Julian Jaynes on Origin of Consciousness with Marcel Kuijsten & Brian McVeigh
Вставка
- Опубліковано 19 вер 2024
- • Julian Jaynes & The Or... Watch ALL our Julian Jaynes videos here!
www.meetup.com... Join us for Daily Zoom Meetups!
Join us for an interview with author Marcel Kuijsten, the Founder of Julian Jaynes Society and Brian McVeigh
Topics:
1) Origins of Consciousness
2) Role of Writing in Civilization
3) Julian Jaynes and his Thought
4) Bicameral Mind
5) Difference between the mind in Iliad and Odyssey
6) Neuroscience evidence for Jaynes theories
7) Research building on Jaynes work
MARCEL KUIJSTEN is Founder and Executive Director of the Julian Jaynes Society, a scholarly society and publisher focused on exploring and promoting the work of Julian Jaynes, one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century.
He has designed, edited, and published three books: Gods, Voices, and the Bicameral Mind: The Theories of Julian Jaynes, The Julian Jaynes Collection, and Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes’s Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited.
Don't Miss It!
See the calendar at www.meetup.com...
A Meetup Every Day, Every Week, For Everyone!
Every Weekday at 9pm ET; On Weekends at 2:30pm ET
We record all our Meetups and post them on UA-cam. Feel free to keep your video on or off as you prefer. Watch Past Comprehensivist/Polymath Meetups here: • Comprehensivist/Polyma...
Good to know that these ideas are still in circulation today.
with the advances in the neuro-chemical understanding of the brain the bicameral mind is tacking back round again.
Great interview, thank you!
Amazing!!!
Thanks for this video. I'm half way through this very intriguing book...
I stop improving on my guitar playing when I'm practicing. I take a couple weeks off, and when I picked it back up, my playing has improved. Things that had frustrated me , flow without much deliberate focus.
BTW, I see that Les Paul sitting back there.
Amazing! So much little awakenings and connections after hearing this. Greetings from Mexico
I was doing my Ph.D in Philosophy in the earlier 1980's when I first read Jaynes. Unfortunately, because of criticism from Ned Block and Patricia Churchland, Jaynes theory of mind never got a proper hearing.
The only philosopher who was sympathetic was Daniel Dennett, but even he rejected the theory of auditory hallucinations.
Very true that there is a LOT more in the original book to think about.
Very well conducted colloquium! Regarding questions in reSearch of the bicameral mind, it might be better to consider 'addressing' questions versus '"answering" them.
Rock on!!
This is a truly excellent talk and I'm sure I'll revisit it again & again. Thank you!
Commenting on 33:20 - 36:00 min
I'd like to query the possibility that our non-human ancestors as well as small human tribes of 30-40 people were not definitively organised around just the one alpha male king or leader (that was heard to keep people focussed on a complex task, organised in a social hierarchy and to establish communication between the hemispheres of the individual).
Commenting on 108:45 - 110:00
I'd also like to suggest that the mythologies of one King-God are just a few Bichameral stories that were selected and survived because they were used by men to naturalise themselves as leaders. Manipulation and control also means controlling the narrative.
I may be misunderstanding you about whether bichameral consciousness is actually experienced by voice hearers but it isn't the experience of voice hearers that they only hear alpha male leaders or that they're the most important.
.............
Yuval Noah Harari is a well regarded historian and novelist.
Here is the interview: ua-cam.com/video/ledJBbRfH8g/v-deo.html
109:00 - 111:45
He mentions here that there were different mythologies in every valley and hill 5000 years ago and there are far fewer mythologies now that have taken over the entire world. This includes common fairytales.
..............
Our nervous system is wired to pay much more attention to things that will allow it to survive so I think we all respond to male discomfort more readily. Perhaps men have also manipulated this biological mechanism to secure leadership and resources using threat/punishment and a lack of threat/punishment.
Stephen Porges (the polyvagal theory) outlines how particular sound frequencies, patterns, predictability and prosodic tones can bring a sense of safety and how others can bring a sense of defense and how this changes our automatic physiological state and therefore the story or the narrative that's possible for our minds to create from.
