WEBVTT - Selects: Thrill to the Stunning Bicameral Mind Hypothesis 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:03.680 Hey, there, guys, it's joshin for this week's select. I'm 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:07.800 going with our August twenty twenty two episode on the 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:14.800 bicameral mind theory. It is mind blowing, mind expanding, mind flabbergasting. 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:17.919 It's just a really good episode. It's just really me 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.560 and Chuck sitting around having a really interesting conversation about 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.959 some really interesting stuff. So if you feel like expanding 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.200 your mind right now, I would say this is a 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:34.159 great episode to listen to enjoy. 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:42.960 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:46.280 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.440 I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:54.080 this is Stuff you Should Know, the ongoing, amazing, mind 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:55.320 blowing edition. 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:58.920 You've been into this stuff lately? What's going on with you? 0:00:59.160 --> 0:00:59.800 I don't know. 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.320 I don't know, man, but yes, I'm definitely into it lately. 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:04.360 It's weird. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.280 Approaching fifty. Existential crisis. 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:14.160 I don't know about crisis, maybe more like pondering, existential pondering. 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:16.520 I don't think it's a crisis yet. I've still got 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.319 five years, still fifty, so give me time. 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.600 Oh you forty five, I thought you were forty seven. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.560 I'm forty five and eight ninth. 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:26.839 Yeah you got time. 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:29.440 Yeah great, thank you for that. 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:32.800 But no, there's no like one thing that's making me 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.960 say like, hey, when did humans become conscious? Or when 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.319 did humans become intelligent? Or what do we do if 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.280 aliens come down? Like for some reason, it's just maybe 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.759 a little more appealing to me than it has been 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.759 in the past lately. I don't know, but yes, I'm 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.680 definitely into this kind of thing right now. And this stuff, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:51.480 well we're going to talk about today. It's based on 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:54.720 how Stuff Works article that Robert Lamb wrote, and I'm 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.960 not at all surprised that Robert Lamb is into this, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.400 but I just want to note that I've heard about 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:01.400 this year's years and years ago and have been meaning 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.880 to do an article or an episode on it. So 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:06.080 I don't want you to think this is something that 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.640 just stumbled across. This is actually the fruition of years 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:14.880 of planning and hope and dreams coming to pass in 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.119 maybe the best episode we'll ever make. 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.960 And of course Robert and not Robert Lamb, the lead 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.400 singer of the band Chicago, just to make it. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.680 It's another Robert Lamb, and he was in Chicago. 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:30.359 It still is in Chicago. 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:32.640 Is that Peter Sittara's stage name. 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.680 No Setara was the bass player and part lead singer 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.440 along with Robert Lamb, who played keyboards and also sang 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.760 lead on some and before Terry Cats died, he played 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:48.080 guitar and also sang. So they had three singers in 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:49.359 the early days of Chicago. 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:50.680 That's just confusing. 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.760 But none of them are our colleague Robert Lamb, who, 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.679 along with our colleague Joe, had been doing stuff to 0:02:57.720 --> 0:02:59.800 blow your mind for many, many years. Another great show. 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.800 Yeah, and I didn't check, but I would place a 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.239 substantial amount of money on the idea that they have 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.000 their own episode on this Julian James by Cameron Mind. 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:12.760 I bet they have. And we should also shout out 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:18.160 Philosophy for Life, Psychology Today, and Frontiers in Psychology. And 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.519 I'm going to make one up psychology Foo Young. 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.639 Okay, I've got two more that aren't made up Slate 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:30.080 Star Codex and a poster named Hazard on the site 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:30.760 less Wrong. 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.480 That sounds a good great source it is. 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:36.960 Hazard knows what he's talking about. Oh and one more, 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.520 I'm sorry, a guy named joff Ward or Jeff Ward, 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.720 but you know when they spell joff on medium. So 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.680 all of those combined with Robert Lamb's article that coalesce 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.600 into again, probably the greatest episode we'll ever do. 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.040 Yeah, and I sort of get some of this. I 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.040 think you're going to help me out some because I 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.880 do have some questions that I'll just throw out here 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:00.680 and there, because at times I found myself reading this 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.840 stuff and going, yeah, but isn't that just blank. 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.200 Okay, great, I'll do my best to answer. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.480 And you're probably right when you're thinking that that, which 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:11.640 is probably like, yes, all. 