Talk:Bicameral mentality/Archive 1

Minor change of wording
I changed: "...Jaynes noted that some studies show that auditory hallucinations cause increased activity in these areas of the brain."

to: "...Jaynes noted that some studies show that auditory hallucinations correspond to increased activity in these areas of the brain."

The original text claimed an effect of brain activity (hallucinations) was the cause of the activity itself, which is ridiculous. The cited research merely claims a correlation, so I changed the text to match the citation.


 * Looks good. - RoyBoy 800 23:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot 09:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Academic process criticism
I removed not bcz i'm sure it doesn't IMO belong in the "Critique" section following the sent abt lack of (formal academic) peer review, but bcz it is incomplete: it is implicitly OR by being placed there w/o a statement from a neutral academic that it substantially mitigates the criticism that it follows. It's absurd to just insinuate that three presumably handpicked specialists, one apparently known only to JJ, satisfy the concerns that have led to the system of review by collegially chosen scholars who remain unknown to the author. I recall being impressed (as with Victor Davis Hanson, BTW) with his ability to draw on a background in Classics in support of a hypothesis in a superfically unrelated field, but i'm not the kind of person he needs to impress re the topic of that 'graph. Perhaps the cited pgs in turn say who has said so, but we need names (not including that of the Founder and Executive Director of the Julian Jaynes Society). --Jerzy•t 07:21, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The book was, however, reviewed by a number of prominent academics prior to publication, including Stanford psychologist Ernest Hilgard, psychologist Isodor Chein, an anonymous anthropologist, and several others.

Full-text references that are supportive or critical of Jaynes' theory
Commentary by Sher (2000) that briefly reviews Jaynes' theory, Asaad and Shapiro's (1987) criticism, and three articles from 1999 that are supportive of aspects of the bicameral mind:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1407719/pdf/jpn00086-0025.pdf

A brief review and critical analysis of Jaynes' theory by Cavanna et al. (2007):

http://users.vianet.ca/beckettt/critical%20reappraisal%20of%20bicameral%20mind.pdf

The following article (particularly the first 7 pages) cites evidence in support of Jaynes' theory and responds to the criticisms offered by Asaad and Shapiro (1987) and Cavanna et al. (2007):

http://www.julianjaynes.org/pdf/jaynesian_volume3_issue1.pdf

76.123.177.103 (talk) 22:25, 18 September 2010 (UTC)BicameralGoogler

Bicameralism in Stephenson
This article just came up on a talk forum I was reading. The bicameral mind is stated here to be an important concept in Neal Stephenson's second novel Zodiac. I read this book long ago and remember it only as a good ecologically-themed adventure yarn, with no serious exploration of consciousness issues, in contrast to his later books Snow Crash and Diamond Age. But perhaps my memory has tricked me. If someone remembers the book more clearly than I, and knows the statement in this wiki article is wrong, would you please remove it? Also, is it in Big U? Thank you. 173.66.1.39 (talk) 04:04, 14 November 2010 (UTC)


 * No, it's definitely not Zodiac and definitely The Big U. (I remember it because that was the novel that prompted me to finally get around to reading Jaynes.) --Gwern (contribs) 21:11 23 November 2011 (GMT)

Dubious
Re section Jaynes' case for bicameralism of the accompanying article:

"Provided food" or even "offered food", maybe, but "fed food" (or "fed") means stuffing one mouthful into their mouth and not being able to feed them a second mouthful until maggots consumed it and crawled away. The behavior is far-fetched (for a person able to feed themself, being fed is an invasion of personal space permitted only to lovers, rather than even a luxury of monarchs, and if tried it would probably undercut the illusion of life) and what evidence there could be of such acts is hard to imagine; it would be more plausible -- *if* that is what JJ said -- that he misinterpreted descriptions of platters of being *left* in front of them. More likely a WP editor did the misinterpretation. --Jerzy•t 06:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That bit's particularly weird because, assuming a less melodramatic phrasing, that isn't very different to the way modern people treat the dead. Is he suggesting how they treated them was wildly different to the way people have globally treated the dead, even in the last few hundred years? 86.161.255.213 (talk) 22:46, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"Some ancient Greek graves not only have the various appurtenances of life, but actual feeding tubes which seem to indicate that archaic Greeks poured broths and soups down into the livid jaws of a moldering corpse." From page 162 of Jaynes' book. So I think "fed food" is probably appropriate, at least insofar as that is what Jaynes is claiming occurred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Waceaquinas (talk • contribs) 04:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Responses Section
The Responses section of this article seems to consistently be in favor of the Bicameralism theory. Responses against Bicameralism, where included, are criticized or demonstrated to be insufficient. '''I was just passing through when I noticed this, and I'm not sure how mainstream Bicameralism is supposed to be, but it strikes me as not canon. Therefore, the outpouring of support and suppression of criticism may be odd. Should there be a more balanced way of framing this section?''' 69.181.77.150 (talk) 06:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

'''I just wanted to support the above request for a more balanced critique of this theory. For something so far from mainstream, this article provides *no* avenues to opposing arguments. This could be, of course, a result of the work not considered falsifiable? Regardless, some attempt to balance this article would be greatly appreciated. I would do it myself, but am having a hard time finding such critical references...''' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.49.210.226 (talk) 16:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The first paragraph under Responses states that those opposed to this lacked the expertise to comment, misunderstood it, or were being dogmatic. It states that these were the three types of responses. That seems overly biased, but seeing as I am not familair with this theory, I can't change it myself. Phoenix1177 (talk) 09:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree - I was also just passing through and this section made me strongly consider adding an NPOV tag to the page. Someone with relevant expertise really should revise it. Thefellswooper (talk) 12:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

It's definitely interesting work (I affirm Dawkins' view). But it's just as definitely not mainstream, and the article must reflect that.DavidOaks (talk) 01:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be great if people contributing to this page would please read and understand Jaynes' definition of consciousness before editing this page. If you are confused about the theory you are doing a disservice by confusing everyone else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.1.179.181 (talk) 04:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Please don't remove citated attempts to tone down the POV in this article. --Work permit (talk) 04:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we don't follow every criticism with a rebutal in the responses section. Instead, weave "rebuttals" into the text of the following paragraphs. I've made a first pass. The section reads better, has of a more NPOV tone, and gets the points accross. --Work permit (talk) 15:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - just trying to point out how off some of these persistent statements were. I've added an additional criticism by Dennett, moved the rebutal to the following paragraph, added a citation for it, and added the Buchsbaum citation for the rebuttal to Shapiro and Assad. Overall it reads more balanced but with less misinterpretation. Someone should consider removing the neutrality flag.
 * theory is true. responses are holding —Preceding unsigned comment added by GrandmasterofHeck (talk • contribs) 20:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I will remove the neutrality template. - RoyBoy 03:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to see to editing in action, but having just come across the article, it doesn't appear much different than the descriptions of the original biased state. I don't believe that whoever wrote the original section necessarily tried to write that way, but it reads almost like a persuasive essay. I'm not sure how to suggest any improvements other than those mentioned above, but I think I should point out that even with the changes that have been made, it does not seem non POV. Thanks for all you've done already --Romulus (talk) 16:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Coming by it still seems that the responses section of this article remains surprisingly sparse in criticism and heavy on support. It's not very well organised and reading through it still seems as though this concept is well-supported as canon in the psychological community. Perhaps this is the case. However, this could also be a function of being a relatively obscure theory; it has not received much criticism because few people know of it. At the very least, the responses section seems to have ballooned substantially without gaining clarity. Reading it does not help understand where this theory lies in the general academic discourse. This should be changed. 67.164.41.90 (talk) 01:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The issue, I think, is that Jaynes is very much on the fringes of psychology/cognitive science and has effectively been ignored by those who don't support him. An example quote, unrelated to Jaynes in particular yet possibly related in a weak sense, comes from Fodor (2001); "It strikes me as wildly implausible that the structure of human cognition changed radically a few hundred years ago (For that matter, it strikes me as wildly implausible that the structure of human cognition has *ever* changed radically)." Finding criticism of Jaynes' views is difficult for this reason, and I suspect it would even be difficult to find more than two or three dozen papers that explicitly support him. Burnage13 (talk) 18:00, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I came to this article having heard about Jaynes' work for the first time today and looking for a straightforward exposition and discussion of his work. On the whole, good job, I'd say. But, the I found the Responses section very unsatisfactory. As previous commentators have noted, there is a serious POV problem in this section, which has simply not been addressed by subsequent editors. Remember, folks, this is an encyclopedia. It's not the job of editors to make arguments for or against anything presented in the article, but simply to present arguments that have been made in published sources in the appropriate section. Rebuttals to criticism have no more place in the Responses section than do criticisms in the main presentation of the subject. Editors, have mercy on your readers; the back-and-forth of criticism and response makes the article confusing. I think that it is also per se a violation of NPOV.

I have therefore restored the POV tag to this section. Please do not remove it solely on the grounds that you think the section is fine the way it is. If you think that the criticisms require a response, then create a new section for that. Mrrhum (talk) 14:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've renamed the section "Criticisms and Responses," which seems to me more accurate. I've also deleted the last paragraph, which pointed to an outside source without providing a reference. Finally, I moved the second-to-last paragraph to the end of the first section, where it seems more appropriate. Mrrhum (talk) 14:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of discussion as to the neutrality of the critical responses section, but the critics almost always fail to understand the theory or say something along the lines of what Ned Block said "the idea that consciousness is a cultural construction is hard to take seriously[11]" but if you think about it this isn't a valid argument. I personally don't believe in the Judeo-Christian God, I find the notion preposterous and illogical but I don't go to the God article and post "the idea of a God that is all-powerful, all-knowing and wants to be worshiped is hard to take seriously." There is no substance to that statement, it's an opinion without any logic or anything to back it up. "I find that hard to imagine" isn't a good criticism to evolution, or intelligent design for that matter; the way to argue against a theory is by proposing an alternative hypothesis or at least using logic. This is one of the principal critics of the theory and he doesn't even have a valid criticism- there are countless supporting pieces of evidence (both historical and scientific) to the theory but few arguments against it with any substance. I believe that this is why the article seems biased. Reality is biased toward truth and logic.

