Thursday, April 21, 2011

perspective of mind, julian jaynes

Bizcharts | Back in 1976 when he was a professor of psychology at Princeton, Julian Jaynes published a very controversial theory about the emergence of the human mind. Indeed, even today his theory of the "bicameral mind" remains a controversy.

Rather than just harkening to behavioral psychology or brain biology, Jaynes presents his theory from the perspective of psycho-cultural history.

Going back to the the earliest writings and studying particularly the many early civilizations of the Near East, Jaynes came to the conclusion that most of the people in these archaic cultures were *not* subjectively conscious as we understand it today.

Jaynes provides extensive illustrations--ranging from Sumer, Ur, Babylon, Egyptian, Early Mycenean, Hebrew, and even Mayan and Asian cultures--that support his theory of the bicameral mind. But he mainly focuses on Mycenean (Greek) material--and it is this material which we will examine mostly in this post.

Jaynes bluntly declares "There is in general no consciousness in the ILIAD." Analyzing Homer's great epic, Jaynes came to the conclusion that the characters of the Trojan siege did not have conscious minds, no introspection, as we know it in the modern human. [Julian Jaynes, THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976, p. 69]

Whether Achilles or Agamemnon, there was no sense of subjectivity. Rather they were men whom the gods pushed about like robots. The gods sang epics through their lips. Jayne declares that these Iliadic heroes heard "voices," real speech and directions from the gods--as clearly as those diagnosed epileptic or schizophrenic today.

Jaynes stresses that the Iliadic man did not possess subjectivity as we do--rather "he had no awareness of his awareness of the world, no internal mind-space to introspect upon." This mentality of the Myceneans, Jaynes calls the bicameral mind. [Ibid, p. 75]

Now what was this bicameral mind? Jaynes briefly discusses brain biology--in that there are three speech areas, for most located in the left hemisphere. They are: (1) the supplemental motor cortex; (2) Broca's area; and (3) Wernicke's area. Jaynes focuses on Wernicke's area, which is chiefly the posterior part of the left temporal lobe. It is Wernicke's area that is crucial for human speech.

Pursuing the bicameral mind, Jaynes focuses on the corpus callosum, the major inter-connector between the brain's hemispheres. In human brains the corpus callosum can be likened to a small bridge, a band of transverse fibers, only slightly more than one-eighth of an inch in diameter. This bridge "collects from most of the temporal lobe cortex but particularly the middle gyrus of the temporal lobe in Wernicke's area." And it was this bridge that served as the means by which the "gods" who dwelled in one hemisphere of the human brain were able to give "directions" to the other hemisphere. It is like thinking of the "two hemispheres of the brain almost as two individuals." Hence the bicameral mind! [Ibid, p. 117]

Archaic humans were ordered and moved by the gods through both auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations. The gods mainly "talked" to them--but sometimes "appeared," such as Athene appeared to Achilles. And "when visual hallucinations occur with voices, they are merely shining light or cloudy fog, as Thetis came to Achilles or Yahwey to Moses." [Ibid, p. 93]

Jaynes believes in the mentality of the early Mycenean that volition, planning and initiative were literally organized with no consciousness whatsoever. Rather such volition was "told" to the individual--"sometimes with the visual aura of a familiar friend or authority figure or 'god,' or sometimes as a voice alone." [Ibid, p. 75]

Now Jaynes thinks the great agricultural civilizations that spread over much of the Near East by 5000 b.c.e. reflected the bicameral mind. These civilizations were rigid theocracies! They were reminiscent of the Queen Bee and the bee-hive. These bicameral societies reflected "hierarchies of officials, soldiers, or works, inventory of goods, statements of goods owed to the ruler, and particular to gods." [Ibid, p. 80]

Jaynes contests that such theocracies were the only means for a bicameral civilization to survive. Circumventing chaos, these rigid hierarchies allowed for "lesser men hallucinating the voices of authorities over them, and those authorities hallucinating yet higher ones, and so" to kings and gods. [Ibid, p. 79]

According to Julian Jaynes, "the idols of a bicameral world are the carefully tended centers of social control, with auditory hallucinations instead of pheromones."