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:13.800 Right, Well, I mean I guess we should say then 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.280 that the whole hypothesis is that we're going to be 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.960 kind of breaking down today is controversial and it's not 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:26.000 provable necessarily scientifically speaking. So it's sort of one of 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.080 those I mean, I think it goes beyond thought experiment 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.760 for sure, definitely, and the true hypothesis land. But it 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.520 was proposed by a psychologist here in the United States 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.960 named Julian James in the mid nineteen seventies. Of course, yeah, 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.479 the ear is born, yeah, seventy six baby. 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:46.680 So what he. 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.800 Proposed was an answer to a long standing question, and 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.840 that was when did humans become conscious, Like when did 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.480 consciousness emerge? Is it something that came along like in 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:02.599 the earliest archaic human is it something that came along much. 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:03.120 Later than that? 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.640 And how could we ever possibly answer that, like what 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:13.320 relics have been left in history in prehistory that would say, like, hey, 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.640 this is evidence of consciousness. And Julian Jane's took that 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.279 up and he did it as an outsider, which was 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.400 a huge strike against him because automatically legitimate scientists are like, well, 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.159 I can't build upon this theory. Possibly this man is 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:31.680 actually in my field of consciousness studies. But the thing 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:36.600 is is this, this hypothesis is so well liked. It's 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.360 just roundly like people just like it. It's just such 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.600 an interesting hypothesis that it just won't go away. It 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.000 hasn't gone away. And in fact, there's like a Julian 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.279 Jane's institute, there's like groups that have sprung up based 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:52.400 on this hypothesis. And what he says, in a very 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:58.560 small nutshell is that sometime about one two thousand years ago, 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.960 became conscious in the way that we understand consciousness today. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.960 They developed the ability to think about thinking, They developed 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.040 the ability to think about that other people are thinking. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:17.159 They developed basically what's called subjective introspection, and then as 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:22.240 a result of that, they almost automatically gained free will 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.320 in volition. So what he's saying is that if we 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.320 went back in time in the way Back Machine, Chuck, 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.880 and we met somebody who lived three thousand years ago, 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.000 four thousand years ago, they would not be a conscious 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.520 human in the way that we understand conscious humans. 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.840 That's right, And he thinks that it was a learned thing. 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.800 And the idea that he throws down is that our mind, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:51.000 our brain is, or was rather very important, was because 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.800 it no longer is bi cameral, which means split into 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.800 two parts. And we'll get to some actual science about 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.760 the hemispheres of the brain later on, but in this 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:03.960 case he means split into two parts where you have 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.960 a part that makes decisions and a part that follows, 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.160 and that neither one of them were conscious. And here's 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.480 where I get a little tripped up right out of 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.960 the gate. Is basically he says that instead of an 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.600 internal dialogue which we all have and which indicates a consciousness, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.840 like us talking to ourselves, us saying things like everything 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.920 from like you know, hey, get up and go do 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:38.320 this to just internally thinking about things like humans do 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:44.560 that instead of that we were sort of like human zombies, 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.720 and that we were creatures of habit. We had routines 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.320 and behaviors that we followed to a tee, and whenever 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.480 something disrupted that behavior, which is when like a conscious 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:59.480 mind you would think, would speak up that instead of 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:05.280 that that an external agent. In this case, they thought 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.360 there were gods would enter their brain and create an 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.120 auditory hallucination. 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:17.040 Yeah, and that they unquestioningly obeyed that auditory hallucination, and 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.760 that that's what helped them get through novel situations that 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.760 they didn't have like a basically a prescribed script for 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.600 you know, a mindless automatic thing. Something new came along 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.240 that got in their way. This god would speak to 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.280 them and say, go around that rock. It wasn't there yesterday, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.000 don't worry about it, just go around it. And it 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:39.480 could be one of their gods. It could be an 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:44.599 ancestor guiding them. I think one. I think the Sumerians 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:49.000 maybe made reference to angels walking beside them or and 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.640 this is really important later on. It's a big part 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.560 of Jane's hypothesis. It could be your local ruler, the 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.480 divine king who's in charge of you and everybody else 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.679 that you know and love and have ever lived among. 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.720 It could be that person guiding you in your life too. 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.480 And the idea is these people heard this in the 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:10.160 same way like you said that we hear our own 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.880 internal dialogue, but they never chalked it up to themselves. 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.600 It was always coming from the outside. 