—Akechi77 17 July 2011


 * I have deleted the 'hard to take seriously' line. It's not neutral POV as written. It would be great if someone would add a paragraph summarizing Ned Block's criticism in the Criticism section (he's the cited source of 'hard to take seriously.' I tried to find the original article in my library but can't. I also deleted the 2nd vague criticism, but moved the citation (Dennett) elsewhere in the article. I'm also going to delete the phrase near the start of the criticism section which says that Jaynes' theory hasn't been discussed by mainstream academics. Clearly, with the references attached to this page, that is just plain wrong.  PYRSMIS   14:24, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Mind or brain?
The intro paragraph starts with this sentence:

"In psychology, bicameralism is a controversial theory which argues that the human brain once assumed a state known as a bicameral mind in which cognitive functions are divided between one part of the brain which appears to be 'speaking,' and a second part which listens and obeys."

But in the next paragraph the text says: “the bicameral mentality was the normal state of the human mind everywhere as recently as…”

I wonder if “brain” is accurate in the intro paragraph? Shouldn’t it be replaced by “mind” or “psyche”?

—Cesar Tort 21:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

''I wonder if “brain” is accurate in the intro paragraph? Shouldn’t it be replaced by “mind” or “psyche”?''

I think the second paragraph should read 'human brain'. 'Mind' and 'psyche' are ambiguous terms. The brain is a lump of cells, but the nature of the 'mind' and 'psyche' are what is under discussion here.

I've read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind several times and also think that "mind" would be more accurate. The definition of mind does vary slightly, but it is usually taken to mean "conscious experience and intelligent thought" as is stated in the first few sentences of the wiki article on mind. The brain of a bicameral man did function differently, as Dr. Jaynes described in the text, but what is being described in the article is how the human mind changed from being a "Bicameral," or non-conscious mind into the mind's present state. Dr. Jaynes' theory is that the mind was once divided into two parts, one part spoke and the second part listened and obeyed- the initial usage of the word brain could be replaced with the word mind while leaving the second usage of brain because the second half of the sentence describes the biological/physical process behind the mind of the bicameral man while the first describes the mentality of the bicameral man. It's The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind and not the The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Brain.

From the Julian Jaynes society webpage - http://www.julianjaynes.org/critiques-and-responses-about-julian-jaynes-theory.php "Jaynes did not suggest that the shift from bicamerality to consciousness was a neurophysiological one (see The Origin of Consciousness... p. 122-125). Rather, the same biological brain was used in a new and innovative way based on adaptations to changes that occurred culturally. A child today raised in a bicameral society would be bicameral and a child from an ancient bicameral civilization raised in modern culture would be conscious. Consciousness in the Jaynesian sense is a learned process based on language. To use the computer metaphor, the transition from bicamerality to consciousness was a software change using the same hardware (Dennett, 1986)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akechi77 (talk • contribs) 23:57, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

In psychology, bicameralism is a controversial theory which argues that the human mind once assumed a state known as a bicameral mind in which cognitive functions are divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking," and a second part which listens and obeys.

—Akechi77 01:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Reference: Kugel (praise & criticism)
pg65-66, James L. Kugel, In the Valley of the Shadow

One book I read during chemotherapy was the well-known study by the experimental psychologist Julian Jaynes, _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ (1976). Jaynes suggested that the human brain used to function somewhat differently in ancient times (that is, up to about 3,000 years ago). He noted that, while many aspects of language and related functions are located in the two parts of the brain's left hemisphere known as Wernicke's area and Broca's area, the right-brain counterparts to these areas are nowadays largely dormant. According to Jaynes, however, those areas had been extremely important in earlier times, before humans began to perceive the world as we do now. Back then, he theorized, humans had an essentially "bicameral mind" that lacked the integrative capacities of the modern brain. Instead, its two halves functioned relatively independently: the left brain would obey what it perceived as "voices". which in fact emanated from those now-dormant areas of the right brain. (In Jaynes's formulation, the right hemisphere "organized admonitory experience and coded it into 'voices' which were then 'heard' by the left hemisphere.") Although internally generated, those voices were thus perceived by the left brain as coming from outside. It is this situation that led to the belief in communications from the gods in ancient times, as well as the belief in lesser sorts of supernatural communicators: talking spirits and genies, muses who dictated poetry to the "inspired" poet, sacred rocks, trees, and other objects that brought word "from the other side." When this bicameral mind faded out of existence and modern consciousness arose, prophecy likewise ceased and people suddenly no longer heard the gods telling them what to do. Jaynes's theory attracted much attention when first promulgated: it answered a lot of questions in one bold stroke. But it was not long before other scholars raised significant, and eventually devastating, objections to his idea. To begin with, 3,000 years is a tiny speck of time on the scale of human evolution. How could so basic a change in the way our brains work have come about so recently? What is more, 3,000 years ago humans lived in the most varied societies and environments. Some societies were already quite sophisticated and diversified, while others then (and some still now) existed in the most rudimentary state; some humans lived in tropical forests, others in temperate climes, still others in snowy wastelands close to earth's poles; and so forth. could human brains in these most diverse circumstances all have changed so radically at - in evolutionary terms - the same instant? Certainly now our brains all seem to function in pretty much the same way, no matter where we come from; there are no apparent surviving exemplars of the bicameral mind that Jaynes postulated. What could have caused humanity to undergo this radical change in lockstep all over the earth's surface? A ray from outer space? But if Jaynes's idea has met with disapproval, the evidence he adduced is no less provocative. The problem of explaining such phenomena as the appearance and subsequent disappearance of prophecy in many societies (though certainly not all), along with the near-universal evidence of religion discussed earlier (with the widespread phenomenon of people communing with dead ancestors and/or gods - and hearing back from them), remains puzzling.

I hope this is useful for the article. --Gwern (contribs) 21:12 23 November 2011 (GMT)


 * Even in different moments, could human brains all have changed so dramatically? 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:36, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * People have communed with dead ancestors and/or gods at all times in every place, even in historical times. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:55, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * All you describe hallucinations do, so do dreams. And dreams, even and specially awakened dreams could account alone for all the phenomenons, including communing with dead ancestors and/or gods. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:58, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't really know how to work this but I just thought I would add that I have recently emerged from a serious bout of schizophrenia and I think there is something in what Jayne's is saying.

The voices I heard were complex, totally unlike talking to yourself or thinking out loud and also quite commanding. In retrospect I would describe it as "my consciousness shrinking so there was room for other consciousnesses in my head." In fact I wrote that down before I had ever heard of Jayne's ideas. These other people in my head had a better view of the situation than I did so I just more or less deferred to their ideas, rules and requests. However I could still do my own thing it was just that I only occupied a small area of my brain.

The people who say that hearing voices in the community is common are quite right, however in full flight a hearing voices experience is quite astounding and not at all simplistic. They (the people in your head) talk much more quickly than you could ever imagine the thoughts. They also talk about things that you have no interest in. One of the commands I got was to find out what a trebouchet was. I doubt if I had ever heard of it. My voices generally took appeared as Israeli Army Generals or dead West Coast American writers. Jack Kerouac was one. The other thing is that they talk to each other and talk over each other. I actually woke up once and interrupted two voices conferring. I remember thinking at the time, "That's really strange. How does that happen?

They are also very funny and the psychiatric condition where people with schizophrenia are said to laugh inappropriately is really because people laugh at what their voices are saying. They are funny because they interact with you. For example I was buying a dress and one of the generals who was discussing strategy with another general, said to me: "You are going to look really fat in that" The incongruity is why it is funny. The reason people often don't want to come out of schizophrenia is often because their voices and the ideas behind the voices are so entertaining.

The point about visual hallucinations not supporting Jayne's theory is probably not as firm as it first appears.

The visual hallucinations experienced by people with schizophrenia are not nearly as dominant as the auditory hallucinations. To me they were always slight and fleeting and looked like bad CGI. They were also in a way related to the voices. For instance because my voices were military I hallucinated warships. However a large number of people in the general community also hallucinate once again it is a matter of degree.

I think there is a lot in Jayne's theory and I am off to buy his book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.169.248.163 (talk) 13:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * All you describe hallucinations do, so do dreams. And dreams, even and specially awakened dreams could account alone for all the phenomenons, including communing with dead ancestors and/or gods. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:55, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, your description does remind me somewhat of an experience I have had many times myself, without being a sufferer of schizophrenia or hallucination or someone "hearing voices" in general, and as a consequence I think of this experience as quite normal. When I lie in bed (finally surrounded by silence) and am slowly falling asleep, especially after a busy day or week when there were lots of people talking for example at a conference, I regularly start to hear these voices I had heard all the time (and as such had themselves imprinted into my mid-term memory) again, babbling randomly and simultaneously, and while I cannot follow any particular connected or even coherent speech or conversation, I can pick out individual voices and recognise them as those of people familiar from the event, or (more typically even) friends who were there, and I can make out short sentence fragments (also about the topics covered in reality before). It's really just an "afterglow" of the event, when the brain starts to process the memories of the past days, filters them, and makes (the important ones of) them ready to store in long-term memory – or so I have always interpreted this phenomenon. In fact, I have experienced a visual analogue of it, especially after observing end-of-year fireworks, where the fireworks kept going on in front of my eyes even as I already lay in bed. In all these cases, however, I was aware that these perceptions were not real, and I classified this phenomenon just as one of the many interesting phenomena that occur in the transition from wake to sleep and vice versa. Compare Closed-eye hallucination, Phosphene and Prisoner's cinema, all of which describe phenomena which are not at all considered pathological. So what you describe does indeed sound like a more extreme manifestation of phenomena (likely) otherwise quite familiar to lots of people not considered to be afflicted with a mental disorder (nor even possessing a peculiarity – not necessarily pathological – such as hearing voices or synaesthesia). In fact, have experienced the phenomenon a true auditory hallucination once, and found it quite eerie, when I heard a "demonic" voice talking to me right after awaking in the morning – but only for less than a minute, I'm sure, and the phenomenon was indeed quite fleeting, a glitch in the transition between sleeping and waking like the one time when I found myself paralysed for a moment after awaking, which was no less eerie (but as I already knew of the phenomenon of sleep paralysis occasionally continuing into the state of wakefulness, the experience was not as terrifying as it might otherwise have been). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * That "afterglow" thing, not necessarily. The mention to hearing voices or synaesthesia, those are still in the field of mental conditions, malfunctions not unlike hallucinations, and often only temporary and externally caused. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 19:07, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Response to this Subject
I am not sure if I am responding to this article in the correct format. Nonetheless, I feel I need to express my opinion on this subject which is gaining popularity among the massess quickly. I talk to a friend occasionally about how people behave and why and done research on my own and personal observations? The question arises often in our conversations, "does this person have a conscience"? Do they have empathy for another person in how their behavior affects another? He mentioned to me during one of our conversations that he was reading a book  "The Bicameral Mind". I thought I would look it up. He has interpeted this book in that people did not have the ability to make their own decisions until recently."Really" Therefore in that they did not make their own decisions, they did not have a conscience. That people have always been guided by an authority whom ever that may have been at the time until recently. I disagree with what he said and I disagree to the majority of what this abstract states. I find his information and the abstract of her work in wikipedia narrow in the study of sociology, psychology, education, biology, religion, history, literature, cultural and physical anthropology, archeology, neuroscience and the countless other subjects that have been studied and documented in the understanding of nature and mankind since humans could write in this world. User — Preceding unsigned comment added by Purpleblueyellow (talk • contribs) 16:58, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think the bicameral theory says people didn't make their own decisions, just that they did not recognize their decisions as being their own. --TiagoTiago (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, they allegedly didn't recognize the guiding voices as their own, not the maker of the decisions they would made afterwards based on those advices. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:32, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