...........
Stephen Porges interview: ua-cam.com/video/nB3nS4Gh_9k/v-deo.html
6:45 - 8:00 min
One goal is to feel safe with an appropriate mammal
7:30 - 11:30
When we are in a physiologically defensive state, we pay attention to the low frequency rumbles of a predator that's been wired into our nervous system. Often these low frequency sounds don't have the melodic, prosodic intonation because it's linked to the hypervigilance system of the organism making those sounds. If the physiology isn't hypervigilant and it's melodic, it usually doesn't get picked up on unconsciously as a danger.
22:00 - 23: 00
Frequency is one aspect that can disturb the nervous system but pattern is another (predictability or a lack of predictability).
............
So therefore one has to pay attention to violence because it hijacks our evolutionary mechanisms.
.................
Dr. Robert Sapolsky PhD Professor of Biology, Neurology and Neurosurgery.
It turns out social learning and context predict levels of aggression and sexual behaviour rather than testosterone. I'm including this to disrupt the idea of naturalised ancestral and evolutionary patriarchy.
Interview: ua-cam.com/video/DtmwtjOoSYU/v-deo.html
12:00 - 20:00 min
....................
....................
Again, Yuval Noah Harari is a well regarded historian and novelist.
Here is the interview again: ua-cam.com/video/ledJBbRfH8g/v-deo.html
4:00 - 6:00
On the importance of narrative, story and metaphor in human lives and how powerful that is for us and all the organisms around us. Trust and cooperation depends on us believing in the same story.
22:15 - 23:15
We all think in stories.
28:30 - 35:30 min
On bonobo chimpanzees (our ancestors). The male chimps are much larger than females but female chimps dominate the group because they're able to create large networks and alliances and male chimps don't have networks.
That it's actually an academic mystery as to why human society is patriarchal to begin with but also why it elevates self-centred men as leaders. Do women have better social skills? If so, why aren't they dominant?
104:30
How behaviour (physiology, the vast majority of which is unconscious) precedes intention (story) not the other way around. Hijacking or manipulating the disgust mechanisms in the brain can give us permission to ostracise and kill other humans. Women are historically positioned as a source of disgust and pollution, which justified their not being allowed to be priests, teachers, leaders or anyone in authority. But of course, we learn from and respect women across a lifetime so that also throws a query to the story of the one King-God.
Thanks again. I look forward to listening to this talk many more times. Can't wait for the next one!
Do you know what Julian jaynes means by “structure” being a combination of instruction and construction? And how this makes thinking automatic.
The first speaker seems not to differentiate between consciousness & self-consciousness - & neither, at times, did Jaynes. Introspection is in the latter category. Self-awareness, ego etc are meta-awarenesses ... not necessary to live, but essential for 'free will' or rather, a sense of personal agency. Driving a car or doing anything 'on autopilot' = doing things unconsciously, through conditioning, repetition etc, where activities are reinforced by repetition to the extent that we are no longer aware of our reactions to normal stimuli, once they are established. I would add to the first speaker's piece that non-human animals do not ONLY live as response-to-stimuli ... there is also the internal drive of instinct. I agree with the rest of his talk.
However, none of the many people with whom I have discussed this over the decades has an 'analogue 'I''. I / we have never imagined the homunculus representing us, as if from outside ourselves, somehow split! :-o Everyone (besides myself) finds that idea very strange & psychologically unidentifiable with!
Those are my two big criticisms of Jaynes' otherwise brilliant theory (though civilisation is hugely older than he assumed, as recent archaeological evidence shows ... & there is no simplistic left/right-brain split, as was thought when Jaynes wrote the book.)
