
Pre-Conscious Humans May Have Been Like the Borg - pmcpinto
http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/pre_conscious-humans-may-have-been-like-the-borg
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moh_maya
ok. This reminds me of Neal Stephenson's snowcrash [1] , where he weaves the
tower of Babel into his story, and talks of the Sumerian culture & the idea of
"me", instructions on how to run civilization.

In the novel, he synthesizes academic research to speculate that Sumerian
priests gave these instructions to the residents, who would then 'execute'
these instructions.

The key point I took away from the book (relevant to this article) is that
these instructions were actually, instructions that were followed mechanically
--> not necessarily consciously.

Considering that the Sumerian civilization was extant between 4000 B.C to
2,500 BC, well before the 3000 years for the development of the human
conscious speculated in the article, I have new respect for Snowcrash. I'll
likely go and read it again now.

Note that, as the article says, it is a very intriguing theory, but I am not
sure if the switch from a "bicameral mind" to conscious individuality due to
language, writing, etc. would be so sudden. For one thing, many other animals
have a sense of identity (not necessarily individuality, which, I would argue,
is different), so a sense of individual identity itself is not a defining
feature of modern humans.

I find it a little difficult to accept a sudden switch to explain the
development of language, writing, etc. Language / communication may require
evolutionary development of neural structures that seems difficult over such a
rapid, short period of time. It possibly is a more gradual process.
Nonetheless, very intriguing. I wonder if Neal Stephenson referred to the same
work by Julian Jaynes.

Edit: Looks like Neal Stephenson did refer to & credit Julian Jaynes. Awesome!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Plot_summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Plot_summary)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_(mythology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_\(mythology\))

Edit: Added the last paragraph