User Purpleblueyellow's friend has misunderstood the book and the theory, the theory states that bicameral man would hallucinate a voice in novel or stressful situations where a decision is required but that voice is still created by the same man's brain. If the theory is correct this would mean that ancient man lacked metaconsciousness, or as the bicameralism page states: "The bicameral mentality would be non-conscious in its inability to reason and articulate about mental contents through meta-reflection, reacting without explicitly realizing and without the meta-reflective ability to give an account of why one did so." So it's not entirely true that people "did not make their own decisions," it would be more correct to state that ancient people lacked the ability to consciously explore possible decisions and then project possible outcomes before coming to a decision based on logic. The bicameral mind would seem to be a rather reactionary state, but just because one part of the brain (the God side) makes a decision and then commands another part of the brain (the man side) through auditory hallucination doesn't mean that people didn't make their own decisions. If you think of bicameral man as being simply the man side of the brain then you haven't understood the theory entirely because the bicameral (Latin bi, two + camera, chamber) man is the sum total of both parts of his mind. A full understanding of the theory can not be attained by reading a few paragraphs about it on Wikipedia; I am quite certain that no one has ever been converted to a different religion by reading a dictionary definition of said religion. Akechi77 (talk) 16:48, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * We would be able, as people with hallucinations today, often at least, except with uncontrolable urges, to challenge those advices from the voices. Part of our mind deciding without consciousness, is that even possible? And why that hemisphere and not the other, as in split-brain people or alien hand people? And how to prove the other one giving the advices wasn't conscious? 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:32, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia, any encyclopedia is more than a simple dictionary, it's developed, more expanded, a paper on its own. Also, it has sources, unless the claims are unfounded, like the ones without evidence that almost no one takes seriously. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:48, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

A truly bicameral person probably wouldn't be able to challenge the voices coming from the other side of the mind as essentially the man side of the mind was responsible for everyday activities which had been learned from their group, were inborn, or learned in their lifetime- the god side of the mind was made up of past experiences, probably spatial calculations, visual memory, etc. The voice would provide helpful commands at times of extreme stress such as when a bear suddenly appears from a cave nearby and approached the individual, there would be no reason to challenge the voice as it was providing assistance, even if the advice from the voice wasn't the best possible for a given situation (which one would only know in hindsight) it would be counterproductive to challenge it as it was essentially the best thing the person could come up with at that moment. In order to challenge a voice like you described the person would need introspection in order to look inward and come up with an alternate solution to a problem, this is something that the bicameral man didn't have. As humans gained the ability to introspect at first their decisions were likely still based primarily on past experience, but some time late logic appeared and an educated person could use the impersonal rules of logic to come to better decisions.

One issue that many critics mention is that if schizophrenics are essentially bicameral then how can they challenge their voices at all? The reason they can is because schizophrenics have consciousness, they aren't completely bicameral, because of a combination of a genetic predisposition and stress they are closer to a bicameral man than most people, but since they have consciousness they are troubled by the alien voice in their head. Consciousness is essentially a toolbox made up of many different tools that help a person make better decisions, it's a spectrum where a person may have any number of these tools- the schizophrenic is closer to bicamerality than people with normal consciousness, but they aren't truly bicameral. Akechi77 (talk) 22:21, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, just at times of great stress, not always. In other situations he sholding be able to think for himself, it makes no sense to have those voices just for sometimes, for what would be the need for such a separation? No other creature has it anyway. But claiming human beings only recently acquired introspection and logic, and consciousness just on the grounds that they have an inner voice, to have a part of intelectual mind that isn't conscious, is totally far-fetched, that's exactly what virtually no scientist in this area takes it seriously. With consciousness or not, one would still perceive that voice as alien. Intellect, perception, reasoning are tools, but consciousness alone... We're merely conscious of what is done with those abilities. Apples and oranges. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 00:47, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

The voices would appear at times of great need because of a completely novel situation that the individual happened upon and couldn't figure out what to do based on learned, or innate, patterns of motor activity. If, for example, an individual was hunting and the prey disappeared from sight then there would be no reason for the voices to appear, as they could rely on things which they had learned from previous hunts to track the pray, like looking for tracks, smashed foliage, or some sign of blood if the prey had been injured. If, on the other hand, an individual was hunting and a mother bear burst out of a cave when they heard people near the mouth of the cave then the individual would probably have not encountered anything similar to this sort of situation before so the voices appeared because of a need to quickly determine the best possible reaction to the situation. A bicameral man would be without logical reasoning because it had not been developed yet as it was an orderly process developed in several ancient civilizations, including India, China, Persia and Greece- a person may think that some amount of logic was inherent and didn't require teaching, or the technical development which came along with writing and perhaps this is true to a small degree, but that doesn't explain animism [] or the tendency of ancient people to make myths regarding every aspect of their environment/life- as in "Mythopoeic thought is a hypothetical stage of human thought preceding modern thought, proposed by Henri Frankfort and his wife Henriette Antonia Frankfort in the 1940s. According to this proposal, there was a "mythopoeic" stage, in which humanity did not think in terms of generalizations and impersonal laws: instead, humans saw each event as an act of will on the part of some personal being. This way of thinking supposedly explains the ancients' tendency to create myths, which portray events as acts of gods and spirits." From []

I agree that "Intellect, perception, reasoning are tools," they are tools which developed over a certain time-frame (and are still evolving to a degree), it's obvious that many of our closest related species like chimpanzees don't have the same intellectual skill as us, and that's because in the time since our common ancestor millions of years ago our brain and mind has evolved to better fit it's environment. Language and writing has sped up the changing of our mind, when you compare people today to those from say 500 years ago you would see some common features but you would also see some stark differences- especially when it comes to an understanding of math, and science as the majority of people were illiterate, rewind 3-5,000 years and then you would see that almost everyone was completely illiterate, would you expect these people to have the same mental life as us? I would say definitely not, according to the current evidence writing was first used 5,000-5,500 years, to think that these people had the same, vast mental life as us is frankly speaking, incomprehensible. To hold that position would be to deny that all of the schooling/education, and writing that a person had read over their entire life had any affect at all.

In regards to your quote, "With consciousness or not, one would still perceive that voice as alien. Intellect, perception, reasoning are tools, but consciousness alone... We're merely conscious of what is done with those abilities." It's important to recognize what Jaynes means with the terms "consciousness," many other philosophers/specialists use the term meta-consciousness to describe what he meant by consciousness, the most fitting description which he used in this context would be: "Conscious mind is a spatial analog of the world and mental acts are analogs of bodily acts. Consciousness operates only on objectively observable things. Or, to say it another way with echoes of John Locke, there is nothing in consciousness that is not an analog of something that was in behavior first." So the conscious mind in Jaynes' definition is essentially the ability to introspect, and 'turn to' a mental representation of your environment where one can imagine the result of certain choices/action and then project possible futures before deciding on the best possible action. So when you say "We're merely conscious of what is done with those abilities" what you are saying is we're merely aware of what is done with those abilities. If you throw corn away from the direction a chicken is facing then he'll probably notice it and turn and walk toward the corn, one could say that the chicken is aware of the corn because he responded appropriately to it. Akechi77 (talk) 20:20, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Merge
what do you think about the merge? Spencerk 02:08, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think there should be a redirect. The Origin of Consciousness is notable enough that it warrants having its own page with a link to the article on bicameralism. A person looking for information on The Origin of Consciousness may not want all the information on bicameralism; he may just want the information about the work. – Mipadi 02:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * hi mipadi. there was alot of repitition in the two pages. does origin of conciousness discuss more than bicameralism? or is bicameralism a more general idea than those expressed in origin of conciousness? i dont think so, my impression is that they are just discussing the same thing. maybe in the bicameralism article the section titled Julian Jaynes could be changed to origin of conciousness and the redirect could use a # or whatever. ? Spencerk 20:41, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * This article, as of now, talks almost solely about The Origin of Consciousness. Personally, I think the redirect should go the other way (Bicameralism (psychology) to The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind), if at all. – Mipadi 23:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I only know bicameralism from the book. I don't think there are that many other uses of the word outside the book by Jaynes. patrickw 20:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I think dietary lows might be at fault. Having little meat to bring nutrients for new nerveous matter matters.87.214.178.6 (talk) 16:33, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

This article is written from a severely pro-Bicameralism bias.
This article is not in the least bit objective. It almost reads like a PR release or advertisement for the "theory." Bicameralism isn't an hypothesis that is taken seriously by anyone other than the author of the book and a handful of misinformed adherents. This article really shouldn't even be in wikipedia. At most, there should be an article about the book, and thorough explanation an exposition of the widespread (universal) professional disdain for its contents.

