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

[Brigit]

There is another parallelism used. "And the whole land was of one language and of one speech." A parallelism often makes two similar statements, the second repeating and adding additional meaning to the first. So in the case of the parallelism using the two words, "language" and "speech," the idea being conveyed could be language, meaning "verbal communications," is accompanied by speech, meaning a more internal kind of language. The speech of a person may be thought of as "the inmost thought of a man", before it is expressed in language. That is just one possibility.

Nimrod as Sargon
Again, Nimrod building cities and a tower in Sumer around the time of 2700-2340 BC is the material context, which has led many of us to identify Nimrod with Sargon. Sargon was the first (of many to come) to conquer and unify villages and cities along the Euphrates River through violence and intrigue.

The Separation of Languages is Presented as a Blessing, not a Curse
In that sense, the Babel event is not a catastrophe, but this story contains within it a sense of Divine help and deliverence from "the Mighty" and from the first World Empire. In other words, the division of languages and the dispersal of people geographically is an escape from danger, and the differences between nations and races is a gift. This story is saying that nations, tribes and tongues are now optimum conditions for society to develop and thrive. A single language, be it Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek, Latin, or anything else, and empire, are aberrant. This theme then continues through many of the books of the Old and New Testaments.

[allynh]

The Separation of Languages is Presented as a Blessing, not a Curse

That is an interesting way of looking at it.

- A Blessing to who.

I'll need to play with that for the stories that I'm writing, but I remember you mentioning that God looked down on man building the Tower, and saying that they have become like us.

What if God is a "collective mind" and looked down to see man becoming a "collective mind"/God as well, seen as a rival, that needed to be broken up.

- I can use that.

Thanks...

BTW, Look at the Very Large Array(VLA) here in New Mexico.

You have small radio telescopes spread out over an area to combine their signals as if it was one vast antenna miles across.

Now look at the various megastructures, and visualize "One Mind, Many Bodies" spread out over an area, looking up into the night sky. That is the same as the VLA, with eyes able to act as if it was one vast eye seeing deeper into the sky.

- Most of the megastructures are laid out in ways as if people were lined up in arrays, doing observations.

Watch this documentary with that in mind.

The Mystery Of Chaco Canyon (1999)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6eB4HWZ5KU

Plus, with that in mind, look at the Polar Configuration in the series:

Discourses on an Alien Sky #2 | The Acid Tests of a Reconstruction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6Z5xG1WFa4

Was that a natural system, or the result of a God or Gods maintaining it. That something went wrong and the system was scattered on purpose.

- Was that the Tower of Babel, scattered? not just a city here on Earth, but the planets.

But I digress.

[Brigit]

Excellent, let's get a map! And the text, the context, and the good old 5Ws.


Map of Sumer c. 3300-2200 BC
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/60/90/7f ... 6f4af1.jpg

Genesis 10 (in part)
Sometimes called "The Table of Nations"

• Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood.
  
  The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
  
  Gen 10:3 The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.
  
  Gen 10:5 From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.
  
  Gen 10:6 The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.
  
  Gen 10:7 The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan.
  
  Gen 10:8 Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth.
  Gen 10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.”
  
  Gen 10:10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
  
  Gen 10:11,12 From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah,
  and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the principal city).

Babel=not found; several later locations are called Babel.
Erech=Uruk
Accad=Akkad
Calneh=Kullah

Nimrod is a bloody unifier, essentially. He is a "mighty man" in the most negative sense of the word (Psalm 52 O "mighty man" "why does he boast in evil"; Ezekiel 32:21 "the mighty" 32:24-27 "caused his terror in the land of the living"). It is possible that Nimrod is Sargon. He is conquering cities and villages and building the first World Empire, the first Babel/Babylon.

1/2, cont'd

[Brigit]

2/2 The map, the text, and the 5Ws.

In His Days the Earth was Divided

• Gen 10:25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.

