Julian Jaynes and The Word
Why do we need a god at all? Every single culture I have read about has at least one god.
I do not enjoy reading the Bible. The first four Books of the New Testament are short and sweet and not a bad read. But if I had the talent to recall chapter and verse, I would not waste it on these books.
I do not like to read the Old Testament either, with one exception. I think Genesis ranks right up there with the Iliad and the Odyssey. For me it is a fun read. So many stories that we all grew up with, but it is good to read it for yourself and not somebody's take on the stories.Let me elucidate:
First Story of Creation
In the beginning, when god created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters
Then God said, "Let there be light"
I chose the Roman Catholic version. But notice God did not start with nothing.
Hesiod, in the Theogony, on the other hand, begins: In the beginning there was Chaos.....and out of Chaos was born Uranus (the Sky) and Gaea (the Earth).
The Hebrews do not begin with Chaos or with nothing. God starts with something. A formless wasteland and water and a mighty wind. I do not know if we are to assume that God was sitting around one day and thought, eons prior to where our story begins in the bible, hey, what about a formless wasteland with water and some wind and then I will figure out something else later?
If you like poetry, take a look at the Book of John:
Catholic Bible
In the beginning there was the Word
The Word was in God's presence
And the Word was God
King James Version
In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God
King James; a little better with poetry, huh? Think about this for a minute. John does not start with a Nativity, or a flight to Egypt with Herod (like a ton of mythological figures including Arthur) sending out a decree calling for the death of all baby boys. John does not begin with anything having to do with Jesus' birth or childhood.
But he kind of rewrites the Old Testament. IT IS THE WORD you see that we must begin with. I always found that fascinating. THE WORD'S THE THING. In the beginning was the Word.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
Jaynes' Take on God
What purpose does a god serve in the human mind?
Cognitive Dissonance
If we are correct in assuming that schizophrenic hallucinations are similar to the guidance of gods in antiquity, then there should be some common physiological instigation in both instances. This, I suggest, is simply stress. (Cognitive dissonance)....Anything that could not be dealt with on the basis of habit, any conflict between work and fatigue, between attack and flight, any choice between whom to obey or what to do, anything that require4d any decision at all was sufficient to cause an auditory hallucination.
So Hector, faced with the decision-suffering of whether to go outside the walls of Troy to fight Achilles or stay within them, in the stress of the decision hallucinates the voice that tells him to go out. The divine voice ends the decision--stress before it has reached any considerable level.
...the stress caused by a person's death was far more than sufficient to trigger his hallucinated voice. Perhaps this is why, in so many early cultures the heads of the dead were often severed from the body, or why the legs of the dead were broken or tied up, why food is so often in the graves...(after awhile the voice stopped so that the body was required)
Again, In Hamlet, according to Olivier, is a story about a prince who could not make up his mind. He needs his father's ghost to get rid of his cognitive dissonance. What shall I do? Daddy says, kill the bastard.
The Original Gods
If you review Chapter One of this inquiry, you will note that Jaynes is saying the we have two sides to our brain and that going back several mellenia, one side of our brain helped us perform our duties. The other side, told us what to do.There was an actual barrier between the two sides.
He says that we just did not understand death. Supposedly you would get back home, and your 'buddy' was there but did not respond. As Adabsurdum put it you would fix dinner, and since he did not respond, you would actually attempt to shove food down his throat.
It sounds ridiculous because you were out there every day killing animals, bringing them 'home' and cooking them and eating them.
Jaynes points to the grave of Eynan in 9000 BC. The king is in regal dress and propped up on a pillow of stones signifying that people would come and ask him questions.This was the first king-god. The grave was the first church. He goes on to speak of Osiris and I always am in awe of that story. In many cases the deceased male ends up with an erection and in this myth Isis straddles herself on the male member and conceives Horus. Spooky is it not? Not only do we need a word from the god, we need his seed. No wonder they do not teach us this in elementary school.