The "criticisms" section, as has been pointed out elsewhere, is nothing more than a "criticisms of criticisms of Bicameralism" section. An objective editor who doesn't have a personal vested emotional interest in the veritude of the idea is needed for this article. It doesn't meet any criteria for a serious factual entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.132.140.6 (talk) 14:05, 1 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree. This article is awful. Reading this you'd think this author is well respected and accepted everywhere, which is far from the truth. Since the article would not to be majorly rewritten in order to not mislead readers, I am tagging it for NPOV problems until it's drastically rewritten. DreamGuy (talk) 14:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Definitely. Even the actual criticism is positive towards the theory! Consider completely rewriting or removing this article. 130.115.110.115 (talk)

Quite sad that apparently a refreshing but flawed idea has now been turned into generic internet kookery, with people "pov pushing" to inflate its "credibility". It doesn't have "credibility", its merit is that it is cool and interesting and provokes you to think more clearly about your notion of consciousness. I love Jaynes' idea, but I think it is evident that the book is more instructive about the status of the brain in the 1970s than in the Bronze Age. It's interesting and thought-provoking fiction, but still fiction. Come on, the suggestion that the Ilias represents the pre-collapse mode and the Odyssey (written by the same guy) the post-collapse mode of thinking should be enough to establish that the "hypothesis" is more of a metaphor and the Bronze Age thing shouldn't be taken at face value.

Of course there is the question of whether language is a necessary component of subjective consciousness and more abstract forms of thinking -- this is a long-standing thing in linguistic philosophy, and it doesn't either begin nor end with Jaynes. Strangely, Wikipedia does not appear to have a language and consciousness article. The consciousness article does touch a couple of points, but it doesn't focus on the question. I suppose there is still an active "debate" on whether consciousness may predate language, Jaynes seems to argue that (for some definition of "consciousness") language may (significantly) predate consciousness. So it is hardly adequate to list a bunch of philosophers who apparently voiced the opinion that consciousness requires language and sort of imply that they "support" Jaynes' "collapse" theory. Most people who argue that consciousness requires language will assume that the two things co-evolved, and not that language stood fully formed for 45,000 years or more before consciousness just happened to pop up on top of it. --dab (𒁳) 11:20, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Language and consciousness are independent things. It doesn't mean there cannot be a consciousness without language and language without consciousness, only that they are independent from eachother, with different uses or purposes. Much less the absense of a language, related to it as to all the other things, implies the absense of the consciousness of ourselves. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 19:19, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Animals and even computers use language and that doesn't mean they possess a consciousness... Novíssimo Utilizador (talk) 16:30, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

You may think the theory is fiction, but keep in mind that is your opinion and it's obvious that you're biased when you begin a comment about an article with a statement like this before you even provide any argument against the theory. I think it's safe to say that you probably didn't read the whole book as you've made several statements which would indicate this, the first one that jumps out at me is that most experts in related fields (Greek history, literature, etc) agree that the Iliad and Odyssey weren't actually written down for long after they were said to have been written (likely at least 100 years but possibly 500 years or more) so this is the piece of evidence you choose to attempt to disprove the theory? There is no consensus as to whether or not Homer was a real person let alone whether he constructed both epics, the following section is from the Homeric Question article- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeric_question#Controversy_over_Homer.27s_identity


 * Exactly when these poems would have taken on a fixed written form is subject to debate. The traditional solution is the "transcription hypothesis", wherein a non-literate singer dictates the poem to a literate scribe in the 6th century BC or earlier. The voice of antiquity is unanimous in declaring that Peisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, first committed the poems of Homer to writing and placed them in the order in which we now read them. More radical Homerists, such as Gregory Nagy, contend that a canonical text of the Homeric poems did not exist until established by Alexandrian editors in the Hellenistic period (3rd to 1st century BC).


 * The modern debate began with the Prolegomena of Friedrich August Wolf (1795). According to Wolf, the date of writing is among the first questions in the textual criticism of Homer. Having satisfied himself that writing was unknown to Homer, Wolf considers the real mode of transmission, which he purports to find in the Rhapsodists, of whom the Homeridae were an hereditary school. Wolf reached the conclusion that the Iliad and Odyssey could not have been composed in the form in which we know them without the aid of writing. They must therefore have been, as Bentley has said, a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, loose songs not collected together in the form of an epic poem until about 500 years after their original composition. This conclusion Wolf supports by the character attributed to the Cyclic poems (whose want of unity showed that the structure of the Iliad and Odyssey must be the work of a later time), by one or two indications of imperfect connection, and by the doubts of ancient critics as to the authenticity of certain parts.

Novíssimo, animals and computers don't technically use language, computers use binary code and animals use varying degrees of visual and vocal communication, but since these calls, and whatnot, haven't been show to contain syntax and complex structure they're not considered language formally. Dolphins seem to have one of the most diverse system of vocalizations, but it's still not considered language by most experts as it's innate calls and not a complex communication system which was taught. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language


 * Language is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so, and a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics.

...
 * Human language has the properties of productivity, recursivity, and displacement, and relies entirely on social convention and learning. Its complex structure affords a much wider range of expressions than any known system of animal communication. Language is thought to have originated when early hominins started gradually changing their primate communication systems, acquiring the ability to form a theory of other minds and a shared intentionality.[1][2] This development is sometimes thought to have coincided with an increase in brain volume, and many linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to serve specific communicative and social functions. Language is processed in many different locations in the human brain, but especially in Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Humans acquire language through social interaction in early childhood, and children generally speak fluently when they are approximately three years old. The use of language is deeply entrenched in human culture. Therefore, in addition to its strictly communicative uses, language also has many social and cultural uses, such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well as social grooming and entertainment.

Akechi77 (talk) 00:52, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In material terms, the brain processes and the computer processes are the same. It's also proven that monkeys and parrotts do understand syntax, and computers are becoming better at it. Language as a form of expression is still different from the ability to form a theory of other minds and a shared intentionality, since even animals can grasp that, since they also have their own theory of mind and intentionality. Perceiving consciousness is different from perceiving the existence of a being or even the particular abilities of other beings to plan and intend. We also perceive our own intents in the first place, and that perception is more immediate and important than the perception of others, that's the true meta-consciousness. As we could perceive the sources of those auditory hallucinations as ourselves rather than other beings. [Special:Contributions/85.242.78.160|85.242.78.160]] (talk) 18:08, 14 June 2015 (UTC) 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:08, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi folks. A reminder that Talk pages are for discussion on editing article not for debate of the subject matter itself (see: wp:TPG). IMO rather than general and universal claims of the faults of the article e.g "Bicameralism isn't an hypothesis that is taken seriously by anyone other than the author of the book and a handful of misinformed adherents", details of the claims could be used to improve the article would be more helpful. LookingGlass (talk) 14:12, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

A statements like "Bicameralism isn't an hypothesis that is taken seriously by anyone other than the author of the book and a handful of misinformed adherents" is blatantly false and discredits this section. It is true that bicameralism is not a focus of mainstream university academics, but that says more about how inept scholarship today is at taking on broadly interdisciplinary theories than it does about bicameralism. The fact that bicameralism is not a main stream academic theory has more to do with the fact that it challenges the foundation of too many assumptions that academic careers and departments are built on--analogous to the resistance of the mainstream to a heliocentric universe when Copernicus and Galileo proposed it or to Mendel's research in the 19th century that led to the field of genetics.

Most criticism of bicameralism, including criticisms here, show a lack of understanding of bicameralism often because the critic has not read or researched it. A good example are above comments that try to criticize bicameralism by stating evolution does not proceed rapidly enough to account for the changes in consciousness bicameralism proposes. Bicameralism does NOT purpose consciousness came into being due to genetic evolution, but rather through the interaction of culture and language. People need to research and understand what they are talking about before trying to critique it. 97.118.0.68 (talk) 19:25, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Improper Synthesis tag
I'm removing the "Improper Synthesis" tag from the following sentence: "Indirect evidence supporting Jaynes's theory that hallucinations once played an important role in human mentality can be found in the recent book Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination by Daniel Smith." It looks like the Daniel Smith book does actually mention Jaynes (in chapter 3). Whether it's evidence at all is a little debatable; the book looks like it's just a popularized presentation of existing material, nothing original. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.250.24.26 (talk) 12:47, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

what aborigines?
The "aborigine culture" is mentioned as having been isolated from the rest of the planet. I suppose this probably refers to Australian aborigines, but you need to say that; and also, the many cultures of the Western Hemisphere, of Papua New Guinea, and lots of other places were also effectively isolated from the Mediterranean and Asian culture centures at the time of the supposed breakdown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.215.34.6 (talk) 19:46, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

This is nonsense
I suspect if we were able to take an ancient person and raise them in an advanced civilization like our own they would be just as capable as we are. The brain is software and ancient people didn't have the foundation of knowledge that we do or the same capability to communicate like we do instantly on the internet. I am offended as a schizophrenic.
 * This isn't in conflict with the theory, in fact it's exactly what the theory would expect to happen. Jaynes thinks brain software is more malleable than commonly accepted and that this allowed the faster development without significant hardware changes. The book doesn't really deal with knowledge but with consciousness. I fail to see what you being schizophrenic has anything to do with it or why you would be offended.
 * Keyakakushi46 (talk) 10:50, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * As I recall, Jaynes does in fact suggest that some inheritable adaptations have occured over time, making most of us today less able to operate in bicameral mode and more able to operate in conscious mode - compared to people in prehistoric times. The idea that schizoprenia is a left-over from those bicameral times is not an essential part of Jayne's theory, but sort of an add-on that fits into the theory - but actually I can see why people personally affected by schizophrenia might find the idea offending. On the other hand, other conditions like ADHD may also be easier to understand in terms of conditions prevalent in human prehistory; that does not as such devalue people affected by these conditions today. Arguably, some "older" personality types (or conditions, however one draws the line) may even be better adapted to modern or future society than "normals". (I'm not suggesting schizophrenics have adaptive advantages today - I wouldn't know.) The schizophrenia part of Jaynes theories makes some sense when you read his book (I think), but is certainly weakened by the fact that non-aural (non-verbal, actually) hallucinations do not fit into his picture at all.
 * Anyway, this talk page is not here to discuss Jaynes theories, but to discuss suggested (and preferably well-sourced) changes to the article.

Schrodinger meets Jaynes
Has anyone tried relating this theory to the various consciousness causes collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics? If one subscribes to both, that would lead one to conclude that the universe ITSELF had to have been very different back when people were bicameral, and the development of modern consciousness actually “collapsed” the whole universe into a different state, one considerably more impersonal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1014:B04E:CBB0:C9EA:914F:BDC1:A861 (talk) 00:45, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Commentary found embedded in HTML comment, in the article
I found the following block-quoted remarks on 2018-06-27 while making clerical edits (formatting, citations, and text organization, but no change in text content). They were embedded as a single block in a single HTML comment (arrow-bang-hyphen-hyphen) following the Gilgamesh section. This stuff seems to be sensible, but a personal commentary, not citeable, and no identity for the author.