The Primeval Chronology, which is derived from the Septuagint/LXX, is different than the MT Chronology. In the Primeval Chronology, Peleg's lifetime is from

c. 2700-2340 BC

To interpret the plainest meaning of the text, Nimrod conquered cities along the Euphrates and then built cities along the Tigris, sometime during c. 2700-2340 BC. The military conquest and the required slave labor to build the tower and the cities are a dark period for the people living in the Fertile Crescent. There is a Divine response, which is to come and deliver the people from tyranny, from bloody conquest and the subsequent caste system required to support Nimrod/Sargon's empire. The first world empire, Babel, organizes and directs all human life toward the accomplishment of the Emperor's goals -- unchallengeable power, monumental architecture and a religion based on the planets. The language suggests that nothing can escape Nimrod/Sargon's religious-economic system if it is allowed to persist.






Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel

The Fate of Nimrod's Empire

• Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.
  Gen 11:2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.
  Gen 11:3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar.
  Gen 11:4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
  Gen 11:5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
  Gen 11:6 And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
  Gen 11:7 “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
  Gen 11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
  Gen 11:9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

The question arises: could the many literary and cinematic themes involving "one mind across many bodies", which allynh has put forward, actually be based on a much more ancient archetype of a world empire? Does it actually appear in the language of Gen 10 and 11?

Velikovsky outlined the beginnings of a scenario in which the people on earth (centuries after the Polar Configuration was disbanded) experienced an extraordinary electromagnetic effect, which caused them memory loss and profoundly switched the auditory and verbal areas of the brain. He collected many myths, legends and records and determined that the cause of this electromagnetically induced alteration in brain organization was a close encounter between the planet earth and the planet Mercury.

[allynh]

Thanks, Brigit.

More stuff for my Story folders.

That's the heart of the Story, how the Bible recorded echoes of what happened, like Da Vinci Code. HA!

BTW, The movie Knowing is another interesting example.

Notice, when the children arrive on the new world, the sky is filled with planets.

'Caleb & Abby Arrive On A New Planet' Scene | Knowing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HReAQ5aRN1M

The Earth was destroyed because it was no longer filled with religious people that could hear the gods in their mind. The kids could, so they were relocated to start humanity fresh.

- Not a flood this time, fire.

- The Angels brought the Children in those crystal ships.

Classic.

It turns out that this was just the latest cleansing,

But I digress.

[Brigit]

allynh says,

• "BTW, The movie Knowing is another interesting example.
  
  Notice, when the children arrive on the new world, the sky is filled with planets.
  
  'Caleb & Abby Arrive On A New Planet' Scene | Knowing"
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HReAQ5aRN1M

I just watched that movie last week. The Sun goes berserk, and it is the end of the world as we know it. Over NYC, there were a few aurorae and some lightning strikes, so things get colorful but that part is pretty mild. And of course, that last scene is an absolute jaw dropping visual. I could hardly believe my eyes. The children are running toward a beautiful flowering tree, and the planets are hovering above in the sky. I was totally astonished at this reference to Edenic times. And the Electric Universe.

There was a really interesting foreshadowing of the destiny of the two children (on a new planet starting over). They were standing together looking at the megafauna displayed at the museum and having a very serious conversation. It was a pair of tigers, male and female, iirc. Such an amazing touch and a good movie all around.

Also thank you for the Chaco Canyon documentary from 1997. That place is not a nice place. The Indians tried to tell that story, but they were not "on" long enough to say more than a few words. The scale of the roofs, and the effort required to destroy them and burn them was the biggest take-away for me. Between the huge boulders broken off of the rock wall and falling down into the building, and the burned out roofs, and the broken tower, I believe that had to be the result of one almighty thunderbolt. Wally Brown at Navajo Traditional Teachings mentioned a big "wind" came and destroyed it.

Kind of fits in with the tower of Babel topic. Hmmmm... Huh. (:

[Brigit]

allynh links,
The Mystery Of Chaco Canyon (1999)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6eB4HWZ5KU

• "And why, after building these majestic structures, did people deliberately seal them, and leave?"
  3:24 Paul Pino, Laguna Pueblo
  "In our history, we talk of things that occurred a long time ago. ...Of people who had, an enormous amount of power, spiritual power, and power over people. I think those types of people lived here in Chaco."

• 24:50 Edmond Ladd, Archaeologist, Zuni
  "We look upon Chaco Canyon, especially here in Pueblo Bonito, as a place where people of great power at one time lived. [Zuni phrase] meaning, 'the people who live in a circular house' were people who had magical powers...power over animals and birds, and so forth."

