Planetary Catastrophe: Julian Jaynes & the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

[nick c]

I posted this link earlier in the thread, but it is a link that is loaded with some interesting reading.
I believe that Marcel Kuijsten, who has several links in Allynh's above thread, is in charge of the site:

The Julian Jaynes Society

[allynh]

Thanks, Nick.

I checked out the Jaynes Society and found this page:

Popular Interest
https://www.julianjaynes.org/about/abou ... -interest/

They have a list of fiction and such inspired by Jaynes. I have a bunch of stuff to track down.

[Brigit]

Following allynh's links and speaking of Marcel Kuijsten's book...

Here is an interview on Red Ice Radio with Marcel Kuijsten --

• Julian Jaynes, the Bicameral Mind, and the Origin of Consciousness | Interview with Marcel Kuijsten
  CH: Julian Jaynes Society
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l13O-CGtHmE
  dur 29:56

Does anyone remember Hendrick Palmgren over at Red Ice Radio? He also interviewed Dave Talbott, Rens van der Sluijs, Don Scott and Wal Thornhill. The interviews were all around the same time as this one, in 2010.

[Brigit]

I'd like to gather up a few of the sentiments already expressed on this Topic. These are comments from readers, speculating about what kind of neurophysiological shift the human race experienced, at some time in the pre-classical past. We are considering that there was a shift in the mental state of humanity, but from what to what? Here are a few reflections on the original question, which was set up by Julian Jaynes.

nickc summarizes Jaynes here:

• "The book is 446 pages of evidence. The structure of the human brain and its functioning are analyzed. Ancient writings are shown to be the product of a bicameral author and others the product of a conscious author.
  
  For example, the Iliad was, according to Jaynes' analysis... written by a different author than the Odyssey. (Perhaps Homer wrote both but was merely recording the older oral traditions as he received it.) But the Iliad has characters that receive their orders directly from their gods in the form of audio hallucinations. This in contrast to the The Odysssey where the characters plot, plan, and scheme to achieve their aims. The word "psyche" in classical ancient Greece meant the human soul or consciousness, but in the Iliad "psyche" is the physical substances of the human body."

allynh, in his post on the first page, talked about the works of fiction which are based on Julian Jaynes' work. It is a startling list. (More so now than then.)

• https://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/php ... =974#p9120

And here are some suggestions allynh puts forward for the previous state of mind of mankind:

• "Santorini
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini
  • "The island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history: the Minoan eruption (sometimes called the Thera eruption), which occurred about 3,600 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization.[4] The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of metres deep."
  The eruption caused a cascade effect of dislocating people who when they came in contact with other groups forced them to start being conscious. They basically had to learn how to lie to keep from being attacked.
  
  - "Lying" takes conscious thought.
  
  HA!

& this also by allynh:

• "There are countless examples of this, "One Mind spread across Many Bodies", in the Archeological record. See the Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse by Hancock. When he talks about "Giants" he means "One Mind spread across Many Bodies"."

In the interview, Marcel Kuijsten for the sake of brevity, defines consciousness as

• "an introspectable mind-space"

[Brigit]

Arcmode brings up this interesting and very substantive objection to Jaynes' entire theory:

• "I have a few problems with this theory. First, while I'm not completely familiar with all the ancient texts, I have read some of them, and I've read some of them a lot. And from what I've read, a bicameral mind that can communicate in some kind of supernatural way is never presented as being the general experience of humans at the time. It's always presented as being something that is exceptional. You're either chosen by God to be a prophet, or you're a sorcerer who's in contact with spirits, or you are seeking the help of the gods in some way. There's some kind of reason for it, and it's an exception. That's why there's scriptures written about it when it happens . So I don't think we can really appeal to ancient texts as evidence for a bicameral mind as a general experience of humanity in ancient times."

I would like to answer this objection with at least three changes in the human psyche and neurophysiology mentioned in the Bible. Julian Jaynes himself, iirc, brings up two of these ancient anecdotes.