Succession would involve the deceased king 'naming' his successor. And there would be discussions between the successor and the last monarch. A little Hamlet. Geez Dad, you really do not like this new guy, do you?
I should add in all of this that Jaynes likes to talk about the evolution of the village. Where bands of twenty humans might morph into a settlement of two hundred or so and therefore the social group mirroring a group wolves would become a 'town'.This leads to cognitive changes based upon social needs.
The little grave with the propped up god-king becomes an entire house. An effigy replaces the corpse. BUT THE WORSHIPER IS SPEAKING TO THE STATUE AS A GOD, not as if the statue was a god.
The early gods...according to cuneiform texts, liked eating and drinking, music and dancing; they required beds to sleep in and for enjoying sex with other gods...they had to be washed and dressed and appeased with pleasant odors.
Remembering of course, Jaynes is speaking of the statues as gods. He posits that tables were placed before the gods (statues) with flowers and food. This 'became' the first altar. What he says is that our peeps would take two statues, male and female, and place them in a bed overnight.
Read Adabsurdem's musings in the previous chapter. I like him. He likes to think at the bus stop. My point was that later in our development, the statue began to represent the god. Exodus would represent a transformation. Moses and others were afraid of icons and idols. Because animism was still prevalent and because there was still this reality in the statue itself. Once created it WAS a god. You spoke with him.
My problem with Jaynes here is that somebody today will go a thousand miles to witness a shadow on a wall in Mexico that looks like the Virgin Mary. Because a special rosary has special significance. Because I witnessed passengers on planes grasping at the crosses on their necklace.
The point is that somewhere along the line, the statue became a representation during the four phases of development. It is no longer animism at work.
Let us get back to the Word. And feel free to reread Q and Adabsurdum and TheraP and Obey.. Jaynes sees the importance of language in all of this and whether you agree with him or not, his discussion of language and its development becomes part of this story.
For there is precious little archaeologically up to 40,000BC, other than the crudest of stone tools.
Sometimes the reaction to a denial that early man had speech is, how then did man function or communicate? The answer is very simple: just like all other primates, with an abundance of visual and vocal signals which were very far removed from the syntactical language that we practice today.
Or as TheraP says: Our ancestors clearly had family groups as many mammals do now.
...again, my linguistic friends lament my arrogant ignorance and swear oaths that in order to transmit even such rudimentary skills from one generation to another there had to be language...This art was transmitted solely by imitation, exactly, the same way in which chimpanzees transmit the trick of inserting straws into ant hills to get ants.
Somebody asked about Neanderthals. Why did Cro-Magnon man alone survive?
But the most recent view is that they were part of the general human line, which had great variation, a variation that allowed for an increasing pace of evolution, as man, taking his artificial climate with him, spread into these new ecological niches. I am emphasizing the climate changes during this last glacial age because I believe these changes were the basis of the selective pressures behind the development of language through several stages.
Stage One: The Intentional Call
The first stage and the sine quo non of language is the development out of incidental calls of intentional calls, or those which tend to be repeated unless turned off by a change in behavior of the recipient.
The central assertion of (my) view is that each new stage of words literally created new perceptions and attentions, and such new perceptions and attentions resulted in important cultural changes which are reflected in the archeological record.
Stage Two: The Modifier
...the differentiation of vocal qualifiers had to precede the invention of the nouns which they modified, rather than the reverse. ..This slow development was also necessary so that the basic repertoire of the call system was kept intact to perform its intentional functions. This age of modifiers perhaps lasted up to 40,000 BC where we find archeologically retouched hand axes and points.
The next stage might have been an age of commands, when modifiers, separated from the calls they modify, now can modify men's actions themselves.
From fossil evidence we know factually that the brain, particularly the frontal lobe in front of the central sulcus, was increasing with a rapidity that still astonishes the modern evolutionist.
