0478 What happens after the hand-component of hand-speech talk dies?

0479 After the first singularity, traditions that relied on hand-talk are lost or are modified to work with speech-alone talk.

Of course, the modification business cannot stand, because hand-talk facilitates implicit abstraction and speech-alone can only pretend to facilitate implicit abstraction.

0480 Pretend?

Since speech-alone talk does not picture or point its referents, the spoken word precedes its referent.  But, since language evolves in the milieu of hand-talk, we innately expect the referent to precede the word, rather than the other way around.

Speech-alone talk gives the impression that it images and indicates referents because word-referent associations exist before each individual is born, whether they are sensible or social constructions.  In doing so, spoken words fulfill our evolved expectations.  We expect the referent to precede the word, rather than the other way around.

0481 Steven Mithen devotes an entire chapter in The Language Puzzle to the issue of finding and learning the meanings of spoken words in our current Lebenswelt.

Guess how infants figure out spoken words.

They already know that words exist.  It is only a matter of figuring out what they are.

Infants recognize one spoken word from another by tracking transition possibilities.

They do so before they start to talk.

0482 How much easier their lives would be if they grew up in a hand-speech talk tradition?

Hmmm, maybe, I should say, “How much more intuitively natural their mental processing would be, if…”

0484 Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why many current psychologists see no need to entertain the four interweaving hypotheses proposed by Julian Jaynes in 1976.  They are focused on investigating the nature of language using sophisticated observations and measurements.  They cannot see how their investigations comport with Jaynes’s formulation of the bicameral mind.  The scientists are doing precisely what the voices in their heads are telling them to do.

I know that sounds goofy.

But, introspection does not seem to be a strong suite when it comes to modern bigilib academic “scientific” disciplines.

0485 Consider modern science in light of the following interaction between Wernicke’s regions, right and left, as delineated through Jaynes’s paradigm.

0486 Commitment_2c resides in Wernicke’s region on the right.  A positivist intellect_3(2c) (rationes_3(2c)) brings the actuality of disciplinary language_2(2a) into relation with the possibility of observations and measurements_1(2c).  Disciplinary language_2(2a) is treated as if its symbolic terms are icons and indexes of {real things [substantiating] phenomena}_2(2c).  In the process, Wernicke’s region on the right weighs what is_2(2c) on the basis of universality.  The scientist implicitly abstracts a species impressa_2(2a) where phenomena speak for themselves_2(2c)…

…in the language of the scientist’s discipline_2(2a).

In other words, observations and measurements_1(2c) will be situated as intelligible perceptions_2b when they become… um… data for models_2b.

0487 Can I say that another way?

Phenomena speak for themselves_2(2c) through mathematical and mechanical symbols_2(2c) in the normal context of a positivist intellect_2(2c) operating on the potential of ‘intelligible observations and measurements_1(2c).

0488 That is the SV_i.  What is the SO_i?

Disciplinary technical terms [decode and go into] a scientific species impressa_2(2a) in the normal context of positivist sensation_3(2a) (portrayed here as the juxtaposition of “sense” and “action”) operating on the potential of ‘a scientific referent and its symbolic representation’_1(2a).

0489 Why turn sensation_2a into “sense” and “action” for scientific inquiry as what is happening_3a?

Well, that is my impression_2(2a) of phenomena speaking for themselves_2(2c).

0490 Julian Jaynes’s book applies to historical and psychological developments in our current Lebenswelt.

The following timeline pertains.

0491 The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is clearly present in the archaeological record by 5800 B.C.  According to the hypothesis of the first singularity, the Ubaid is the first stone-age culture to practice speech-alone talk.  However, nearby hand-speech cultures are already changing due to their exposure to the marginally greater wealth and power of the Ubaid.  They are losing the hand-component of their hand-speech talk.  Soon, they will practice speech-alone talk.

The Ubaid shows trends towards labor and social complexity from the very beginning.  These trends are slow at first.  A tripartite temple structure appears in some villages.  Some villages grow while other villages decline and are abandoned.  This supports the idea that explicit abstractions in labor specialization are re-organizing societies from social circles to circles of specialization.

0492 The judgment_2c that unfolds into commitment_2c incorporates explicit abstractions of prior generations.

0493 Now, let me conduct a thought experiment, concerning a formerly hand-speech talking culture near the Ubaid, that has dropped the hand-component of its hand-speech talk, and is now practicing speech-alone talk.

In generation one, an innovation is made in, say, obtaining copper from the heating of yellow, almost golden, rocks mixed with charcoal in a clay pot.