I think you're mistaken on two points. The development of civilization and the development of conscious interiority are two separate things... so the archeological discoveries of ancient small developments has nothing to do with what Jaynes is describing in terms of the learning of consciousness (as he narrowly defines it) through complex metaphorical language. Also the comment that there's "no simplistic left/right brain split" is in my view misleading. Studies in neuroscience over the past two decades have in fact confirmed Julian Jaynes's neurological model for the bicameral mind, showing a right/left temporal lobe interaction during auditory hallucinations. See: www.julianjaynes.org/blog/julian-jaynes-theory/neuroscience-confirms-julian-jaynes-neurological-model/
@@markk8520 Hi. Was you reply to me? I didn't mention 'civilisation' & the devpt of conscious interiority. I totally agree that they are separate things. It is Jaynes' idea / assumption that we imagine ourselves doing things as if watching ourselves from outside, as it were, as a homunculus, that strikes me (& friends who have studied the book) as extremely odd & not applicable to us ... (or possibly to 'most people today', if we dare make that leap.) Do you imagine watching a mini-you swimming when deciding whether or not to go swimming, as per Jaynes' example? I never have! I imagine the feeling, smell, sight etc of myself in the water! Surely this is the norm?!
Re the cerebral hemispheres: stroke victims & those with tumours or after brain surgery often regain faculties supposedly governed by the 'dead' brain region by using the opposite hemisphere ... eg speech, & even sometimes movement. The brain is more plastic than previously assumed, & can re-form neural pathways after injury & sometimes regain functionality, against all assumptions.
Thanks for your reply. I must read lots more on this most fascinating subject. :)
A big point in which Kuijsten is wrong, or at least, he contradicts Jaynes argument is when he compares the Iliad and The Odyssey; the former not showing clues on introspection whilst the later does. Aren't both of them allegedly attributed to Homer (doesnt matter if he existed or not)? Even if Jaynes or Kuijsten took the oldest know complete version of the Iliad preserved (Venetus A), they have analysed a wrting from the 10th century AD! Probably there is plenty of difference between the original stories told by Homer or the bards in the 7th century BC (they probably differ in the plot, Iliad is quite similar to Kurukshetra War in the Mahabharat). Copyists may have inserted their own words and adapted the legend to their own cultures (Greeks, Romans-Holy Roman, Middle Age). How can two writings on the same author be so different in an alleged evolution of consciousness?
I agree with you in ancient civilizations (reasons are explained in some comments above).These civilizations might have had a larger sense of self-awareness and it is clear that they disappear due to some sort or catastrophe (the Flood). Then only possibility that comes to me is that they disappear suddenly, and the survivors had to re-take a hive mind behaviour to survive the harsh times after the event. That is in agreement with papers talking about the Population Growth paradox (from 100 people we must reach 48 billion in JUST 4 millennia). Their explanation, together with SLIGHT changes in birth-fertility and death rates are Periodic Cataclysms.
@@blackbird365 A fascinating subject indeed! I tend to have memories or imaginings both perspectives. For the third-person view, try remembering a particularly embarrassing moment. For some reason this seems to be more effective in taking the "bird's eye" view. On your second point, Jaynes actually describes the early neuroplasticity research on pages 122-125. So Jaynes was aware of this research, and in my view, the further discoveries in this area lend greater support for his theory, not less. I do recommend the follow up books that have been published on the theory... The Julian Jaynes Collection in particular greatly enhanced by understanding of the theory.
Do you know what Julian jaynes means by “structure” being a combination of instruction and construction? And how this makes thinking automatic.
im interested in if anyone kmowledgeable about this subject has throughly studied or experimented with goetia in the ancient greek sense (as opposed to the ars goetia of the lesser key of solomon). There is an obvious connection between the bicameral mind and ancestor worship/communication. Ancient goetia (meaning "wailing") was a magical method of ancestral spirit communication/petitioning. It changed into petitioning of various gods/goddesses in the classical period such as in the greek magical papyri and later into the grimore tradition of the medival period. I just wonder if anyone else sees this connection or has experimented along these lines while holding bicameral mind in consideration.
The religous traditionof vodoo and hoodoo, condemble, santeria is a modern example of intentional bicameral mind i suspect.