65 comments:

nanakwame said...

Ibiti enia ko si, ko si imale
Where there is no man, there is no divinity

About 50,000 years ago Africans expanded out, after almost a 200,000 year history on the continent, these hominidae populated the globe as we now know.

The world’s 6,000 or so modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue spoken by early African humans between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, a new study suggests.



Beyond our motor abilities, our eye-hand coordination, our intellectual prowess--there is our Mind's ability to create culture(s) and civilization(s). Sagan believes that "Culture" has in a sense acted as a feedback-cycle system to enhance even further the evolution of human intelligence. He considers that Culture--our art and music, our science and technology, our legal and ethical systems--was made possible by the "collaborative work" of our cerebral hemispheres. Essentially human culture is the function of the "corpus callosum," the brain's bridge between the left and right hemispheres.

But it is our Culture that makes us *more* human! We create it, it acts upon us. It's a feedback cycle of the Mind system
. Carl Sagan

What is written here is close to the mythpoetic of Ifa/Orisa, where the Imole (Immortals) ruled the world, left and humans began with the help top Orisa who came back to assist them. I would like you to give a timeline that you like, though Jaynes raises good points there are some weakness in the arugment. This is why I study myth stories so carefully.
One must remember that great writers do say that it just comes and almost unconcsiously they tell a story. You do recall the story about writing a novel on toilet paper. When did story telling begin my dear friend? What is the role of chance and serendipity of creative persons? You do believe that we have been visited quite a bit from others in the universe?

CNu said...

What is written here is close to the mythpoetic of Ifa/Orisa, where the Imole (Immortals) ruled the world, left and humans began with the help top Orisa who came back to assist them. I would like you to give a timeline that you like, though Jaynes raises good points there are some weakness in the arugment. This is why I study myth stories so carefully.

I don't see the weaknesses to which you refer Nana.

Jaynes is largely silent wrt cultures other than the Mycenean for which he was specifically able to marshal literary and artifactual evidence. That was very well played on his part.

He threatened to produce a similar analysis for Egyptian and Mayan cultures, and if I'm not mistaken, that unpublished manuscript exists.

That said, I believe the error resides not with Jaynes, but with a reviewer unfamiliar with the details of Jaynes arguments and proofs who would seek to erroneously universalize Jayne's hypothesis. In other words Nana, the bicameral mind process happens and has happened over and over again Nana in a variety of cultures overe a much greater span of time than that which Jaynes fully addressed, i.e., the Mycenean.

I would refer you to the Aoidoi Hypothesis as the continuation of Jaynes original thesis and the template for a process which may have occurred over and over again amongst various human groupings over a much larger span of time than what we have to work with in historical record terminating in Old Kingdom Egypt, Babylon, Indus Valley, Catal Huyuk, etc...,

One must remember that great writers do say that it just comes and almost unconcsiously they tell a story. You do recall the story about writing a novel on toilet paper. When did story telling begin my dear friend? What is the role of chance and serendipity of creative persons? You do believe that we have been visited quite a bit from others in the universe?

lol,

As far as being visited from others in the universe, I'd challenge you to find even a single instance in which I've EVER posited extraterrestrial visitations or an extraterrestrial origin for non-human intelligence(s) - though I see no reason to suppose that the Sun isn't a living entity functioning on a vastly greater cosmic scale than our own and I see no reason not to suppose and to investigate the possible panspermian origins of life on the earth itself. You must have me confused with somebody else.

These questions evidence the specific failure to understand the repeatability of Jaynes bicameral development process that I have noted to your attention above. Narratization, and specifically the aoidoi trance oral narratization can be observed in various cultures all across the world, suggestive that various groups embark at various times on a process common to and stereotypical of the human species. I think the fundamental error is the erroneous belief that the evolution of human consciousness is a linear and universal process involving all cultures and all members of all cultures on the same path at the same time.

The more interesting point for further exploration, to me, is the role played by drawing and the specialized from of drawing called writing that seems to need to intersect with oral narratization in order to yield the expression of full subjectivity as we know and experience it.

CNu said...