Stage Three: The Noun
Then came the age of nouns. Just as the age of modifiers coincides with the making of much superior tools, so the age of nouns for animals coincides with the beginning of drawing animals on the walls of caves or on horn implements.
Stage Four: The Name
But the next stage in linguistic development was the name. This change did not occur until 10,000-12,000 years ago.The next line from Jaynes always makes me laugh:
Previously, man, like other primates, had probably left his dead where they fell, or else hidden them from view with stones or in some instances roasted and eaten them.
They say it kind of tastes like chicken
I get lost in Jayne's arguments. But I know that John had something new, when he states that in the beginning, there was the Word. And there had to be physical changes in the brain and organizational changes in the development of society to prepare us for the Word.
I do not enjoy reading the Bible. The first four Books of the New Testament are short and sweet and not a bad read. But if I had the talent to recall chapter and verse, I would not waste it on these books.
I do not like to read the Old Testament either, with one exception. I think Genesis ranks right up there with the Iliad and the Odyssey. For me it is a fun read. So many stories that we all grew up with, but it is good to read it for yourself and not somebody's take on the stories.Let me elucidate:
First Story of Creation
In the beginning, when god created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters
Then God said, "Let there be light"
I chose the Roman Catholic version. But notice God did not start with nothing.
Hesiod, in the Theogony, on the other hand, begins: In the beginning there was Chaos.....and out of Chaos was born Uranus (the Sky) and Gaea (the Earth).
The Hebrews do not begin with Chaos or with nothing. God starts with something. A formless wasteland and water and a mighty wind. I do not know if we are to assume that God was sitting around one day and thought, eons prior to where our story begins in the bible, hey, what about a formless wasteland with water and some wind and then I will figure out something else later?
If you like poetry, take a look at the Book of John:
Catholic Bible
In the beginning there was the Word
The Word was in God's presence
And the Word was God
King James Version
In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God
King James; a little better with poetry, huh? Think about this for a minute. John does not start with a Nativity, or a flight to Egypt with Herod (like a ton of mythological figures including Arthur) sending out a decree calling for the death of all baby boys. John does not begin with anything having to do with Jesus' birth or childhood.
But he kind of rewrites the Old Testament. IT IS THE WORD you see that we must begin with. I always found that fascinating. THE WORD'S THE THING. In the beginning was the Word.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
Jaynes' Take on God
What purpose does a god serve in the human mind?
Cognitive Dissonance
If we are correct in assuming that schizophrenic hallucinations are similar to the guidance of gods in antiquity, then there should be some common physiological instigation in both instances. This, I suggest, is simply stress. (Cognitive dissonance)....Anything that could not be dealt with on the basis of habit, any conflict between work and fatigue, between attack and flight, any choice between whom to obey or what to do, anything that require4d any decision at all was sufficient to cause an auditory hallucination.
So Hector, faced with the decision-suffering of whether to go outside the walls of Troy to fight Achilles or stay within them, in the stress of the decision hallucinates the voice that tells him to go out. The divine voice ends the decision--stress before it has reached any considerable level.
...the stress caused by a person's death was far more than sufficient to trigger his hallucinated voice. Perhaps this is why, in so many early cultures the heads of the dead were often severed from the body, or why the legs of the dead were broken or tied up, why food is so often in the graves...(after awhile the voice stopped so that the body was required)
Again, In Hamlet, according to Olivier, is a story about a prince who could not make up his mind. He needs his father's ghost to get rid of his cognitive dissonance. What shall I do? Daddy says, kill the bastard.
The Original Gods
If you review Chapter One of this inquiry, you will note that Jaynes is saying the we have two sides to our brain and that going back several mellenia, one side of our brain helped us perform our duties. The other side, told us what to do.There was an actual barrier between the two sides.
He says that we just did not understand death. Supposedly you would get back home, and your 'buddy' was there but did not respond. As Adabsurdum put it you would fix dinner, and since he did not respond, you would actually attempt to shove food down his throat.