• 1. When a man and a woman "ate" of the "Knowledge of Good and Evil," they hid themselves, they knew that they were naked, and they no longer answered questions entirely truthfully, but with a partial truth.

• 2. When the people emerged from a life-saving ark, a change of human and animal relations is clearly stated in this way:
  
  “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.
  But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
  Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.
  • “Whoever sheds man’s blood,
    By man his blood shall be shed;
    For in the image of God
    He made man."

• 3. In the events surrounding The Tower of Babel, the people could no longer understand one another's speech.

[Brigit]

Julian Jaynes mentions the Tower of Babel on page 235.

• The "passage of Genesis is certainly a rewrite of some Neo-Babylonian legend of just such a landing by Yahweh who in the company of other gods 'come down to see the tower,' and thereupon 'confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech.' The latter may be a narratization of the garbling of hallucinated voices in their decline."

In my experience, there are legends all over the world that talk about a time of confusion of communication. In American Indian legends, the rupture in communication usually involves the animals as well as humans. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky began collecting these myths and records as early as 1940, and at least part of this collection is found in his unpublished work, "In the Beginning," in the chapters "The Confusion of Languages," and "Mercury."

[allynh]

Julian Jaynes mentions the Tower of Babel on page 235.

(This is where I had to stop at my first post because anything I was going to add strayed into the realm of "Story" where these things are "safer" to discuss, so take the rest of this as something that belongs in one of my "Story" threads on NIaMI, not normally up here in Planetary Science. HA!)

As an example of "One Mind spread across Many Bodies" that the Tower of Babel represents, is the novel by Vernor Vinge.

The Children of the Sky (novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Child ... ky_(novel)

The Tines are aliens that are basically wolf packs that communicate using high speed sonics. They form a "collective intelligence" thinking across the pack. If they get too far apart their "thoughts" slow down. If they get separated from each other they are each only animal level intelligence.

- The "mind" can only think again when they get close enough to "hear" itself think.

The "Giants" that Hancock mentions occurring in history were similar but were connected mind to mind in some way that no longer works.

You had a "Giant" -- "One Mind spread across Many Bodies" -- build the Tower, then that connection was shattered, leaving only the individual bodies behind.

- They each had limited knowledge, limited language, compared to when they were linked, thus "Babel".

Think of them as "children", that when linked together become a whole "adult".

- They speak as "children" when separated, and as an "adult" when linked.

All the knowledge and abilities of the "collective intelligence" are scattered among the different people. The communication link has been broken. If the link could be restored, that "Giant" would be able to think again.

So, many of the voices that people hear are fragments of that "Giant".

- Jaynes talked about early Greek society being made up of ten percent people with ninety percent slaves.

- That suggests an "adult" mind made up of ten bodies.

Look at a computer server farm. It is made up of many RAIDs.

- A RAID can be six hard-drives in a shared stack, each an exact copy of the other.

- If one drive fails, you swap in a new drive, and the information is copied across so nothing is lost.

When the "Giant" lost the link between the individual bodies, you had individual hard-drives that no longer shared data. The main information scattered among all the different drives with no way to link together.

Children are born and raised, speaking as children speak. The "Giant" is made up only of adult bodies linked together. People who are sleeping or doing basic tasks are not linked at that moment, they swap in and out as needed, just like the RAID.

- If you need hands to weave a tapestry, you link with one person who weaves while another person rests.

- If you need to cook a fancy dinner, you link with different people to handle all cooking tasks.

I posit, for "Story" purposes:

- That the information is still copied from mother to child, just like the RAID.

- That if conditions for linking could be reestablished today, that the "Giants" would reconnect with no loss.

Essentially:

- When people "hear" voices today, they are those fragments of the "Giants".

- "Giants" would be the "Old Gods" mentioned in every religion, like in the Bible, etc....

In effect, for "Story" purposes:

- That the "Old Gods" are still at play in the world.

