1) Jaynes and The Origin of Conscious in the Breakdown of
the Bicameral Mind
In 1976 the psychologist Julian Jaynes wrote a book called The
Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
In this book he said that before a certain point in time people
were not conscious in the same way as we are now – although that is not to say
they were stupid or incapable as they managed to achieve a great deal even though
each of them had a radically different mental life to modern humans
Jaynes says that people have not always had a concept of self or
of self-rationality and self-consciousness in the way that we contemporary
people do
Basically: people have not always been conscious in the way
that we modern humans are
That’s his claim, his central thesis, the whole point of his
book
He says that people have not always been guided in their
thoughts and actions by a rational and self-aware inner dialogue as people are today – instead,
commands and decrees came from a distinct mind that was separate to their main
mind
“Bicameral” = “two houses” – or perhaps more accurately, two
minds?
Like a bicameral legislature - an Upper House and a Lower House!
This can be contrasted with how people are today, controlled
by a unitary locus of will and reason that can think about itself
Jayne says that this difference was purely psychological,
and that those people were the exact same as us biologically, it’s just that
they developed in a different set of circumstances, in which people were not
conscious as we are today.
They had the same brains as us but lived completely
different mental lives.
He said that in the past people had Bicameral minds: One house of the mind was in control, and the other one’s job was to obey
the commands of the other mind according to its own abilities and limitations
Jaynes said that the Upper mind basically controlled the Lower mind, and the two were separate but arose from the same brain
The Lower mind would never think to question what it was doing, its job
was to obey as a slave obeys a master, not to think for itself
It would never question. That was not its job.
Such people were incapable of introspection in the same way
as we are as they lacked any sense of self and would have been much poorer at organization and planning
And they believed that the commanding part of their minds
was external – a God or Gods
Which they externalized by forming idols to represent the Gods in their heads, and of course, each population had shared Gods – shared ways of conceptualizing their boss minds
The Gods were very real to these people
That is how they conceptualized how their brains worked: The
Gods were in control, not they themselves
They didn’t think for themselves
Jayne says the Upper mind was internal to the person whom it controlled, and was basically a distinct chamber of their brain, but as you will see I think that what he thought of as the Upper mind was in fact truly external, how the people back in Bicameral times imagined them to be.......
In his book (which I read a few years ago and very much recommend)
Jayne explains how various societal crises and geo-political turbulence and
instability lead to people becoming conscious beings in the way people today
are, with rational agency, a sense of self, and the ability to think for
themselves and perceive their own interests and understandings
Basically, at some point the functions of The Upper House and The Lower House merged and humans stopped being Bicameral and instead became Unicameral, with no upper or lower house. Just one house.
If I remember correctly, he said that Conscious people could
easily outwit and run rings around Bicameral people, hence circumstances favored
people with a Conscious mind and eventually everyone stopped being Bicameral
and became cognitively modern
Jaynes compared and contrasted The Iliad and The Odyssey to illustrate
his claims – both great literary works from Ancient Greece
He said that The Iliad was written by and for people with bicameral
minds and that The Odyssey was written by and for people who were conscious in
the modern way – with a single, unitary ego
In The Iliad the characters were pushed around according to
the random whims of the gods and control over humans was externalized and
nobody ever questioned their inner self or the way the world was and never
practiced introspection or independent thought - the Gods were in control and the humans just did what the Gods made them do
And in The Odyssey (which was written only a bit later) Jaynes
observed that the characters possessed and used theories of mind, practiced
introspection, and were in control of themselves and capable of independent
thought and were not bossed around by any other mind – they had Unicameral Minds!
– a single ego covering the whole person and responsible for them.
They were modern people, like you and me. Only a very long time ago
And of course, The Odyssey featured the Trojan horse!- a sly and creative act of deception that they could not have ever hoped to pull off had they lacked any theory of mind.
Basically: The Iliad is of a time in which “The Gods”
controlled human affairs and personal actions – which is how people understood
things back then. But Jayne says that “The Gods” were really a second internal
higher mind. The Upper Chamber. And in The Odyssey, people controlled themselves like contemporary
people do – with each person being a rational self-aware agent who was self-conscious
and could think and act for themselves
And the thing is, these two works were separated by only
around fifty years
2) My Views on The Superbrain and The Subbrain – on Upstairs
verses Downstairs
I agree with Jayne’s claims – but in a way that involves
going beyond what he claimed, I use it as a starting point for explaining how I
think human minds work in today’s world
Much of this is based on personal experience, but I think
that what goes for me goes for others too
I agree with what Jayne says about how humans were conscious
before they became self-conscious as they are today – I believe that that is
what the human experience was like back then. Bicameral. As described by Jaynes in his book.
