
The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: A reappraisal of Jaynes’ hypothesis (2007) - hliyan
https://www.functionalneurology.com/materiale_cic/224_XXII_1/2108_the%20bicamiral/
======
sandinmytea
For anyone trying to generalize Mr. Jayne's theory from an article or set of
comments - I suggest that you definitely do not. Really, don't do that with
anyone's theories, but instead READ THE BOOK.

The way that Jaynes "carves up consciousness" as Daniel Dennet puts it in one
review, is very different than the way that a reflexive intellectual instinct
would choose to. The taxonomy that Jaynes decides upon is distinctive from our
mental reflexes, and not at all the same as what nearly everyone begins with.

I feel that this "Bicameral" consciousness discussion keeps reappearing on
Hacker News in part because it is crucial for us to create a proper
distinction between these terms - AI is rapidly going to become conscious in
exactly the way Julian Jaynes suggests we became "conscious" and that
consciousness is very much different than what we think it is (or must be) for
AI to become generally aware of itself.

I suggest that anyone who is working towards AGI MUST discover the
distinctions that Julian Jaynes made. That does not mean that his theory
regarding our consciousness is correct, but merely that his ways of describing
"self-awareness" or whatever other term could be applied is crucial to getting
a grip on what the true mechanism of "the self" is in the truest engineering
sense. That is to say, that if the "self" is the licensed self-aware driver of
a vehicle and the engine and transmission is the remainder of cognition, than
the order of development was actually from "self-driving car" into human
driven vehicles - metaphorically speaking.

Basically, up until recently, we just DID, and in attempting to describe WHY
we were forced to invent metaphor until collectively we were able to create
the language necessary to actually BE self aware. Without the language, we
actually were NOT self aware. We were self-driving cars with no human drivers.
The human driver only arrived after there were ways of describing "him."

~~~
posterboy
Your warning is noble, but I read comments to decide whether the topic is
useful. I found the negative comments convincing, so I don't mind questioning
the topic further.

Self-awarenes was worked out with "I know that I don't know" and again, but in
positive terms with "I think therefore I am". These are the most basic forms
of reflection, a y-combinator differentiating endlessly. With literarry
writing, this reflection could be stretched out over generations, yielding a
national identity, but oral transmission of religious teachings had been
practiced before, just with a higher rate of mutation. Such verbalization is
important for stability, and similarity is important for discoverability, but
if verbalization hadn't happened, the perhaps because _it goes without
saying_.

PS: A single threaded cpu doesn't need to spell out distributed computing
primitives, either. It still may use signals, in many cases, even if
implemented completely in software.

PPS: maybe there's an interesting parallel from natural language to the
progression from imperative language over object oriented or declarative, to
agent based programming. Bicameral Petri Nets ...

------
AltruisticGap
> Jaynes recognizes that consciousness itself is only a small part of mental
> activity and is not necessary for sensation or perception, for concept
> formation, for learning, thinking or even reasoning. Thus, if major human
> actions and skills can function automatically and unconsciously, then it is
> conceivable that there were, at one time, human beings who did most of the
> things we do – speak, understand, perceive, solve problems – but who were
> without consciousness.

In the spiritual teachings & traditions the wording would be different. I
think they would refer to was Jaynes call "consciousness" as "self awareness";
and then assert that "consciousness" is prior to any of that. For example in
the dream state we are typically not in control, nor are we aware it's a
dream.. yet when we "wake up" we remember having dreamed and having "been
there".

In fact I'd argue that we DO many times of the day every day... speak and act
without much self awareness. And yet, we remember afterwards and then claim
those moments as something we did.

> In short, Jaynes claims that men in the age of the Iliad learned to speak,
> read, and write, as well as conduct their daily lives, yet remained
> nonconscious throughout their lives.

Maybe they were indeed much less "self-aware" as we are today, which again is
not same as saying not conscious.

edit: it seems to me this is the main contetion in science often times people
just conflate mind activity and consciousness , as an (possibly not
deliberate) attempt to chuck away the "hard problem of consciousness".

pps: funny enough it is actually an hypothesis, that for human beings to
recongize _consciousness_ is also something made possible through self
awareness. For example, what is called "awakening" in spiritual teachings is
supposed to be the natural state, hence, whatever "spiritual" state it is
thought to be, is a self-refetential acknowledhgement of a change of one's
perception of self and world. That is, "self awareness" allows for human
beings to acknowledge consciousness (since we have to conceive of it)..
whereas a dog or cat can be consciouss, and relatively free of worry, yet will
never know themselves as "free of worry" (I mean in a rational / self aware
way).

