Bicameralism

[Speaker to Animals]

Also, just in terms of Mesoamerican history, go read about the rise of the Mexica, and the formation of the Triple Alliance. Those guys were the equals of the Spanish in every way. They had to be conscious beings to carry out the incredible deceptions. If I have to choose my second favorite civilization, it's Mesoamerica.

[Speaker to Animals]

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.

[Speaker to Animals]

Bicameralism also makes sense of the kinds of ancestor worship we see in the evidence of earlier cultures. To a bicameral, the deceased never really go away. He would hear the voice of his departed father every now and again telling him how to solve some kind of novel problem. This is why they would bury the family member beneath the floor of their homes and leave clothes and food for them. We conscious humans keep looking at these things as symbolic or metaphor because consciousness, according to bicameralism, actually developed from metaphor in language. But maybe we are projecting consciousness onto them like we do in so many other areas (like our dogs)? What if we need to look at all these things literally rather than metaphorically?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

We are all conscious, independent beings who think for ourselves.

fify

[heydaralon]

More like BiSCAMeralism if you ask me. That shit doesnt work and you have to listen to high pressure timeshare sales pitch before they give it to you.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I’m fairly confident that my girlfriend is “pre-cambrial”, if this is a real thing.

[Speaker to Animals]

I suspect there is a grain of truth to it. I am not sure how completely his theory matches what happened (and have no idea how you would prove it other than looking through literature and artifacts for indirect inferences), but I am telling you it makes sense of a lot of things.

[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.

[GloryofGreece]

Bicameralism also makes sense of the kinds of ancestor worship we see in the evidence of earlier cultures. To a bicameral, the deceased never really go away. He would hear the voice of his departed father every now and again telling him how to solve some kind of novel problem. This is why they would bury the family member beneath the floor of their homes and leave clothes and food for them. We conscious humans keep looking at these things as symbolic or metaphor because consciousness, according to bicameralism, actually developed from metaphor in language. But maybe we are projecting consciousness onto them like we do in so many other areas (like our dogs)? What if we need to look at all these things literally rather than metaphorically?

It was interesting on the podcast when they were talking about expressions of grief throughout cultures and the ages. But also it gets be thinking about other animals that have funeral or mourning rituals. Like elephants for example. Or the dolphin that dies trying to keep raising the dying pod member's dying or dead body to the top of the water etc.

[Speaker to Animals]

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.