There is enough still present to influence many people today at an unconscious level.

- Imagine what that would be like if they were fully reinstantiated.

But I digress.

(See why I did not post this part before. HA!)

As an aside:

Also consider Sapir-Worf, where language controls how you think.

Linguistic relativity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

I suspect that the link creating the "Giants" was not just physical, but also language.

There is a short story, "Persistence of Vision" by John Varley, where a community is deaf and blind. The people develop a "language" that lets them transcend physical reality.

Persistence Of Vision
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AFWYN4W

(I'm having too much fun here.)

[Maol]

Also consider Sapir-Worf, where language controls how you think.

I think this is why the church does not want the common person to know, think and communicate, to understand and use Latin as the universal language. The language we speak and use in our imagination is the operating system for our logic and creative thought. The boundaries of our creativity and knowledge are limited by the imagery available in our language, the brain's operating system

[allynh]

Maol,

Robert Anton Wilson talked about embracing a belief system, wholly and completely, without cynicism or doubt. Then, without discarding that belief system, do the same to a new belief system.

- By expanding what you believe, to cover multiple systems fully, you expand your reality.

The same can be achieved by becoming an expert in diverse fields of knowledge. Each helps to illuminate the others.

When I got my BS in Civil Engineering, we had to study Soils, Fluids, Structural, Electrical, and strangely the math that worked in one system was similar to the math that worked in another system.

- Soils is a Fluid

- Pipe circuits are the same as Electrical circuits

Etc....

If something is true in one system, a similar event occurs in another, if you go looking.

Example:

- A Birkeland current is the same as a pipe, but the walls are not rigid.

In a pipe, you have laminar flow, and if the flow exceeds a limit you have cavitation that can destroy the pipe. In a Birkeland current that cavitation becomes a Z-pinch, drawing the walls in.

So to your point, the more languages that you can understand the broader your thinking becomes. Some concepts in one language may not translate to another, but you can see the gaps better.

Always pay attention to the gaps.

[Maol]

Example:

- A Birkeland current is the same as a pipe, but the walls are not rigid.

In a pipe, you have laminar flow, and if the flow exceeds a limit you have cavitation that can destroy the pipe. In a Birkeland current that cavitation becomes a Z-pinch, drawing the walls in.

When reading this, " A Birkeland current is the same as a pipe, but the walls are not rigid." I chuckled and thought, "How would an equivalent to Reynolds Number be calculated, Ohm's Law plus what ??"

Then you followed with this, "In a pipe, you have laminar flow, and if the flow exceeds a limit you have cavitation that can destroy the pipe. In a Birkeland current that cavitation becomes a Z-pinch, drawing the walls in."

So now I ponder how does cavitation apply.

50 years ago I raced a boat and from NASA and NACA publications learned about supercavitation and how to apply it to propellers and rudders for optimizing thrust and control, so I have some understanding of cavitation and supercavitation in fluids, water and air (supersonic aircraft).

In fluids, cavitation is by definition a cavity, a result of rarefication or expansion. In plasma, a Z-pinch is the effect of Lorentz force contraction, resulting in compression.

This is leads me to confusion about applying the term "cavitation" to a Birkeland current.

I will presume (until you further define) you are using the term "cavitation" as suggesting a discontinuity in the Birkeland flow is resulting in a shock wave or reflected wave, as occurs in compressible fluid flow (such as in intake and exhaust systems of IC engines).

So, this leads to the question of, "What are the potential causes of discontinuity in galactic scale Birkland flows which result in a Z-pinch? The flows ricochet from one red dwarf to another or what ??"

Back to language, what language (words, imagery) applies to an analogy to define and describe this?

[allynh]

HA!

That is a good example of knowledge getting in the way of understanding.

Think of the feed line on your toilet. If you turn the flow rate up you suddenly hear knocking in the pipe, so you have to reduce the flow.

Cavitation is when the velocity of the flow exceeds the surface tension between the pipe wall and the water. The water pulls away from the pipe wall creating a vacuum that collapses and the water comes slamming back in to hammer the pipe wall.