Incidentally: Focusing exclusively on Gilgamesh ignores the far broader evidence for the mental life of Babylonians, which although perhaps less rich in reflective literature, nonetheless conveys a clear sense of individual talent and accomplishment and a clear consideration of what might be a well or poorly lived life. See Benjamin Foster's essay on "The Person in Mesopotamian Thought" is a most interesting study of this topic.

Others, such as science fiction author Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash, have since conjectured that heroic epics and myths may be rooted in isolated individuals who became self-aware early and could accordingly outmatch and manipulate their fellow – Not sure this is quite right. I remember Stephenson writing in Snow Crash about the use of algorithms / programs / spells and tablets to control other people, but nothing about internalized gods.

I've posted it here, for the record, in case someone feels motivated to find sources and quotes to shore up this apparently personal musing.

Regards/ 208.54.5.213 (talk) 08:59, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

On consciousness
The following claim from the article seems a bit speculative, even if Jaynes has expressed this


 * “According to Jaynes, language is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for consciousness: Language existed thousands of years earlier, but consciousness could not have emerged without language.”

There are pretty strong indications that consciousness exists independent of language, and it may even exist without any strong intelligence. That is, animals exhibit some form of consciousness even if they lack language an intelligent behavior. It may seem more proper to say “language is necessary to express a conscious thought, but it is not sufficient for intelligent behavior”.

It is more or less generally accepted that art and language follows each other, and with 13k years old artefacts of art now found it is hard to argue for a theory that imply 10k years of non-conscious people going around talking to each other.

In short; I find this “theory” a bit hard to accept. ;) Jeblad (talk) 17:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The claim you mentioned is a vast oversimplification of Jaynes' theories, it's very misleading, probably not intentionally misleading but a simplification which was likely written by someone who meant well. One of the biggest aspects of Jaynes' theories which isn't mentioned in this article is that according to Jaynes' definition of consciousness it's essentially a toolbox and not a single thing. Animals would have some of the tools of consciousness, primates and dolphins would have more of them and humans would have even more of them. Jaynes definition of consciousness is similar to Descartes' and Locke's- "that which is introspectable" or in other words an introspectable mindspace which allows for the free control of an "imagined self" to project possible futures. Whereas animals appear to react to their environment using inborn instincts, humans can mentally pilot an imagined self through possible scenarios/projections- this is very similar to the communication of animals vs the language of humans. Animals (with the possible exception of dolphins) are born with their calls they use to communicate, human language must be taught as it's much more complex and it relies on abstract concepts and metaphors.

There's a threshold which must be crossed in order to show that an animal has "complete consciousness" so to speak and you can't express this in a single sentence as they tried to do.

Akechi77 (talk) 01:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Dispute about: This article's title grossly distorts and undermines fair presentation of Jaynes’s work.
While Jaynes’s book and his ideas have a notable and respectable history, I believe this article, for the reasons stated below, has unfairly increased misunderstanding, controversy and notoriety.
 * 1) The term “bicameralism” does not come from Julian Jaynes even though it has been attributed to him, without citation, since 2005. No citation shows any reliable source using the term in reference to Jaynes’s work or in “psychology” generally. The term "Bicamerality" would be citeable, explainable, and would dispense with disambiguation. I think it would also improve the article’s neutrality and factuality.
 * 2) Under the rubric of the misnomer “bicameralism”, several distinct ideas from the book (i.e. “the hypothetical bicameral mind, its neurological model, the historical evidence of its ‘breakdown’) are wrongly treated as a single hypothesis, or even a 'doctrine', which is falsely equated with the whole book. (This false equation is the basis of the “merge” discussed in 2005.) The POV criticism might be resolved by clarifying the distinction between ‘the book’ and its ‘various ideas’. The book inspires widespread overwhelmingly positive responses; the criticisms that exist, both valid and spurious, touch on specific points from varied disciplines.
 * 3) Under the rubric “bicameralism”, Jaynes’s most important idea is lost in confusion. It is difficult for editors’ to introduce “consciousness” to the discussion without making it seem incidental. A solution is needed because this article creates the false impression that “bicameralism” is somehow, vaguely, equivalent to “the origin of consciousness”. Such a notion is an absurd contradiction of everything Jaynes actually proposes.
 * 4) To restore neutrality and facts only, I think this article should be re-organized around a summary of Jaynes’s whole book, putting "bicameral mentality" into context. As for a new name: if not "Bicamerality", the title of the book is best, but probably too long. I would like suggestions, please, to find consensus from people who know the book, before those who have only secondary or partial familiarity. The goal is not to promote, prove or disprove, but to be fair. B.Sirota (talk) 09:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You may very well be right. The article Julian Jaynes covers a little of the material too; The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind and Bicameral mind redirect here. I tend to think Bicameral mind would be a better name for the article. Changes should, however, take into account that many pages link here. A redirect will solve this, of course, but still I guess concensus should be found first.--Nø (talk) 16:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I've added a Note about the title, and working on a complete rewrite of the opening material. B.Sirota (talk) 12:35, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm a longtime fan of Jaynes and his theories, "bicameral mind" is definitely the correct term. He borrowed the term "bicameral" from British legislature, bicameralism is the term for their system from my understanding but it doesn't translate the same idea which is presumably why Jaynes didn't use it. Like Sirota mentioned this muddles everything about the theory.

Akechi77 (talk) 01:05, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Practicality
Article lead now has:
 * The hypothesis is generally not considered of practical importance by mainstream psychologists. (Citation needed|date=March 2018)

An edit summary by an editor removing the sentence said:
 * There is an abundance of reference to the work in scholarly literature. Seems unreasonable to outright dismiss the hypothesis in the intro, especially without a citation.

I'd like to comment on that. Yes a citation would be good, but the sentence does not dismiss the theory; it states the rather obvious and uncontentious fact that the theory has little practical implication for psychological practice, as it (primarily) is a theory about the past.--Nø (talk) 12:44, 29 March 2018 (UTC)


 * The bicameral theory of mind is the foundation for the modern mind, under stress many people without any psychological conditions would seem to at least partially revert to the bicameral mind- you see this in command hallucinations in people under extreme stress. You also see this in people that have schizophrenia and various other psychological conditions. I know several practicing psychologists that have studied and used the theory in their practice, I know zero practicing psychologists that dismissed the theory and gained any practical knowledge. Akechi77 (talk) 01:12, 2 July 2020 (UTC)


 * This is moot - the sentence under discussion was removed from the lead a long time ago.--Nø (talk) 12:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Removal of Daniel Smith-sourced sentence
I could be mistaken, but as written
 * Indirect evidence supporting Jaynes's theory that hallucinations once played an important role in human mentality can be found in the recent book Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination by Daniel Smith.

has the ring of, and creates the presumption of, OR. Tell us more on this discussion pg abt what Smith says, so we have a chance of overcoming that presumption. --Jerzy•t 05:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Muses, Madmen, and Prophets was strongly influenced by The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and it provides one of the best brief overviews of Jaynes' work. Daniel Smith explores the experience of auditory hallucinations, inspired in part by his father and grandfather who both experienced significant auditory hallucinations. His grandfather wrote an autobiography which describes how he used the voices to place bets, play cards, and make important decisions.

The book by Daniel Smith goes into great detail as to why hearing voices is not diagnostic of mental illness. Like Dr. Jaynes had done before him, the book explores historical and scientific evidence which suggests that hearing voices is a natural reaction to stress. In his book which was released in 1976, Dr. Jaynes postulated that auditory hallucinations were generated in the right, or non-dominant hemisphere of the brain.

There is a region of the brain called the planum temporale that is the most highly lateralized part of the brain and is involved in the genesis of language and thought. Healthy right-handed volunteers usually have a large planum in the left hemisphere of the brain. In 1993 a team of scientists at Johns Hopkins showed that people with schizophrenia have an equally large planum in the right hemisphere, suggesting that Jaynes was correct all along. The research was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1995, and has since been confirmed many times.

In Muses, Madmen, and Prophets auditory hallucination were shown to be connected to stress (combat participants and victims of rape are especially likely to experience them) and sometimes they are associated with bursts of great creativity. Smith proposes that the voices Socrates, and Joan of Arc, heard affected their sentencing to death, and he describes how a modern German jurist recovered from a period of particularly intense auditory hallucinations. The author also examines the lives of Old Testament prophets, Muhammad, preacher John Bunyan and the Spanish nun Teresa of Ávila. Smith argues very persuasively that the Enlightenment’s emphasis on rationality and skepticism transformed hearing voices from a religious experience into a pathology.

Akechi77 (talk) 17:46, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hallucinatory voices are often wrong advices or they misrepresent reality. Perhaps they merely express the subconscious in the Freudian sense of the word?... It doesn't mean they serve a purpose, nor does it imply the absense of what is called meta-consciousness, much less in such an absolute way. Schizophrenics themselves have a meta-consciousness. What need do we have for them in order to understand and respond to the universe? Specially if animals don't even have them. Jaynes being right about the relationship between hallucinations and brain hemispheres doesn't prove anything else. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 17:31, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Perception and memory is inherently unreliable so voices and command hallucinations would be as well, but probably not as unreliable since they're more mathematical in nature. Jaynes never said schizophrenics lacked meta-consciousness, they basically regressed to a somewhat bicameral state of mind when under stress but once consciousness is acquired it can't be un-acquired. Non-schizophrenics can also experience the same state of mind but they generally require a much higher level of stress.

Akechi77 (talk) 02:17, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Who here has really read Jaynes?
it seems like there is significant confusion about Jaynes' theory. Some editors have either not really read Jaynes or maybe they did so a long time ago and forgot. Not having read Snow Crash I don't know how Stephenson reworks the theory but I suspect reading Jaynes through Stephenson may be the culprit.

Anyone else here read Jaynes recently or is it down to me to fix it all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cratylus22 (talk • contribs)
 * Go ahead and fix! I heard the guy give a talk sometime in the 80's and he was amazing.  I've been wanting to read the book ever since, but I looked at it once or twice and it seemed too deep for me. Phr (talk) 02:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I've read the book within the last year. I can get a copy of it from the Library and work on any issues that need working. Let me know of anything specificly.149.165.90.22 15:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've loaned my copy out (as I do with any book I want to disseminate) and when I get it back I should be able to do this article justice. I want to put in a few hours and rewrite the whole thing to eliminate errors and confusion and clearly summarize the theory. There are only two or three secondary authors who have directly used Jaynes, but I think there is also some pop-cultural residue that can be covered. But Jaynes' theory is clearly the core of the topic.


