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Speaker 1: Hey, there, guys, it's joshin for this week's select. I'm

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Speaker 1: going with our August twenty twenty two episode on the

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Speaker 1: bicameral mind theory. It is mind blowing, mind expanding, mind flabbergasting.

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Speaker 1: It's just a really good episode. It's just really me

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Speaker 1: and Chuck sitting around having a really interesting conversation about

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Speaker 1: some really interesting stuff. So if you feel like expanding

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Speaker 1: your mind right now, I would say this is a

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Speaker 1: great episode to listen to enjoy.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and

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Speaker 1: this is Stuff you Should Know, the ongoing, amazing, mind

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Speaker 1: blowing edition.

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Speaker 2: You've been into this stuff lately? What's going on with you?

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, but yes, I'm definitely into it lately.

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Speaker 3: It's weird.

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Speaker 2: Approaching fifty. Existential crisis.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about crisis, maybe more like pondering, existential pondering.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's a crisis yet. I've still got

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Speaker 1: five years, still fifty, so give me time.

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Speaker 2: Oh you forty five, I thought you were forty seven.

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Speaker 3: I'm forty five and eight ninth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah you got time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah great, thank you for that.

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Speaker 1: But no, there's no like one thing that's making me

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Speaker 1: say like, hey, when did humans become conscious? Or when

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Speaker 1: did humans become intelligent? Or what do we do if

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Speaker 1: aliens come down? Like for some reason, it's just maybe

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Speaker 1: a little more appealing to me than it has been

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Speaker 1: in the past lately. I don't know, but yes, I'm

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Speaker 1: definitely into this kind of thing right now. And this stuff,

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Speaker 1: well we're going to talk about today. It's based on

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works article that Robert Lamb wrote, and I'm

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Speaker 1: not at all surprised that Robert Lamb is into this,

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Speaker 1: but I just want to note that I've heard about

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Speaker 1: this year's years and years ago and have been meaning

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Speaker 1: to do an article or an episode on it. So

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Speaker 1: I don't want you to think this is something that

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Speaker 1: just stumbled across. This is actually the fruition of years

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Speaker 1: of planning and hope and dreams coming to pass in

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Speaker 1: maybe the best episode we'll ever make.

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Speaker 2: And of course Robert and not Robert Lamb, the lead

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Speaker 2: singer of the band Chicago, just to make it.

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Speaker 3: It's another Robert Lamb, and he was in Chicago.

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Speaker 2: It still is in Chicago.

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Speaker 3: Is that Peter Sittara's stage name.

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Speaker 2: No Setara was the bass player and part lead singer

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Speaker 2: along with Robert Lamb, who played keyboards and also sang

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Speaker 2: lead on some and before Terry Cats died, he played

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Speaker 2: guitar and also sang. So they had three singers in

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Speaker 2: the early days of Chicago.

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Speaker 3: That's just confusing.

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Speaker 2: But none of them are our colleague Robert Lamb, who,

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Speaker 2: along with our colleague Joe, had been doing stuff to

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Speaker 2: blow your mind for many, many years. Another great show.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I didn't check, but I would place a

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Speaker 1: substantial amount of money on the idea that they have

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Speaker 1: their own episode on this Julian James by Cameron Mind.

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Speaker 2: I bet they have. And we should also shout out

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Speaker 2: Philosophy for Life, Psychology Today, and Frontiers in Psychology. And

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Speaker 2: I'm going to make one up psychology Foo Young.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I've got two more that aren't made up Slate

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Speaker 1: Star Codex and a poster named Hazard on the site

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Speaker 1: less Wrong.

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Speaker 2: That sounds a good great source it is.

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Speaker 1: Hazard knows what he's talking about. Oh and one more,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, a guy named joff Ward or Jeff Ward,

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Speaker 1: but you know when they spell joff on medium. So

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Speaker 1: all of those combined with Robert Lamb's article that coalesce

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Speaker 1: into again, probably the greatest episode we'll ever do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I sort of get some of this. I

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Speaker 2: think you're going to help me out some because I

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Speaker 2: do have some questions that I'll just throw out here

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Speaker 2: and there, because at times I found myself reading this

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Speaker 2: stuff and going, yeah, but isn't that just blank.

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Speaker 3: Okay, great, I'll do my best to answer.

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Speaker 1: And you're probably right when you're thinking that that, which

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Speaker 1: is probably like, yes, all.

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Speaker 2: Right, Well, I mean I guess we should say then

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Speaker 2: that the whole hypothesis is that we're going to be

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Speaker 2: kind of breaking down today is controversial and it's not

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Speaker 2: provable necessarily scientifically speaking. So it's sort of one of

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Speaker 2: those I mean, I think it goes beyond thought experiment

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Speaker 2: for sure, definitely, and the true hypothesis land. But it

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Speaker 2: was proposed by a psychologist here in the United States

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Speaker 2: named Julian James in the mid nineteen seventies. Of course, yeah,

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Speaker 2: the ear is born, yeah, seventy six baby.

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Speaker 3: So what he.

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Speaker 1: Proposed was an answer to a long standing question, and

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Speaker 1: that was when did humans become conscious, Like when did

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Speaker 1: consciousness emerge? Is it something that came along like in

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Speaker 1: the earliest archaic human is it something that came along much.

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Speaker 3: Later than that?

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Speaker 1: And how could we ever possibly answer that, like what

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Speaker 1: relics have been left in history in prehistory that would say, like, hey,

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Speaker 1: this is evidence of consciousness. And Julian Jane's took that

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Speaker 1: up and he did it as an outsider, which was

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Speaker 1: a huge strike against him because automatically legitimate scientists are like, well,

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Speaker 1: I can't build upon this theory. Possibly this man is

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Speaker 1: actually in my field of consciousness studies. But the thing

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Speaker 1: is is this, this hypothesis is so well liked. It's

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Speaker 1: just roundly like people just like it. It's just such

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Speaker 1: an interesting hypothesis that it just won't go away. It

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Speaker 1: hasn't gone away. And in fact, there's like a Julian

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Speaker 1: Jane's institute, there's like groups that have sprung up based

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Speaker 1: on this hypothesis. And what he says, in a very

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Speaker 1: small nutshell is that sometime about one two thousand years ago,

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Speaker 1: became conscious in the way that we understand consciousness today.

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Speaker 1: They developed the ability to think about thinking, They developed

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Speaker 1: the ability to think about that other people are thinking.