Again if Africans lived for over 200,ooo years as developing humans and the Greeks came at the end of BCE - how can all that time drawing and storying telling be unconscious - I need your time line based on this theory, which is in fact the problem since other findings are giving us an added pictures that Jaynes did not have. I can agree how anthropomorphic developed yet remember the Vedic culture and San.

Who said it was?

You still don't get what I wrote.

The evolution of human consciousness is not a linear or uninterrupted cumulative process.

It has been repeatedly punctuated by catastrophes and holocausts that have blown every vestige of high human consciousness back to the stone age.

It restarts and proceeds as far as it can before it is disrupted and thrown back to jump street from whence it must start all over again.

As for the African account on which you seem fixated, I don't believe it makes sense to speculate any further back than the great species bottleneck ~74,000 years ago? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

This low population census and genetic bottleneck explains why humans are so similar among them while in the case of the ape species, this does not happen. The DNA analyses that detected this bottleneck also revealed the oldest human race: Khoisan (Bushmen), now restricted to South Africa, being at least 100,000 years old. The second oldest race was that of the pygmy. DNA analysis was made on African pygmies, but the race migrated early to New Guinea, Philippines (Aeta), Malaya (Semang), Thailand (Mani), Andaman archipelago, Flores (Rampasasa) and Vanuatu archipelago, when most of these lands formed one ground or were separated by narrow seas.

The cause of the disaster experienced by the first humans is increasingly put on a "volcanic winter", after the eruption of the Toba Mount from Sumatra. The event took place for 6 years and altered the clime to the point of inducing an especially tough Ice Age which lasted one thousand years.

The volcano expelled 720 cubic miles (3,000 cubic kilometers) of magma and huge quantities of sulfuric acid that reached even Greenland. Ice cores clime records revealed that the world got colder by 5.4 - 9� F (3 - 5� C) for the next millennium. This is the largest volcanic blast on Earth in the last two million years, and wrapped India in a 6-inch (15 cm) sheet of volcanic ash.


Unless you can replicate the Jaynesian evidentiary standard Nana, which standard supports his thesis of consciousness development - what is the point of entertaining pure speculations?

Given the Jaynesian framework for understanding consciousness development - we now at least have an approach for modelling attributes of modern consciousness and identifying where on that spectrum (by dent of artifacts and evidence) various and sundry human groupings have been. For that matter, we may even be able to identify comparative deficiencies or at least stark differences in the modern expression of human consciousness when compared and contrasted with "archaic" forms which evidence comparatively higher degrees of development based on the systems of representation and signification.

Can you account for the Platonic occulting of Pythagorean compositions in then conventional Greek text? Do you know of anyone capable of pulling off such a feat now?

ken said...

Probably the most in depth review of Jaynes' book I found

http://www.cosmoetica.com/B103-DES58.htm

CNu said...

If not for the fact that I'll never recover the 10 minutes I squandered on that singularly unqualified piece of crap, I'd rejoin with a half-hearted rotflmbao...,

Why oh why are you and Nana each pathologically incapable of going to the library, picking up and reading a single instance of source material for yourselves?

Hmmm....? Is it really that difficult?

OK, you'd each find several chapters of Penrose impenetrable, but thankfully, Penrose provides a layman's set of shortcuts through his text. As for Jaynes, Jaynes is artful simplicity itself and truly a pleasure to read. Until and unless you've read it for yourselves, why not simply leave it alone?

nanakwame said...

what is the point of entertaining pure speculations? You argue like those aggrogant spoil college kids sometimes.

