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Bicameral mentality is a controversial hypothesis in psychology and neuroscience which argues that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking" and a second part which listens and obeys, and that the eventual societal failure of this mentality helped initiate modern human consciousness. The term was coined by Julian Jaynes in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, wherein he made the case that a bicameral mentality was the normal and ubiquitous state of the human mind as recently as 3000 years ago, near the end of the Mediterranean bronze age.

The bicameral mind is and was a different, non-conscious mental schema wherein response to novel stimuli was mediated across the corpus collosum through a linguistic control mechanism. According to Jaynes, with bicameral (two-chambered) mentality, a person's experiences and memories encoded in the brain's right hemisphere gave rise to auditory verbal hallucinations interpreted by the left hemisphere as a directive voice, typically attributed to a dead ancestor, chief, king, or god. Several studies have supported Jaynes's neurological model. Less accepted are his contentions that bicameral mentality operated as humanity's standard mental schema as recently as the 2nd millennium BCE and that bicameral mentality could have supported collective human activity as complex as urban living and the construction of massive pyramids.

How it works
In a 2007 summary of the bicameral mentality hypothesis, scholars wrote, "Jaynes recognizes that consciousness itself is only a small part of mental activity and is not necessary for sensation or perception, for concept formation, for learning, thinking or even reasoning. Thus, if major human actions and skills can function automatically and unconsciously, then it is conceivable that there were, at one time, human beings who did most of the things we do – speak, understand, perceive, solve problems – but who were without consciousness." In his book, Jaynes explained bicameral mentality with this illustration: "In driving a car, I am not sitting like a back-seat driver directing myself, but rather find myself committed and engaged with little consciousness. In fact my consciousness will usually be involved in something else, in a conversation with you if you happen to be my passenger, or in thinking about the origin of consciousness perhaps. My hand, foot, and head behavior, however, are almost in a different world. In touching something, I am touched; in turning my head, the world turns to me; in seeing, I am related to a world I immediately obey in the sense of driving on the road and not on the sidewalk.... I am caught up, unconsciously enthralled, if you will, in a total interacting reciprocity of stimulation that may be constantly threatening or comforting, appealing or repelling, responding to the changes in traffic and particular aspects of it with trepidation or confidence, trust or distrust, while my consciousness is still off on other topics." Now simply subtract that consciousness and you have what a bicameral man would be like. The world would happen to him and his action would be an inextricable part of that happening with no consciousness whatever. And now let some brand-new situation occur, an accident up ahead, a blocked road, a flat tire, a stalled engine, and behold, our bicameral man would not do what you and I would do, that is, quickly and efficiently swivel our consciousness over to the matter and narratize out what to do. He would have to wait for his bicameral voice which with stored-up admonitory wisdom of his life would tell him nonconsciously what to do.

Supporting evidence
See also The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Jaynes built his case for bicameral mentality by citing evidence from many diverse sources, including historical literature. Jaynes asserts that in the Iliad and sections of the Old Testament no mention is made of any kind of conscious introspection, and there is no apparent indication that the writers were self-aware. Jaynes points out that older portions of the Old Testament (such as the Book of Amos) have few or none of the features of later books of the Old Testament (such as Ecclesiastes) as well as later works such as Homer's Odyssey, which show indications of a profoundly different mentality—an early form of consciousness.

Jaynes also notes that in many ancient societies the corpses of the dead were treated as though still alive, being seated, dressed, and even fed. He explains this treatment by arguing that voices of the dead continued to be heard in auditory hallucinations. Unlike today's hallucinations, the voices of ancient times were understood by cultural norms to provide instructive guidance in a seamlessly functioning society.

Jaynes argues that schizophrenia is a vestige of humanity's earlier bicameral state. Recent evidence shows that many schizophrenics do not just hear random voices but experience "command hallucinations" instructing their behavior or urging them to commit certain acts.

Founded in 1997, the year when Jaynes died, the Julian Jaynes Society has assembled and maintains extensive documentation in its mission to advance, promote, and discuss Jaynes's theories, including bicameral mentality.

Language and metaphor
A 1990 edition of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind added an author's "Afterword," in which Jaynes wrote that "There are four main hypotheses" in the book. Bicameral mentality is the second hypothesis. The first is that "Consciousness is based on language." Key to Jaynes's bicameral mentality, and also to some others' reluctance to accept its timing and ubiquity, are assumptions about the origins and buildup of human language.

