A BOOK REPORT

Book reports are done by amateurs. Book reviews are done by people who wish to sell books. Or unsell them as the case may be. This is a book report. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the  Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes*

I have to give you some background or you will have no idea in what context I am reading this book. I believe that almost two million years ago a hominid walked the earth as Homo Erectus. This was not the title of a gay porno movie.  This animal walked on two feet. The feet were not like a chimp. A chimp's foot can grasp.  Homo Erectus did not grasp things with his feet.

He started out with a minimal brain capacity of 500-600 ccs. His brain and his body developed over a period of a million years. By 800,000 years ago, this hominid had a brain capacity of over 800 ccs. He could dig a hole in the earth, put some stones in it and start a fire.  Home and hearth.
800,000 years ago.  And immediately he moved out of Africa into the Middle East, proceeded north to the Ukraine and Georgia. Part of his tribe moved east into Russia and China and part moved to the southeast into Indonesia. Another part went west into western Europe.

Half a million years later Homo Erectus morphed into Neanderthal.

But 800,000 years ago, not only did he have fire, he most probably had boats. Because we find him in Java and surrounding islands.

Western Anthropologists maintain that 100,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens, somewhat less evolved than us, did the same thing Homo Erectus did. He, all of a sudden, moved out of Africa into the ME up through the Ukraine and Georgia. A part of him moved east into Russia and China. A part of him moved southeast into Indonesia and another part went west into western Europe.

Eastern Anthropologists do not agree. Homo Erectus they say already demonstrates Asian Features half a million years ago. They posit that Eastern Homo Erectus morphed into Asian Homo Sapiens. Western Homo Erectus morphed into Homo Sapiens.

There were some changes 100,000-200,000 years ago.  Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal began burying their dead. I saw a documentary on the History Channel showing a complete skeleton of a male Homo Sapiens found in Africa in a kind of fetal position with his arms outstretched and between his hands was a complete skeleton of a dog. This guy was buried with his dog seventy thousand years ago.. So the next time someone tells you that we did not 'domesticate' animals until ten to twelve thousand years ago, think about that.

30,000-100,000 years ago, evidence appears of flowers being buried with the corpse. And necklaces usually made from shells. Holes had been drilled into the shells and some sort of string linked them together.  Neanderthal could not figure out the drilling part. They would wrap the string around the ends of the shells after making modifications  and link them in that manner.

15,000-35,000 years ago, some of the greatest paintings I have ever seen, appeared on the insides of caves. Bison, stags, mammoths, fish, all sorts of fauna. And stick men besides the outlines of hands.  The first 'signatures' if you will. Kilroy was here. In color, originally. Scientists can tell this from the ocher used with the charcoal.

These paintings were usually found in special secluded areas of the caves.  Churches if you will. And one must imagine what it was like to be in these special caves with a fire flickering. These figures would dance. The first moving pictures. There is motion in these paintings. Just google cave paintings. If you follow it up I do not expect to hear from you for days.

      
In the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes posits that early man-however you define that phrase-had a different perspective on things than modern man.    He theorizes that our left brain was more separated from our right brain and that at one point, the gods actually spoke to us.  Athene actually speaks to Odysseus and he sees and hears her. Agamemnon feels the presence of Zeus. This is not speaking in a metaphorical sense. In the Iliad, these gods are real.  In the Odyssey the gods fade away. In Kirk Douglas' portrayal of Ulysses in his movie, that is the main theme. We do not need these gods anymore. We are free agents. As I will demonstrate, Jaynes' argument is more complicated than this. But he sees a difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey in terms of the consciousness of man.

Now more context. It is GENERALLY agreed that a man in the eighth century first wrote down the words to the Iliad and the Odyssey. He is personified as a blind Greek by the name of Homer.

He did not 'make up' these great pieces of literature. They were songs sung for hundreds of years before he ever came to them. And Homer was probably one of the singers of these songs.  And experts will also opine that the Iliad is older than the Odyssey. That they came from different oral traditions.  They will also say that the Iliad is a compendium of several songs from different oral traditions as was the Odyssey. That the genius of Homer was to pull different oral traditions together.

To further complicate this scenario, the Iliad as Homer wrote it has been redacted further. Things were added to it and no doubt, things were taken out of his original script.  The Iliad you read today is not the script written by Homer. It is close, but no cigar.

To illustrate my point, there was a fine documentary on the Bible on the History Channel.  In the end, I was shocked to find that the earliest full Bibles in existence are dated between 390 and 410 AD.  And they contain both testaments.  And they have different books. That is three or four books are missing in one of them and vice versa.

Also, if you read my Roman Catholic Bishops version, the Old Testament is described as originating in different oral traditions that were finally written down and redacted over many centuries.  Take a look at the two Genesis versions for the creation of the earth which are not anything but contradictory. The Bishops even narrow the traditions to Yawey and El and a few others. These first two actually dealing with different gods. Or Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. They are sometimes contradictory.  Hell, in Genesis in the same story, Noah's ark is presented with different dimensions.  I am sticking my neck out here a little because there are many biblical scholars that disagree with me. Good. Argue with the Catholic Bishops and leave me alone!!!