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:17.880 All right, Here's I guess where I had my first 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:22.040 issue kind of grasping this is there were no gods 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.520 speaking to them and guiding them. This was just their 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.400 internal dialogue. They just didn't know it. 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.320 Yes, yes, yes, there was no gods. But to them, 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.760 and this is a really important point to them, it 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.520 definitely was a god talking to them or an ancestor 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.000 talking to them. And in the same way that if 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.160 an actual god got into your brain and was speaking 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:49.439 to you and you responded to it, if you could 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:51.840 have looked at their brains lighting up, presumably in like 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.720 a wonder machine, it would respond the same way. So 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.680 it was entirely real to them, and the same way 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.200 that a placebo effect has fuel effects on your body, 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.040 this would have been the same thing. And then in 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:07.600 addition to that, it was culturally supported everyone that they 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.319 knew believed the same thing that the gods were talking 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.280 to them, and so like that just lent support to 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.280 this idea so that no one questioned it. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:16.800 It was just that's the way it was. 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.560 Well, so this, I guess brings me to let me 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:22.920 macro this out a little bit in my own dumb brain, 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.959 and it may just be twenty first century person thinking 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.040 that I'm engaging in. But if the idea is that 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.000 before this there was no consciousness, but what we're really 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.840 saying is there actually was consciousness, they just didn't recognize 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.560 it as such. Is that the whole point was that 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.960 if you do not recognize it as consciousness, therefore you 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:45.880 are not conscious. 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:47.679 Yes, because. 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:53.679 Experiencing consciousness in any way that we would recognize as 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.679 you being conscious, you're just kind of Julian and Jane's referred. 0:10:57.400 --> 0:10:58.640 To what this guy's doing now. 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:00.960 Okay, So but the thing is is there's like a 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.360 lot of scholarly discussion on like, Okay, what did James 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.520 mean exactly? How literal was he because he used words 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.760 like automaton. He never called them zombies. Other people call 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:12.760 them like zombies, but I didn't. 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:14.800 No one talked about zombies back then. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.080 No, that's true, but well evil dead had or not 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:19.280 evil dead, living dead. 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:20.800 No Living Dead had come out by then. 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:22.400 Yeah, but it wasn't like today. 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.719 Okay, no, no, I know. They're definitely over the automatons. 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.240 So he called them automatons, and it's essentially the same 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.680 thing that they were. They just behaved automatically. They didn't 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.800 stop and think about how they felt. They and this 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.400 is really important too, Chuck. Of course, they still had feelings. 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:41.720 They had feelings about the people that were in their 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.920 kin group, they had feelings about their local ruler, they 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.800 had feelings about, you know, stubbing their toe. It's not 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.400 like they just had no inner life whatsoever. It's that 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.480 they weren't. They didn't reflect on their inner life. They 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.800 didn't think about thinking. They didn't they didn't have what 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:03.160 we would recognize as consciousness, and in the terms that 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.880 Jane's is describing consciousness, which is a really narrow definition 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.000 of consciousness. And then on top of that, he also 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.040 goes to great links to say, Hey, I understand that 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:15.920 you're going to get all up in a tizzy that 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.440 I'm saying that these people weren't conscious I'm not talking 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.880 about consciousness in general, and I think that you over 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:26.880 overestimate just how much consciousness makes up our lives. 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:31.280 Okay, how about we take a break. Okay, I'm gonna 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:36.319 go rip a bong kidding, We'll take a break. We'll 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.360 come back and we'll talk about what lots of other 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:40.200 stuff right after this. 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:42.960 Job. 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.199 All right, So I've kind of wrapped my head around 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.679 what this guy is saying now. I will admit it's 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.200 a little naval gayzy for me when it comes to 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.160 certain types of philosophy and hypotheses. I get a little 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:25.080 bit like, uh, what's the word? Maybe I can be 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.880 a little too concrete or as the French might say, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:32.440 concrete in literal, Yeah, in my thinking, because it's not 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.640 you know, Friday night in college at like two in 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.000 the morning kind of discussion. Right, So I think that's 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.520 where I am now. But I do think it's very 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.400 interesting in that he I mean, I think a lot 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.080 of this is very interesting, but I think it's interesting 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:49.319 that he thought around the first or second millennium BC 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:54.480 is when things to him changed and a consciousness began 0:13:54.559 --> 0:14:00.840 to emerge because of well, eventually language, but specific metaphor, 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:03.319 which is to say that all of a sudden, we 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.560 could make analogies in our brain, We could link things together. 