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Speaker 1: They developed basically what's called subjective introspection, and then as

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Speaker 1: a result of that, they almost automatically gained free will

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Speaker 1: in volition. So what he's saying is that if we

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Speaker 1: went back in time in the way Back Machine, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: and we met somebody who lived three thousand years ago,

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Speaker 1: four thousand years ago, they would not be a conscious

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Speaker 1: human in the way that we understand conscious humans.

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Speaker 2: That's right, And he thinks that it was a learned thing.

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Speaker 2: And the idea that he throws down is that our mind,

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Speaker 2: our brain is, or was rather very important, was because

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Speaker 2: it no longer is bi cameral, which means split into

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Speaker 2: two parts. And we'll get to some actual science about

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Speaker 2: the hemispheres of the brain later on, but in this

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Speaker 2: case he means split into two parts where you have

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Speaker 2: a part that makes decisions and a part that follows,

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Speaker 2: and that neither one of them were conscious. And here's

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Speaker 2: where I get a little tripped up right out of

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Speaker 2: the gate. Is basically he says that instead of an

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Speaker 2: internal dialogue which we all have and which indicates a consciousness,

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Speaker 2: like us talking to ourselves, us saying things like everything

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Speaker 2: from like you know, hey, get up and go do

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Speaker 2: this to just internally thinking about things like humans do

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Speaker 2: that instead of that we were sort of like human zombies,

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Speaker 2: and that we were creatures of habit. We had routines

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Speaker 2: and behaviors that we followed to a tee, and whenever

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Speaker 2: something disrupted that behavior, which is when like a conscious

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Speaker 2: mind you would think, would speak up that instead of

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Speaker 2: that that an external agent. In this case, they thought

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Speaker 2: there were gods would enter their brain and create an

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Speaker 2: auditory hallucination.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that they unquestioningly obeyed that auditory hallucination, and

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Speaker 1: that that's what helped them get through novel situations that

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Speaker 1: they didn't have like a basically a prescribed script for

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Speaker 1: you know, a mindless automatic thing. Something new came along

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Speaker 1: that got in their way. This god would speak to

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Speaker 1: them and say, go around that rock. It wasn't there yesterday,

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Speaker 1: don't worry about it, just go around it. And it

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Speaker 1: could be one of their gods. It could be an

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Speaker 1: ancestor guiding them. I think one. I think the Sumerians

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Speaker 1: maybe made reference to angels walking beside them or and

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Speaker 1: this is really important later on. It's a big part

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Speaker 1: of Jane's hypothesis. It could be your local ruler, the

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Speaker 1: divine king who's in charge of you and everybody else

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Speaker 1: that you know and love and have ever lived among.

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Speaker 1: It could be that person guiding you in your life too.

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Speaker 1: And the idea is these people heard this in the

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Speaker 1: same way like you said that we hear our own

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Speaker 1: internal dialogue, but they never chalked it up to themselves.

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Speaker 1: It was always coming from the outside.

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Speaker 2: All right, Here's I guess where I had my first

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Speaker 2: issue kind of grasping this is there were no gods

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Speaker 2: speaking to them and guiding them. This was just their

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Speaker 2: internal dialogue. They just didn't know it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, there was no gods. But to them,

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Speaker 1: and this is a really important point to them, it

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Speaker 1: definitely was a god talking to them or an ancestor

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Speaker 1: talking to them. And in the same way that if

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Speaker 1: an actual god got into your brain and was speaking

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Speaker 1: to you and you responded to it, if you could

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Speaker 1: have looked at their brains lighting up, presumably in like

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Speaker 1: a wonder machine, it would respond the same way. So

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Speaker 1: it was entirely real to them, and the same way

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Speaker 1: that a placebo effect has fuel effects on your body,

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Speaker 1: this would have been the same thing. And then in

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Speaker 1: addition to that, it was culturally supported everyone that they

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Speaker 1: knew believed the same thing that the gods were talking

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Speaker 1: to them, and so like that just lent support to

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Speaker 1: this idea so that no one questioned it.

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Speaker 3: It was just that's the way it was.

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Speaker 2: Well, so this, I guess brings me to let me

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Speaker 2: macro this out a little bit in my own dumb brain,

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Speaker 2: and it may just be twenty first century person thinking

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Speaker 2: that I'm engaging in. But if the idea is that

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Speaker 2: before this there was no consciousness, but what we're really

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Speaker 2: saying is there actually was consciousness, they just didn't recognize

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Speaker 2: it as such. Is that the whole point was that

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Speaker 2: if you do not recognize it as consciousness, therefore you

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Speaker 2: are not conscious.

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Speaker 3: Yes, because.

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Speaker 1: Experiencing consciousness in any way that we would recognize as

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Speaker 1: you being conscious, you're just kind of Julian and Jane's referred.

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Speaker 2: To what this guy's doing now.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So but the thing is is there's like a

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Speaker 1: lot of scholarly discussion on like, Okay, what did James

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Speaker 1: mean exactly? How literal was he because he used words

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Speaker 1: like automaton. He never called them zombies. Other people call

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Speaker 1: them like zombies, but I didn't.

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Speaker 2: No one talked about zombies back then.

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Speaker 1: No, that's true, but well evil dead had or not

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Speaker 1: evil dead, living dead.

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Speaker 3: No Living Dead had come out by then.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it wasn't like today.

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Speaker 3: Okay, no, no, I know. They're definitely over the automatons.

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Speaker 1: So he called them automatons, and it's essentially the same

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Speaker 1: thing that they were. They just behaved automatically. They didn't

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Speaker 1: stop and think about how they felt. They and this

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Speaker 1: is really important too, Chuck. Of course, they still had feelings.

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Speaker 1: They had feelings about the people that were in their

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Speaker 1: kin group, they had feelings about their local ruler, they

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Speaker 1: had feelings about, you know, stubbing their toe. It's not

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Speaker 1: like they just had no inner life whatsoever. It's that

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Speaker 1: they weren't. They didn't reflect on their inner life. They

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Speaker 1: didn't think about thinking. They didn't they didn't have what

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Speaker 1: we would recognize as consciousness, and in the terms that

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Speaker 1: Jane's is describing consciousness, which is a really narrow definition

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Speaker 1: of consciousness. And then on top of that, he also

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Speaker 1: goes to great links to say, Hey, I understand that

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Speaker 1: you're going to get all up in a tizzy that

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Speaker 1: I'm saying that these people weren't conscious I'm not talking

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Speaker 1: about consciousness in general, and I think that you over

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Speaker 1: overestimate just how much consciousness makes up our lives.