~~~
Nav_Panel
Jaynes addresses this critique in the revised Afterword:

> _The most common error which I did not emphasize sufficiently is to confuse
> consciousness with perception... This type of confusion was at least
> encouraged back in 1921 by Bertrand Russell: “We are conscious of anything
> that we perceive.” And as his logical atomism became fashionable in
> philosophy, it became difficult to see it any other way. And in a later book
> Russell uses as an example of consciousness “I see a table.” But Descartes,
> who gave us the modern idea of consciousness, would never have agreed. Nor
> would a radical behaviorist like Watson, who in denying consciousness
> existed certainly did not mean sense perception._

Earlier in the book he makes a linguistic argument, claiming that his usage of
"consciousness" is the only that unifies both the subjective (I am conscious)
and objective (I am conscious of X) usages.

Beyond Jaynes and more broadly, I'd consider comparing his theses with that of
McLuhan in Gutenberg Galaxy, namely McLuhan's theories about mass literacy.
There seems to be a unifying element in that the structure of one's experience
(of one's interpretation of their sensory inputs) is strongly related to the
sorts of media they consume and to the sorts of epistemological "channels"
available. The structure of knowledge and its dissemination (collectively
oral? Or privately read? Think about problems such as "atomization of society"
and a lightbulb should go off) seems to determine our internal experience to a
large degree: older writers such as Walter Benjamin have touched on "movie
consciousness" (although not strictly in those words), while more contemporary
authors like Sarah Perry discuss "Social Media Consciousness"
([https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/09/07/social-media-
conscious...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/09/07/social-media-
consciousness/)).

------
akvadrako
Regardless of the historical evidence (or lack thereof) for his theory, I
found his book very enlightening. It really helped me understand religion,
schizophrenia and the split brain, showing why it would be so important to
early human society and how it could came about, biologically and culturally.

~~~
goto11
Well if the theory is bullshit then surely it does not actually help anyone
understand religion? So the Gods are speaking to people in the Iliad because
it was actually one half of the brain speaking to the other. But the Odyssey
allegedly is composed after the watershed moment, but Gods are _still_
speaking to people. So the theory does not actually explain anything about
religion.

The theory can "rationally" explain how Aphrodite speaks to Paris, but it does
not explain how she teleports him from the battlefield to his chamber. So you
still have to accept either supernatural events or that the story contains
fictional elements. In which case the gods are much easier explained than
through this theory, which have no other evidence.

And the narrative style of the Iliad (describing events and actions but not
thought processes and introspection) is known throughout history.

~~~
bloak
There are people today who hear voices, but they are a minority and we label
them as mentally ill. The Jaynes hypothesis, as I understand it, is that in
early civilisations the majority of the population heard voices and it was
considered normal.

If you see a reference in literature to a god speaking to someone, you can't
easily tell whether that's fiction, metaphor, an exaggeration, a lie, a
narrative style, or a literal description of a real experience.

For me one of the biggest problems with the theory is how people's perception
(whether they hear voices or not) could change en masse, presumably because of
a change in culture or education, because I don't believe there can have been
a biological change over that period. Therefore, if people educated in the
right way could hear voices I'd expect there still to be groups of people
(members of some religious sect perhaps) who hear voices. So I'd like to see a
detailed description of one of those groups. Then I could perhaps believe that
the phenomenon was mainstream in ancient Greece.

~~~
goto11
I actually don't reject the theory that accounts of Gods appearing and
speaking to people could be actual mental processes, guided by culture. I find
this more believable than it is all fiction or lies (or that Gods have
physical existence outside the human mind). But I do reject the bicameral
hypothesis that we either have Gods speaking _or_ we have consciousness, and
that shift happened a particular point in time around the eight century.

~~~
spc476
I just finished reading the book. In it, he doesn't state that it happened at
once everywhere. There was one passage that implied that the Aztecs were still
mostly bicameral (or were in the immediate period after the bicameral
breakdown) when the Spanish arrived in the 16th Century.

Also, the breakdown is not instantaneous, but happens over time. Once it
starts, you get religion and oracles (the Oracle at Delphi for example) as the
populous attempts to hear the gods' voices for direction. Oracles lasted for
about a millennium after the initial breakdown in Greece, and over time, the
gods' voices were head less and less.

