From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Tue Nov 25 2003 - 08:00:05 GMT
Platt & All
23 Nov. you wrote:
Me earlier:
> > What early man thought (about) is largely speculation, THAT I agree
> > with (is there a distinction here I haven't got) but Jaynes' theory
> > isn't about what ancient mankind thought, but that thinking in the
> > self- awareness form was absent ...
Platt:
> Joseph Campbell: "Until you have writing you don't know what the
> people were thinking."
> So, how does Jaynes know they weren't thinking about themselves?
How Jaynes knows? By the usual method of reasoning from from the
available data.
May I (once again) point to the strange fact that all creatures sleep,
consequently they must all wake up to a state different from oblivion.
A dog - say - will granted not wake up to self-consciousness, yet to
something not possible fathom by SOM, but what the MOQ would call
"biological reality" with its repertoire of sense impressions.
Now, isn't a selfless "social reality" possible? OK, I may convince you
of such BEFORE language, but self-awareness and language seems
synonymous? Now, Jaynes is a somist and his theory is of the
emergence of consciousness from a biological cause in the brain,
thus to make this the birth of intellect from society requires a few
adjustments. Intellectual level = consciousness may be accepted (my
claim that this is how intellect views itself may rest here), but what in
Jaynes' vocabular equals the social level?
There is an indication because what he calls the "bicameral era" is
diffent from the animal one and may be (our) social epoch. And in it
language is established, so to Jaynes (at least) language without self-
consciousness was/is conceivable. If it is to you however??????
From an essay about Jaynes:
"Human nature was split in two, an executive part called a god, and a
follower part called a man. Neither part was conscious." When the
Bicameral Man was faced with a stressor that involved the need for a
decision, the God portion of the brain would instruct the individual in
the necessary course of action.
Well, enough for now, hope to pursue this topic in the MF
See you there.
Bo
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