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Speaker 2: Okay, how about we take a break. Okay, I'm gonna

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Speaker 2: go rip a bong kidding, We'll take a break. We'll

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Speaker 2: come back and we'll talk about what lots of other

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Speaker 2: stuff right after this.

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Speaker 4: Job.

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Speaker 2: All right, So I've kind of wrapped my head around

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Speaker 2: what this guy is saying now. I will admit it's

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Speaker 2: a little naval gayzy for me when it comes to

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Speaker 2: certain types of philosophy and hypotheses. I get a little

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Speaker 2: bit like, uh, what's the word? Maybe I can be

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Speaker 2: a little too concrete or as the French might say,

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Speaker 2: concrete in literal, Yeah, in my thinking, because it's not

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Speaker 2: you know, Friday night in college at like two in

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Speaker 2: the morning kind of discussion. Right, So I think that's

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Speaker 2: where I am now. But I do think it's very

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Speaker 2: interesting in that he I mean, I think a lot

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Speaker 2: of this is very interesting, but I think it's interesting

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Speaker 2: that he thought around the first or second millennium BC

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Speaker 2: is when things to him changed and a consciousness began

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Speaker 2: to emerge because of well, eventually language, but specific metaphor,

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Speaker 2: which is to say that all of a sudden, we

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Speaker 2: could make analogies in our brain, We could link things together.

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Speaker 2: We saw ourselves as almost as if they were characters.

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Speaker 2: Ourselves were characters that had like choices that they could

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Speaker 2: make as characters. Yeah, and that as these things like

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Speaker 2: connected in the brain, then it created just an effect

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Speaker 2: like a domino effect basically where all of a sudden

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Speaker 2: we could work out our own solutions, or we knew

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Speaker 2: we were capable of working out our own solutions. And

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Speaker 2: we also doesn't God saying God saying walk around the rock.

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Speaker 2: They realized it was ourselves making the decision to walk

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Speaker 2: around the rock.

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Speaker 1: Yes, but it's but in part of that that also

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Speaker 1: required them to be able to reflect on the idea.

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Speaker 1: Like you said that they were able to now make

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Speaker 1: their own decisions. Right, And you said something earlier where

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Speaker 1: you like, you know, you were talking about your own

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Speaker 1: internal dialogue where you think, hey, I should get up

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Speaker 1: and go outside for a second. Like that's different, right,

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Speaker 1: You're thinking about you yourself and you realize that you

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Speaker 1: are thinking about yourself. That's modern consciousness. What somebody who

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Speaker 1: was a bicameral person during this time would have thought

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Speaker 1: is get up and go outside. And they would stand

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Speaker 1: up and go outside without questioning because God had just

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Speaker 1: instructed them to do that, so it must be important.

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Speaker 1: And they didn't think about where it came from. They

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Speaker 1: definitely didn't think it was from themselves, and they didn't

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Speaker 1: reflect on it. They just obeyed it. That's Jane's position,

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Speaker 1: and that if you compare those two things, you're talking

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Speaker 1: about two totally different forms of mental life, and it's

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Speaker 1: so different. He said that this is that what we

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Speaker 1: understand is consciousness just wasn't around until a couple thousand

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Speaker 1: years ago.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I can buy that. I like it as a hypothesis.

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Speaker 2: I can swim in this pool. Okay, good, good, But

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Speaker 2: here's thirty minutes.

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Speaker 3: Here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: It's really important to realize, like you said something, that

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Speaker 1: you're a literalist, right, that's actually really appropriate to approach

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Speaker 1: this because Juliet James. One of the very radical things

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Speaker 1: that he did was he took the ancients literally because

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Speaker 1: when he started looking around and we'll talk more about

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Speaker 1: this later, but he was looking for those artifacts that

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Speaker 1: would prove his hypothesis or lend support to it at least,

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Speaker 1: and he was an expert in ancient languages, right, So

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Speaker 1: it was really appropriate. He could actually read Sumerian and Mesopotamian,

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Speaker 1: and he took what they were saying when they said

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Speaker 1: things like, you know, the gods told us to do this,

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Speaker 1: that they thought that the gods told him to do this,

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Speaker 1: not that they were using metaphors. So he took them

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Speaker 1: literally on their word. And that is a real departure

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Speaker 1: from anybody else who's ever examined the ancients of what

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Speaker 1: they were saying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's also something we should point

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Speaker 2: out now, even though it comes up later in our research,

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Speaker 2: is that when you think of an auto, I guess

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Speaker 2: an automatic society or a society of automatons. That's not

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Speaker 2: to say that they weren't successful. He's describing some of

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Speaker 2: the most successful, you know, ancient civilizations that existed. But

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Speaker 2: I think his contention is that it was a hive mind,

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Speaker 2: all working together as automatons that allowed this stuff to

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Speaker 2: get accomplished, and not the conscious mind.

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Speaker 1: Right, And he didn't I don't think he ever used

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Speaker 1: it as like, I don't think he ever explicitly said

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Speaker 1: that it was an emergent property of a hive mind.

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Speaker 1: But that's kind of what he was describing, kind of

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Speaker 1: like if you take one stone cutter and one stone

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Speaker 1: mason and three stone carriers and multiply that unit by

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Speaker 1: five hundred and give it a year, you have a

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Speaker 1: ziggarot built that. That's just all those people knew what

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Speaker 1: to do, they knew their position in their place, and

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Speaker 1: they just did it.

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Speaker 3: And so yeah, you could totally do that.

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Speaker 1: With people who are thinking in this way and weren't conscious,

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Speaker 1: you could probably actually get it done more easily than

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Speaker 1: you could with people who stopped and thought, I'm above this,

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Speaker 1: this work is not suited for me. I should be

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Speaker 1: doing something else, or why is the foreman being so

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Speaker 1: mean to me today? Like they didn't think like that

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Speaker 1: under Jane's hypothesis, So they would probably get the work

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Speaker 1: done more efficiently, at least more quietly, I would guess.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, consciousness proposed her brought along a whole

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Speaker 2: host of problems. I imagine if you're the ruling class.