He also states that modern remnants of the bicameral mind exist in hypnosis
and schizophrenia (but in the case of hypnosis, how it works is very
culturally dependent).

------
starbeast
When I first read it, I felt he was trying to find a solution for a problem
that doesn't exist, that of; 'given humans are conscious and animals are not,
what mechanism could bring about an incredibly sudden evolution of
consciousness out of nowhere?'

The answer being that there was not a sudden evolution of consciousness out of
nowhere. Human conscious states may be greatly more reflective that other
animals, with a greater proportion of our neurons experiencing memory than
sensory data, when compared to, say, a squirrel. However, the fundamental
aspect of direct awareness is a shared trait, we are just directly aware of a
far greater magnitude of internal states than the squirrel.

~~~
chronolitus
I think it also useful to semantically separate cognitive consciousness (i.e.
Knowing and expressing the existence of your thought processes through
arguably higher, more abstract thought processes - which might even go on
recursively - knowing that I know that i am conscious, etc) from the
externally unmeasurable 'conscious experience', (i.e qualia, the awareness of
sensory or thoughts at the most essential level, 'seeing' what one sees, etc).

One could imagine a living being with one but not the other, for example
qualia without cognitive consciousness (if I had to guess, I would imagine
this experience to be similar to being drugged to the point of having no
internal monologue, no complex thought process, but keeping your sensations
and vision, etc, or being a barely-sentient animal in purely instictual mode
of thought and action)

The opposite, cognitive consciousness without qualia - a.k.a the philosophical
zombie - or a computer which can argue the existence of it's thoughts without
feeling them is, I gather, a more controversial state of being.

What I find interesting is that in separating the two 'consciousness's, the
former ends up taking almost all of the importance and the latter none -
anything which can be externally measured ends up in the first category (which
is a computable logic process), which leaves very little of
utilitarian/evolutionary/algorithmic importance in the second. However, in
much discourse about consciousness the latter takes a disproportionate role
(i.e fear of losing your unmeasurable consciousness when teleporting, etc,
though the cognitive consciousness, being by definition a logical and
measurable process is theoretically preserved)

------
nsajko
A nice way to look at Bicameralism is as (good) science fiction. (Wikipedia
calls it a "radical hypothesis".)

~~~
goto11
It is also non-falsifiable since it is impossible to prove or disprove whether
ancient people were conscious or not. Or for that matter whether a present-day
schizophrenic is conscious or not in the same sense.

~~~
apk-d
Can we even prove whether a _modern_ person is conscious? If so, shouldn't we
be able to occasionally encounter such unconscious people, either occurring
randomly by natural variation (especially given how recently the breakdown is
claimed to have happened), or in people who had very little contact with
language (hard but not impossible to come by)?

~~~
karpodiem
The recent NPC meme provides an interesting answer to this question.

~~~
Apocryphon
Isn't that just solipsism

------
thanatropism
Science aside, the breakdown-of-bicameral-theory has intriguing parallels to
Lacan's theory of the mirror stage. In this (nonscientific - but we're
learning the limits of scientific psychology) theory, infants are born
unarticulated, a mass of limbs with no wholeness to them. In the mirror stage
they discover they have a body which is articulated and which is subject to
the gaze of others. This begins the split between the Imaginary and the
Symbolic (social reality). Under bicameral conditions, men didn't see
themselves as articulated and autonomous, let alone as objects of others' (or
in the case of gods, the Other, who provides the law) gaze. They didn't have
imaginations split from social reality.

~~~
Alan_Dillman
I have early memories of a non verbal world, and in it, objects were not
discrete. There were visually distinct elements, such things on the walls, and
the walls themselves, but I had no concept of them being separate, or having
names, or needing them, and didn't think about them. I just looked around.
There was no chain of thoughts, just silent observation.

Likewise, I lacked object permanence. When my mother left the room, she ceased
to exist; I did not think about her or imagine her being somewhere else.

There was no sense of time, no before or after that I can tell.I was just
living in the moment.

Ironically I know now what time it was, my rough age, and even the season,
because of the specifics of where my room was. It was afternoon nap time. The
sunlight was streaming in my window, which happened only in fall/winter, as
there was a summertime screen of trees. We later reoriented our house, so that
lets me establish my age too. I was just turned two, and late to talk.

There must have been some sense of self by then, but I think that starts
earlier, developing from kicking your legs and swinging your arms, and
eventually realizing that you are a causation.

Talking about this memory damages it, because language and symbolism overlays
the experience into an approximation. But it is very different from my other
memories.