Whoever Homer was (if it even existed), NO MATTER HOW ANCIENT THE VERSION OF THE ILIAD READ BY JAYNES, the words chosen (say from VENETUS A) were translations or interpretations of ancient stories (either in other languages or oral traditions). You cannot infer conclusions from that. Perhaps are you meaning that in the 10th century people did NOT have self-awareness?
Sure you can, and many scholars have and do. See for example: ua-cam.com/video/7xNUbMlgTPE/v-deo.html. I recommend you read his full paper, linked in the description. It sounds like you need to read (or re-read) Jaynes's book. I also recommend the follow-up books that have been published on the theory by the Julian Jaynes Society.
@@markk8520 Inferences are not deductions, therefore NOT science. I do agree with Jaynes theory because of other aspects, but I strongly disagree using the Iliad a proof of Nothing.
The interview flow suffers from the moderators interuption.
The idea that gods were living amongst mortals a veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy long time ago is incredibly common in myths. It's called the "Golden Age".
There are still many traditions in which people have communication with thier dieties and many of them veiw those dieties as thier ancestors.
How are there 95K likes given the number of views?
Mesopotamian gods ruling the land (same goes for Egyptian gods/pharaohs) doesn't match the idea of a Collective Consciousness, but the Collective Unconscious. If the god did not actually exist, who was the "Queen Bee", the leader "alpha male"? Who was he (or PROBABLY SHE) in hunter-gatherers population or first farmers?
And if language was a must for the raising of individual consciousness, Why should not it have happened among the Neanderthals, hunter-gatherers and first small farmer settlements (all of them being able to have a complex language)?
Does the stoned ape hypothesis sit well with the bicameral mind and Jaynes' ideas?
Jaynes wouldn't have held we can at any time by will go back to the bicamwral mind. Nor would he have held the bards of Troy were UTTERLY without something resembling what we would call 'introspection'.
be careful of this video ! ; All is Consciousness it is either Sub-Consciousness or not! Sub-Consciousness is where your heart mind and inner parts of your body runs on its own! without being aware; this is the Sub-Consciousness where you don't have to check on its operation; Consciousness is the state of awareness. So are you conscious of what I've just wrote ?
I'm aware sub conscious operating is muscle memory. The default mode network. And losing that is like being a child again, having first experiences constantly. It's a terrible illness.
Those ideas of language providing complexity to human behaviour make sense. However, they exactly prove that ancient Egyptians could not have built pyramids, because our current civilization could not achieve to build 6 and 20 meters high pyramids, nor with the same accuracy even using to a certain extent current machinery (pneumatic hammers, trucks, and large barges). It means the hieroglyphic language was a leftover or a legacy from an ancient civilization, which had an advanced language, an evolved self-awareness (ego) and a widespread and complex society, that eventually was destroyed by an ancient cataclysm, giving place to the lose of knowledge (writing, farming, celestial mechanics...) So if these catastrophes were cyclical, that would explain the emergence and disappearance of such levels of self-consciousness and why almost all traces of such cultures vanished, forcing the survivors to engage in hive minds again in an effort to thrive.
Not just that Moonlight Shadow. The disappearance of the gods, has nothing to do with an Empire crumbling for counterfeit reasons but with a change in the laws of nature (rearrangement of the solar system; the gods were the planets). In any case, it is not clear it ancient cultures (Egypt, Sumeria or Vedas) witnessed the catastrophes you mention or they simply inherited the emotional and psychological remnants (fear, veneration of celestial orbs...) and the stories about those events which later became legends and myths (Broken Telephone game effect). In addition, the shamans, kings/heroes, and initiated groups were the people in charge of transmitting the remaining knowledge, so that may account for they being blessed as divine.
I'm sorry that you are terminally ignorant about basic engineering, but your lack of knowledge about the subject does not mean the ancients were equally lacking.
@@rangda_prime You are ignorant and a fanatic religious.
You don’t think we could cut stone bricks into a pyramid
@@sssurreal Not such 1kton stones (Aswan... Baalbek...)