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Speaker 2: I think one thing that's interesting is that you mentioned

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Speaker 2: about what is it Jane's not Jane's Jane's Jane's thought

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Speaker 2: about I love Robert Lamb's Jan's a Dixon joke in

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Speaker 2: here by.

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Speaker 3: The way, that was mine, Oh that was yours.

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Speaker 2: Oh well, way to go, thanks, you said, James says,

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Speaker 2: and then in parentheses you put, huh, it's pretty good joke.

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Speaker 2: But what jan said was that, and it's something you

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Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, was that consciousness. I think we think consciousness

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Speaker 2: plays too big of a role in what is actually

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Speaker 2: a life that is can largely be still automatic on

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Speaker 2: a lot of levels.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And this is from the actual book in nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 2: and it's a little little mind blowy. I kind of

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Speaker 2: like it. Consciousness is a much smaller part of our

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Speaker 2: mental life than we're conscious of, because we cannot be

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Speaker 2: conscious of what we are not conscious of. It's like

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Speaker 2: asking a flat and this is where it kind of

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Speaker 2: comes home to me. It's like a asking a flashlight

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Speaker 2: in a dark room to search around for something that

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Speaker 2: does not have any light shining upon it. So that's

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Speaker 2: where it comes home to me, is when you and hey,

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Speaker 2: it's metaphor. So how about that he lays down a

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Speaker 2: metaphor that makes me understand it a little bit more.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know, wherever the flashlight there's light. And

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Speaker 1: his point, Yeah, and his point is is wherever your

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Speaker 1: conscious mind looks, there's consciousness.

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Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean that there's consciousness all over the place.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, Robert lamb uses a really good example of

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Speaker 1: unloading a dishwasher, right, like when you're unloading the dishwasher,

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Speaker 1: especially if you're one of those people who put like

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Speaker 1: all of your knives in one place, all of your

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Speaker 1: forks in one part of the basket, all your spoons

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Speaker 1: and so on, right, a maniac in other words.

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Speaker 2: Sensible human.

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Speaker 1: If you do it like that, it's you can just

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Speaker 1: be on autopilot because you've done it so many times.

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Speaker 1: But when you do something like drop a fork, that's

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Speaker 1: out of the norm, that's a novel thing that doesn't

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Speaker 1: happen every time. And so in the bi camera mind,

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Speaker 1: God would have said, I command thee to pick up

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Speaker 1: thine fork, butterfingers, and you would lean over and pick

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Speaker 1: up the fork, and that was that. Instead, you might

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Speaker 1: not even think about picking up the fork. You might

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Speaker 1: do that automatic, but it's still out of the norm.

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Speaker 1: It's still different. You have to kind of think about

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Speaker 1: it a little more than just unloading the dishwasher. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you take that dishwasher metaphor chuck and you realize

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Speaker 1: that three five, nine thousand years ago, there were no dishwashers,

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Speaker 1: there was no ice cream scoop, there was no cookie scoop,

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Speaker 1: there was no avocado splitter, there was nothing like that.

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Speaker 2: Wait, what's that? Is that a thing? Now?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't know.

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Speaker 3: You don't have one of those? No, Oh, I'll send

381
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Speaker 3: you one. You're missing out.

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Speaker 1: It's a multi tool for cutting avocados, getting the pit out,

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Speaker 1: and then slicing them as you scoop them out. They're essential.

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Speaker 1: As a matter of fact.

385
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Speaker 2: All right, I do pretty well with my knife, but

386
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Speaker 2: I would love to see one of these.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going to get to you one for chrismas.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: So the point is that, like, there wasn't a big

390
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Speaker 1: variety of stuff, So there wasn't that many novel situations

391
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Speaker 1: like we encounter novel situations like almost constantly. That's just

392
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Speaker 1: modern life. And that's the basis of Jane's hypothesis that

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Speaker 1: the reason that consciousness evolved is because we started to

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Speaker 1: get faced with more and more novel situations on a

395
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Speaker 1: much more frequent basis. So it maybe it became inefficient

396
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Speaker 1: for God to be talking to us every thirty seconds,

397
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Speaker 1: or maybe we just got better at thinking for ourselves

398
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Speaker 1: and consciousness kind of evolved out of that. But the

399
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Speaker 1: point is life was much less complex back then, So

400
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Speaker 1: you could have something like a b camera mind. You

401
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:32,400
Speaker 1: could have somebody who who consciousness hadn't evolved in yet

402
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:36,119
Speaker 1: because they hadn't been introduced to enough experience in life,

403
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Speaker 1: And with.

404
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Speaker 2: That experience came the fork falling on the floor.

405
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Speaker 1: In other words, yeah, or you know, there's a lot

406
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Speaker 1: more dishes to put away in much more different dishes

407
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:51,840
Speaker 1: to put away rather than just forks, you know, you

408
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:52,440
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.

409
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Speaker 3: Yeah, Or you have one.

410
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Speaker 1: Fork and you just carry it with you everywhere, you know,

411
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Speaker 1: like you don't have to think about that. There was

412
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Speaker 1: just less stuff to think about.

413
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 3: Is what I'm saying.

414
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Speaker 2: Well, now you're speaking my language, because if I had

415
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Speaker 2: it my way, every member of my family would have

416
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Speaker 2: one fork, one spoon, one knife, one bowl, one cup,

417
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 2: one plate. Yeah, and they were all responsible for keeping

418
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Speaker 2: them clean and put away.

419
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Speaker 1: Man, every time I hear one cup, I'm like, there's

420
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Speaker 1: a joke in there somewhere. But even if I could

421
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Speaker 1: come up with it, I wouldn't.

422
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Speaker 3: Be able to say it.

423
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Speaker 2: Oh, Yeah, that's true. All right, So now we're at

424
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Speaker 2: the point where we can talk a little bit more

425
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Speaker 2: about this idea of metaphor and language sort of bringing

426
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 2: about this change. And so what James was throwing down

427
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six, besides apparently a bunch of roach clips,

428
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 2: was the emergence of agricultural societies kind of changing everything,

429
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Speaker 2: and that all of a sudden, we are not living

430
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Speaker 2: in groups of you know, ten or twelve people that

431
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:58,120
Speaker 2: are hunting and gathering, where even if there was sort

432
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Speaker 2: of a leader within that group, it was very easy

433
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:05,640
Speaker 2: to disseminate information and follow that leader. Once we started

434
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 2: settling down, planting and growing things, engaging in trade with

435
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 2: other peoples, that did a lot of things that complicated

436
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,439
Speaker 2: every process, and it meant that societies were much much larger,

437
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:24,679
Speaker 2: and that rulers couldn't necessarily speak directly to people anymore. Yeah,

438
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 2: so the another not to specific people, like they could

439
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 2: lay down an edict and that would get disseminated in other.