You keep telling me I haven't read this stuff; I read this stuff before your ass was in HS. I spent 10 fucking years working with the mentally ill - concrete fucking work, burned out too. You think I was some unconscious employee going along to get alone. Love to search ideas on healing and working of the Brians, so much so I blew those aggrogant psycogloigist out the water.
Your problem is you are not answering my question, but defending what I really don't know.
We know more about the brain since the 1970's then we knew in 2000k years. There have been great debates on this for a long time. Consciousness is a small but very powerful development of the human being. Those quotes of recent findings, I left you they are pure speculations? Thank you Ken that was a good summnation, not throwing the baby out with the baby water.
I am going by two on- going arugments since the 1960's in earnest - One the recent understanding of human life in and out of Africa at least 100k ago, way before Greece, and two; the proof that we are closer to the animal kingdom than was admitted before you were born. Add the fact that no devlopment happens on Marco level but on Mirco levels, the individual to the common, as proved in genetics and human behavior. Let us not forget what some called the big leap 6th Century BCE on the globe.
Who were and how were certain individuals, or groups, becoming conscious of life on Earth that they consciously shaped their travels, created tools, wrote romantic poems to lovers and divine, became rulers, and builders. Consciousness had to play a part my friend, and I am so excited by the new discovers, though; I also know the denial of the growing fascist will increase. At times you sound complicit and don’t know it, because even though you attack magical thinking, I say your line of reasoning leaves open that we are just puppets of the g_ds or aliens. Happy Spring to you and the family

nanakwame said...

Unless you can replicate the Jaynesian evidentiary standard - RYFKM to use Ken link

The idea that only catastrophes & creeping civilization forced Man to be conscious, to let loose the power of the brain's left hemisphere, is also a highly ‘sexy’ idea. But, so is the idea of extraterrestrial visitation- & where does that stand nowadays?

We know that language- or at least conversation- is an absolutely conscious act;
The brain is plastic & not nearly as ‘mappable’ as once thought. (knew this since the 1970's, and has been empatheically proven today )
Nor are the hemispheres as polar as once believed. JJ’s basic thrust re: the brain is that Iliadic heroes such as Achilles lacked introspection- an awareness that awareness existed! Therefore subjectivity did not exist, as all men were equally surveyors & purveyors of blunt materiality...

The aforementioned Daniel Dennett has had quibbles with JJ, but also finds alot still useful. He feels JJ was wrong about the import of hallucinations, but likes much of JJ’s approach- especially in the cyber age. The hardware of the human brain may be the same as it was eons ago, but a change in the organization of information-processing happened- our software was updated…
An argument that has been thrown out as proof of a change in human consciousness is the slowness that humans have applied technology they have discovered. Or, as some have stated: ‘If they used their heads the same way that we do then they would have built computers & starships 1000s of years ago.’ But this shows a lack of modern chaos theory, complexity, & emergent properties. Yet this learning by slowly evolving rote mimicry is how many feel human consciousness once was- similar to the way a baby learns to speak- by absorption. It was only a certain complexity point of no return that changed the human mind- that change being cultural, not biological. This has strong appeal- even in our genetically-obsessed age- but, again, has been superseded by facts… Perhaps, rather than consciousness, JJ should have called his book The Origin Of Sentience In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind, because sentience is more culturally & technologically-specific than consciousness

http://www.cosmoetica.com/B103-DES58.htm

CNu said...

You keep telling me I haven't read this stuff; I read this stuff before your ass was in HS.

lol, you genuinely expect me to believe that you read OCBOBM when it was published, but that it had so little effect on your thinking that you run around to this day more full of magical-thinking crap than a christmas goose?

Your problem is you are not answering my question, but defending what I really don't know.

I've answered your question repeatedly, notwithstanding the fact that I find it utterly absurd.

If you have evidence to offer in support of your belief, then simply provide that evidence. Simple.

The existence of ancient sanskrit literature or even more ancient beads is NOT INCONSISTENT with anything that I wrote, or, inconsistent with Jaynes. Jaynes makes his specific argument with regard to Mycenean culture, period. Comparable arguments could be made for ancient Han culture, for whoever the architects/builders of Stonehenge were, etc...,

There was CLEARLY a profound diversity of consciousness existing in antiquity, much as there is a profound diversity of consciousness existing today. Are there are, or are there not stone-age level tribes deep in the Latin American rain forests, some of whom don't even have concepts much less representations for numbers larger than 7?

Are there are, or are there not remnants of exceedingly high ancient civilization scattered throughout those selfsame rain forests? Inclusive of stonework that defies the capacity of all but the very most modern tools and technologies to replicate?

At times you sound complicit and don’t know it, because even though you attack magical thinking, I say your line of reasoning leaves open that we are just puppets of the g_ds or aliens.