It sounds ridiculous because you were out there every day killing animals, bringing them 'home' and cooking them and eating them.
Jaynes points to the grave of Eynan in 9000 BC. The king is in regal dress and propped up on a pillow of stones signifying that people would come and ask him questions.This was the first king-god. The grave was the first church. He goes on to speak of Osiris and I always am in awe of that story. In many cases the deceased male ends up with an erection and in this myth Isis straddles herself on the male member and conceives Horus. Spooky is it not? Not only do we need a word from the god, we need his seed. No wonder they do not teach us this in elementary school.
Succession would involve the deceased king 'naming' his successor. And there would be discussions between the successor and the last monarch. A little Hamlet. Geez Dad, you really do not like this new guy, do you?
I should add in all of this that Jaynes likes to talk about the evolution of the village. Where bands of twenty humans might morph into a settlement of two hundred or so and therefore the social group mirroring a group wolves would become a 'town'.This leads to cognitive changes based upon social needs.
The little grave with the propped up god-king becomes an entire house. An effigy replaces the corpse. BUT THE WORSHIPER IS SPEAKING TO THE STATUE AS A GOD, not as if the statue was a god.
The early gods...according to cuneiform texts, liked eating and drinking, music and dancing; they required beds to sleep in and for enjoying sex with other gods...they had to be washed and dressed and appeased with pleasant odors.
Remembering of course, Jaynes is speaking of the statues as gods. He posits that tables were placed before the gods (statues) with flowers and food. This 'became' the first altar. What he says is that our peeps would take two statues, male and female, and place them in a bed overnight.
Read Adabsurdem's musings in the previous chapter. I like him. He likes to think at the bus stop. My point was that later in our development, the statue began to represent the god. Exodus would represent a transformation. Moses and others were afraid of icons and idols. Because animism was still prevalent and because there was still this reality in the statue itself. Once created it WAS a god. You spoke with him.
My problem with Jaynes here is that somebody today will go a thousand miles to witness a shadow on a wall in Mexico that looks like the Virgin Mary. Because a special rosary has special significance. Because I witnessed passengers on planes grasping at the crosses on their necklace.
The point is that somewhere along the line, the statue became a representation during the four phases of development. It is no longer animism at work.
Let us get back to the Word. And feel free to reread Q and Adabsurdum and TheraP and Obey.. Jaynes sees the importance of language in all of this and whether you agree with him or not, his discussion of language and its development becomes part of this story.
For there is precious little archaeologically up to 40,000BC, other than the crudest of stone tools.
Sometimes the reaction to a denial that early man had speech is, how then did man function or communicate? The answer is very simple: just like all other primates, with an abundance of visual and vocal signals which were very far removed from the syntactical language that we practice today.
Or as TheraP says: Our ancestors clearly had family groups as many mammals do now.
...again, my linguistic friends lament my arrogant ignorance and swear oaths that in order to transmit even such rudimentary skills from one generation to another there had to be language...This art was transmitted solely by imitation, exactly, the same way in which chimpanzees transmit the trick of inserting straws into ant hills to get ants.
Somebody asked about Neanderthals. Why did Cro-Magnon man alone survive?
But the most recent view is that they were part of the general human line, which had great variation, a variation that allowed for an increasing pace of evolution, as man, taking his artificial climate with him, spread into these new ecological niches. I am emphasizing the climate changes during this last glacial age because I believe these changes were the basis of the selective pressures behind the development of language through several stages.
Stage One: The Intentional Call
The first stage and the sine quo non of language is the development out of incidental calls of intentional calls, or those which tend to be repeated unless turned off by a change in behavior of the recipient.
The central assertion of (my) view is that each new stage of words literally created new perceptions and attentions, and such new perceptions and attentions resulted in important cultural changes which are reflected in the archeological record.