440
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 1: Words, Right, So, like I've read before, back when I

441
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: was an anthropology student, that hunter gatherer bands usually numbered

442
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: no more than thirty people, like that was the absolute mass.

443
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:45,400
Speaker 1: And once you reached that you'd split off into two

444
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 1: different bands. So yeah, like the person in charge was

445
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 1: like part of your moment to moment life. And if

446
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: you have if you're suddenly in a civilization and you're

447
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:57,919
Speaker 1: building a zigguratte for somebody, it's probably not deigning to

448
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 1: talk to you. And part of Jane's hypothesis is that this,

449
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:07,159
Speaker 1: this bicameralism emerged from you know, all those new novel

450
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: situations like learning to plant crops, learning to domesticate cows,

451
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,159
Speaker 1: learning to engage in trade and talk to other people,

452
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: that we started to like need direction from the gods

453
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: more and more, and it started.

454
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 3: To kind of get faster and faster.

455
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: But in the meantime it was a form of social

456
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: control because one of the people you could think was

457
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 1: talking to you was that local ruler who you were

458
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 1: building the ziggarotte for. So that would be a way

459
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: to keep an increasingly large population in check.

460
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 2: Right, And as they got bigger and bigger and they started,

461
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 2: you know, trading with people like we were saying that,

462
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 2: you know, that was sort of the beginning of the

463
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 2: end for his not his bicameraal mind, but the b

464
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:56,120
Speaker 2: camera mind. And one of the biggest problems with all

465
00:25:56,160 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 2: of that was when we started writing stuff down, because

466
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, this these auditory hallucinations that he

467
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 2: felt like everyone was having to instruct them on what

468
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 2: to do. There was there was now stuff down on

469
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 2: paper that you could read and you could refer to

470
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:16,919
Speaker 2: and go back to and pass around and post on

471
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 2: the you know, on tablets at the walls of the

472
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 2: city or whatever. And that was all of a sudden,

473
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 2: you weren't waiting around for a god to tell you

474
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 2: what to do. You could just go read that tablet.

475
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the power that we gave to the god's

476
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 1: commands were kind of transferred to.

477
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 3: The written word.

478
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: And yeah, that seems to have been like the death

479
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: now for the bi cameral mind. Right, And there's something

480
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: really interesting that it's worth pointing out. James apparently didn't

481
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 1: have any high hypothesis on what came before the bi

482
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: cameral mind, because he said it started as a result

483
00:26:54,840 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: of the increasing organization that agriculture brought along and that

484
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 1: there wasn't by camera minds before then, But he doesn't

485
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: say what was before then, And people even asked him like, okay,

486
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: what about you know, hunter gatherer societies that are still

487
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: around today, you know, where would they have gotten consciousness?

488
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: And he never really answered that, but it's it's definitely

489
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: worth pointing out that that's an open question. But he

490
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: basically says bi cameralism or the bi camera mind. I

491
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: should say bi cameralism is the senate in the house.

492
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: But the by cameral mind lasted from the advent of

493
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: agriculture about eleven thousand years ago till about two thousand ish,

494
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen hundred or no, three thousand ish years ago,

495
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 1: so it was about a seven thousand year span of

496
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: bi camera mind. And then as life got more and

497
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 1: more sophisticated, we started thinking for ourselves. And what he

498
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 1: says is that language, in particular the written word, but

499
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: also language got more and more sophistic and as it

500
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: got more sophisticated, there was more of a potential for

501
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: us to start thinking in metaphors, and metaphors, as you said,

502
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 1: is the basis of consciousness and the way we think

503
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: in Julian Jane's mind. And there's actually a lot of

504
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: support for that. Charles, may I, oh please, so that

505
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: post by Hazard on less wrong.

506
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Let's see what Hazard has to say.

507
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: It's called consciousness as metaphor. What Jans has to offer,

508
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 1: and what Hazard says is that like Hazard just puts

509
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: out like a paragraph from like an economic report, and

510
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: it's about recessions in Europe and it talks about Germany

511
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: plunging into recession, or the UK falling deeper into recession,

512
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: or France emerging from a recession. And what Hazard points

513
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: out is that all of these descriptors imagine a recession

514
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: as a three dimensional physical thing that we can entire

515
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: nations can move into and out of. That's not true.

516
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 1: Recession aren't three dimensional. They aren't physical things. You can't

517
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: emerge from them, you can't fall into them. But we

518
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: just think about it like that, and that's metaphor. So

519
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: we think in metaphors so frequently we don't even recognize

520
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: it anymore. And that was Jane's point that when we

521
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: gain the ability to think in metaphors, we became conscious,

522
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: We started thinking for ourselves, we became capable of introspection.

523
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: And it was the evolution of language that led us

524
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: to that point. Like basically, it just we just hit

525
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: a threshold where suddenly language is sophisticated enough that it

526
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: could unlock new thoughts in our brains and in turn

527
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: it unlocked consciousness.

528
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 2: I mean that makes sense because you know, a metaphor

529
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 2: is literally not literal, and if you were, if you did,

530
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 2: if that was not a thing yet, then it chibes

531
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 2: with the whole notion that everything they were doing was

532
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 2: very literal up to that point. Yes, and that would

533
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 2: have been a pretty seismic shift if you and compare

534
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 2: like with like, you know, all of a sudden.

535
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 4: Yeah.

536
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 1: And you even see this in like movies that are

537
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:11,959
Speaker 1: trying to emphasize how backwards or back in time you know,

538
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: some group is, and they emphasize it by having that

539
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: group take everything literally, usually to comic effect, like in

540
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: Kingpin when Randy Quaid was an Amish person, right yeah, yeah, yeah,

541
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: he took everything literally and it was hilarious, hilarity ensued,

542
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: but it was also to demonstrate how just simple and

543
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: behind he was. He couldn't he couldn't engage in metaphors.

544
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: He didn't think like that. That's actually based on I

545
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: don't know whether on purpose or not, but that's based

546
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 1: on Julian Jane's hypothesis.