If the fascists and the magical thinking morons can just be induced to wipe one another out, life would be splendid for the truth-seeking remainder.

As for the rest, those are your projections and have nothing whatsoever to do with me.

Heed the words of the poet; http://youtu.be/_ul7X5js1vE

CNu said...

‘If they used their heads the same way that we do then they would have built computers & starships 1000s of years ago.’

rotflmbao

Such a magnificent and succinct statement of the obvious.

Renders all the preceding obfuscatory crap moot.

The only thing that need be added to this sage observation is that the species missed it's opportunity to further evolve both its instrumental and consciousness capacities by allowing the dopamine hegemons to violently restrict access to safe, non-toxic psychedelic molecules during the declining decades of the 20th century.

Gee Chee Vision said...

What of dreams and the phenomenon of foreseeing an event that one experiences later? I've read the wiki-write up version of deja vu. I don't know how up to date that is. Are there any other works? I find it illusive to explain it away as anomalies in short/long term brain activity. Especially if you had the dream in Mexico but then you go to France for the first time in your life and experience it; background drop, same actors, wardrobe, clapperboard and everything.

Gee Chee Vision said...

elusive I mean

Dale Asberry said...

And you are on to one of the purposes of this blog! Wouldn't being fully aware of such liminal experiences transform our consciousness even further?? (I specifically chose the word transform after initially putting in "add" because it would not be simply additive.)

Dale Asberry said...

Craig, why would my reading this particular book help in gaining any respect with you in determining if this theory holds any weight.

Why would you think that his purpose is for gaining respect, of yours or anyone else?

CNu said...

Craig, why would my reading this particular book help in gaining any respect with you in determining if this theory holds any weight.

rotflmbao..., whew!!!!

seriously dood, did you write that with a straight face or strictly tongue-in-cheek?

ken said...

Reread and ask for a delete.

Dale Asberry said...

I'm not interested in why you think he's correct or incorrect. I'm simply pointing out a fundamental flaw for why you post here and demonstrated in that first sentence: namely, that belief and respect are aspects of truth. Nonsense.

#FAIL #HumanCognitiveError

ken said...

There may be a little smirk there seasoned with the what I am stating.

ken said...

Dale to help you here, seeing as you seem not to understand what is being considered. Its my opinion if I read the book and then challenged the evidence the book weaves into an essay, there would be just as much respect of my opinion if I hadn't read the book and relied on the Jaynes society web site and Jaynes videos and the information about Jaynes's theories other people have discussed from the book. So when you asked "why do you think his (Craig's) purpose is for gaining respect of [me] or anyone else; you missed totally it was me understanding Craig would have little respect of my opinion regardless if I read the book or not, just like he did for the person who did read the book who I linked to. Follow?

Gee Chee Vision said...

1) I really don't know where this conjecture about al-Haythm is coming from. Where is this source material? It's tabloid-esque.

2) I do like the video. Even though I can't help but feel I'm getting the same "pie in the sky" message that this other world exists but we just have to patiently await another unfalsifiable (species specific of coarse) evolutionary jump before we get there. Of coarse we won't be around but just believe, it'll come.

Dale Asberry said...

I follow and it is still a fallacy. CNu does not post articles nor comments to gain the respect of the readers of his blog. It should also be clear that he does not base his appreciation of comments simply on respect, but upon the merits of the comments themselves.

Gee Chee Vision said...

That is to say, "total reality includes nonprimitive observation" the same as saying you can't see angels and demons?

CNu said...

lol,

the only message you're getting is the one you are presently prepared to receive.

Y.O.U.

not the species.

Y.O.U.

are solely and exclusively responsible for the limits of your perceptual and cognitive capacity. while there is of course a question of gifts/talents involved here, it has very much more to do with how much WORK you put into extending the reach and duration of your awareness.

how far around that signpost up ahead you're individually capable of apprehending - is the whole and entire shooting match. whether that shooting match involves effective and repeatable access to and use of chronotopologically extended information - and multilateral communications with non-human intelligences - is all down to you.

species be damned....., and so it has been since the dawn of the current flicker of recorded human history.

