-unconsciousness-and-back-again.html)

Also look up Alien Hand Syndrome. When we are conscious of our ACTIONS we
literally are able to call up a memory of DECIDING to do those actions.
Otherwise even if we onserve those actions they seem as having been done by
SOMEONE ELSE.

Thus, identity and consciousness is relates to memory.

------
gulpahum
This is interesting. If human consciousness and thinking was changing today,
how could you detect it? Perhaps the increased amount of information that we
need to process is changing how we think?

Sometimes I have a feeling that our grandparents or parents are not thinking
or introspecting as deeply as my generation. They are just doing things, but
we seem to be thinking more about the consequences of our actions. Is there a
way to measure this? Or is this just the usual "generation gap" thing?

~~~
mercer
> Sometimes I have a feeling that our grandparents or parents are not thinking
> or introspecting as deeply as my generation.

I have that same feeling, and David Foster Wallace touches on that in his
essay on television
([http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf](http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf)).

------
eponeponepon
It's a tempting hypothesis - it does feel instantly plausible if one has a
decent grounding in ancient literature and history. But as others have said,
short of building a time machine and kidnapping an Etruscan farmer... how
could we ever disprove it?

Come to think of it, even that wouldn't do it - testing one farmer wouldn't
tell us anything about his compatriots and rulers.

~~~
foxhill
well, that's kind of an issue with consciousness - it's so meta, and
intangible.. sort of like trying to guess which OS a machine was running, just
by looking at the CPU.

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lotsofmangos
I love this idea. I suspect it is utterly wrong, but it is wonderful
speculation nonetheless.

Both Snowcrash by Neal Stevenson and Distraction by Bruce Sterling make good
use of some of the concepts from it, so even if it is wrong, it has helped in
the genesis of some great fiction.

~~~
asimpletune
Interesting, I've never heard those authors I'll have to check them out. Can
you say what you think about Jaynes's theory is wrong and why?

~~~
extra88
The first is "Neal Stephenson," no "v." I enjoy both but much prefer
Sterling's earlier work (Islands in the Net, Schismatrix, Heavy Weather).

~~~
lotsofmangos
Oops. thanks for picking up on that.

I haven't read Islands in the Net or Schismatrix yet. I should really get
around to them at some point. Heavy Weather was pretty good, there's a copy of
that within three feet of me right now.

------
vorg
> 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 [...] For example, in
> the Iliad and sections of the Old Testament

Greek and Semitic societies were in close contact 3000 years ago so a trend
towards unicamerality would be intertwined, but I'm wondering about societies
separated from the West until later such as China which didn't begin contacts
with the West until about 2000 years ago after being cut off for over 50,000
years. Was Confucius (2500 years ago) conscious? If so, then it seems such
bicameral mind breakdown evolved separately in West and East.

------
Codhisattva
Keep in mind this is a hypothesis and lacks significant supportive evidence.
Even after 38 years.

~~~
brudgers
In which one should it be kept?

Any theory of mind - unicameral, bicameral, polycameral - is naught but an
hypothesis because the claim that there are such things as minds is itself an
hypothesis. One that for some is as scientifically plausible as souls and
essences...or consciousness.

If one wants to argue over the material character of the mind, bicameralism
seems a bit late to be drawing a line in the sand. The enemy has landed,
breached the city walls and occupies the lower floors of the innermost keep.

I read Jaynes about twenty years ago. It's thoughtful and entertaining and
it's ideas plausible...what is this voice that formulates these words as I
type? Certainly better than Penrose who was running rampant over the
alt.philosophy at the time. Jaynes is very readable.

~~~
judk
Well the existence of a whole group of "not even wrong" theories doesn't make
any single one of them less deserving of complaint when it shows up on its own
at a party like HN

~~~
brudgers
To me theories of mind are like programming languages, there's room for lots
of them and having one in my toolbox doesn't mean that I cannot have
others...and if one is not suited for a particular task or just doesn't appeal
to me...well that doesn't make the whole raft of them bad.

And I take the analogy between programming languages and theories of mind
seriously. We don't dismiss programming languages because they don't describe
the physical flipping of particular bits that happens on the computer and we
don't throw out client-server architectural models when we are working with
only one machine. Physicalism when it comes to computing is absurd in most
contexts.

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gte910h
While I think this book has a beautiful premise, even 15 years ago when I read
it, falsifiable parts already had been falsified from what I understood before
reading it

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dekhn
A classic. I remember when my english teacher first mentioned this. It was a
first step towards the much larger world of hypothetical neuroscience.

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judk
Someone here didn't like it. Article is deleted, replaced with a redirect to
'Bicameralism'

~~~
naturalethic
The original linked to an empty wiki page with just the title of the book
linking to Bicameralism. So the edit saves some clicks as the link actually
goes somewhere with some content now.

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EGreg
Why is this link so highly ranked on HN when it leads me to a page which
simply links to another page?

~~~
arethuza
I guess it's a hack around the rules on HN submission titles - and that title
is definitely more interesting than "Bicameralism (psychology)".

