Julian's comments of the Greeks and Hebrews possessing no consciousness is highly debatable because in Homer's account of the fifty days of the tenth year of the Trojan war, there had to have been at least some intelligent consciousness to construct the Trojan Horse contraption and for the heroes of the Iliad to perform some of the feats described in the epic. Similarly, many could argue that characters in the Bible -- such as Cain choosing to slay his brother, Abel -- acted out of their own volition.
However, Jaynes provides scintillating evidence illustrating how ancient characters, specifically the Greeks, seemed to be controlled by something other than their own consciousness. After all, the writers of the Bible, despite the profoundly evocative evidence of which they describe, do not appear to have a conscience or, at the least, introspection. It is not until later writings of the Old Testament, like in Ecclesiastes do the writers take up a distinctively introspective tone. In the first verse of Ecclesiastes, the writer states how his studies revealed him that wisdom is meaningless: "I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heaven burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind" (Bible Ecclesiastes 1:13). I would have to strongly disagree with this writer because he then on to say that, in addition to wisdom, pleasures, toil, and advancement are meaningless. Sure, maybe toil could be labeled as purposeless, but wisdom can generate knowing which can help others in their process, and pleasures can provide temporary satisfaction.
The writer encourages one to stand in awe of God, which, personally, I feel is a way of simply method of acquiring more blind followers to the Christian faith, but respect for an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent force -- given that one exists -- would definitely be a good thing. The writer takes quite a derogatory and brusque tone, telling the reader that God lacks time for fools, of which I strongly disagree because he later says to "fear God and keep his commandments...For he will bring every deed into judgment" (Bible Ecclesiastes 12:13). People should never live in fear of anything. It is a flaw in Christianity, in my mind, to encourage -- basically demand -- anyone to live in fear and awe of any power, regardless of its capacity for judgment. One should be in awe of themselves; as Janyes has speculated the only "God voices" are those of our own mind. Listen to and stand in awe of your own certainty. The point is clear, however, the writer, reflecting on what qualities are meaningful and the culmination of some of his studies, has taken a more reflective non-bicameral tone. Janyes These are gross speculations, but most people would have at least a scintilla of reflection after witnessing Noah's Flood, Thus began the Jaynes' Theory of Consciousness.
Jaynes argues that these ancient heroes had no grasp of subjectivity and introspection, lacked all cognizance of one's own level of awareness, possessed no "internal mind to introspect upon" (Jaynes 75). According to Jaynes, in this state of mental bicameralism and the absence of inner monologue, people commonly experienced external god forces pushing the automatons around with "voices". However, Jaynes brilliantly asserts that those "external God voices" did not come from external deity, but rather from the other half -- the "speaking half" -- of one's own mind. Janyes says that the speaking half of one's mind It is difficult to label Achilles, Agamemnon, or Moses as people that did not act on their own accord. Where they people who were greatly in touch with spiritual connections and intentions? Yes, but not necessarily people that were robots to some divine voice. Instead, Janyes puts forth the possibility that even the divine messages they received came from the other half of their own mind simply "waking up".
What could have been possibly waking up were intrinsic motivations. There exists two major branches of psychological motivation -- extrinsic motivation , working for external reward, and intrinsic motivation, working for the pleasure of the activity itself. It's amazing that, if the bicameral mind theory has veracity, the heroes of ancient Greece were not worshipping external deities and making sacrifices to the God voices they heard, but rather, they were obeying the commands of their own mind and making sacrificial worship to the right-side of their brain! In short, they had sincere connection to there inner voice.
It was certainly a different time back then. Today, such divine invocations from external voices would be swiftly mis-diagnosed as schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, or some other disorder from the frightening annals of "abnormal psychology". If you've seen the movie Dr. Strangelove, then you've witnessed the erratic, explosive gestures where Dr. Strangelove's hand seems to have a life of it's own, a condition also known as "alien hand syndrome", or AHS. Alien hand syndrome is a neurological disorder that can occur with damage (or surgery) to the corpus callosum, which frequently is fount in the surgical severing of the callosum for extremely epileptic patients. Cases of AHS can get so severe that one hand begins to "fight" with the other hand, so that, for example, if the left handed opened the refrigerator to grab bowl of pasta, the right would just as quickly shove the pasta back into the fridge and slam the fridge shut! The halves of the brain failed to reach a "compromise" before taking action could be one explanation. AHS has drawn the attention of scholars and scientists interested psychological volition, philosophy of action, and human consciousness. Risking the possibility of AHS to cure epilepsy? Tough choice, but fortunately, thanks to advancements in surgical technology people don't have to make that choice, but the ancients with the possible existence of a "bicameral mind", most certainly had difficulties with hallucinations, visions, and voices from the other half of their mind!
Jaynes points out that as civilization developed and the right-brain dominance over the left decreased, consciousness truly emerged. The concept of divination and spirituality emerged when bicameralism faded (the brain halves fused) and the need for an explanation of "all those voices" arose. Interesting that during the re-integration of the cerebral halves, kids were have said to have more voices from the "gods", but lost these abilities with later schooling. This could imply that schooling generated more of a conscience or that it caused the right-brain to "listen" and the left-brain to "speak" whether or not that is a beneficial shift or not.