547
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what, that's a nice segue to

548
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 2: children because when you have a human child, it's very

549
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: funny to see how literal they are for those first years. Yeah,

550
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 2: and that they don't understand metaphor, they don't understand certainly

551
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:01,479
Speaker 2: don't understand things like sarcasm. And you have to change

552
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 2: the way you talk to little kids because they do

553
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 2: take everything so literally and think so literally. And children

554
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 2: are are referant are referenced with Jane's the idea that

555
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 2: I think what age like, kids up until the age

556
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 2: of five basically don't really have much of a human consciousness.

557
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:28,479
Speaker 2: And it's in you know, the idea that children are

558
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 2: just little narcissists walking around is a fun joke, but

559
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 2: it's true because they don't know that other people think

560
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 2: differently than they think. Up until about the age of five,

561
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 2: they don't realize there are other lines of thought and

562
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 2: ways of thinking and ways of feeling about things right

563
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 2: that other people have exactly.

564
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: That's what's called theory of mind right And on Slate

565
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: Star Codex, Scott Alexander went to great lengths to basically

566
00:31:55,800 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: say that Julian Jane's using the term consciousness just really

567
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: muddied the waters unnecessarily, and if you just use theory

568
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: of mind, it would have made a lot more sense.

569
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: And Scott and is Scott Alexander, I think, I said Anderson,

570
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: Scott Alexander makes some really good case for it. And

571
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 1: that's kind of what he's pointing out, is, you know,

572
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: like it's it's possible that because you learn, you're not

573
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: born with it. You learn it through experience. It just

574
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: kind of evolves in you as you grow as a

575
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: person and experience more and more novel stuff and interact

576
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:35,479
Speaker 1: with people more, almost like a microcosm of what happened

577
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: in civilization a few thousand years ago, you gain theory

578
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 1: of mind. So the fact that you can learn and

579
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: that you do learn something that integral to consciousness really

580
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: supports the idea that maybe consciousness, as we understand it,

581
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 1: was learned. It did evolve, It was an emergent property

582
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: of an increasingly sophisticated language.

583
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating thing to see happen in a child's life,

584
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 2: to see these little light bulbs come on seemingly out

585
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 2: of nowhere, but you realize it is, you know, very

586
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 2: much a learned thing. Man, very fascinating. All right, I

587
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 2: say we take a break and we'll talk a little

588
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 2: bit about uh, just some other fascinating stuff when we

589
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 2: get back right after this.

590
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 4: And things job job, thanks. When shot shot.

591
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 2: Stop shin, I was gonna summarize what we're going to

592
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 2: talk about, but I didn't feel like it. All of

593
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 2: a sudden before the break.

594
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: I think it's nice. It's Lucy Goosey.

595
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 2: Can I talk about one of my favorite parts of

596
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 2: this this hypothesis is we're kind of jumping around now,

597
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:10,879
Speaker 2: but jumping back to where we talked about writing things down.

598
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, it was around here in human

599
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 2: history that there was a collapse of societies in the

600
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 2: Mediterranean around the Middle East. It was called the Late

601
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 2: Bronze Age collapse, and it didn't take that long, and

602
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 2: it met like these very advanced sort of societies in

603
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 2: a matter of decades, a number of them, a lot

604
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 2: of their culture was lost sort of. They called it,

605
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 2: in fact, the Greek Dark Ages, and it lasted for

606
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 2: hundreds of years. And jiving with this was when humans

607
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 2: started to lose and it kind of all makes sense

608
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 2: that they were losing with a written word, with metaphor

609
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 2: and language coming along, they were losing this voice as

610
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 2: a god. They felt like they were losing their gods

611
00:34:57,520 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 2: because all of a sudden, the gods were silent to them.

612
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 2: They weren't speaking to them in their mind because they

613
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 2: were gaining consciousness. And here's where it gets super interesting.

614
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:13,800
Speaker 2: Jane's has a hypothesis that says, it's about here where

615
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,959
Speaker 2: the organized religions that we know today were born out

616
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:21,960
Speaker 2: of a kind of nostalgia basically for these gods that

617
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:26,320
Speaker 2: left them, Right. Yeah, I think that idea is really interesting.

618
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: It is, and I mean, the timetable really jibes, and

619
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: it is really interesting that that Late Bronze Age collapse

620
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: happened when it did. But the idea is not just nostalgia,

621
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: but also desperation. Yeah, because these people had guidance, they

622
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: didn't have to think. And this poor set of generations

623
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 1: over a few hundred years are maybe some of the

624
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 1: most pitiful humans that ever lived, because they went from

625
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: just knowing what to do because the gods told them

626
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 1: what to do, to having no idea what to do

627
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: because their gods had abandoned them. And they as a

628
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 1: result of that, they started forming religions. They started, you know,

629
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: beseeching the gods to give them a sign. This is

630
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: when oracles started to become a thing. Prophets started to

631
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: become a thing. Superstitions like omens grew, like there was

632
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: a Sumerian omen. If a horse comes into your house

633
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: and bites you, you will soon die and your family

634
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: will soon be scattered. Stuff like that. Right, So this

635
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:31,800
Speaker 1: didn't exist before because the gods were in charge of everything.

636
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: Now they were suddenly gone, and I just think it

637
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: must be must have been really pitiful and dark to

638
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: live through that time.

639
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they were lost, I guess as a people.

640
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean that was figuratively they were lost,

641
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: but literally too, because that Late Bronze Age collapse they

642
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:51,280
Speaker 1: think was brought on at least in part by climate

643
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: change and probably invasion. There's this mysterious group called the

644
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 1: Sea People's that seem to have overrun different cultures, and

645
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: so like culture after culture fall, those people would become refugees,

646
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 1: descend upon another culture, end up pushing that to the

647
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: breaking point that culture would fall. It was just like

648
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,399
Speaker 1: a domino effect of collapsing cultures all at once.

649
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:13,280
Speaker 3: So they really felt.

650
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 1: Like the gods had abandoned him, like they'd angered him

651
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: or something like that.

652
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 3: They were genuinely lost.

653
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 2: So what James did to help support his hypothesis, which

654
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 2: makes sense, was to go back and look at literature

655
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 2: and the time and see if it sort of supported this.

656
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 2: I know. One of the things he wrote a lot

657
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 2: about in his book in nineteen seventy six was that

658
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 2: it was Homer's Iliad because he's kind of like, here's

659
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 2: proof right here. I mean, if you look at the Iliad,

660
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 2: they were basically automatons. They just listened to the gods

661
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 2: and did what the gods said, and they substituted like

662
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 2: the words that we would use to substitute in for

663
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 2: the Iliad to indicate consciousness just weren't there.