 * It is quted extensive in the works of Frank R. WallaceSochwa 22:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I came upon this page while looking to refresh my memory of Jaynes's theory and from what I do recall, I do not think that what I just saw written here is likely correct, or perhaps merely not sufficient. My memory was that Jaynes opined that the development of the ability to shape one's own internal narratizing may have shifted societally between the Iliad and the Odyssey. This is something I wanted to bring into the article about the noosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere Certainly the Odyssey continues to have a profound effect in suggesting story framing to future narrators, with the trickster - the character who can think one thing and do another - a very popular subject.

==

Some significant features of Jayne's model are not much discussed here. His view was that the ancient society, with its low level of technology and rigid caste system, did not present the continuity of novel situations that required rational, self-conscious decision making to determine a course of action. Most actions were pre-determined by prevailing circumstances. He proposed that living from habit, convention and instinct meant that people did not develop the sense of interiority that we recognise as modern self-consciousness. Instead moments of unusual novelty, stress or uncertainty stimulated an inner voice which was regarded with awe, identified as the voice of the societies' king / god and obeyed unquestioningly without further reflection. Indeed, his theory is that it was leaders of the society - the annointed kings - who were most frequently called upon to deal with complex and novel circumstances and who had the privilege of most frequently hearing advice from the gods.

Jayne missed seeing the possibility that, rather than receding into an aberrant hallucinatory phenomenon, the inner voice has become universal, mundane and everyday. I hear a voice in my head all the time. It is not a rare or remarkable event for me, as possibly it was for the ancients. It proposes instructions and solutions to problems, recalls information, and offers a fairly continuous commentary on events. So frequent has this voice become that I regard as a central feature of my psyche and I identify it as (part of) Me. I believe Jayne's focus on auditory hallucinations is a red-herring... the ancients' voices have not gone away. What has changed is our relationship to the inner voice and its increased frequency, as we have become habituated to the phenomenon. (Sorry you can't use this in the article ... my original "research".) 213.70.98.66 (talk) 12:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

==

I hear what you're saying previous poster and I believe that a great many people that read the book would agree that they hear a voice in their heads quite often. Thoughts are sub-vocal speech after all. But Dr. Jaynes never once said anything to indicate that hearing voices was abnormal, or "aberrant." He actually wrote extensively of how common it is for modern people to hear voices.

I believe that the Bicameral mind exists in varying degrees in different people even today. If you notice, your voice is "fairly continuous" and it can be interacted with instead of being a direct command. You certainly have introspectable mind-space, so what you experience isn't a command hallucination like that experienced by many schizophrenics, and likely ancient man if the theory is correct. Akechi77 (talk) 22:25, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Not only have I read Jaynes, but I met and talked with him a long time ago. I was reminded of this when I cam e across this article in Wikipedia.

I remember discussing with him that the bicameral mind has a striking resemblance to the differences between wholistic and logical processing, and as antecedents, Pavlov's conditioning vs. Skinnerian behaviorism. Add that the corpus collosum does not become fully myelinated in the modern human until 23 or 24, it is not much of an extraoplation to posit that the mind of humans several millenia ago might not have been myelinated until much later in their lifespan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.116.202.25 (talk) 18:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Individual scholars' comments
The quote from Iain McGilchrist illustrates how even really prominent, well-educated scholars can misunderstand the theory.

"I believe he [Jaynes] got one important aspect of the story back to front. His contention that the phenomena he describes came about because of a breakdown of the 'bicameral mind' – so that the two hemispheres, previously separate, now merged – is the precise inverse of what happened.[32]:262"

According to Jaynes' theory the left hemisphere gained more control over behavior- primarily because of writing and metaphor, and also various other things. So essentially as the tools of consciousness (according to Jaynes consciousness is made possible by multiple underlying processes which seem to have developed over time) developed they allowed for a new method of behavioral control which weakened the previous method which relied on parts of the right hemisphere. So to just say "they merged" is really missing the point or completely over-simplifying it. The hemispheres didn't "merge," whatever that may mean, rather they operated in a different way because of what was essentially a change in mental software- to say they merged implies a change in hardware or something of that sort.

You can't explain a 500 page book with a single sentence which is essentially what he's trying to do. I imagine he either didn't read the book and/or didn't realize that the "breakdown of the bicameral mind" is a metaphor for how the previously useful state of mind wasn't able to perform the same function in a much more complicated society with writing, large-scale agriculture, stratification of society, etc. To put it simply, something doesn't "breakdown" and merge- first the breakdown then it changes.

Akechi77 (talk) 21:42, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Intention To Change Article Title and To Make Significant Edits
Note 1 in the first sentence of this article's lede contends that the current title for this article -- "Bicameralism (psychology)" -- is "a corruption." Following the instructions in WP:Page_move, I intend during September 2021 to rename this article with new title "Bicameral mentality" and then work on edits that I hope will support removal of some or all of the article's current maintenance tags. Canhelp (talk) 20:42, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I had hoped that September would give me enough time to accomplish not just the first but also the second of my objectives stated above. As I got deeper into the controversies, I recognized a real challenge in achieving WP:NPOV. So...I'm holding off now on projecting installation of significant edits. Canhelp (talk) 19:45, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Pre-transition divination may not be incompatible with Jaynes' hypothesis
In the very first part of Jaynes' section on divination in Origin of Conciousness (p. 236), he clearly states that divination "antedates conciousness." I don't think that pre-collapse or even pre-writing divination was something disputed by Jaynes; in this section he simply suggests divination as a potential replacement for bicameral thinking in early post-collapse individuals. This part of the page is also written in a confusing way (use of "that date," which date??), so I may be misunderstanding the critism that's being offered. MFKZT47 (talk) 02:26, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Edited without confidence
In the section "Scholarly reactions" is the sentence "Moffic questioned why Jaynes' theory was left out of a discussion on auditory hallucinations by Asaad & Shapiro. The author's published response was..." I think this supposed to be "The authors'", as in a response by Asaad and Shapiro, and am about to change it to suit, but invite reversion if I've got it wrong. 194.193.184.140 (talk) 02:06, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Term "pseudoscience" is derogatory
"None of the significant claims of the theory are empirically testable, so the theory is pseudoscience. ... It is best classed as a thesis about human history and a theory in the branch of philosophy called Philosophy of Mind."

These two sentences imply that all of human history and Philosophy of Mind are also "pseudoscience", which is probably going a little too far.

The point that none of the claims are testable needs expansion and maybe a term a little more respectful than "pseudoscience" can be found. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Helphelp101 (talk • contribs) 21:38, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Anthropology question
How does this theory mesh with anthropology? That is, Australia and New Guinea were peopled something like 40,000 years ago, long before the posited change in consciousness. Why should their consciousness have changed to the modern form at the same time as the change happened in hte Mediterranean area? If it didn't, why can't Native New Guineans be given EKGs, PETscans, etc, to see whether/how their brain function is different from ours? Virginia-American (talk) 18:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Why is the article so biased? Why isn't a problem like this mentioned? Why isn't the mainstream view explained in any detail? Cesiumfrog (talk) 11:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I concur; I think this is probably THE most obvious challenge to the theory. If you raise, say, an Australian Aboriginal into a typical Western setting, why should they develop a typical Western consciousness anyway, as seems to be usually the case? People all around the world would have to had developed this "new consciousness" at the same time to justify this sort of thing; but it is difficult to imagine how and why this simultaneous global emergence of consciousness might have happened. 'However, even if it did'' happen, then some Jaynesians' claims that such societies are still bicameral is of no use to the argument. Either way, the theory seems rubbish.''' KelilanK (talk) 00:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

==

The previous posters have brought up some interesting questions. The mainstream view of human consciousness isn't explained in any detail because the only mainstream view of consciousness is that it has always been the same.

If you raise an Australian Aboriginal in a typical Western setting, as the previous poster suggested, then there are two factors that one must keep in mind. The first being that this person is not exactly the same as someone from thousands of years ago just because they are more similar to these ancient people than most modern people are. Thousands of years have passed and no matter how you look at it much has changed in the human mind and body in this time. Secondly, the Aboriginal person would be exposed to complex metaphorical language in the Western setting which they would learn to use. Even if this person was exactly the same as an ancient human, their acquisition of complex language would change everything. They would learn and use an internal metaphor for their own self- they would develop a Western consciousness because they learned language just as Dr. Jaynes' theory would predict.

The critics to the theory almost always fail to understand the theory or say something along the lines of what Ned Block said "the idea that consciousness is a cultural construction is hard to take seriously[11]" but if you think about it this isn't a valid argument. I personally don't believe in the Judeo-Christian God, I find the notion preposterous and illogical but I don't go to the God article and post "the idea of a God that is all-powerful, all-knowing and wants to be worshiped is hard to take seriously." There is no substance to that statement, it's an opinion without any logic or anything to back it up. "I find that hard to imagine" isn't a good criticism to evolution, or intelligent design for that matter; the way to argue against a theory is by proposing an alternative hypothesis or at least using logic.

Akechi77 (talk) 04:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The critics of his theory almost always fail to understand it? All that overwhelming majority of scientists must all be morons, then!... 85.242.78.160 (talk) 16:19, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I just remembered that there are many documented cases where a feral child, like Genie, is found after having little to no human interaction and they are very animal-like, sometimes even having the mannerisms of dogs or other animals. Before they learn language it's evident that their actions are controlled by the environment they are in (occurring in a stimulus -> response manner), but after they learn language they become able to communicate, express themselves, and plan.

Akechi77 (talk) 00:16, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * A merely mechanical learning of language has nothing to do with the existence of an inner concept of self. Language makes it easier to plan. And?... 85.242.78.160 (talk) 16:28, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Now, this is interesting. But I partially agree with the initial posts. Here are some thoughts:

1) If the current consensus of linguistic theory is correct, there is no such thing as "complex language" and in fact the human language faculty as a whole has changed next to nothing in the last thousands of years. So the Aboriginal in question would not be "learning language", as his own language differs very little, structurally as well as biologically, from any other human language. His cultural framework is different, of course, but then that's an obvious, almost trivial fact that is only partially connected to the language issue, or at least the LI as you seem to have described it.