Getting into the anatomical details, Janyes Theory focused on the primary communication and language centers of the brain, namely Broca's area and Wernicke's area both connected to each other with the arcuate fasciculus. In neuroscience-speak, Broca's area is a.k.a Brodmann's area 44, located in the left frontal lobe around the triangular section of the inferior frontal gyrus, and Wernicke's area is a.k.a Brodmann area 22, found on the left posterior temporal lobe close to the temporo-parietal junction. Both of these, you'll notice, are located on the left hemisphere of the brain, which could relate to Janyes theory of the left-"listening brain" and right speaking brain. However, Broca's area is connected with the motor mechanics of using larynx muscles to produce and comprehend speech and, while Wernicke's area, on the other hand, being involved in receiving information and transforming it into linguistic words, is all "listening". In short, Broca's gets the words in your mind out, while Wernicke's puts the information in your mind into words. With Broca's aphasia, you can comprehend, but speak in stilted, random manner, while one with Wernicke's aphasia cannot comprehend words, but can speak them in a semi-meaningful manner.
Broca's area and Wernick's area
The loss in the ability to speak or understand spoken language due to brain damage of Broca's area results in "non-fluent aphasia" and "fluent aphasia" if speech command is lost in Wernicke's area. Frequently, conjugations and pronoun-understanding may been lost with the retention of nouns and verbs, but without a logical ordering in speech production. While someone suffering from Broca's aphasia comprehends a majority of what they pick up, their speech production is jumbled. For example, to say they went to the store, they might say "store went, I say", or something similar. Wernicke's aphasia, known as "fluent-aphasia" produces aphasia that sounds more coherent, but lacks meaning. The decrease in comprehension levels is visible in Wernicke's aphasia, as well. While it is a sad situation because 72% of aphasics are isolated from work, 50% have taken speech-therapy only to be less excluded, there exists a National Aphasics Association (NAA) that helps those in need.
(en.wikipedio.org 1)
But with the rise of consciousness came the fear of acting with one's own volition, which brought the uncertainty of doubt. In this doubt, man began to think:
- "Man is made to feel guilty. He is condemned for having lost his innocence by inventing consciousness. He is condemned for assuming the responsibility to use his own mind to guide his life. He is condemned for exchanging his nature-made bicameral mind with a man-invented conscious mind." (Wallace 10).
- Considering the "problems" from exchanging in a animal-like conscious-less state for a brain, man is given automatic solutions if becomes obsequious to authority. Here, man erroneously exchanges self-responsibility for personal decisions to lead one's life fore as well discarding his ability to follow his own mind.
Well, using one's own mind and one's own authority isn't a problem at all. It's a solution! The Matrix and Blade Runner from the cyberpunk genre -- where tensions between hackers, A.I. and mega-corporations brew in the not-so-distant future -- Neotech, and the concept of Validate Your Life have latched onto the vital task of abandoning the guilt of consciousness to escape the fallacy of Original Sin and of consciousness, and embrace those strengths.
Look at famous works like Hawthorne's The Birthmark and the punishment and expulsion from the Garden of Eden in the Bible to see that consciousness is frequently a condemned change, when it should be promulgated. Neotech, the mortal enemy of mysticism, which uses "non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge such as 'just knowing'," engenders using one's own reason and senses to make conclusions. "People knowledgeable about fully integrated honesty or Neotech have the tools to control their own lives and destinies, free from crippling mysticism and harmful false authority" (Wallace 11). While Neotech has a fantastic goal, remembering to listen to intuition now and then is fine if just, for the least, to try to create a reconciliating synthesis between Neotech and mystic philosophies.
The Neotech approach certainly does have a stronger case because it chooses not to betray, but to utilize one's own mind. For about two years in my life, I took up a mysticism approach and tried to seriously commit to astrology, signs, and lots of other voodoo before it felt as though it took me absolutely nowhere in no direction. However, there exist different degrees and criteria for progress that could fit "mysticism success", but Neotech is much more logical and applicable. It's important to acknowledge mental conscience, but also vital -- sometimes more vital -- to obey the spiritual, mystical body. Ultimately, a reconciling balance of neotech-mind-consciousness and mysticism-spiritual-heart creates freedom. In Buddhist thought, Nirvana is not a place that one arrives at or discovers, but it is an acquired internal state free of desires and fears. Recognizing the history of bicameral mentality is vital to not only honoring and respecting, but it is essential to protecting and perpetuating the current human state of consciousness and insight.
en.wikipedia.org. Broca's Area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area
Holy Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1984.
Jaynes, Julian. Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976..
Wallace, Frank. Consciousness: The End of False Authority. I & O Publishing Co., 1991.
Xiong, Joseph. Aphasia: A language Disorder. Biology 202: Serendip, 1999. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro99/web1/Xiong.html
1 comment:
I had the same problem - the Trojan Horse. If, as Jaynes claims, deception was "unthinkable" in the Iliad, how was such a celebrated act of cunning possible?
However, I looked it up and realized the Iliad DOES NOT Tell the story of the Trojan Horse. The Trojan Horse features in the Aeneid. The events take place after the Iliad. And even then, the legitimacy of the story is questionable, as is most history before Thucydides and Herodotus and all those boring bastards ;)
(Sorry if I missed something, I only skimmed the post. Kind of in a hurry.)
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