User:B.Sirota/sandbox/Ver5
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NewVERS.12 1Mar24. The hypothesis of the bicameral ("two-chambered") mind is about the neurological basis of verbal hallucinations and their cultural importance, especially in ancient history.[1][2][3][4] It asserts that hallucinated voices are caused by the brain's two-sided structure,[5] and that 'voice-hearing' once dominated human psychology, made the first civilizations possible,[6] and was the naturalistic cause of early supernatural concepts and religions.[7][8] The hypothesis is part of a far-reaching psycho-historical theory proposed by research psychologist Julian Jaynes in his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.[Note 1] Jaynes argues first about consciousness,[lower-alpha 1] that it is something "learned and not innate"[9]: 6 [10] which began late in the 2nd millennium BCE. He then hypothesizes that in the preceding millenia (based on evidence from linguistics, ancient texts, archaeology, behavioral and comparative psychology, and clinical studies of schizophrenia and the so-called "split brain" ) that humans had a “mentality based on verbal hallucinations"[2]: 452 somewhat like the mentality of schizophrenics.[11] Jaynes called it a bicameral mind because psychologically it had two parts, one dominating the other[3]: 88 but "...neither part was conscious."[1]: 84 [4]: 8
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The argument is that ancient humans had sensations and language, and lived mostly habitually just as people do today, but they left no evidence of any 'inner self' or 'conscious mind' because they had none, that is, they had not learned to introspect on their own actions and experiences. Instead, the ancient records are conspicuously about people 'hearing' one or more 'voices of authority' that commanded action, could not be disobeyed, and ruled over daily life.[12] Such "voices of chiefs, rulers or the gods"[13]: 1 were often associated with natural phenomena or hand-made 'divine' images.[14] In terms of the hypothesis, this preconscious 'bicamerality' could have evolved if the biological evolution of language produced important language functions in both cerebral hemispheres (not just the left as per mainstream neurolinguistics[15]), so that the right hemisphere could 'speak to' and 'be heard by' the left hemisphere as though it were a separate, superior being.[5]
The hypothesis potentially explains many "otherwise mysterious facts"[8]: 273 of ancient history such as idolatry, polytheism and oracles. Also many modern phenomena with varying degrees of trance or "diminished consciousness",: 324 such as hypnosis and severe schizophrenia, might be explainable as "vestiges" of ancient bicamerality when the brain supposedly worked in a "more primitive"[1]: 432 way than today.[16][17] The hypothesis has influenced modern research into hallucinations in the general population[17] and today voice-hearing is not always judged as mental illness.[18][19][20][21] Groups such as the Hearing Voices Movement seek meaning in the experience[17] which is known to be reported in most, possibly all, cultures, often with a spiritual significance.[1]: 413 [18]: xi Alternative hypotheses about voice-hearing, or auditory verbal hallucinations, have been proposed, but as of 2020, the phenomenon remains poorly understood both neurologically[22] and historically.[18][23]
Jaynes's overall theory, of an evolved bicamerality and of a later, learned consciousness, has been promoted as a "revolutionary idea" and a "new scientific paradigm"[lower-alpha 2] that challenges common assumptions about human nature, mental health[24]: 126–131 and religion.[8] One early reviewer called it "ingenious [and] remarkable [... yet] exasperating [in its] incompleteness".[25]: 163 Based on "bold"[26]: 150 interpretations of the known facts, the theory has been described as largely unproveable.[18]: 35 [25]: 164 About Jaynes's approach to consciousness, one early critic rejected it as "absurd",[27] another as "biased" against evolution.[28] Supporters, while acknowledging that "Jaynes’s work is generally dismissed"[29]: 304 or has been mostly "ignored"[13]: 2 by many experts, contend nevertheless (as of 2016) that Jaynes’s theorizing is "ahead of much of the current thinking in consciousness studies"[17][lower-alpha 3] and that "critiques of the theory are [mostly] based on misconceptions about what Jaynes actually said".[32]