Stage Two: The Modifier
...the differentiation of vocal qualifiers had to precede the invention of the nouns which they modified, rather than the reverse. ..This slow development was also necessary so that the basic repertoire of the call system was kept intact to perform its intentional functions. This age of modifiers perhaps lasted up to 40,000 BC where we find archeologically retouched hand axes and points.
The next stage might have been an age of commands, when modifiers, separated from the calls they modify, now can modify men's actions themselves.
From fossil evidence we know factually that the brain, particularly the frontal lobe in front of the central sulcus, was increasing with a rapidity that still astonishes the modern evolutionist.
Stage Three: The Noun
Then came the age of nouns. Just as the age of modifiers coincides with the making of much superior tools, so the age of nouns for animals coincides with the beginning of drawing animals on the walls of caves or on horn implements.
Stage Four: The Name
But the next stage in linguistic development was the name. This change did not occur until 10,000-12,000 years ago.The next line from Jaynes always makes me laugh:
Previously, man, like other primates, had probably left his dead where they fell, or else hidden them from view with stones or in some instances roasted and eaten them.
They say it kind of tastes like chicken
I get lost in Jayne's arguments. But I know that John had something new, when he states that in the beginning, there was the Word. And there had to be physical changes in the brain and organizational changes in the development of society to prepare us for the Word.
Advertisement
The previous discussion is at:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2009/02/the-origin-of-consciousness.php#comments
March 1, 2009 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
DD - so interesting! I have a question. Are you saying that in language development the "word" or sound for say, "fast" (a modifyer) preceded the term for cheetah (a noun)? When we "teach our children to talk," (in apostrophes because they learn anyhow) we spend so much time naming: "tree, doggie, abd milk," for example, when they are probably only perceiving the equivalent of "big, fuzzy, and yummy."
Thanks for a whole new thing to think about!
March 1, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Cville. Fascinating take from you. That is so true. Baby want bottle? What a good addition to this. I forgot about that. It is so important that the baby gets the noun.
March 1, 2009 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
In the beginning there was the Word.
Literally? Is this what Jaynes is getting at?
Will return to this later today...have to do some thinkin'.
March 1, 2009 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was always taken by the introduction by John--that is me not Jayenes.
March 1, 2009 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was in a rush this morning and didn't do a good job of explaining my comment.
What I was getting at was, did Jaynes perhaps see that sentence in the bible "In the beginning was the Word." and it sparked something inside him to develop this theory of the bicameral mind meld that produced the first uttered word? Literally. This is just a thought.
I haven't found the time to read a bio of Jaynes so I really am not all that familiar with his background concerning any 'religiosity' of his.
One other thing from the depth of my untidy brain: There was some study that conjectured the first sound uttered on purpose, was a laugh. I can't find a link, it was 2-3 years ago, though. But, I do remember thinking at the time I read it, "How can anyone possibly know that?" Then the next thing I thought was, "Did my tax dollars pay for this study? Boy, somebody knows how to write a grant."
March 1, 2009 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah who would pay for such a thing, but there is always context and I have seen chimps and baboons laughing. I swear my dog would smile.
Read Obey, I forgot which comment, but he is talking about a 'movement' concerning 'the word'.
I thought of it while reading Jaynes a long time ago and I was always struck by that introduction by John anyway.
March 1, 2009 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. A paleolinguistic anthropology course in a blog post. With a good seasoning of theological analysis to boot.
Nicely done, DD. More, please?
March 1, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Geez Grouch. You liked it. That really makes my day.
No kidding. The 'proofs' in the book or his philosophy become very confusing to me. But that is part of the mystery. That is why it is fun.
March 1, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Makes your day? I don't want that kind of influence.
Seriously, I do like this kind of stuff. I want material that makes me think, and gives me chances to learn new things.
March 1, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the beginning was the Word
"Word" was the Greek "Logos" in the original text.
This would probably translate better as "order", "reason", "logic", etc., rather than "word". For a linguistic argument, perhaps it could be translated as "grammar".
