consciousness around 400 BCE and can be seen in the Upanishad texts. According
to Jaynes, the American I ndians, [ and one might well infer, all preliterate peoples,
including the Australian Aborigines] however, never developed the sophisticated,
metaphorical languages needed to develop full consciousness. As a result, their
mentalities were probably bicameral when they first encountered the European
explorers. For example, with little or no conscious resistance, the I ncas allowed the
Spanish white gods to dominate, plunder, and slaughter them. I offer an interesting
exception to the paradigm; namely that of the highly sophisticated and literate,
richly metaphorical Jewish culture and its modern day members who so passively
surrendered to the authority of the Nazis throughout Europe in the Holocaust and
indeed, in the ghettos throughout most of history. This signals the first flaw in
Jaynes’ thesis.
(ii) Ancient writings such as the I liad and the early books of the Old Testament
reported both real and imagined events but later works exemplify the transition to
the conscious mind.
Jaynes cites much direct evidence for the breakdown of the bicameral mind
and the development of consciousness, much of which comes from writings
between 1300 BCE and 300 BCE. He describes how those writings gradually shift
from non-conscious, objective reports to conscious, subjective expressions that
reflect introspection. The jump from the non-conscious writing of the I liad to the
conscious writing of the Odyssey (composed perhaps a century later) is, Jaynes
suggests, dramatically obvious, although I do not think so. I n the Odyssey, unlike
the I liad, characters possess conscious self-awareness, the ability of introspection
and can sense right from wrong, and guilt. Any difference between the I liad and
the Odyssey is, rather, further evidence that perhaps more than one poet composed
these Homeric epics. The transition from the non-conscious I liad to the conscious
Odyssey marks man's break with his 8000-year-old hallucinatory guidance system.
By the sixth century BCE written languages began reflecting conscious ideas of
morality and justice similar to those reflected today.
Jaynes further develops his thesis by illustrating and comparing the
bicameral mentality found in the Book of Amos (circa 800 BCE) with the subjective
consciousness found in the Book of Ecclesiastes (circa 200 BCE) and uses those
differences also as a example for his paradigm. In the middle of that transition, the
Book of Samuel records the first known suicide, an act that requires consciousness,
and the Book of Deuteronomy illustrates the conflict between the bicameral mind
ron
(Ron)
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