Generation two improves the process and adds more detailed spoken labels, including terms for the look of the rocks, the character of the charcoal, the degree that the rocks are ground, the proportion of rock and charcoal, and the shape and durability of the clay pot.  The entire process is holistic and the labels assist in consistency. 

Generation three treats the labels as if they picture and point to their referents, and the process turns into a recipe or… a modern anthropologist might say, “a ritual”.  Toying with the ritual allows more productive extraction of copper, but its getting harder to find those almost-golden rocks.  Substitutions must be made.  Emissaries are sent afield to locate more of the correct minerals.

Generation four processes the technical words as if they symbolize essences operating within the ritual.  The recipe-oriented process, done properly, appeases the gods.  If the gods are pleased, then copper alchemically coagulates in the heated clay vessel.

0494 What happens during this span of four generations?

The first generation does not have specialists in copper extraction.  The fourth generation does.  Each generation operates by converting the explicit abstractions of the previous generation into implicit abstractions. The implicit abstractions pour into their labels, as if the labels are their proper containers.  At the end, a new, specialized “social circle” manifests, demanding its place in the current social system.  The “copper refiners” cannot be ignored.  Their sensible and social constructions get incorporated into an expanding syncretic.

0495 All four generations rely on the bicameral mentality.

The bicameral mentality is not deceptive or manipulative, because one’s commitment_2c is presumably to the harmony of all social circles.  After the first singularity, that commitment_2c  includes labor and social specializations, just as prior to the first singularity.  Even civilizational conflict exhibits the patterns of a bicameral mind, according to Jaynes’s reading of Homer’s Iliad.  Introspection does not occur.  Every spoken word is taken on face value.

0496 Almost forty generations pass from the start of the Ubaid to the beginning of the Sumerian Dynastic.  Today, the Sumerian and Egyptian Dynastic periods are regarded by anthropologists as the earliest civilizations.  The Sumerian Dynastic is composed of city-states.  The Egyptian Dynastic rules a consolidated territory.

0497 Even after the official end of the Sumerian civilization, the bicameral mentality operates.

Ur III is the last empire to practice Sumerian as a spoken language.  Consider the story of the Tower of Babel.  Thingsspeak for themselves, even in a civilization that speaks both Sumerian and Akkadian.  The Bible attests to the land of Shinar speaking “one language” as if it is a civilizational mantra.

Consider Looking at Joseph Farrell’s Book (2020) “The Tower of Babel Moment” (appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in December 2023) for a possible case study.  The one language that the people of Shinar believe in is the language of the Tower of Babel, speaking for itself.

0498 Due to increasing complexity and volatility of ritual practices and statecraft, species impressae_2a spontaneously generated by commitment_2c become less and less capable of supporting intelligible phantasms_2b.

A quest for authorization begins.

Elite traditions appear, formally triggering the operation of the bicameral mind by specialists in prognostication.

As civilizations become more and more difficult to manage, the two-chambered mind is increasingly clogged by explicit abstractions in the guise of implicit abstractions.  However, the bicameral mind is still anchored in a phenotypethat matches Jaynes’s proposed right and left Wernicke regions.

Is that too great a simplification?

Let me bring it down to our modern era.

When I look at all the meters and lab equipment operated by physicists, all the pipets and spectrometers used by biochemists, all the dissection tools used by anatomists, all the surveys collected by sociologists, and so on, I cannot help but think that the data speaks for itself.

Then, a voice in my head says, “Trust the science.”

Where did I hear that before?

0499 For prognostications, traditions that observe and measure certain natural events or intentional procedures allow expert-initiated events to speak for themselves, according to associations between certain features of the events and clues to future outcomes.

Eventually, the associations are recorded as recipes. And, the recipes are attributed to divine intelligences.

0500 Technical terms are later recorded as recipes. Recipes are regarded as both universal and intelligible.

Prognostication events_2(2c) are decoded (by experts) and rendered into technical terms_2(2a) that weave a kind of impression_2(2a) for the inquirer to consider.

0501 In short, after the first singularity, the semiotic differences between spoken words and hand-speech words start to burden the holistic operations of the interventional sign-relation embodied in the bicameral mind.  Speech-alone talkpermits explicit abstraction to be regarded by commitment_2c as an implicit abstraction.

0502 How long does that last before the bicameral mind breaks down?

This is one question that Jaynes’s research labors to answer.

0503 This first look at The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes, makes fun of the term, “auditory hallucinations”.

Why?

It turns out that the term applies to SV_i(SO_i), the dual actualities of the interventional sign relation.

It also turns out to be the embodiment of what evolutionary anthropologist, Steven Mithen, calls “synaesthesia” or “cross-modal sensations” that explain why spoken words exist.