2) As for the "hard to take seriously" comment, I believe the criterion here is simple: if you are arguing against an established scientific consensus, your claims will naturally appear to be extraordinary, whether you think of them as such or not. And extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. If the evidence is not considered overwhelming in the eyes of the mainstream, it's only natural that many scientists partaking of the consensus will dismiss your theory out of hand. NB I'm not defending knee-jerk reactions, but the fact is they are widespread and perhaps inevitable against all sorts of non-mainstream theories, whether they are plausible or not (and I'm sure that if Bicameralism emerged as the new consensus, this would happen the other way, anyway.) Zhongguy (talk) 05:24, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. Julian Jaynes never once used the term "complex metaphorical language," those are my words which I had to shorten greatly so as not to quote large portions of The Origin of Consciousness. I see now how it wasn't the best choice of words, and the Aboriginal example isn't a good one, as they already have their own language which is very similar to most others as Zhongguy mentioned. I used the Aboriginal example because the previous poster had begun to use it, but I did mention that an Aboriginal person is not the same as a person from many thousands of years ago. I said "Even if this person was exactly the same as an ancient human" so that I was actually using a hypothetical ancient person from thousands of years ago for my example and not a modern Aboriginal. I realized in my second post that a much better example is that of a feral child that knew little or no language when they were lost/abandoned because this way they wouldn't have had any language instead of just a non-Western language.

As for the second comment, there is no "established scientific consensus" as to when consciousness first appeared or even a clear definition of consciousness. There are many competing theories, which can be read about on Wikipedia under Consciousness; I want to bring to attention a few sections from the page.

"The first influential philosopher to discuss this question (the mind-body problem) specifically was Descartes, and the answer he proposed is known as Cartesian dualism. Descartes proposed that consciousness resides within an immaterial domain he called res cogitans (the realm of thought), in contrast to the domain of material things which he called res extensa (the realm of extension).[25] He suggested that the interaction between these two domains occurs inside the brain, perhaps in a small midline structure called the pineal gland.[26]"

"How does it (consciousness) relate to language?

In humans, the clearest visible indication of consciousness is the ability to use language. Medical assessments of consciousness rely heavily on an ability to respond to questions and commands, and in scientific studies of consciousness, the usual criterion for awareness is verbal report (that is, subjects are deemed to be aware if they say that they are). Thus there is a strong connection between consciousness and language. Philosophers differ, however, on whether language is essential to consciousness or merely the most powerful tool for assessing it.

Descartes believed that language is essential to consciousness. Thus, he argued that animals lack consciousness because they lack language. Others have reached the same conclusion, though sometimes for different reasons. Julian Jaynes argued in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind that for consciousness to arise, language needs to have reached a fairly high level of complexity. Merlin Donald also argued for a critical dependence of consciousness on the ability to use symbols in a sophisticated way.[27]"

Descartes, Jaynes, and Daniel Dennett agree that animals lack consciousness, therefore, according to these men, there was a point in time when humans hadn't yet developed consciousness. Jayne's goes into great detail as to why this is the best definition of consciousness, but to put it simply: "Jaynes defines consciousness—in the tradition of Locke and Descartes—as "that which is introspectable." So when did humans acquire an introspectable mind-space- certainly it occurred after the creation of something that animals did not have. Nearly all animals have the same five senses as humans, many animals live almost entirely as a group, and most animals have simple visual and vocal communication- what they lack is metaphorical language. In his book, Jaynes describes consciousness as an operator and he explains the process that likely led to it's creation:

"Subjective conscious mind is an analog of what is called the real world. It is built up with a vocabulary or lexical field whose terms are all metaphors or analogs of behavior in the physical world. Its reality is of the same order as mathematics. It allows us to shortcut behavioral processes and arrive at more adequate decisions. Like mathematics, it is an operator rather than a thing or repository. And it is intimately bound up with volition and decision." (Page 55 The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind)

Akechi77 (talk) 01:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "In humans the clearest visible indication of consciousness is the ability to use language"? No. A merely mechanical response to questions and commands doesn't necessarily have to imply concepts, let alone qualia. That and awareness are different things still. It is merely a mean of expressing things, trivial or deep, to others, a conduit. We are conscious of things even without the language to classify and express them. That happens to all of us, sometimes. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 16:47, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

But the point remains - what sort of complexity does language require? Because structurally, in every respect, the Aboriginal languages are no less "complex" than English. Also, I fail to see the point in mentioning that the Aboriginal in question is different from the one a thousand years ago - since human languages also haven't changed that much, from what we know. '''The fact is that Jaynes' "lexical fields changing dramatically and creating consciousness" claim is anathema to most linguists today, even the neo-Whorfians. Also, the examples he mentions from ancient literature could be explained more economically only by differing social attitudes toward human individuality as opposed to the extraordinary claim that they are witness to the emergence of consciousness.'''

As for the "consensus" issue, well, I'm sure most people would argue that consciousness either emerged from biology (therefore tens of thousands of years ago) or somehow from social interaction (not necessarily linguistic), also many thousands of years ago. Jaynes, however, (from what I understand) argues that consciousness as we know it is extremely new and entirely determined by verbal language. That surely sets him apart from most psychologists, biologists and anthropologists. If not the definition of consciousness, definitely the issue of time depth and the questions it poses for linguistics and anthropology. Zhongguy (talk) 03:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Consciousness emerging from social interaction? Nonsense. Alost all beings have social interaction and that has nothing to do with us, ourselves, our inner consciousness. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 16:56, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

The reason why I mentioned that the Aboriginal in question is different from "a person many thousands of years ago" is because the original poster said that "If you raise, say, an Australian Aboriginal into a typical Western setting, why should they develop a typical Western consciousness anyway, as seems to be usually the case?" I was trying to be polite so as not to say that it's very ethnocentric to suggest that Aboriginals have a different kind of consciousness than that of Westerners and this is in fact what the previous poster did. In order to see if a non-conscious person could in fact become conscious through exposure to language (as the previous poster suggested doing) one would need to use a truly non-conscious person so I said "Even if this person was exactly the same as an ancient human" so in this way I was saying: theoretically, if you had a time machine and went back to the point before man had became conscious (whenever it was, you suggested possibly tens of thousands of years ago if it was due to a biological change) and taught this man a modern language then I believe he would be able to use the language to narrate his experience, and "shortcut behavioral processes and arrive at more adequate decisions" (Jaynes The Origin of Consciousness) instead of simply reacting to stimuli in front of him.

As to the complexity of language- from the wikipedia entry for language:

"The human language faculty is thought to be fundamentally different from and of much higher complexity than those of other species. Human language is highly complex in that it is based on a set of rules relating symbols to their meanings, thereby forming an infinite number of possible innovative utterances from a finite number of elements. Language is thought to have originated when early hominids first started cooperating, adapting earlier systems of communication based on expressive signs to include a theory of other minds and shared intentionality. (italics are my own)"

"Human language is unique in comparison to other forms of communication, such as those used by other animals, because it allows humans to produce an infinite set of utterances from a finite set of elements,[7] and because the symbols and grammatical rules of any particular language are largely arbitrary, so that the system can only be acquired through social interaction. The known systems of communication used by animals, on the other hand, can only express a finite number of utterances that are mostly genetically transmitted.[8] Human language is also unique in that its complex structure has evolved to serve a much wider range of functions than any other kinds of communication system."

The communication abilities of animals are mostly transmitted genetically while the majority of "the symbols and grammatical rules of any particular language... can only be acquired through social interaction" because humans have more complex language than that of other animals. Through modern language mankind can "produce an infinite number of possible innovative utterances from a finite number of elements," while animals have a limited number of possible utterances so it stands to reason that at one time humankind also had a limited number of utterances. As new ideas/concepts are created with them come new words, like metaphor for example. When a new concept is created, especially one as significant as a metaphor, it allows for new and creative ways of using language: new ideas/concepts bring more complexity to language.

"Jaynes's theories on consciousness and the bicameral mind are controversial. An early criticism by philosopher Ned Block argued that Jaynes had confused the emergence of consciousness with the emergence of the concept of consciousness. In other words, according to Block, humans were conscious all along but didn't have the concept of consciousness and thus did not discuss it in their texts. Daniel Dennett countered that for some things, such as money, baseball, or consciousness, one cannot have the thing without also having the concept of the thing."