CNu said...

Dale has nothing whatsoever to be embarrassed about.

You, on the other hand, continue to gibber erroneously and at great length about a text you've never read and whose synopsis and third party reviews fall tragically short of giving it its due with the consequence to you of making your uninformed assertions seem increasingly ridiculous.

I'm at a loss to classify the pathology for which you're persistently volunteering your services as poster child today, but your argument isn't with Jaynes, it isn't with me, it isn't with Dale...,

ken said...

Artful Craig... I figured I would help you articulate Julian Jaynes defense here with another link. And for those who aren't going to go and spend the labor on the book but want to understand when Craigy goes Jaynesy, we'll have a better understanding of the lingo.

I think with Jaynes definition of conscious and subconscious as defined here, makes it even more difficult for me to believe Julian was able to detect if the person was conscious or not through the writings, or cave wall pictures. And his ideas that these ancients must have had auditory commands and hallucinations have to first come from an assumption there is no God, or if there was he wouldn't communicate with man. Clearly his science of self god commands had to begin there, there's no getting around that.

http://lsu.academia.edu/GaryWilliams/Papers/156099/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_Nonconscious_A_Defense_of_Julian_Jaynes

Gee Chee Vision said...

Is Jayne asserting consciousness is a physiological accident or random mutation of evolution?

Gee Chee Vision said...

Are you saying here that there are possibly other dimensions existing next to us (if “next to us” is appropriate) and it is not observable by means of Aristotlean logic but rather through chronotopology?

Gee Chee Vision said...

Our “biclops” species’ topological relationship with matter is limited to a monocular photon interaction (double negative?) thus prohibits us from seeing or experiencing these other dimensions? However, in the event of phenomena ie seeing a future event in your dream, these intersecting points with 4th dimensional space is usually identified (attempting to use Aristotlean logic) as precognition?

ken said...

"and the reality you have now"

CNu said...

Neither.

The Houston Public Library sucks ass, but the Fondren at Rice University has EXACTLY what you're looking for GCV!!!! Here ya go! http://search.library.rice.edu/?q=the+origins+of+consciousness+in+the+breakdown+of+the+bicameral+mind&x=7&y=15

Bust out your card and prepare to get SHOOK!!!!

CNu said...

Nope.

I am saying that Tom Bearden did a helluva job breaking down a fundamental limitation of ordinary logic/language and its aptic bounding by the photon interaction. I'm also saying that cats who don't know about complex numbers and probability theory might be well served to read up on Gerolamo Cardano - and that Sir Roger Penrose provides an accessible and engaging account of all three - making for a very nice introduction to quantum theory and ways around the photon interaction which appears to have intuitively hamstrung the otherwise great and brilliant Albert Einstein.

Shadows of the Mind brah, check him out.

CNu said...

You're in luck Ken. Hennepin county's catalog is far more robust than the Houston Public Library;s. What you're looking for and what you urgently need is available to you right now. So...., bust out your library card and commence to crackin! https://catalog.hclib.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=C303595IO0605.185134&profile=elibrary&source=~!horizon&view=items&uri=full=3100026~!4223921~!0&ri=3&aspect=basic_search&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=Jaynes,+Julian,+1920-1997.&index=AL&uindex=&aspect=basic_search&menu=search&ri=3

ken said...

If I were to go on a limb, consciousness is learned or culturally taught.

Gee Chee Vision said...

No lie, Houston Public Library might as well convert their facilities into weekend children programs. They ain't doing nuth'n else useful. In between projects I live at Rice from school son-up til son-down. If I got any mo' Rice, I'd be where Frank Brown at with the maitre d' action. So I feel ya, but Jayne already made his skrilla off dead folk hallucinations. I get too far away from the live ones, me and my Jayne novel both be living under one of them signposts you always talk'n 'bout.

Gee Chee Vision said...

"Is that what Bearden wrote?"
That's what I'm trying to get?


"If one carefully observes oneself, what criteria seem characteristic of those instances in which a deja vu moment is felt to occur/have occured? "

"Felt" is that word that is needed for everyone to be in lockstep agreement with, for his science to bring 'bout that Phantom Bentley my man probably foresaw in his own dream.