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:15.360 We saw ourselves as almost as if they were characters. 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.360 Ourselves were characters that had like choices that they could 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:24.400 make as characters. Yeah, and that as these things like 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:29.280 connected in the brain, then it created just an effect 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.800 like a domino effect basically where all of a sudden 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.960 we could work out our own solutions, or we knew 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.760 we were capable of working out our own solutions. And 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.240 we also doesn't God saying God saying walk around the rock. 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.600 They realized it was ourselves making the decision to walk 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:47.240 around the rock. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.600 Yes, but it's but in part of that that also 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.240 required them to be able to reflect on the idea. 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.040 Like you said that they were able to now make 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.880 their own decisions. Right, And you said something earlier where 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:00.360 you like, you know, you were talking about your own 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.840 internal dialogue where you think, hey, I should get up 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:09.600 and go outside for a second. Like that's different, right, 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.760 You're thinking about you yourself and you realize that you 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:17.560 are thinking about yourself. That's modern consciousness. What somebody who 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.760 was a bicameral person during this time would have thought 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:26.400 is get up and go outside. And they would stand 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.520 up and go outside without questioning because God had just 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:31.960 instructed them to do that, so it must be important. 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.600 And they didn't think about where it came from. They 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.240 definitely didn't think it was from themselves, and they didn't 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.200 reflect on it. They just obeyed it. That's Jane's position, 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.280 and that if you compare those two things, you're talking 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.880 about two totally different forms of mental life, and it's 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.120 so different. He said that this is that what we 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.480 understand is consciousness just wasn't around until a couple thousand 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:54.040 years ago. 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.920 Okay, I can buy that. I like it as a hypothesis. 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:01.960 I can swim in this pool. Okay, good, good, But 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:03.000 here's thirty minutes. 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:03.560 Here's the thing. 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.600 It's really important to realize, like you said something, that 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:10.920 you're a literalist, right, that's actually really appropriate to approach 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.160 this because Juliet James. One of the very radical things 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:18.960 that he did was he took the ancients literally because 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.840 when he started looking around and we'll talk more about 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.520 this later, but he was looking for those artifacts that 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.680 would prove his hypothesis or lend support to it at least, 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.800 and he was an expert in ancient languages, right, So 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.440 it was really appropriate. He could actually read Sumerian and Mesopotamian, 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.080 and he took what they were saying when they said 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.840 things like, you know, the gods told us to do this, 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:44.720 that they thought that the gods told him to do this, 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.000 not that they were using metaphors. So he took them 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.640 literally on their word. And that is a real departure 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.440 from anybody else who's ever examined the ancients of what 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:53.120 they were saying. 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.200 Yeah, And I think it's also something we should point 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.160 out now, even though it comes up later in our research, 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:04.440 is that when you think of an auto, I guess 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.919 an automatic society or a society of automatons. That's not 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.520 to say that they weren't successful. He's describing some of 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:16.439 the most successful, you know, ancient civilizations that existed. But 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.280 I think his contention is that it was a hive mind, 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.600 all working together as automatons that allowed this stuff to 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.040 get accomplished, and not the conscious mind. 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:29.600 Right, And he didn't I don't think he ever used 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.920 it as like, I don't think he ever explicitly said 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.960 that it was an emergent property of a hive mind. 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.399 But that's kind of what he was describing, kind of 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.280 like if you take one stone cutter and one stone 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:45.240 mason and three stone carriers and multiply that unit by 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.800 five hundred and give it a year, you have a 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.800 ziggarot built that. That's just all those people knew what 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:54.720 to do, they knew their position in their place, and 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:55.439 they just did it. 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:57.639 And so yeah, you could totally do that. 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.160 With people who are thinking in this way and weren't conscious, 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.239 you could probably actually get it done more easily than 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.560 you could with people who stopped and thought, I'm above this, 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:09.800 this work is not suited for me. I should be 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.359 doing something else, or why is the foreman being so 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.760 mean to me today? Like they didn't think like that 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.080 under Jane's hypothesis, So they would probably get the work 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.200 done more efficiently, at least more quietly, I would guess. 