important thoughts and decisions, especially under stressed or difficult conditions;
and (2) the newly evolved conscious aspect of mind that bypasses external
authorities and provides thoughts and guidance generated ideopathically.
Consciousness requires metaphors and this is clearly one of the functions of
the cave pictographs; to refer to one thing in order to better understand or describe
another, as Lewis-Williams has indicated (Lewis-Williams, 2004:106-107).
Consciousness also requires analogue models (Lewis-Williams, 2004:46,60).
Thinking in metaphors and analogue models creates the mind space and mental
flexibility needed to bypass the automatic, bicameral processes, as Jaynes has
asserted, but both also require imagination. Conversely, the bicameral thinking
process functions only in concrete terms and narrow, here-and-now specifics. The
conscious thinking process, however, generates an infinite array of subjective
perceptions that permit ever-broader understandings and better decisions.
Metaphors of ‘me’ and analogue models of ‘I ’ allow consciousness to function
through introspection and self-visualization. I n turn, consciousness expands by
creating more and more metaphors and analogue models. That expanding
consciousness allows an individual to see and understand the relationship between
themselves and the world with increasing accuracy and clarity. The process also
produces a decentred self in an elsewhere-place.
Consciousness is a conceptual, metaphor-generated analogue world that
parallels the actual world. Humankind, therefore, could not develop consciousness
until it produced a language sophisticated enough to create metaphors and
analogue models. Jaynes’ model also does not allow for the problem of qualia; how
can one possibly explain, in terms of robotic behaviour or the simple mechanical
firing of neurons, an appreciation of the animation, vivid visual complexity and
appeal of the cave pictographs, in terms of the composition by the artists and
interpretation by those who were intended to look at them?
I t is conceivable that the cave painters were exceptional, linguistically and,
ipso facto, consciously within their society, and that other members of society were
not as fully competent linguistically. There is archaeological evidence that points to
increased social complexity within Upper Palaeolithic sites (Lewis-Williams,
2004:79). Also, researchers have suggested that anatomically modern populations
existed 50,000 to 60,000 years before they register on the West European
archaeological record and did not evolve out of their inferior Neanderthals but in
fact replaced them (Lewis-Williams, 2004:82-83). However, the most important
ron
(Ron)
#1