{"id":9744,"date":"2025-10-08T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9744"},"modified":"2025-05-24T13:10:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T13:10:38","slug":"this-blog-examines-a-complex-book-on-a-civilizational-change-in-human-psychology-in-our-current-lebenswelt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9744","title":{"rendered":"A First Look at Julian Jaynes&#8217;s Book (1976) &#8220;The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind&#8221; (Part 21 of 21)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>0519 I conclude this first look at Julian Jaynes&#8217;s breakthrough masterwork,&nbsp;<em>The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,<\/em>&nbsp;with a brief summary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I examine the First Mariner Books edition, published in 2000, which offers the advantage of a postscript&#8230; er&#8230; &#8220;afterword&#8221;, written in 1990, fourteen years after the first edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The afterword does not substitute for the masterwork, even though it neatly distills the complex argument into four propositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0520 Here are the four propositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide58.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide58.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9745\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide58.png 600w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide58-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0521 This examination commences with these four propositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why do I pursuit of this topic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In my view, Mithen&#8217;s 2024 work,&nbsp;<em>The Language Puzzle,<\/em>&nbsp;exhibits the hallmarks of both subjective consciousness and bicameral mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0522 This examination concludes with modifications on Jaynes&#8217;s four propositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide59.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide59.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9746\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide59.png 600w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide59-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0523 Each of these modifications have been discussed in full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These modifications bind together&nbsp;<em>Mithen&#8217;s nyet hypothesis,<\/em>&nbsp;pertaining to&nbsp;<em>the Lebenswelt that we evolved in,<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Jaynes&#8217;s historical hypothesis,<\/em>&nbsp;pertaining to&nbsp;<em>our current Lebenswelt<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These modifications demonstrate that&nbsp;<em>our current Lebenswelt<\/em>&nbsp;(items in blue) is not the same as&nbsp;<em>the Lebenswelt that we evolved in<\/em>&nbsp;(items in green).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These modifications propose how&nbsp;<em>the first singularity<\/em>&nbsp;is a major cause for this difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The first singularity<\/em>&nbsp;stands between the green and the blue items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0524 Steven Mithen publishes in 2024, almost precisely five decades after Julian Jaynes publishes in 1976.&nbsp;&nbsp;So much has happened during the past fifty years.&nbsp;&nbsp;Also, so little has happened, when it comes to developing Jaynes&#8217;s four propositions.&nbsp;&nbsp;How strange it is that&nbsp;<em>Steven Mithen&#8217;s bicameral mind<\/em>&nbsp;may have constructed a foreword to&nbsp;<em>Jaynes&#8217;s masterwork,<\/em>&nbsp;without the author consciously realizing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0525 This is precisely&nbsp;<em>the irony<\/em>&nbsp;that permeates&nbsp;<em>Jaynes&#8217;s landmark work<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who could have known?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So concludes this first look at Jaynes&#8217;s text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>0519 I conclude this first look at Julian Jaynes&#8217;s breakthrough masterwork,&nbsp;The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,&nbsp;with a brief summary. I examine the First Mariner Books edition, published in 2000, which offers the advantage of a postscript&#8230; er&#8230; &#8220;afterword&#8221;, written in 1990, fourteen years after the first edition. The afterword does [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[370,522,427,8,3,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological-cultural-evolution","category-biosemiotics","category-interventional-sign","category-our-current-lebenswelt-is-not-the-lebenswelt-that-we-evolved-in","category-the-evolution-of-talk","category-the-human-niche"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A First Look at Julian Jaynes&#039;s Book (1976) &quot;The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind&quot; (Part 21 of 21) - An Archaeology of the Fall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What Jaynes labels \u201cauditory hallucinations\u201d may be re-labed as interventional sign relations. Once this is done, Jaynes\u2019s hypothesis complements Mithen\u2019s nyet hypothesis on synaesthesia in human evolution.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9744\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A First Look at Julian Jaynes&#039;s Book (1976) &quot;The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind&quot; (Part 21 of 21) - An Archaeology of the Fall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What Jaynes labels \u201cauditory hallucinations\u201d may be re-labed as interventional sign relations. 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