• 42:36 Patuuche Gilbert, Historian, Acoma Pueblo
  "You almost had a community spirit, a communal intelligence, people so organized that you were all working together and you were all believing in the same things...to build around you, and the prayers that you set you know, were all one in the same."

• 46:35 Regarding the Straight Road to the North (that simply ends)
  "The north is where our origin begins, the point where we came into this world, in essence the that north line connects us back to the creator." EL: "Trails and roads are important concepts even today, with our afterworld and our present world as being tied together by the barefoot trail. The Badlands going to the north may have been an area where the spirit went when the Chaco Canyon person died. There's a concept where the afterworld is the perfect reflection of the present world."

• 50:04 Paul Pine
  "Here at Chaco they were very very powerful people who had a lot of spiritual power. And these people probably used their power in ways that caused things to change. And [Thunder rolls in background, slight respectful acknowledgement] And that may be one of the reasons why the migrations were set to start again. It's because these people were causing changes that were never meant to occur."

Anasazi Lies? Taking the Past Back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1U2Gp2dtN0
CH: Navajo Traditional Teachings
dur. 15:21

Wally Brown walks through the ruins, describing the memories of what transpired at Chaco Canyon. He has several talks about Chaco Canyon besides this one.
The Tribes in the area were told by the Anasazi, "We have power to do anything...We are basically gods to you."

[Brigit]

2/2
Many legends and records mention of the abrupt loss of language, or some great change in the way people communicate. I have only posted 3 as yet! So we can add this one.


A Navajo/Dine tradition, on the removal of their original language.

In the end the Holy People said, "You may keep 12 sayings in the sacred language. When these are forgotten, or used wrongly, an end will come to this world." (They have 4 or more worlds, which mark different epochs.)

ref: "Why This Native American Language Was Never to Be Written" or Navajo Prophecy of the End of the World.
CH: Navajo Traditional Teachings

[allynh]

HA!

See. Once you start looking at the old tales with "One Mind, Many Bodies" everything changes.

Remember, Jaynes said that the Greeks were made up of People and their "slaves" by 90%.

The best way we would translate the "Many Bodies" from the outside is as "slaves". They would not think in terms of puppets.

Like I said before. Look at a carrier fleet. Thousands of people working tasks, all under a hierarchy controlled by an admiral.

- We are built to submit to group control.

The stars are not right to have it be a "Group Mind".

This goes in my Story folders.

Thanks...

[Brigit]

We want the story folders to be full. Is it possible to read your fiction, allynh? I am warming up to fiction quite a lot these days! Let us know.

1/3






 

[Brigit]

2/3
allynh says,

• "HA!
  See. Once you start looking at the old tales with "One Mind, Many Bodies" everything changes.
  Like I said before. Look at a carrier fleet. Thousands of people working tasks, all under a hierarchy controlled by an admiral.
  - We are built to submit to group control.
  The stars are not right to have it be a "Group Mind".
  This goes in my Story folders."

Yes. Now that we have named its name, I do see it in a lot of movies and literature. "Transcendence" is the most updated and obvious example. "Transcendence," for anyone who hasn't seen it, has neuro tech, chips, internet links, and a rogue llm or a i . At the conclusion of the story, the viewer is left to decide -- either to "believe in" or trust the "one mind across many bodies," or whether it is misanthropic in its very nature.

The idea that humans are best fitted to "group control" is ultimately the question we are being confronted with here.

[Brigit]

3/3
An encyclopedia entry on Thomas Hobbes' (1588-1679) Leviathan says,

• "Hobbes, following the trend of his time, tended to regard politics as a branch of physical science, a kind of social physics.
  
  Comparing the motion of physical bodies to human behavior, he argued that just as physical things, when left to themselves, pursued their own direction, so individuals, when uncontrolled, pursued their own direction, their private self-interest.
  
  Thus, in his view, the first principle of human behavior was egoism, or self-interest, and it was the egoism that was the root of all social conflict.
  
  He believed that social peace could only be achieved within a stable government which has absolute authority over its subjects and its institutions.
  
  Since the attainment of all desirable ends was hindered by the 'war of all against all,' it was necessary that men agree among themselves, upon the basis of social contract, to accept a common and absolute power that would protect them from themselves and from each other, keep the peace, and allow thereby a moderate satisfaction of human desires."

