Hmm. This could finally explain a mystery for me regarding my mother. I think she believes that her ancestors talk to her, and I could never reconcile this with the fact that in all other ways, she’s a very rational, non-superstitious and pragmatic person.
When I was about 4 -- barely talking because my family was bilingual and I’m less adept at language anyway—I told my mother I saw ‘people’ on my eyes. I meant that scratches in my eyes looked like people. To my astonishment, she seemed very happy and started including me in conversations with invisible people. My dad found out and put a stop to it, but I’ve always wondered about it.
Six years ago at my wedding, I overheard my mother talking about the ancestors with her sister. I decided it was some kind of family delusion. Maybe it’s a genetic trait I didn’t inherit.
Interesting. But note: Jaynes sayes that it’s mainly enculturation that determines whether the tendency to hear voices is suppressed or not, so there are both genetic and cultural influences. ETA: He says that it’s a latent tendency in everyone, thus genetic, but is revealed or not depending on upbringing.
I started reading it a while ago. It’s split up into three parts:
1) Explanation of the theory 2) Evidence from historical records 3) Vestiges of the bicameral mind in the modern world
I skipped part 2 and read most of 1 and 3. I don’t know whether to recommend for or against it at this point. He definitely brings up some interesting evidence I hadn’t known about involving schizophrenics, hypnotism, religious rituals (incl. Greek philosophers’ experience with “gods”), and the development of modern science, and D. Dennett recommends him (in a bit of a back-handed way), but at the same time I get the sense of confirmation bias permeating the book. It’s a big question mark at this point, and I’ve since focused efforts on more reliably insightful works.
I read it many years ago, when it first came out, as did people in all sorts of humanities, and everyone’s reaction was exactly the same: “Of course he doesn’t know what he’s talking about in my particular subfield, but all the rest of it seems plausible.” What that means is that Jaynes is a very good writer.
I’ve read Jaynes’s book, and my impressions confirm this view. Jaynes is certainly an excellent writer. The book is well worth reading even if just for entertainment value, and there is certainly much worthwhile about its creative and interesting theoretical speculations, as well as many gems of erudition that are strewn throughout it.
However, I don’t think Jaynes’s arguments ultimately hold water. The evidence he presents is sparse and far-fetched, and overwhelmingly limited to the ancient Mediterranean and Near East civilizations. He says very little to nothing about other human societies. There is no clear and unambiguous historical account of encountering a bicameral-minded society, even among peoples who were below the development level of the old civilizations discussed by Jaynes when first contacted by Westerners and other literate civilizations who have left extensive and clear histories. This seems to require a lot of special pleading to explain away, so I’d say it’s a decisive argument against his theories.
Also, I remember several claims made by Jaynes that, to my knowledge, contradict well established findings in various fields. However, I would have to re-read the book to write down a precise critique; my memory of it isn’t reliable enough to talk about the specifics right now.
Dennett has written that he sees Jaynes’s theory as a modular theory, and that the historical hallucinations part is one part that he would like to discard, but that his ideas about consciousness coming from “talking to yourself” are spot on.
In any case, Jaynes is careful to say that he doesn’t take any of it too literally and his thoughts are only suggestions and musings on how consciousness might have originated. Some of his critics seem to miss the larger picture and get caught up on factual details. Jaynes’s book is really about large philosophical ideas, not historical facts.
Heh. Yeah, Morendil introduced me to the theory a couple months ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
Hmm. This could finally explain a mystery for me regarding my mother. I think she believes that her ancestors talk to her, and I could never reconcile this with the fact that in all other ways, she’s a very rational, non-superstitious and pragmatic person.
When I was about 4 -- barely talking because my family was bilingual and I’m less adept at language anyway—I told my mother I saw ‘people’ on my eyes. I meant that scratches in my eyes looked like people. To my astonishment, she seemed very happy and started including me in conversations with invisible people. My dad found out and put a stop to it, but I’ve always wondered about it.
Six years ago at my wedding, I overheard my mother talking about the ancestors with her sister. I decided it was some kind of family delusion. Maybe it’s a genetic trait I didn’t inherit.
Interesting. But note: Jaynes sayes that it’s mainly enculturation that determines whether the tendency to hear voices is suppressed or not, so there are both genetic and cultural influences. ETA: He says that it’s a latent tendency in everyone, thus genetic, but is revealed or not depending on upbringing.
Huh. If this is a thing, it could explain some stories of the “second sight” being passed down through families.
Or maybe ghosts are just real. That also explains the facts.
I started reading it a while ago. It’s split up into three parts:
1) Explanation of the theory
2) Evidence from historical records
3) Vestiges of the bicameral mind in the modern world
I skipped part 2 and read most of 1 and 3. I don’t know whether to recommend for or against it at this point. He definitely brings up some interesting evidence I hadn’t known about involving schizophrenics, hypnotism, religious rituals (incl. Greek philosophers’ experience with “gods”), and the development of modern science, and D. Dennett recommends him (in a bit of a back-handed way), but at the same time I get the sense of confirmation bias permeating the book. It’s a big question mark at this point, and I’ve since focused efforts on more reliably insightful works.
The prominent linguist and writing systems scholar Peter T. Daniels once made the following comment about Jaynes’s book:
I’ve read Jaynes’s book, and my impressions confirm this view. Jaynes is certainly an excellent writer. The book is well worth reading even if just for entertainment value, and there is certainly much worthwhile about its creative and interesting theoretical speculations, as well as many gems of erudition that are strewn throughout it.
However, I don’t think Jaynes’s arguments ultimately hold water. The evidence he presents is sparse and far-fetched, and overwhelmingly limited to the ancient Mediterranean and Near East civilizations. He says very little to nothing about other human societies. There is no clear and unambiguous historical account of encountering a bicameral-minded society, even among peoples who were below the development level of the old civilizations discussed by Jaynes when first contacted by Westerners and other literate civilizations who have left extensive and clear histories. This seems to require a lot of special pleading to explain away, so I’d say it’s a decisive argument against his theories.
Also, I remember several claims made by Jaynes that, to my knowledge, contradict well established findings in various fields. However, I would have to re-read the book to write down a precise critique; my memory of it isn’t reliable enough to talk about the specifics right now.
Dennett has written that he sees Jaynes’s theory as a modular theory, and that the historical hallucinations part is one part that he would like to discard, but that his ideas about consciousness coming from “talking to yourself” are spot on.
In any case, Jaynes is careful to say that he doesn’t take any of it too literally and his thoughts are only suggestions and musings on how consciousness might have originated. Some of his critics seem to miss the larger picture and get caught up on factual details. Jaynes’s book is really about large philosophical ideas, not historical facts.