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.840 Oh, I mean, consciousness proposed her brought along a whole 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:32.280 host of problems. I imagine if you're the ruling class. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:35.920 I think one thing that's interesting is that you mentioned 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:43.160 about what is it Jane's not Jane's Jane's Jane's thought 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.720 about I love Robert Lamb's Jan's a Dixon joke in 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:47.240 here by. 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.280 The way, that was mine, Oh that was yours. 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.399 Oh well, way to go, thanks, you said, James says, 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:59.160 and then in parentheses you put, huh, it's pretty good joke. 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:04.040 But what jan said was that, and it's something you 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.240 mentioned earlier, was that consciousness. I think we think consciousness 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:11.240 plays too big of a role in what is actually 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:16.199 a life that is can largely be still automatic on 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:17.040 a lot of levels. 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:17.760 Yeah. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.080 And this is from the actual book in nineteen seventy six, 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:23.720 and it's a little little mind blowy. I kind of 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.400 like it. Consciousness is a much smaller part of our 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.040 mental life than we're conscious of, because we cannot be 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.879 conscious of what we are not conscious of. It's like 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:34.600 asking a flat and this is where it kind of 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.720 comes home to me. It's like a asking a flashlight 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.320 in a dark room to search around for something that 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:45.400 does not have any light shining upon it. So that's 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:49.640 where it comes home to me, is when you and hey, 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.480 it's metaphor. So how about that he lays down a 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:57.040 metaphor that makes me understand it a little bit more. 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.119 Yeah, because you know, wherever the flashlight there's light. And 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.120 his point, Yeah, and his point is is wherever your 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.159 conscious mind looks, there's consciousness. 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.720 But that doesn't mean that there's consciousness all over the place. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.399 And yeah, Robert lamb uses a really good example of 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.640 unloading a dishwasher, right, like when you're unloading the dishwasher, 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:20.919 especially if you're one of those people who put like 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.000 all of your knives in one place, all of your 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.360 forks in one part of the basket, all your spoons 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.520 and so on, right, a maniac in other words. 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:29.880 Sensible human. 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.199 If you do it like that, it's you can just 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.760 be on autopilot because you've done it so many times. 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.680 But when you do something like drop a fork, that's 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.160 out of the norm, that's a novel thing that doesn't 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.520 happen every time. And so in the bi camera mind, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.000 God would have said, I command thee to pick up 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.840 thine fork, butterfingers, and you would lean over and pick 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.400 up the fork, and that was that. Instead, you might 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.080 not even think about picking up the fork. You might 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.880 do that automatic, but it's still out of the norm. 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:03.920 It's still different. You have to kind of think about 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.880 it a little more than just unloading the dishwasher. Now, 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:10.320 if you take that dishwasher metaphor chuck and you realize 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:16.040 that three five, nine thousand years ago, there were no dishwashers, 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.040 there was no ice cream scoop, there was no cookie scoop, 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.840 there was no avocado splitter, there was nothing like that. 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:25.840 Wait, what's that? Is that a thing? Now? 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:26.560 Yeah, you don't know. 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.120 You don't have one of those? No, Oh, I'll send 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:30.080 you one. You're missing out. 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:34.760 It's a multi tool for cutting avocados, getting the pit out, 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:39.000 and then slicing them as you scoop them out. They're essential. 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:40.120 As a matter of fact. 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:42.240 All right, I do pretty well with my knife, but 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:43.360 I would love to see one of these. 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:45.040 Okay, I'm going to get to you one for chrismas. 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:46.080 Okay. 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.280 So the point is that, like, there wasn't a big 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:54.600 variety of stuff, So there wasn't that many novel situations 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.919 like we encounter novel situations like almost constantly. That's just 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:03.159 modern life. And that's the basis of Jane's hypothesis that 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.720 the reason that consciousness evolved is because we started to 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.840 get faced with more and more novel situations on a 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:14.159 much more frequent basis. So it maybe it became inefficient 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:16.680 for God to be talking to us every thirty seconds, 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.520 or maybe we just got better at thinking for ourselves 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:23.480 and consciousness kind of evolved out of that. But the 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.239 point is life was much less complex back then, So 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:28.639 you could have something like a b camera mind. You 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.400