Review of Julian Jaynes, Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind from the Boston Globe, March 6, 1977, p. A17.

Since antiquity, individuals have attempted to relate mental processes to circumscribed areas of the brain. In 1935 the neurologist Wilder Penfield purported to know, “the humming of the mind's machinery, and where words come from,” after he electrically stimulated areas of the exposed human cortex. Recent theories have suggested a functional separation of the dominant and the nondominant hemispheres, the right brain/left brain concept of thought and personality. One author has even proposed that human consciousness and modern civilization developed (...) when the bicameral mind broke down, and the left brain achieved mastery over the right nondominant temporal lobe.Compared to these mechanistic approaches to brain function and human personality, the Russian neurologist, Alesandr Romanovich Luria, and his American follower, Oliver Sacks, have developed a more intellectually satisfying and clinically useful approach which relies on a fuller understanding of the doctor-patient dialogue and the clinical tale. An analysis of Luria's writing about language reveals that mechanistic approaches to language are inadequate; a review of the work of several well-known poets confirms that knowing what a poem means involves more than a recital of its localized contents. Similarly, an examination of three of Sack's clinical tales suggests that even those patients who are grossly awry on a synaptic level can be understood on a personal level to be worthy of respect and even honor. “Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for be cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being.”Blaise Pascal,Pensees, (11,72)1. (shrink)

Westworld portrays a world where humans and human‐like machines coexist. When systems of observation are referred, Nolan's predilection is considered for adding computational science subjects to his storylines. According to the theorist Katherine Hayles, they present a geometrical pattern of the relationship between the observer and the observed worlds. Westworld is a posthuman narrative that develops essential characteristic from Nolan's productions, which is the bidirectional line between science and fiction. The storytelling mythologies result in the design of the backstories of (...) some characters being integrated within the collective imaginary of Westworld and its visitors. The characters from Westworld are placed in the blurred borderline between memory and imagination. The blurred borderline between memory and imagination is seen in the creation of an internal otherness in the form of a collective bicameral mind, considered as a split personality or doppelganger, and as a new manifestation of the semiosis of virtuality. (shrink)

In Westworld, viewers learn that the timid and mild‐mannered William is the younger version of the violent, sinister, mission‐driven Man in Black. This chapter considers what it means for William to have, as Sartre calls it, an existential project. It shows how Sartre's theory explains quite cogently William's change in essence from his young self to the violent Man in Black. In a Sartrean framework, William did not discover himself in the park, rather, his experience in the park, or new (...) “situation”, led him to make a new choice of himself in the world and pursue a new set of ends. The chapter then examines Maeve's choice to leave the train at the end of the “The Bicameral Mind”. Although Maeve is a programmed android, she is able to resist her programming and formulate her own goal and, perhaps, start her own existential journey. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper seeks to share cross-border challenges in the ethical design, establishment, implementation, and evaluation of the performance of alliance...

This article reviews some of the definitions in circulation that reveal the varied perspectives and goals of the field of neuroethics. It discusses a brief taxonomy of neuroethical questions. It deals with two specific contentious issues, one clinical and one from social sciences and shows how neuroethicists can serve to inform and to protect. Neuroethicists need education that encompasses many domains. The study describes the academic grounding and qualifications that should be required and also considers the pivotal roles neuroethicists should (...) play. It contributes views that may help define the field of neuroethics and give structure and relevance to its activities. Finally, it concludes that neuroethicists are needed, now more than ever. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility that the human mind underwent substantial changes in recent history. Assuming that consciousness is a substantial trait of the mind, the paper focuses on the suggestion made by Julian Jaynes that the Mycenean Greeks had a "bicameral" mind instead of a conscious one. The suggestion is commonly dismissed as patently absurd, for instance by critics such as Ned Block. A closer examination of the intuitions involved, considered from different theoretical angles , (...) reveals that the idea of 'Greek zombies' should be taken more seriously than is commonly assumed. (shrink)

First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The study reviews the Julian Jaynes' hypothesis that explains the origins of consciousness; it is so called "Bicameralism" or "Philosophy of bicamerality". The hypothesis is a combination of four hypotheses. According to the first hypothesis consciousness is considered as that what is based on natural language and is a functional mind-space, that is, a subjective conscious mind based on metaphors. For the explanation of a metaphor Julian Jaynes created his own conception of metaphor within the framework of which (...) a metaphor is considered as a mental action expressed in words through a paraphrasing and consists of two elements - metaphier and metaphrand. Moreover, consciousness has the following characteristics: 'I', concentration, suppression, and consilience. According the second hypothesis the other mentality preceded consciousness in evolution and history. The bicameral mind is based on auditory verbal hallucinations. According the third hypothesis about 1200 BC there was a breakdown of the human being bicameral mind that caused the origination of human being consciousness. Under the fourth hypothesis the bicameral mind was resulted by the double brain, a state of cerebrum by which experiences and memoirs of the right cerebral hemisphere were transmitted into the left cerebral hemisphere by the means of auditory verbal hallucinations because each normal cerebral hemisphere was constantly communicated with another one through corpus callosum. In view of the fact that some changes within corpus callosum were occurred the breakdown of the bicameral mind and the origination of consciousness came to pass. (shrink)

Fully embracing one's embodied suffering, rather than denying it or mentally explaining it away, can open an individual to a broader sense of interbeing, to the ability to endure, survive, and move through pain and toward a deeper sense of compassion, peace, joy, and liberation. The self benefits from exploring interbeing using an environmental metaphor to consider the human body: the body as terroir. Terroir is analogous to the specific microclimate and natural environment in which quality wine is produced. Appreciation (...) of oneself as a unique mobile terroir can reveal estranged aspects of the host/guest relationship of interbeing within the individual body/self. Perhaps this is what those who practice interbeing in the real world have come to understand. (shrink)

For humans, Westworld is a fun, Old West Disneyland; for theartificial humans, it is a “living hell”, as robot Android Bernard describes it in “Bicameral Mind”. Ruled by a despot and controlled through programmed indoctrination, omniscient surveillance, and secret police, Westworld resembles a concentration camp as described by philosopher Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism. This chapter explores the parallels between Westworld and historical instances of totalitarian oppression and colonialization as well as the justified use of violence (...) as a revolutionary weapon, drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt and Frantz Fanon. Fanon viewed colonialism and occupation as violence personified and systematic enslavement. His most influential work The Wretched of the Earth analyzed the effects of occupation and provided a handbook to combat those effects. This book achieves significance as an essay on the nature and morality of violent liberation from the perspective of the persecuted victim. (shrink)