Many people do not know that Hobbes wrote another book, called Behemoth. These two titles of Thomas Hobbes' books are a reference to the two beasts, Leviathan and Behemoth, at the end of the Book of Job. He characterizes English ideas of individual liberties, separated powers, and a monarch that is not absolute but is subject to law as the "Behemoth." In his philosophy, these English ideals only result in strife and Civil War. Those verses in Job about the Leviathan do use language suggestive of "one mind across many bodies," and perhaps the appeal of this theme in "Transcendence" is the thought that there would be some kind of social harmony that would result from the borg. (Regarding Leviathan, this is not a singular occurrence or interpretation; the Babylonian and Roman Empires are both portrayed in Daniel as devouring beasts.) I am not trying to ruin anybody's fun though, and I enjoy a good story as much as anyone! (:

[allynh]

Is it possible to read your fiction, allynh?

HA!

I'll have to let you know when the Jaynes stories are published. They are in the pipeline.

Thanks for the help.

[Brigit]

allynh says,

• "BTW, Look at the Very Large Array(VLA) here in New Mexico.
  
  You have small radio telescopes spread out over an area to combine their signals as if it was one vast antenna miles across.
  
  Now look at the various megastructures, and visualize "One Mind, Many Bodies" spread out over an area, looking up into the night sky. That is the same as the VLA, with eyes able to act as if it was one vast eye seeing deeper into the sky.

That is a very intriguing idea. I wonder if we can work out some details. So we use the analogy of antennae. Let's say that just as the VLA telescopes are able to accept a wider spectrum of radio waves when working together, individuals are able to perceive and accomplish more by working together, or even by being linked, as in the case of the "one mind across many bodies" science fiction theme.

But let's say that we do not neglect to recognize that people are unique.
Each individual would then be best thought of as a different type of antenna, picking up different segments of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. In one scenario, they would all be forced and reconfigured to only pick up one band of radio signals. This would have to be done by force and through a central authority, and regardless of the loss of individual will, character, and gifts.

Now another scenario. Let's say that because of the nature of the individual (as a type of antenna), the arrangements and configurations of antennae into a larger array simply spontaneously arise.

• Types of Antenna, from Wikipedia.
  Omnidirectional:
  Batwing antenna Biconical antenna Cage aerial Coaxial antenna Crossed field antenna Dielectric resonator antenna Dipole antenna Discone antenna Folded unipole antenna Franklin antenna Ground-plane antenna G5RV antenna Halo antenna Helical antenna Inverted-F antenna Inverted vee antenna J-pole antenna Mast radiator Monopole antenna Random wire antenna Rubber ducky antenna Sloper antenna Turnstile antennaT2FD antenna T-antenna Umbrella antenna Whip antenna
  Directional:
  Adcock antenna AS-2259 Antenna AWX antenna Beverage antenna C antenna Cassegrain antenna Choke ring antenna Collinear antenna array Conformal antenna Corner reflector antenna Curtain array Folded inverted conformal antenna Fractal antenna Gizmotchy Helical antenna Horn antenna Log-periodic antenna Loop antenna Microstrip antenna Moxon antenna Offset dish antenna Patch antenna Phased array Planar array Parabolic antenna Plasma antenna Quad antenna Reflective array antenna Regenerative loop antenna Rhombic antenna Sector antenna Short backfire antenna Slot antenna Sterba antenna Vivaldi antenna WokFi Yagi–Uda antenna
  Application-specific:
  ALLISS Corner reflector (passive) Evolved antenna Ground dipole Reconfigurable antenna Rectenna Reference antenna Spiral antenna Circularly disposed antenna array Television antenna

Those who are focused on a certain frequency begin to naturally find themselves working together in some way. So you still have the "one mind across many bodies," but they operate together based on an intrinsic similarity. They work together because they are attuned to a similar frequency. These antennae would not even realize that they are in an array, but would each play their part in gathering the signals and broadcasting, as well.

So in a story, you have a contrasting, naturally arising array, which is not the forced one. They always operate at each other's expense. That's why you have monopolies in education and in science. To prevent the spontaneous arrays.

[Brigit]

Hello, Yagi. Gizmotchy. Rubber Ducky.

This is Plasma and Electricity in space !