tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post9058684418585348088..comments2024-02-13T12:50:30.457-05:00Comments on Rants Within the Undead God: How Horror Begets Mind from MatterBenjamin Cainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-78085299384971951682018-02-25T11:07:27.288-05:002018-02-25T11:07:27.288-05:00I haven't finished his book, but I'm famil...I haven't finished his book, but I'm familiar with his theory. It is certainly interesting and plausible. One detail that isn't so plausible to me, though, is the claim that the bicameral mind (instead of metaconsciousness, receiving commands via auditory hallucinations interpreted as the voice of a god) would have dropped off by natural selection once it was no longer useful in managing large societies. The problem is this would have been a hardware issue, so it would had to have changed genetically, but natural selection is supposed to work very slowly. <br /><br />Another question I'd have is how and when the shift to metaconsciousness would have worked in the East or in the South, since Jaynes seems to focus on the West (Iliad vs Odyssey). Maybe he covers that in his book, but there seems to be no reason why the shift would have happened everywhere at the same time. I also don't see why the transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic (from hunter-gatherers to large, settled societies) shouldn't have been pivotal, whereas Jaynes says the shift happened only around 3,000 years ago.<br /><br />The model of the mind I'm trying to work out on this blog is consistent, though, with the essence of Jaynes's view. I try to combine existentialism (including Becker's reinterpretation of Freud) with the Higher-Order Thought theory of consciousness and a cynical, elitist (partly Nietzschean) view of social organization, which leads to the idea that mentality comes in degrees even within our species, because personhood requires tinkering with our mental software, which takes an act of will (so it's not guaranteed by genetics). <br /><br />In Technics of Human Development, Lewis Mumford also speaks of the importance of mental tinkering, although he doesn't bring in the Nietzschean perspective. I believe so-called chaos magicians and Robert Anton Wilson also deal with this possibility of upgrading the self, but I haven't followed up much on that (I tried reading Illuminatus, but couldn't stand all the jumping around). In any case, the idea is also implicit in all religions that talk about spiritual rebirth or enlightenment. The basis for all this is just the human brain's plasticity. <br /><br />The misanthropic point, then, which differs from Jaynes's, is that many humans _still_ aren't fully people, meaning they're not as self-aware as others. The split between extroverts and introverts accounts for much of this difference in autonomy, as does the difference in lifestyle (e.g. philosophy vs middle-class hedonism and automatism, the focus being on happiness, not on wrestling with unpleasant truths). <br /><br />Anyway, I'd add to something like Jaynes's theory the importance of entheogens and psychedelic experience in the origin of religions, as set out in Graham Hancock's book, Supernatural (minus the realist and dualist speculations). Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-36682927434906937542018-02-25T03:00:01.700-05:002018-02-25T03:00:01.700-05:00reminds me of julian jaynes the origin of consciou...reminds me of julian jaynes the origin of consciousness which im having another read of. i find his theory really interesting and plausible. what are your thoughts?bored stupidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15218034092487061741noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-52642880062209303422015-01-21T10:19:20.242-05:002015-01-21T10:19:20.242-05:00"It did so by rational detachment and by ling..."It did so by rational detachment and by linguistic abstraction". It did this to as "to avoid looking like a weakling".<br /><br />How is this different from a bat knowing to eat certain fruit instead of others? it's just survival reaction, regardless of how cognitively complex it is. Avoiding humiliation has genetic survival implications, right? If you're cool you get the girl, etc.What's the difference? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com