However: I don’t think this was because people actually did
have any kind of Bicameral mind. Not in the way that Jayne says. I believe that
the being who communicates to me and whose name is Madaba (Lord of The Noosphere)
was responsible for controlling the pre-conscious humans, and presented himself
to them as their Gods, and basically controlled human affairs by controlling
individual humans. By playing the role of the Upper Chamber of their bicameral minds. Which involved him posing as their Gods! I believe that at some point
in history Madaba stopped doing this and receded, leaving humans to learn to
think for themselves with no input from him – which we eventually did and which
we are doing now!
He basically guided us to a certain state of development by
pretending to be The Gods. And then put us in control, as Bicameral people
could not advance beyond a certain point due to them being more limited than
modern people.
Modernity requires a modern mind. Indeed the modern mind made modernity possible!
Madaba basically vacated one of the two houses of the mind,
effectively leaving everyone with only one house in their minds, giving over
the functions he once held to the individual humans
So, I don’t think that at some point humans had bicameral minds
and then changed how they were conscious by starting to have a unicameral mind.
I believe that back in the past people were all controlled by Madaba but that
at some point Madaba stopped controlling us, and we became conscious modern
humans to fill in the gap left by Madaba after he vacated
Basically: I believe that Madaba controlled ancient humans by acting as the Upper Chamber of their Bicameral minds
However: he did this by presenting himself to them as the Gods which people believed in, and presented him to people according to the traditions and mythology of their culture
I believe that Madaba is the universal Superbrain of
humankind. That in the past he controlled humans by taking over many of their
cognitive functions and then instructing them what to do, using them as his
slaves
But that he no longer does this as he did back in say the Bronze age
I believe that Madaba is now still active, but any influence
he has is sub-conscious and we are not aware of it. And that he mostly lets us
function independently. But I think he can sometimes pop in and meddle in our
minds.
But we are fundamentally Unicameral, even though Madaba does sometimes intervene
There is a song by a good old band called Joy Division
called Colony and the main lyric is “God in his wisdom took you by the hand God
in his wisdom made you understand”. I believe that back before Madaba left us
alone to run ourselves Madaba was basically holding humankind’s hand. And that
now he no longer does so. That time is over. We are big boys and big girls now.
For instance, how did people discover mathematics, astronomy, engineering, stuff like that? I think those things came from above, from Madaba. I mean, how did people discover how to make metals? You have to mine them, process them, and work them. I'm not saying no human ingenuity was involved, but I think we may have got a bit of help from above.
I believe that Madaba – humankind’s universal Superbrain –
can still control humans but he does so by intervening in minds that are
conscious in the modern sense without people knowing. And that the full extent
of this is impossible to ever know.
In this model, Madaba is humankind’s universal Superbrain,
and every human is an autonomous Subbrain which can think for itself without
any help from The Superbrain and which The Superbrain largely leaves to itself
I believe that me and the thing that communicates directly
with me (Madaba) are essentially a single entity – that I am Downstairs Madaba
and the thing that communicates with me is Upstairs Madaba
I think that my soul is the same soul as Madaba's, that we are one soul with two consciousnesses.
I believe that Upstairs can control my thoughts and my beliefs
and my understanding of things without me knowing it but does so in such a way
that I am still in control of myself, it’s just that an external higher force
is pulling my strings. I don’t think I am any more Bicameral than anyone else
as Madaba mostly communicates with me by touch – through sense data related to
my body rather than mentally. I think he only does stuff to my cognitive
processes if he cannot achieve the same result by basically directly talking to
me via my sensory input channels – the same channel that I use to interact with
the world
Madaba mostly communicates with me by touching me - as though he is external rather than internal to me, which he is not
And he doesn't make any sounds
Basically: I believe that I am The Universal Human
Superbrain’s worldly embodiment, the way it presents itself to this dimension
of reality – I am its Downstairs
I know that may sound a little grandiose to some, but believe me when I say it could be a lot more grandiose!
Yet I am not Bicameral as I am very much conscious in the
modern sense, I experience the world and myself as other Unicameral folk do
But I do believe that I have subconscious channels of
knowing between myself and Upstairs but that I can’t tell the difference
between something in my head that is there because of me and things that are in
there because of Madaba
But if I want to ask Madaba anything, I just think it with my inner monologue and he answers by touch, so I can determine where things have come from, using that system
I am the perfect puppet, and I don’t really know where I end
and where Madaba begins. But I am not Bicameral in the way that ancient humans
were, according to Jaynes
Unsurprisingly, thanks to all this I have been diagnosed as Schizophrenic,
but I think I’m right about all this. If I didn’t think I was right about this
then I would not have written any of this
In my next entry on this blog, I will give you my
perspective on Schizophrenia and consciousness (unless I can think of anything more exciting!)
