Bicameralism

[GloryofGreece]

I also wonder if this human tendency to pine for some early state of collectivism is a kind of collective memory of what it was like before consciousness. Would a bicameral civilization not be like a massive beehive in a way, with the unconsciousness of the Pharaoh acting as a queen bee?

This would be why collectivism doesn't really work for us any longer. We are all conscious, independent beings who think for ourselves.

These thoughts are very interesting to me as well. But I do believe even in this incredibly "conscious" era we're living in now still yearns for communal living to various degrees. Almost everyone feel the desire to be a part of something larger than themselves. And I also think the idea that Carl Jung expressed that for example Hitler was like the collective unconscious shadow of a entire people. Other ideas like Rupert Sheldrake's morphic renascence.

That's sort of what he seems to imply here. Bicameralism evolved because it was impossible for the leader of a human clan in the paleolithic to be everywhere commanding people at the same time. It would be like the unconscious mind mimicking what the chief would have said if he were there when a novel problem arises.

Because we are only 3000 years into this era of consciousness (according to him), we have all sorts of fallbacks to the earlier modality.

As it is, we have to turn off our consciousness to learn. Consciousness is not as critical as you might think. Try playing the most difficult song you know on an instrument and be conscious of every note played, your finger position, etc.

You can't even read this post if you try to be conscious of ever letter, phoneme, word, syntax, and phrase. You have to *not* be conscious of these things for it to work.

It also really make me think about the connection between language/linguistics and "consciousness". Like would it be possible without articulated comply language?

Also, I think our ability to focus and "exclude" other phenomena is why we have specialist, innovation, mastery etc. I don't know how or if that correlates to consciousness per say but maybe our more conscious ability is why we can do the things we can do...write great literary works, create etc.

[Speaker to Animals]

These thoughts are very interesting to me as well. But I do believe even in this incredibly "conscious" era we're living in now still yearns for communal living to various degrees. Almost everyone feel the desire to be a part of something larger than themselves. And I also think the idea that Carl Jung expressed that for example Hitler was like the collective unconscious shadow of a entire people. Other ideas like Rupert Sheldrake's morphic renascence.

That's sort of what he seems to imply here. Bicameralism evolved because it was impossible for the leader of a human clan in the paleolithic to be everywhere commanding people at the same time. It would be like the unconscious mind mimicking what the chief would have said if he were there when a novel problem arises.

Because we are only 3000 years into this era of consciousness (according to him), we have all sorts of fallbacks to the earlier modality.

As it is, we have to turn off our consciousness to learn. Consciousness is not as critical as you might think. Try playing the most difficult song you know on an instrument and be conscious of every note played, your finger position, etc.

You can't even read this post if you try to be conscious of ever letter, phoneme, word, syntax, and phrase. You have to *not* be conscious of these things for it to work.

It also really make me think about the connection between language/linguistics and "consciousness". Like would it be possible without articulated comply language?

Also, I think our ability to focus and "exclude" other phenomena is why we have specialist, innovation, mastery etc. I don't know how or if that correlates to consciousness per say but maybe our more conscious ability is why we can do the things we can do...write great literary works, create etc.

His argument is that consciousness is actually a cultural invention and arises from the use of metaphor. I suspect you need written language, which is why I would assume Mesoamericans had consciousness of some form and Andean people did not. You would want to look for evidence of more sophisticated metaphor to recognize it in literature.

For instance, the Mayan texts we have I don't think show much metaphor at all. But the various peoples in the valley of Mexico used metaphor all the time, especially in their poetry.

This makes the Genesis account of the Fall so much more beautiful in a way. The Fall would just be what happened 3000 years ago when people became conscious, since only then can you truly be culpable for your sins. It describes humans are once walking with God, which could be a reference back to bicameralism. But the description of what happened (eating from a forbidden fruit tree) was itself a metaphor.

[SuburbanFarmer]

That's sort of what he seems to imply here. Bicameralism evolved because it was impossible for the leader of a human clan in the paleolithic to be everywhere commanding people at the same time. It would be like the unconscious mind mimicking what the chief would have said if he were there when a novel problem arises.

Because we are only 3000 years into this era of consciousness (according to him), we have all sorts of fallbacks to the earlier modality.

As it is, we have to turn off our consciousness to learn. Consciousness is not as critical as you might think. Try playing the most difficult song you know on an instrument and be conscious of every note played, your finger position, etc.

You can't even read this post if you try to be conscious of ever letter, phoneme, word, syntax, and phrase. You have to *not* be conscious of these things for it to work.

It also really make me think about the connection between language/linguistics and "consciousness". Like would it be possible without articulated comply language?

Also, I think our ability to focus and "exclude" other phenomena is why we have specialist, innovation, mastery etc. I don't know how or if that correlates to consciousness per say but maybe our more conscious ability is why we can do the things we can do...write great literary works, create etc.

His argument is that consciousness is actually a cultural invention and arises from the use of metaphor. I suspect you need written language, which is why I would assume Mesoamericans had consciousness of some form and Andean people did not. You would want to look for evidence of more sophisticated metaphor to recognize it in literature.

For instance, the Mayan texts we have I don't think show much metaphor at all. But the various peoples in the valley of Mexico used metaphor all the time, especially in their poetry.

This makes the Genesis account of the Fall so much more beautiful in a way. The Fall would just be what happened 3000 years ago when people became conscious, since only then can you truly be culpable for your sins. It describes humans are once walking with God, which could be a reference back to bicameralism. But the description of what happened (eating from a forbidden fruit tree) was itself a metaphor.

It's called the Tree of Knowledge, after all.

[Speaker to Animals]

I am saying it tells you in a sly way what the tree of knowledge of good and evil actually is: a metaphor. Metaphor is what makes consciousness possible according to him, Think of how meta that would be if all this were true. We keep trying to figure out what it symbolizes but what really matters is that it's a metaphor, not what it uses to construct the metaphor. Instead of exploring the details of the metaphor itself, consider that it's just a metaphor. That's all that matters.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I am saying it tells you in a sly way what the tree of knowledge of good and evil actually is: a metaphor. Metaphor is what makes consciousness possible according to him, Think of how meta that would be if all this were true. We keep trying to figure out what it symbolizes but what really matters is that it's a metaphor, not what it uses to construct the metaphor. Instead of exploring the details of the metaphor itself, consider that it's just a metaphor. That's all that matters.

Not evidence of this theory. But it is a metaphor for humans gaining consciousness, and pining for an earlier animal existence.

[Hastur]

Thanks for the heads up on this one! I'm enjoying those two podcasts and pondering over the idea of Bicameralism. I don't know if it's true but it's a beautifully thought out theory with a lot going for it.

It's incredibly hard to imagine not having consciousness since imagining requires consciousness. This is as meta as it gets.

[doc_loliday]

About five years ago I listened to a podcast regarding bicameralism. It's been a while, but if I remember right, they were saying something like people didn't really know that their inner voice belonged to them, so to speak; that they essentially heard commands in their head. Does this podcast affirm something like that?

Edit: After reading the synopsis, its the same thing. And I agree, its a pretty wild notion.