664
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 1: Right, So they were more like physical descriptors, like my

665
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 1: belly was quivering or my heart was fluttering, something like that.

666
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:05,240
Speaker 1: Not I think the example that's used is fear filled

667
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: Agamemnon's mind. Yeah, Well, there wasn't a mind, so they

668
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: would describe fear in other physical terms, right yeah. And

669
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: that it wasn't until later on when new translations were

670
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: coming along, that people who were now conscious turned the

671
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: stuff into metaphor. And James is saying they didn't mean

672
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: it as metaphor before, they meant it as literally, and

673
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 1: they didn't have descriptors for minds, and when they say

674
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: the gods were guiding them along, they meant it literally.

675
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,840
Speaker 1: And he was saying that the Iliad in particular started

676
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 1: to be written about eleven hundred BCE, and then around

677
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: seven hundred BCE. It was like in its form that

678
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 1: we see it today, but along the way it was

679
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: kind of added to and it was written during the

680
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: transition from bicameral mind to modern consciousness. He sees it

681
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:55,280
Speaker 1: as basically a document that traces that transition.

682
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, very interesting. There was some other stuff too write

683
00:38:58,080 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 2: literature wise.

684
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:00,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, that wasn't the only one.

685
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 1: He also found in some of the religious texts, like

686
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: evidence that people felt like God had abandoned him. There's

687
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: something a Mesopotamian poem called the Ludloutle bell Nemechi, and

688
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: it says, my God has forsaken me and disappeared. My

689
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: goddess has failed me and keeps at a distance. The

690
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: good angel who walked beside me has departed. And again,

691
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 1: most other scholars would say, there's something happened. This guy

692
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 1: was blue, he was in a fonk. Who knows, But

693
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:31,759
Speaker 1: it's all metaphorical. And James is saying, no, this guy

694
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: had God talking to him. Now he doesn't anymore.

695
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 2: So should we talk a little bit about actual science

696
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 2: here with the brain?

697
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 3: Yeah?

698
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 2: I think so because this is something we've covered before

699
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 2: in the past, when we talked about alien hand syndrome.

700
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 2: Oh is that where he came out from a gazillion

701
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:56,239
Speaker 2: years ago? There was evidence that when the there were

702
00:39:56,280 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 2: certain epilepsy patients where it was so severe that they

703
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 2: would sever the corpus colossum undergo a corpus colostomy, and

704
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 2: the corpus colosum is basically the thing that makes the

705
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 2: two hemispheres of the brain communicate with one another. And

706
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 2: with alien hand syndrome, I think they found that it

707
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 2: could be brought on by this surgery where all of

708
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 2: a sudden, the left arm was doing something and without

709
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 2: being told to do it by the right brain. And

710
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 2: they have Jane's I think are people since Jaans? Was

711
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 2: it Jaans or was it just people trying to sort

712
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 2: of proof his theory?

713
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 1: I think that people saw these experiments as support for

714
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: Jane's theory.

715
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 2: Okay, so they looked at these surgeries, these corpus colostomies,

716
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 2: and they're called split brain patients basically where they you know,

717
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 2: after the surgery, it's not like they felt all out

718
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 2: of whack. They felt like a regular, you know, whole

719
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 2: human being, but they learned that there were these little

720
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 2: things it would pop up where a hemisphere would take

721
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 2: an action based on this information that it didn't have

722
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:10,839
Speaker 2: access to. And the example they gave was if they

723
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 2: like instructed the right hemisphere to just walk to the kitchen,

724
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 2: and they would get up and walk to the kitchen,

725
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 2: but they would say, hey, why did you get up

726
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 2: and walk to the kitchen. The language the left hemisphere,

727
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 2: the language dominant hemisphere, is the only part that can

728
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,879
Speaker 2: respond to that. But the left hemisphere doesn't know why

729
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 2: it got up. And the really fascinating part is that

730
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:37,399
Speaker 2: they wouldn't say, well, I don't know, I'm not sure

731
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 2: why I just did that. I just did it. They

732
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 2: would make something up on the spot and say, you know,

733
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 2: I felt like getting up and going to make a

734
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 2: bowl of cereal. And it's almost like we had this

735
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 2: natural instinct to b as somebody when faced with a

736
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:54,320
Speaker 2: question that we can't answer about why we did something.

737
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the left hemisphere wants to explain things it

738
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: wants to tell the story using metaphors usually, and this

739
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 1: became the left brain interpreter theory, and it kind of

740
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 1: supports Jane's idea that the consciousness is a flashlight looking

741
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: for a dark spot in a room and it just

742
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:20,280
Speaker 1: can't find it. And the idea is that the left

743
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 1: hemisphere creates the explanation the stories for our behavior, even

744
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: if it doesn't know why we did something, but that's

745
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 1: just what it does. And there's a saying in consciousness

746
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: research among people who subscribe to the left brain interpreter

747
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: theory is that consciousness isn't in the oval office like

748
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: it thinks it is. It's more in the press office,

749
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: like it's the one that's public facing explaining what you're doing,

750
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: but it might not have all the information, so sometimes

751
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: it's just besing.

752
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,359
Speaker 2: It's very interesting stuff. Yeah, and sort of tying in

753
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 2: with the kid thing, who is this? How do you

754
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 2: pronounce the name of that one researcher Chustian Austian cuture

755
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:04,800
Speaker 2: k U I J S c E. N Oh, yeah,

756
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna say Christian.

757
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty pretty dead on. That's the person

758
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 1: who runs the Julian James.

759
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 2: Society today, because Jane's died in nineteen ninety seven. I

760
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,839
Speaker 2: don't think we ever pointed that out. Yeah, but this

761
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:22,919
Speaker 2: person basically says, hey, if you look at people who

762
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 2: hear voices, and that's not necessarily to say someone that

763
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 2: has schizophrenia, because that is one percent of the population,

764
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 2: apparently is the highest ten percent of the population. Can

765
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 2: you know, does hear things basically? So these it's the

766
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 2: idea of the command voice basically is to do something.