- In large pipes, this can tear the pipe apart.

With a Birkeland current, the increased plasma flow pulls the walls inward creating a Z-pinch, rather than create a vacuum. Notice how before and after the Z-pinch the walls of the Birkeland current are wide compared to the Z-pinch. The energy released in the Z-pinch reduces the flow, restoring the balance.

Remember, plasma is flowing through the "pipe" walls of the Birkeland current. That is what is generating the electrical current, that forms the double layer of the "pipe" wall.

That plasma flow is laminar, and causes a Z-pinch as a form of cavitation since the "pipe" walls can pull in. You pull in the walls of that electrical "pipe" and you increase the magnetic field.

- The Z-pinch is pulling inward, not compressing from the outside.

Think of the toy, the Chinese Finger Trap. When you try to pull your fingers out, the weave compresses, pinching down in the middle. The force is not coming from the outside to hold you.

- The Z-pinch is the same.

At that point the increased plasma flow is trying to lengthen/stretch the "pipe", so it pulls in, compressing the plasma, slowing the flow down as it radiates energy, then returns to the stable pipe size for the flow.

Laminar flow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow

Cavitation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation

Chinese finger trap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_finger_trap

[Maol]

HA!

That is a good example of knowledge getting in the way of understanding.

Think of the feed line on your toilet. If you turn the flow rate up you suddenly hear knocking in the pipe, so you have to reduce the flow.

Cavitation is when the velocity of the flow exceeds the surface tension between the pipe wall and the water. The water pulls away from the pipe wall creating a vacuum that collapses and the water comes slamming back in to hammer the pipe wall.

- In large pipes, this can tear the pipe apart.

With a Birkeland current, the increased plasma flow pulls the walls inward creating a Z-pinch, rather than create a vacuum. Notice how before and after the Z-pinch the walls of the Birkeland current are wide compared to the Z-pinch. The energy released in the Z-pinch reduces the flow, restoring the balance.

Remember, plasma is flowing through the "pipe" walls of the Birkeland current. That is what is generating the electrical current, that forms the double layer of the "pipe" wall.

That plasma flow is laminar, and causes a Z-pinch as a form of cavitation since the "pipe" walls can pull in. You pull in the walls of that electrical "pipe" and you increase the magnetic field.

- The Z-pinch is pulling inward, not compressing from the outside.

Think of the toy, the Chinese Finger Trap. When you try to pull your fingers out, the weave compresses, pinching down in the middle. The force is not coming from the outside to hold you.

- The Z-pinch is the same.

At that point the increased plasma flow is trying to lengthen/stretch the "pipe", so it pulls in, compressing the plasma, slowing the flow down as it radiates energy, then returns to the stable pipe size for the flow.

Laminar flow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow

Cavitation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation

Chinese finger trap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_finger_trap

I don't grasp your concept of "cavitation" in the Z-pinch, which, by whatever semantics chosen, push or pull, is a location of compression. I don't see the cavity formation in compressible plasma ion flow unless there is a low pressure or expansion of the fluid at velocity exceeding the energy boundary which establishes continuity of the fluid, so allowing a cavity to exist.

In fusion reactors the Z-pinch compresses plasma to initiate fusion.

In deference to the theme of this thread, In this recent dialog, apparently about Birkeland current and Z-pinch, we are actually demonstrating how the language we are using is affecting the imagery we are attempting to express.

[Brigit]

allynh says:

• "As an example of "One Mind spread across Many Bodies" that the Tower of Babel represents, is the novel by Vernor Vinge.
  
  The Children of the Sky (novel)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Child ... ky_(novel)
  
  The Tines are aliens that are basically wolf packs that communicate using high speed sonics. They form a "collective intelligence" thinking across the pack. If they get too far apart their "thoughts" slow down. If they get separated from each other they are each only animal level intelligence."