CNu said...

Clever by half will never win the race...,

As my man David Mills was won't to say, some cats put landers on mars, while other cats clown, dance, rhyme&pose and talk shit.

Some cats have shown the way at a universal crossroads where mathematics and artificial language become the currency of exploration, communication, and documentation.

Other cats struggle with the rudiments, so deeply bound by the photon interaction that their speculations stink with the primitive recapitulation of square pegs that they childishly try to hammer into round holes.

Though there are multiple paths, there is only one solution available to those serious about knowledge, technique, and application - and that solution is WORK.

everything else is merely conversation..,

CNu said...

That's only on a limb for those who've never deeply explored the structure, functions, and nature of the thing Ken. What else could even possibly be of greater consequence to you than this?
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14-30&version=NIV

EVERYTHING else is merely conversation...,

CNu said...

"What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time." John Berger

Tom said...

Ken this sounds like plain old internet smoke-blowing. ('Does CNu endorse the Jaynes Society or does he not? Why won't he answer that question?' Please. )

To talk intelligently about book X, we have to read book X. Yes or no?

Gee Chee Vision said...

Point 1:
Is a Trinitarian Christian incapable of preserving or contributing to advancements in mathematics? You may disagree with their holy equations...ok...but are they incapable of putting a lander on Mars because in the church house 3=1?

Point 2:
An Islamic empire believing in God committed to the preservation and expansion of Greek culture, developing science, medicine, mathematics through inquiry into the best of human achievement regardless of race and religion can't be explained away.

The "primitive" this, and "magical thinking monkeys" that, won't make those extensive histories agreed upon by consensus go away. Belief in God has not been an impediment in showing the way to the "universal crossroads" as you say in the past. Why the attempt to introduce an ahistorical examination of people that believed in God, NOW somehow has dampened human achievement?

CNu said...

lol,

Is a Trinitarian Christian incapable of preserving or contributing to advancements in mathematics? You may disagree with their holy equations...ok...but are they incapable of putting a lander on Mars because in the church house 3=1?

"Trinitarians" are responsible for the preservation and transmission of mathematics across imperial dark ages and fundamentalist pogroms - http://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/philo_lawof3.htm

An Islamic empire believing in God committed to the preservation and expansion of Greek culture, developing science, medicine, mathematics through inquiry into the best of human achievement regardless of race and religion can't be explained away.

Thank goodness for Salman, the learned Zoroastrian seeker after truth and head of the trinity of Salman, Muhammad, and Ali - without whom there would be no Islam.

Belief in God has not been an impediment in showing the way to the "universal crossroads" as you say in the past. Why the attempt to introduce an ahistorical examination of people that believed in God, NOW somehow has dampened human achievement?

authoritarian fundamentalisms - incapable of expressing their alleged truths - have a role to play in organizing, disciplining, and governing those who do not seek after truth. it is when these inarticulate and status-seeking fundamentalisms usurp the rightful place of truth-seeking at the head of all human endeavor (and in the name of god) that their capacity to serve as a de-evolutionary vehicle for incompetence, malfeasance, and evil is most clearly expressed.

ken said...

I believed I was on a limb because I couldn't believe Jaynes after his perspectives on ancients in early Biblical text or whenever communication or works of eggs were mentioned, would end up embracing Biblical principles about consciousness, especially after you made the claims it would blow our collective minds.

CNu said...

If I were to go on a limb, consciousness is learned or culturally taught.

This is obvious on casual examination. Like making the assertion that "water is wet".

I couldn't believe Jaynes after his perspectives on ancients in early Biblical text or whenever communication or works of eggs were mentioned, would end up embracing Biblical principles about consciousness,

lol,

To what biblical principles about consciousness do you refer?

Since your "church" and its authorities teach nothing on this subject, and you've never shown any evidence of a deep, self-directed examination of the subject, you DO stand to be shook by Jaynes masterful explanation of what the evidence indicates, including the psycho-cultural evidence gleaned from old testament literature.

ken said...

I'm not.

CNu said...

of course not.
http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/healthandhealing/elements/media/topic-media/PosterR_2942_10.jpg

ken said...