I think I held onto that memory because I had a later event that echoed it.
Soon after we moved to another town, and there a whole bunch of people got the
flu. People had not forgotten the Spanish Flu by the early 70s, and there was
worries about another one. So they quarantined the hospital,put me in an
oxygen tent, and I got to enjoy another timeless experience.

By that time I could think, though I didn't talk. During admittance, my mom
was holding me while talking to a nurse, and I saw a person in an oxygen tent
get pushed down a hallfway. I pointed and asked, "Can I be in one of those?"
Years later when I related this to my mother, she laughed and said, "No you
didn't, you were too young to talk like that."

I wasn't yet old enough to be told "you'll be here for a few days at least",
or "mommy can't visit you(and she was pregnant)". The O2 tent was comprised of
a yellowish, rubbery vinyl, and I remember touching it, and that it was a new
experience for me. Couldn't really see anything through it, except diffuse
sunlight. So I lay there facing the wall mostly, too sick to move, and spent a
week with no internal narrative. I don't remember feeling lonely, scared, or
bored. I remember a nurse checking on me(and probably changing my diaper), but
not being awake at night.

~~~
justinpombrio
FYI, this way of experiencing the world can be regained through meditation.
This includes, from my experience:

\- The quieter inner narrative and silent observation.

\- The feeling that things not currently being experienced do not "exist" in
the same way that things currently being experienced do. They exist in your
imagination, and they exist in the sense that you correctly predict that if
you were to observe them they would be there, but this knowledge feels
ephemeral in contrast to the vivid detailed senses being experienced right
now.

\- The disconnectedness of time. The past only exists in your memories. If you
recall a memory, that happens in the present, and is quite unlike the
experience you had that formed the memory.

\- Less of a sense of self. All your knowledge is available, but it feels
third-person.

I can't relate to some of the other parts of your experience, though, like the
lack of separation/names of objects, and the realization of causation.

As a caveat, I haven't been in this state of mind for a week or two, and as
you say it doesn't play well with being remembered and analyzed.

------
coldtea
> _In fact, the Iliad does not seem to mention any subjective thoughts or the
> contents of anyone’s mind. The heroes of the Iliad were not able to make
> decisions, no one was introspecting or even reminiscing. Apparently, they
> were noble “automata” who were not aware of what they did. Iliadic man did
> not have subjectivity as we do; he had no internal mind-space to introspect
> upon. Some lexical oddities in the Homeric text (such as the absence of a
> single word translating “consciousness”, “mind”, “soul”, or even “body”) led
> Jaynes to formulate the hypothesis that the Iliad was composed by
> nonconscious minds, which automatically recorded and objectively reported
> events, in a manner rather similar to the characters of the poem. The
> transition to subjective and introspective writings of the conscious mind
> occurred in later works, beginning with the Odyssey._

The Odyssey is not that later (for any evolutionary or great developmental
force to have any effect). Plus it is strongly considered to be of the same
authorship and the writing style is very much the same.

What's worse, unlike what the above excerpt claims, most of the Iliad deals
with feelings of various kinds -- starting with the famous opening line:
"Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus".

Does these parts seem to have any relation to the idea that "The heroes of the
Iliad were not able to make decisions, no one was introspecting or even
reminiscing. Apparently, they were noble “automata” who were not aware of what
they did. Iliadic man did not have subjectivity as we do; he had no internal
mind-space to introspect upon"?

> At this Jove was much troubled and answered, "I shall have trouble if you
> set me quarrelling with Juno, for she will provoke me with her taunting
> speeches; even now she is always railing at me before the other gods and
> accusing me of giving aid to the Trojans. Go back now, lest she should find
> out. I will consider the matter, and will bring it about as wish. See, I
> incline my head that you believe me. This is the most solemn that I can give
> to any god. I never recall my word, or deceive, or fail to do what I say,
> when I have nodded my head."

> As he spoke the son of Saturn bowed his dark brows, and the ambrosial locks
> swayed on his immortal head, till vast Olympus reeled.

> When the pair had thus laid their plans, they parted- Jove to his house,
> while the goddess quitted the splendour of Olympus, and plunged into the
> depths of the sea. The gods rose from their seats, before the coming of
> their sire. Not one of them dared to remain sitting, but all stood up as he
> came among them. There, then, he took his seat. But Juno, when she saw him,
> knew that he and the old merman's daughter, silver-footed Thetis, had been
> hatching mischief, so she at once began to upbraid him. "Trickster," she
> cried, "which of the gods have you been taking into your counsels now? You
> are always settling matters in secret behind my back, and have never yet
> told me, if you could help it, one word of your intentions."

(...)

> The old man tore his grey hair as he spoke, but he moved not the heart of
> Hector. His mother hard by wept and moaned aloud as she bared her bosom and
> pointed to the breast which had suckled him. "Hector," she cried, weeping
> bitterly the while, "Hector, my son, spurn not this breast, but have pity
> upon me too: if I have ever given you comfort from my own bosom, think on it
> now, dear son, and come within the wall to protect us from this man; stand
> not without to meet him. Should the wretch kill you, neither I nor your
> richly dowered wife shall ever weep, dear offshoot of myself, over the bed
> on which you lie, for dogs will devour you at the ships of the Achaeans."

Thus did the two with many tears implore their son, but they moved not the
heart of Hector, and he stood his ground awaiting huge Achilles as he drew
nearer towards him. As serpent in its den upon the mountains, full fed with
deadly poisons, waits for the approach of man- he is filled with fury and his
eyes glare terribly as he goes writhing round his den- even so Hector leaned
his shield against a tower that jutted out from the wall and stood where he
was, undaunted.

------
drdeadringer
If it wasn't for Robert J. Sawyer's WWW trilogy I would never have heard of
"the bicameral mind". The first book in particular is brimming with it.

------
opless
Someone's been watching the remake of Westworld :)

------
Apocryphon
Like the phantom time hypothesis, bicameralism is a sort of massively
revisionist theory that relies on wild interpretations of historical
information. And both are pretty entertaining, regardless.