"To avoid misunderstandings: the people with a bicameral mind were not at all barbarians who waved their bludgeons and uttered monosyllabic sounds. They had a fully developed language. But language alone is not enough for consciousness, according to Jaynes. The pivotal question is which concepts are available in a language. Consciousness in Jaynes’ definition is a box of conceptual tools that are not 'included with the hardware.' It is a package of 'software' that had to be invented, similar to tools such as the wheel." (Erik Weijers http://www.erikweijers.nl/pages/translations/psychology/the-origin-of-consciousness/summary.php) Akechi77 (talk) 23:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Learning a language doesn't give one a consciousness of self. We have it without a word to express it and we cannot have a word to express something unknown that we don't have. Language merely expresses what we perceive, feel and are, and it is created by the force of those circumstances. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 16:56, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * It truly beggars belief to suppose that in the course of the second millennium BC such a profound revolution (whether cultural or genetic – Jaynes seems to consider it cultural) could affect the entire world simultaneously, up to the remotest hunter-gatherer tribes in the remotest continents, when these have not been affected by comparable innovations such as the development of agriculture, and are genetically isolated. (Conveniently overwriting all directly measurable evidence of the older, bicameral state of the human mind, at that.) It's not just the indigenous peoples of Australia (of which none continue to be completely cut off from external influences, at least in the form of Western civilisation, admittedly) and New Guinea (of which several are still isolated); all over the world there are – sometimes still until the very present – isolated tribes, some of which, such as the Sentinelese people, have almost certainly been (in this case, literally, because they live on an island) completely isolated from mainstream (or, in this case, mainland – they may have had contact with other Andamanese people more recently) cultures for more than 3000 years.
 * That is such an obvious problem – which I have been wondering about independently for a long time, and which also led me to this talk page in the first place – that it is unsurprising that Jaynes is essentially ignored in mainstream science as this problem basically refutes his idea already on its own. That, unless Jaynes has taken this problem into account and found a way to invalidate it in his book, but I am not aware that he has done so. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:24, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It's getting weirder. So Jaynes thinks that the bicameral mind actually arose with agriculture! But how does the mind of hunter-gatherers then work? Like ours? How even more convenient!
 * Perhaps it is really just a case of terrible phrasing, and although Jaynes writes "everywhere", he does not really mean "everywhere" and what he meant was not that the Agricultural Revolution made every human in the world (whether agricultural or not) bicameral at the same time and (4000–3000 years ago) the Consciousness Revolution made everyone unicameral (again?). But what is his idea then? The article should make it clearer, because these pesky details matter and will throw every anthropologically educated person off, who is aware of the bewildering diversity of cultures around the world, and allergic to such sweeping generalisations.
 * At least if taken literally, I think the real problem this hypothesis is suffering from is that – regardless of plausibility or implausibility – it is not falsifiable, and thus not even wrong. If it were falsifiable, and Jaynes had proposed a test, the matter could be settled and we would be done. But that the controversy (as far as there is even one in academia) lingers on after so many decades with no visible progress is indicative of a deeper problem, which could very well be this one. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It's worth noting that by far not all virtually isolated or truly uncontacted peoples are hunter-gatherers. Especially in New Guinea, peoples emphatically do not live hunting and gathering lifestyles in general, but practice modes of subsistence that are characterised as agricultural. So those peoples and tribes who are more or less isolated from Western civilisation (and the "Uncontacted peoples" article indicates that there are several that are as isolated as it gets) would indeed be true test cases for Jaynes's hypothesis, if I understand it correctly! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Moreover, the linguistic argument does face unsurmountable problems as far as I can see, too, and not at all addressed by the reply to Zhongguy above. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * His theory only explains meta-consciousness but not other conciousnesses; why wouldn't it have the same explanation as the others? And how does Jaynes explain visual and other senses' hallucinations?... 85.242.78.160 (talk) 18:21, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Jaynes never said that the change in mind affected the entire world simultaneously; he was very specific in saying that the change in mind likely began in Assyria, due in large part to their trade, warfare, and conquering of many, diverse groups of people. Another important factor that he brought up was the Minoan Eruption of Thera which "set off a huge procession of mass migrations and invasions which wrecked the Hittite and Mycenaean empires" (Jaynes The Origin of Consciousness). The bicameral mind seems to have developed in part due to the acquisition of language, it would be very valuable to life thousands of years ago, but when the world became increasingly chaotic then stored admonitory experience/hallucinations would become less and less valuable. As Dr. Jaynes mentioned, writing would also weaken the control of auditory hallucinations.

If you think that you see "an obvious problem... [which] basically refutes his idea already on its own," then it is very likely that you are misinterpreting the theory because countless psychologists, biologists, anthropologists, etc have gone over the theory and found no simple problem which would cast doubt on the theory. It is very unlikely that an obvious problem would escape Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and countless professors and specialists.

From my understanding, the bicameral mind began developing tens of thousands of years ago, but it was an ongoing process that helped people adapt to multiple ways of living. Eventually, the environment became so chaotic because of natural disasters and warfare, which led to massive amounts of people migrating, that a more flexible way of thinking was required. As the Bicameralism article states, "Self-awareness, or consciousness, was the culturally evolved solution to this problem."

You mentioned that the theory was not easy to test, and this is true as the human mind is very complex, but the Bicameral Theory of Mind is the only theory that I know of which explains the prevalence of auditory hallucination in healthy individuals, the command hallucinations (and many other aspects) of schizophrenia, why the two sides of the brain can function as two separate individuals in many conditions, the nature of possession and hypnosis, the widespread use of oracles (and why oracles required more and more induction techniques before they could prophesy), and why neuroimaging studies show right temporal-parietal lobe activity during auditory hallucinations. No one would deny that a theory about the development of the human mind thousands of years ago is difficult to test for, but the explanatory value of the theory is very important. In the last ten or twelve years neuroimaging studies have shown significant right temporal-parietal lobe activity during auditory hallucinations, this is something that Dr Jaynes theorized in the mid-1970s, that hallucinations in bicameral man originated in the right temporal-parietal lobe. The evidence I presented is just a portion of that found in the book, there are actually four separate hypotheses in the book- there is no way to easily sum these up within a brief article. One thing about the theory is no matter how you look at it, it is very controversial and many academics would not want to be associated with such a controversial theory. An early reviewer of the book, William Harrington of the Columbus Dispatch said "This book and this man's ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century. I cannot recommend the book emphatically enough. I have never reviewed a book for which I had more enthusiasm. . . . It renders whole shelves of books obsolete." Akechi77 (talk) 01:01, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Richard Dawkins is the very same one that came with those other ludicrous theories of the Selfish Gene and the Memes, isn't he?... And Daniel Dennett is much challenged by his peers. Novíssimo Utilizador (talk) 17:02, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * "Writing would also weaken the control of auditory hallucinations" on what grounds? They'd supposedly still need the voices to guide them in concrete situations. And language doesn't demand us to have such voices. There was writing and symbology before that above mentioned period in China, Egypt, etc. And a sort of written language since cave paintings. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * "Countless psychologists, biologists, anthropologists, etc", except the overwhelming majority who doesn't believe in that theory. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * "Self-awareness, or consciousness, was the culturally evolved solution to this problem". A higher intelligence alone does sufise. 85.242.78.160 (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

According to the theory, language developed later than most specialists would imagine (primarily between the years 70,000 BC to 8,000 BC) and the most accurate way to track it's development is by examining the artifacts and tools which we've discovered from various time periods. Stone tools, mainly handaxes, are the predominant tool which was found up until a more recent era (starting around 50,000 years ago)- the behavioral modernity article on Wikipedia states the following:

"The Late Upper Paleolithic Model, or Upper Paleolithic Revolution, refers to the idea that, though anatomically modern humans first appear around 150,000 years ago (as was once believed), they were not cognitively or behaviorally "modern" until around 50,000 years ago, leading to their expansion out of Africa and into Europe and Asia.[7][19][20] These authors note that traits used as a metric for behavioral modernity do not appear as a package until around 40–50,000 years ago. Klein (1995) specifically describes evidence of fishing, bone shaped as a tool, hearths, significant artifact diversity, and elaborate graves are all absent before this point.[7][19] According to these authors, art only becomes common beyond this switching point, signifying a change from archaic to modern humans.[7] Most researchers argue that a neurological or genetic change, perhaps one enabling complex language, such as FOXP2, caused this revolutionary change in our species.[7][20]"

The construction of these early stone tools was likely transmitted by imitation as “it is almost impossible to describe chipping flints into choppers in language.” All of these changes which were taking place over this time period indicate changes in the human mind are taking place, and just like these changes started off relatively slowly they began to increase at a multiplicative rate over time. So one technology allows for the creation of one tool which then allows for the creation of other more advanced tool, and clothing, shelter types etc. By the time writing had developed humans had acquired many of the tools of consciousness, something which is not often mentioned by detractors of Jaynes is he didn't consider consciousness to be a single thing or tool but more like a toolbox with various mental tools which had developed over many years. As agriculture developed over time so to did the written language which allowed for record keeping over great periods of time, but more importantly it allowed for the transmission of ideas, and commands from leaders, which acted as a form of social control.

So the first language, and written language, developed in stages where first it was simple calls like many mammals have, then there would be modifiers, etc- just like the first written language was simple marks on sticks, walls, etc which seem to indicate counting and then there would be recipes or the first true sentences, etc. Basic language would be reactionary and not allow for the communication of complex ideas, whereas a more complex language, or writing, allowed for an increased ability to communicate and thus survive. Jaynes used the example of how the creation of a verb like ‘sharper’ allowed ancient man to communicate an entirely new concept which would increase the quality of tools which they created.

The voices would be needed less and less as society developed and people began to take on specific roles, like farmers, soldiers, etc- writing would further weaken them for many reasons. This would take dozens of pages to fully explain but what I consider the heart of the matter is that writing allows for the transmission of ideas over long distances, and times, as does a functional mindspace (the heart of consciousness). Metaphor transfers the usage of one term, or phrase, to describe something else because of a perceived similarity of the two things so it allows one to distill the essence of something so that it can be easily communicated to someone else. Show someone an unknown object, like a pitchfork for example, and they'll say something like "well, it's like a big fork." Jaynes would say that consciousness is performing a very similar operation, so a person encounters a situation and the entire situation can't be processed at once so the brain is essentially "distilling", or simplifying, the situation so that it can be communicated to the self.

Akechi77 (talk) 22:22, 3 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Either there is modern anthropological evidence for the bicameral hypothesis, or there is not. If there cannot be such evidence because according to the hypothesis the Consciousness Revolution happened so long ago all anthropological evidence has been lost, then the hypothesis struggles with a serious defect. Since unambiguous evidence and counterevidence appears to be lacking, and a test has not been proposed by Jaynes, the hypothesis is both unverifiable and unfalsifiable, and therefore not even wrong. It's an interesting speculative idea, but useless to science. (It's like claiming that until 100,000 years ago, all humans had naturally green skin, blue hair and purple eyes, but all evidence has now been destroyed. Or claiming that people in Britain used a language with some unique features back 10,000 years ago, but the evidence has disappeared. Stuff for science-fiction-of-the-gaps, perhaps, but not for science.) And it's intellectually dishonest to omit this problem from the article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:20, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I wanted to add to this discussion by saying I immediately thought of Native Americans when I came across this, but many other populations like Australian Aborigines would have to be regarded as not "modern" in some way as well. I'm glad OP noticed this too. Going further, we have the development of written language in Mesoamerica ex nihilo and the entire corpus of writing until the Spanish arrival that this hypothesis would have to contend with, although maybe defenders of Jaynes could say none of their writings demonstrates their definition of cognitive modernity. I would assume that the changes Jaynes is talking about would have to be genetically based, so you would expect to see an areal distribution of cognitively modern people, and yet, Native Americans, Aboriginals, Polynesians, modern tribal societies, etc. all seem to have no fundamental issues with consciousness. It's bizarre. The entire idea seems to rest on an extremely simple, linear, understanding of the history of civilization and economies, and is hyper-focused on the Mediterranean basin. I can't imagine an archeologist accepting any of this at face value. I would think there would be some scientific sources about this that we could add to the article, right?

67.250.75.102 (talk) 21:05, 17 October 2022 (UTC)