0504 Indeed, a weird divergence comes to the surface in Looking at Steven Mithen’s Book (2024) The Language Puzzle(appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in September 2025).

0505 Steven Mithen asks, “Why do spoken words exist?”

His conscious answer is that they are acquired through synaesthesia in regards to things themselves.  In other words, interactions with things themselves somehow trigger stable vocal utterances, or spoken words, through… well… leaky neurons.

Yet, some other intelligence operates beneath the surface of his conscious answer.  His bicameral mind inspires him to admit that he rejects the gestural origin of language outright, because no current research into natural language deals with gestural language. That makes sense, because all civilized people only practice speech-alone talk.

0506 Yet, the inadmissibility of Mithen’s conscious admission triggers a search, by this reader, for clues to an alternate hypothesis, which this examination provides.  After the domestication of fire and after the evolution of voluntary neural control of the vocal tract, vocal utterances are added as adornments to hand-talk.  This habit contributes to the emergence of our own species, Homo sapiens, who practices hand-speech talk from the beginning.

0507 So, Mithen’s synaesthesia is not like… working with neuronal crossover… from encountering things themselves to auditory assignments.

0508 Rather, synaesthesia becomes a cultural practice during night-time communal hand-talk.  Vocal utterances clarify hand-talk word gestures when they are difficult to see in the flickering light of a campfire.  Then, synaesthesia from the Wernicke’s region on the right trains the Wernicke’s area on the left to automatically decode either hand-talk or speech-talk or both.  Hand-speech talk is then practiced night and day.

0509 The habit of synaesthesia does not stop there, because sensory-modal crossover supports the logic of adornment.  A spoken word adorns a hand-talk word-gesture.  Likewise, ochre adorns skin.  Soon, seashells are strung on fiber to adorn ankles and necks.  Each of these adornments speak to the actuality of what they are adorning.

After humans interbreed with Neanderthals, between 65 and 45kyr, humans begin to carve and mold figures in earnest.  These artifacts speak for themselves.  This is synaesthesia at its most robust.  The visual realness of say, the lion-man,crosses over into the auditory realness of what the lion-man has to say.

After the first singularity, Julian Jaynes attributes the large eyes of Mesopotamian temple statuary to synaesthesia.  The large eyes trigger “auditory hallucinations”, where divine commitment_2c induces meaning-filled species impressa_2a.

0510 Here is a picture.

0511 However, there is a problem.

Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0512 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the intervention sign-relation is honed through natural… or is it cultural?… selection to promote harmony among diverse social circles.  What the lion-may says is always in tune with what needs to be done to stay alive in a hostile world.

In our current Lebenswelt, explicit abstractions from one generation are taken to be implicit abstractions by the next.  So, the way that an explicit abstraction divides the world, say, between experts and the people that are supposed to benefit from expertise, becomes implicit, and then more explicit abstractions are added, then they become implicit, until elite expert “voices” no longer make sense to the ones who are being ordered around.

0513 What is amazing is that, without introspection, elites follow their own bicameral voices with um… “mindless” obedience.

Does any of this seem vaguely familiar?

0514 So, how does one solve the problem of authorization?

This is the topic of Book III of Jaynes’s masterwork.

0515 Many solutions are ingenious.  They tend to use tricks to stimulate interventional sign-vehicles_2c (SV_i) that yield, through the two-chambered mind, oracular proclamations_2a (SO_i), that may be regarded as ‘more intelligible that what the questioner can achieve on his or her own’_1(2a).

For example, an oracle tells Socrates that he is the wisest philosopher on earth (SO_i).  So, Socrates spends the rest of his life trying to show that the oracle is wrong, which turns out to be an effective way to demonstrate that no one is as wise as Socrates (SV_i).

0516 Here is a picture of what happens as consciousness slowly arises, during the breakdown of the bicameral mind.

The statement on the left describes the bicameral mind before the first singularity.

The statement on the right describes how civilizations attempt to rescue, maintain and (maybe even) exploit the bicameral mind, as it gets clogged down with explicit abstractions (that are absorbed into the next generation’s implicit abstractions).

0517 Yes, as soon as I start wondering whether my phantasm_2b is intelligible, I engage in introspection, and a whole new vocabulary is needed.  These words arrive as explicit abstractions, that attain the qualities of implicit abstraction, then those qualities are formalized into recipes, and then those recipes are considered to be the essence of whatever the thing that we have labeled must be.

What have we labeled this thing?

“Subjective consciousness?”

0518 Remember that Jaynes’s term, “auditory hallucination” serves as a label for SV_i(SO_i).