These Bishops will also tell you that the Old Testament was SUNG.

Homer writes in the Iliad that it is a song

Which is why Virgil begins his Aeneid with: I sing of arms and the man.

THE BOOK


This song, this nature of the song is one of the most important elements of cognitive development to Julian Jaynes.

The difference between song and speech is a matter of discontinuities of pitch....
Modern poetry is a hybrid (of song and speech). It haws the metrical feet of song with the pitch glissandos of speech. But ancient poetry is much closer to song.....Speech as has long been known, is a function primarily of the left cerebral hemisphere. But song, as we are presently discovering, is primarily a function of the right cerebral hemisphere. (364-365)

Jaynes is saying that here were (at least?) four general phases in the development of man's cognitive development.

Phase I:   Objective Occurred in bicameral age when these terms referred to simple external observations

Phase II:  Internal Occurred when these terms have come to mean things inside the body, particularly certain internal sensations

Phase III: Subjective When these terms refer to processes that we would call mental; they have move from internal stimuli supposedly causing actions to internal spaces where metaphored actions may occur.

Phase IV:  Synthetic When the various hypostasis unite int one conscious self capable of introspection (260)

THE ILIAD (261) Jaynes discusses seven words that occur in both of Homer's epics but underlines their importance in the Iliad.

Thumos: The urge. Point here is that in the Iliad this is the most common and important hypostatic word in the whole poem. (261)...refers to a mass of internal sensations in response to environmental crises...This includes the dilation of the blood vessels in striate muscles and in the heart, on increase in tremor of striate muscles, a burst of blood pressure, the constriction of blood vessels in the abdominal viscera and in the skin, the relaxing of smooth muscles, and the sudden increased energy from the sugar released into the blood from the liver, and possible perceptual changes with the dilation of the pupil in the eye. (262)

Now he centers on the morph from Phase II to the subjective Phase III.  Ajax is not zealous to fight but his thumos is. Aeneas does not rejoice, but his thumos does. The gods do not urge in this new phase, the thumos does.  And as if it were another person, a man may speak to his thumos and may hear from it what he is to say or have it to reply to him as a god.

Phrenes: Lungs. ...the Phrenes objectively referred to the lungs and perhaps were associated with phrasis or speech. We should remember here how extremely responsive our breathing is to various types of environmental stimulation. A sudden stimulus and we catch our breath.  Sobbing and laughing have obvious distinct internal stimulation from the diaphragm and intercostals.  In great activity or excitement there is an increase  in both the rate and depth of breathing with the resulting internal stimulation. (263) Agamemnon's black phrenes fill with anger and we can visualize the king's deep breathing as his fury mounts.   Scared deer lose strength after running.
...weeping, grief 'comes to' the phrenes.  Phrenes can 'hold' fear or joy.

Kradie.  The heart.  Claims it is not as mysterious. You know, you gotta have heart. Without Ethel Merman what would we have done?  Sincerity is when you speak from the heart....I t may mean quivering, coming from the verb koteo to beat. Then in the internalization of Phase II that went on during the Dorian invasions, the quivering that was seen with the eye and felt with the hand externally becomes the name of the internal sensation of the heartbeat in response to external situations. (266) A coward in the Iliad is not someone who is afraid but someone whose kradie beats loudly.  The only remedy is for Athene to put strength in the kradie or for Apollo to put boldness in it.

Etor.  The Belly.  Philologists usually translate both kradie and etor as heart. (266) Jaynes claims that this is wrong because these terms represent different locations and sensations .Indeed, there is evidence for this in the Iliad, where it is precisely stated that food and drink are taken to satisfy the etor. (Etron meant belly) The stomach is indeed one of the most responsive organs in the body reacting in its spasms and emptying and contractions and secretory activity to almost every emotion and sensation.  THAT MAKES ME SICK TO MY STOMACH. (267)

Noos. The eyes. This is perception, itself. We see with the mind's eye which may be brilliant or obscure. Even today we do not hear with the mind's ear...(269) The coming of consciousness can in a certain vague sense be construed as a shift from an auditory mind to a visual mind.Zeus keeps Hector in his noos.But the second phase of internalization of noos is also evident in the Iliad.  It is located in the chest.  Indeed, noos takes on adjectives more suitable to the thumos......Thinking does not go on in the noos, or even memory.  These are still in the voices of those organizations of the right temporal lobe that are called gods.

Psyche. The breath.  Probably coming from the term psychein, to breath. It is not life. For life to us means something about a period of time, a span between birth and death, full of events and developments of a certain character. (271) There is nothing of this sort in the Iliad. When a spear strikes the heart of a warrior and his psyche dissolves or is destroyed or simply leaves him or is coughed out through the mouth or bled out of a wound there is nothing whatever about time or about the end of anything...No one in any way ever sees, decides, thinks, knows, fears or remembers anything in his psyche.

Ker. Same as Krades, but philologists spend so much time on it he includes it as the seventh.

So there are four phases to this theoretical development. Not two. And in reading the Iliad and the Odyssey, there are marked differences in vocabulary and plot. And in the development of the characters. But the differences show mostly a move from say Phase II to Phase III.

But that is enough for today. I decided that I would publish this in segments.

*Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1976 c