767
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 2: And if you're hearing a voice that says, you know,

768
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 2: move to the window and look out on the street,

769
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 2: that's one thing. If you hear a voice that says,

770
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 2: take the knife from the drawer and you know, put

771
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 2: it in someone's head, then that's another thing altogether. And

772
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 2: we were talking about kids earlier, you know, the idea

773
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,439
Speaker 2: of the imaginary friend kind of jobs with this lack

774
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 2: of consciousness. Sixty five percent of kids have imaginary friends.

775
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 2: I had an imaginary friends. My daughter had for years

776
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,839
Speaker 2: what she called her ghost friends, which is a lot

777
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 2: creepier way to put it. But I think that's all

778
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,720
Speaker 2: just sort of to say that like that nine percent

779
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 2: of people who are hearing voices who are not suffering

780
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 2: from schizophrenia. Is that's proof of that initial bicameral mind

781
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 2: at work, right.

782
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean Julian James believed that children go

783
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: from a bicameral state to a conscious state, as evidenced

784
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: by that development of theory of mind, or as evidence

785
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: by imaginary friends, and that they're kind of recreating what

786
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,479
Speaker 1: society or the human species went through thousands of years

787
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,320
Speaker 1: ago as they age and develop.

788
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 2: Very interesting.

789
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 1: So there you might be out there, especially if you're

790
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: a concreteist like Chuck, thinking like you might be rocking

791
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 1: in your seat right now, face flushed about to faint out.

792
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 2: Of rage came because.

793
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: Like, this is by definition unscientific. It's not provable in

794
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 1: the form that Jane's put it forth. It's more of

795
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 1: a concept, an idea, And apparently he was well aware

796
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:32,439
Speaker 1: of that. He didn't tout it as as anything more

797
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 1: than that. But Chustian uh, the director of the Julian

798
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: Jane Society, likes to point out that it was he

799
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: was basically laying the groundwork for an entirely new way

800
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:45,359
Speaker 1: of looking at things so that other people could come

801
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 1: along and you know, take it up and figure.

802
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 3: Out how he was wrong.

803
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: How he was right, what needed fleshing out, what made

804
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: sense in its that form, and people have been doing

805
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 1: that again.

806
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 3: This is this is like a crackpot theory.

807
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: That has never gone away. Yea, because the more people

808
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: pay attention to it and the more we start to

809
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:07,320
Speaker 1: understand about the brain, the more sense it kind of makes.

810
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 1: And it seems to be gaining traction rather than losing

811
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 1: it over the like fifty years that it's been around.

812
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting. I don't hate this stuff. I'm

813
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 2: not rocking in my chair.

814
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 3: David Bowie loved it.

815
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:24,640
Speaker 1: He said that the origin of consciousness is the breakdown

816
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:28,280
Speaker 1: of bicameral mind. I think that was it the book

817
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,799
Speaker 1: so no, he said it was one of the top

818
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: hundred books to read.

819
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 2: Oh all right, I believe that totally. It's a very

820
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:38,320
Speaker 2: Bowie thing.

821
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:43,879
Speaker 1: For sure, and other people too. And then one other thing,

822
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:45,959
Speaker 1: another way to put all this, to kind of sum

823
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 1: it up that I saw it put is that we

824
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: developed at some point back in history a left brain

825
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 1: bias's you know, which kind of ties into your original

826
00:46:57,320 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 1: view of the whole thing, which was, you know, they

827
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:01,919
Speaker 1: weren't just that they were conscious, right.

828
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:04,399
Speaker 3: I like that you got anything else.

829
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 2: I might, but I might just not be aware of it.

830
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:13,359
Speaker 1: And as I said, this is the best episode we've

831
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:17,720
Speaker 1: ever done since Chuck Giggles, which everybody loves.

832
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 3: I think then it's time for listener mail.

833
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 2: This is about the freedom of the Press episode and

834
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 2: this was a Josh request. Hey guys, how freedom of

835
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 2: the press work struck a particular chord with me. I

836
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 2: used to work as a science teacher but was finding

837
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 2: more and more students were being duped by pseudoscience on

838
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 2: the Internet and weren't being provided the tools to recognize this.

839
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:44,720
Speaker 2: So I did a master's in a library and information

840
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 2: science and now a school librarian on a mission to

841
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 2: vanquish disinformation awesome. While I've included the topic of journalism

842
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 2: in terms of approaching news critically as with any online

843
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 2: source of information, your recent podcast on how freedom of the

844
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:02,760
Speaker 2: Press works really inspired me to put forward more information

845
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:05,920
Speaker 2: and content about media freedoms and the risks for journalists.

846
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 2: Here in Sweden, it's very easy to take freedom to

847
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 2: press for granted. Last year, in sympathy with my American colleagues,

848
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 2: I put up a display of banned books tracked by

849
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,880
Speaker 2: the ALA, and each book had a tag listing the

850
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 2: years and ranking a book was challenged, and I encouraged

851
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 2: the students to guess what for. It led to a

852
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 2: lot of really good That's what I love. This experiment

853
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 2: with students led to a lot of really good discussions.

854
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 2: Many students hadn't realized the scale of how many books

855
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,360
Speaker 2: had been banned or challenged, were horrified to see their

856
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 2: own favorite books on display, and were also shocked by

857
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 2: the justification, as are we always now that COVID restrictions

858
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 2: are being lifted, and very much looking forward to taking

859
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 2: students to the world's first library of censored books, the

860
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 2: Dowitt Isaac Library and the Malmuir Archives as a numlout

861
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 2: so that students can see the extent of limitations on

862
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 2: the press and media freedoms around the world. Thanks again

863
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 2: for the fascinating show and all around amazing series. Kind

864
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 2: regards med vingliga Hell's niggar must just be a salutation

865
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 2: in Swedish that comes from miss Alice Antonsen.

866
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 3: She heard hers, Thank you, Alice. That is amazing.

867
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we got to that listener meal, because

868
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:32,919
Speaker 1: I've been proud of that person for a very long time.

869
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 3: Ever since that email came in totally. How about Sweden? Huh?

870
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 3: Keeping the American dream alive?

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Speaker 2: I love it?

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Speaker 1: And Chuck Also, before we sign off, there's something I've

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Speaker 1: been meaning to address that you said earlier.

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Speaker 3: You said you have a dumb brain. No you don't.

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Speaker 2: Did I say that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? You did.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So if you want to get in touch with

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Speaker 1: this like Alice did and show the world what a

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Speaker 1: hero you are, we would love.

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Speaker 3: To hear that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: You can email us to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 4: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 4: more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 2: H