~~~
armitron
Unlike the phantom time hypothesis, you can find actual non-historic evidence
for the bicameral theory of mind. The strongest of which you can actually
experience yourself by triggering psychotic states (through the use of
psychedelics or other practices).

There were times where I fully regressed into a psychological state perfectly
described by Jaynes in his book, voices and all.

~~~
goto11
Sorry, how are hallucinations evidence for the bicameral theory?

~~~
whatshisface
It works because the bicameral theory _is_ a hallucination. ;)

------
Communitivity
I highly recommend anyone trying to understand this subject read the papers of
Dr. Mica Endsley, former Chief Scientist of the US Air Force.

She makes a distinction between the 3 levels of Situational Awareness and
Situational Understanding. Here are the 3 levels of Situational Awareness she
proposed:

* Perception of Elements in Current Situation

* Comprehension of Current Situation

* Projection of Future Status

Here is a diagram:
[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3044/2900713433_f295107549_o....](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3044/2900713433_f295107549_o.jpg)

From: [http://wikiofscience.wikidot.com/quasiscience:situational-
aw...](http://wikiofscience.wikidot.com/quasiscience:situational-awareness)

Probably the best place to start is:
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/210198492_Endsley_M...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/210198492_Endsley_MR_Toward_a_Theory_of_Situation_Awareness_in_Dynamic_Systems_Human_Factors_Journal_371_32-64)

I think this paper, and others of hers, should be recommended reading for any
AI researcher. I also think "Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" should be
recommended as well.

FYSA, the research community seems split on Dr. Endsley's theories, though
there seem to be a majority that view them as correct, based on my own
informal experience.

From Wikipedia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mica_Endsley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mica_Endsley)):

* Endsley, M. R. (1995). Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 32-64.

* Endsley, M. R. (1995). Measurement of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 65-84.

* Endsley, M. R., & Garland, D. J. (Eds.). (2000). Situation awareness analysis and measurement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

* Endsley, M. R., & Jones, W. M. (2001). A model of inter- and intrateam situation awareness: Implications for design, training and measurement. In M. McNeese, E. Salas & M. Endsley (Eds.), New trends in cooperative activities: Understanding system dynamics in complex environments (pp. 46-67). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

* Endsley, M. R. (2006). Expertise and Situation Awareness. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (pp. 633-651). New York: Cambridge University Press.

* Endsley, M. R., & Jones, D. G. (2012). Designing for situation awareness: An approach to human-centered design (2nd ed.). London: Taylor & Francis.

------
k__
Better read "The Ego Tunnel"

------
Shoop
(2007)

------
techman9
Hm.. Is Functional Neurology (the journal in which this published) related in
any way to the field of functional neurology? I think the latter is a
rebranding of chiropractic neurology, which some would argue purports some
less than scientific ideas.