I didn't consciously notice you underlined Bible and Biblical theology I believe to note that because I gave a definition of conscience from the theology dictionary that somehow I didn't have any actual Biblical backing for the point I was making. It appears you didn't read the rest of the post. The definition was only there to show the connection between the theological definition of conscience and Jaynes use of consciousness. Throughout the rest of the post I supplied ample Biblical backing to the point I was making, and if I wanted I could have doubled even tripled the references.

As you posted your cute little picture I couldn't help but see the irony as three separate people have challenged and asked you about various theories of this man, expecting you to have the ability to articulate the view due to your personal education about the subject have been disappointed that not even one quote or phrase or even one concept you consider important to yourself has been articulated. Well maybe I will allow you let us know after I stated Jaynes believes conscience is learned, or influenced by culture, you thought that was important to you. But anyway, blown away about what he learned about consciousness, but blind to the fact he offered nothing. Thanks Nana for your thoughts and Gee Chee for your questions.

Dale Asberry said...

CNu said: for some understandings there simply is no substitute for your own active effort;

Wouldn't that be true for all understanding? ;-)

Dale Asberry said...

Lol, I should read the whole posting....

CNu said...

Tom is a serious, well-intended and intellectually competent correspondent - it is a privilege and a pleasure to engage him as a discursive counterpart.

Gee Chee Vision said...

"Thank goodness for Salman, the learned Zoroastrian seeker after truth and head of the trinity of Salman, Muhammad, and Ali - and without whom there would never have been an Islam."-CNu

Brudda (as Nigerians pronounce it), 12 secret hidden Imams that know EVERYTHING (if one even believes in their existence at all; sort of like Elijah Mohammed giving Farrakhan instructions from the mother ship) as a reliable source of info, fails to man-up authentic historical events while Manning (Marable) down real historic personalities. That is if the nub of your hubbub is that Salman was the source of various Quranic verses. This narrative you suggest, is it related by Salman or by a branch of Shia that are disputed by even other Shia?

Hmm, you must’ve been digg’n in the crates around the late 70’s and early 80’s. A lot of African-American cats accepted Shia cosmologies during that time. Just FYI’ing

Gee Chee Vision said...

"authoritarian fundamentalisms - incapable of expressing their alleged truths - have a role to play in organizing, disciplining, and governing those who do not seek after truth. it is when these inarticulate and status-seeking fundamentalisms usurp the rightful place of truth-seeking at the head of all human endeavor (and in the name of god) that their capacity to serve as a de-evolutionary vehicle for incompetence, malfeasance, and evil is most clearly expressed."-CNu

I think you spreading yourself thin on these posts CNu. Islamic Empires sought world domination just like other empires; just as a corporation desire domination. The support of “truth” in technological/military/medical etc. advancements was to their advantage. Scribes alone were top-bill’n commissions via "authoritarian fundamentalist" to translate a myriad of luminous works from all cultures. These are basic histories you can catch on a PBS fundraiser mix.
You are really obsessed with this persecution complex? You keep illustrating this story of the “lone truth seeker against all odds” in a Don LaFontaine tone. Yes they had their share of tyrants. That’s always a 2 cent argument anyone can make with full bloated chest confidence. But you make it a rule of thumb that all “truth seekers” of the medieval period caught grief. That they were without a support system. That's just not historically accurate.

CNu said...

Up to and after the gratuitous bit about persecution GCV, you're absolutely correct. But like any other engineered mass movement, Islam has had more than its fair share of pole swings in the direction of fundamentalist idiocy. Other mass movements, such as the Catholic church, have suffered similar pole swings in response to the exigencies of the era in response to whoever happened to be swinging the biggest scimitar/broadsword at a particular moment.

Surely you don't contend that rule by scientists for scientists (knowledge seekers) has ever been normative during any period of human history? It's not what moves the crowd.

NFC (need for cognition) is the first fruit of human existence AFAIC - but among the killer-apes - it doesn't hold a candle to the perennial peacock/peahen spectacle. http://subrealism.blogspot.com/2008/06/peacockpeahen-spectacle.html

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