In agreement with Jaynes, cognitive archaeologist David Lewis-Williams writes that "fully modern language is the sine qua non for higher-order consciousness." Agreeing with Jaynes once again, Lewis-Williams hypothesizes that hallucinations played a decisive role in ancient mentalities. Jaynes understands language to be built up from metaphor. Cognitive archaeologist Merlin Donald credits Jaynes for this insight: "Language floats on a sea of metaphor, and this dependency suggests that language is usually not the captain but the passenger in this vessel. Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes was probably the first to point out the metaphoric nature of thought...." Where Jaynes and some other scholars diverge is in fixing language's evolutionary timeline. Lewis-Williams believes that Upper Paleolithic people "had fully modern language," could "speak about the past and the future" and could "convey abstract notions." As a consequence, Lewis-Williams concludes that "Upper Paleolithic people could attend to inner voices without, as Jaynes contends, being semi-automatons...." By Jaynes's dating, however, only as recently as the second millenium BCE did language achieve sufficient metaphoric elaboration for conscious introspection to become possible. In his 1990 "Afterword," Jaynes maintains this position while conceding the possibility of a "weak form" of his hypothesis whereby, starting at the time of the Upper Paleolithic, about 12,000 years ago, both a mentality capable of introspection and a bicameral mentality coexisted "until the bicameral mind became unwieldy and was sloughed off, leaving consciousness on its own as the medium of human decisions."

Critiques and defenses
Despite impressive scholarship and forceful argument in Jaynes's book, some scholars and lay people have found it hard to imagine that cities as populous as Memphis in ancient Egypt and Ur in Sumer could arise, grow, and persist for centuries without conscious introspection playing a directive role. Other doubters have cited the early Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which includes instances of conscious introspection. Jaynes anticipated the counter-evidence of the Gilgamesh epic and devoted two pages of his book to argue that the introspective elements of the epic were added as late as 650 BCE by Assyrian editors.

Long-term prospects for the credibility of Jaynes's bicameral mentality hypothesis may depend on the extent of its success in explaining ancient phenomena that have long puzzled scholars. One positive appraisal has been Michael Carr's study of China's 11th–3rd centuries BCE Shi personator ceremony, in which a ceremonial "personator" acted the part of a dead relative, accepting food and drink and delivering messages to the living persons gathered. Carr writes, "Critics can argue that Jaynes's bicameral mind is an unprovable or unnecessary conjecture. There are already various non-bicameral explanations for shi personation and all of the other Chinese death beliefs and customs. However, without the bicameral hypothesis, at least one explanation has to be proposed for each of them.... The bicameral mind is the simplest explanation with the widest applicability."

Other resources
The was founded by Marcel Kuijsten in 1997, shortly after Jaynes's death. The society has published a number of books on Julian Jaynes's theory, including:


 * Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness (2007), a collection of essays on consciousness and the bicameral mind theory, with contributors including psychological anthropologist Brian J. McVeigh, psychologists John Limber and Scott Greer, clinical psychologist John Hamilton, philosophers Jan Sleutels and David Stove, and sinologist Michael Carr (see shi "personator"). The book also contains an extensive biography of Julian Jaynes by historian of psychology William Woodward and June Tower, and a foreword by neuroscientist Michael Persinger.
 * The Julian Jaynes Collection (2012), a collection of articles, interviews, and discussion with Julian Jaynes.
 * The Minds of the Bible: Speculations on the Cultural Evolution of Human Consciousness (2013) by Rabbi James Cohn.
 * Gods, Voices, and the Bicameral Mind (2016), which includes essays on a variety of aspects of Jaynes's theory, including ancient history, language, the development of consciousness in children, and the transition from bicameral mentality to consciousness in ancient Tibet.
 * Foreign-language editions of Julian Jaynes's theory in French, German, and Spanish.

The society also maintains a member area, with articles, lectures, and interviews on Jaynes's theory.

Brian J. McVeigh (one of Jaynes's graduate students) has expanded on Jaynes's theory:


 * The Psychology of the Bible: Explaining Divine Voices and Visions (2020) by Brian J. McVeigh
 * The 'Other' Psychology of Julian Jaynes: Ancient Languages, Sacred Visions, and Forgotten Mentalities (2018) by Brian J. McVeigh
 * How Religion Evolved: Explaining the Living Dead, Talking Idols, and Mesmerizing Monuments (2016) by Brian J. McVeigh