Yes, the "hivemind". Could that be within the meaning of the Tower of Babel?

A few of the science fiction stories you included relied on computer chips to accomplish the hivemind. (Sometimes known as the borg.) But I saw a movie just last night in which the web, computer chips, and a so-called a.i. create connected human beings. It was called "Transcendent."

There's an old black and white movie called "The Village of the Damned". This is the movie that I thought of, as a quitessential example of "One mind across many bodies." The children, all having pale blue eyes and white hair, share thoughts and act as one. Their teacher observes their behaviour and slowly realizes they act as if they are one individual, share intentions, grudges, etc.. I always thought that Village of the Damned was a parable of a generation that has been so siloed off together that they reject all other generations and relationships, outside of their peer group. But it strangely overlaps with the ideas of the latest group of Futurists and Technological Autocrats.

It may go back to an archetype of the World Empire that is very ancient.

I know Julian Jaynes dates the Tower of Babel to a very late Babylonian myth. I also believe he considered the Big-Eyed Idols (Sumerian) to be a tool that somehow enabled the ability to "hear the gods". So this was at least a part of how the people in general experienced "auditory hallucinations."

But actually the Tower of Babel does have its geographical context explicitly stated in Gen 11. It is in the Sumerian cities, in the original text. Also, following the Primeval Chronology, the time of the Tower of Babel is sometime between 2700 and 2340 BC.

[allynh]

Brigit.

Yes, I watch Transcendence a couple of times a year. I combine it with the movie Lucy. Morgan Freeman plays the elder professor in both films, but in one he is a monster and the other he is the good guy.

Fred Hoyle did a number of novels where an alien intelligence was so large that it could not fit in one human mind, so spread itself across multiple bodies like in Village of the Damned.

The stories are there illuminating examples of what happened in the past. Like Lovecraft said, the Old Gods will return when the stars are right, i.e., when electrical conditions return that let the Old Gods control many bodies once again. HA!

BTW, You can still see indications of that today when so many people speak the same Talking Points, acting in lockstep, all under unconscious control by the Old Gods.

I have both of these books on my To-be-read pile.

The Return of the Gods
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09XY5Q12P

Wolf discusses the concept in her book:

Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith, and Resistance in a New Dark Age
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CGRR92ZQ

They are still there, under the surface.

But I digress.

[Brigit]

allynh says,

• "Fred Hoyle did a number of novels where an alien intelligence was so large that it could not fit in one human mind, so spread itself across multiple bodies like in Village of the Damned.
  
  The stories are there illuminating examples of what happened in the past."

There does seem to be a very strong case, both in modern literature and movies, for a "one mind across many bodies" archetype -- which really makes you wonder! Could the themes allynh is presenting be of very ancient vintage? It almost seems like they must be. That is incredible. Could the antecedents for this archetype be found 1. in Julian Jaynes book and 2. in the Tower of Babel event? Is it possible that the Babel Event contains within it the idea not only of one language, but the sense of "one mind across many bodies"?

I have open here Velikovsky's unpublished chapter on Babel called "Memory and Mercury":

• The Confusion of Languages
  
  "The sequence of events as presented in the Book of Genesis places the catastrophe of Babel next after the Deluge.
  
  • 'And the whole land was of one language and of one speech. . . . And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. . . . And the Lord said, behold, the people is one, and they have all one language. . . . Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth.'(1)"

The phrase of interest is, "the people are one, and they have one language."

I think that it would be a little heavy handed to simply impose the "one mind across many bodies" on the phrase "the people are one." But it also does not rule it out. There may be an original language that was spoken by all people, which is what is meant by the statement, "and they all have one language." There may also be a deeper unity of intent and thoughts, expressed in the phrase, "the people are one". --Under Nimrod, that is. In the plainest meaning of Gen 10 and Gen 11, Nimrod is the one artificially and violently unifying the cities of Sumer, and of the upper Euphrates in Ashur/Assyria. This makes him a close match with the historic figure Sargon.