March 1, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fascinating Merrill. And it was originally written in Greek, was it not? Logos. In the beginning there was Logos. Jaynes might not disagree with 'grammar'. Ha! Good point.
March 1, 2009 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's about right - logos is highly ambiguous. But the idea of god as logos already had a long tradition - the Stoic tradition - by the time of John. The idea being, that the universe had a rational organization, everything that happened was 'meant to be', and the being behind this organization - or the organization itself was 'god'.
March 1, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but we need some good poetry once in awhile.hhahahahahhahhahaha
March 1, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but don't like my poetry to be logically inconsistent (word is WITH god and IS god?!). Too much cognitive dissonance... LOL. I'm a lost cause, I know. hahaha
March 1, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Love it DD. This newest post actually spurred me to go back to a site I found because of your LAST post. It's a site where every year they ask a "big question" and then print 100 or so short responses, from some of the best & most "out there" thinkers. It's incredibly good fun to read (in chunks), with many of them playing in and around the issues you, and Jaynes, raise.
2005's question was "What do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?" I liked the responses from Gardner, Dennett, Taleb, Dehaene, Goleman, Diamond and some others. Worth a peruse.
This year's question is "What will change everything?" Just scan down til you see the list of names, then jump in. Joel Garreau's take was fun, for instance. They're here.
Many of the comments there are updated ideas that relate to Jaynes, Religion, the Mind, etc.
From your discussion above, two things occurred to me.
(1) I do not believe the multiple "voices" ever stopped. (Jaynes emphasized two parts of the brain, but I think most neuro-types would now argue that different types of information and such are tumbling in from many sites in the brain.) However many voices/modules/whatevers we have, the mind has simply developed (maybe during the period Jaynes emphasized, or maybe at other times) mechanisms to "integrate" or manage or play with these multiple voices.
But since these mechanisms do not appear to be 100% genetically "hard-wired," but rather, are laid down, grown and reinforced culturally (the most obvious way being through child-rearing), we come to a really really big set of results:
A. This process of humans evolving mind management systems is ONGOING (i.e. the game is still open to change);
B. The process is likely NOT YET 100% COMPREHENSIVE (i.e. we likely have a whole array of voices not 100% integrated through some main gate, but which still influence us);
C. That we may NOT have done this very WELL (i.e. we may wish to change our culture so that the multiple "voices" are dealt with in a different manner. Perhaps by furthering integrating them all through one site, or through more social means, or perhaps by using more "multiple windows" kinds of approaches.)
(2) I can't discuss Jaynes stages in any detail, but his view of the progression from "dead person to idol to God" leaves me unconvinced. I could probably make just as solid an argument from the old "God being assumed from humans witnessing forces such as lightning/thunder and sun/moon/stars" line.
More importantly perhaps, I'm not sure I'm an atheist. The more I learn, the more I realize how our senses, our brains, our language, our cultures are SO limited - even misleading - in what they tell us. Yet then we get all puffed up and argue, "Well, there's no empirical evidence for God" - or any of a dozen associated arguments which form up around that viewpoint.
I just can't be bothered to debate that stuff anymore. It assumes our ability to grasp the universe and its deep truths is VASTLY superior to that of a worm, or a dog or an ape. Or do we also think the evidence for God's existence must have be apparent to those other species - and if it isn't, then God cannot exist?
In the same way, what if our senses expanded (let's start with seeing ultraviolet, just as a personal fave)... and our brain opened itself up fully, perfectly, instantly to all information coming in from our multiple mind centers and senses (and yes, I know this is impossible).... and then change our culture for a few thousand years - perhaps adding in more ecological thinking and vastly improved modelling and analogies, add tech ranging from nanotech to global sensors to AI, universal translation and a serious archaeological and space travel effort, etc..... do all that and THEN maybe I'd feel happier sitting down and having a intellectual discussion about whether there is a God or not.
This is not aimed at anything you said DD, it's just that I got so tired or rehashing the same dozen arguments for atheism etc., and in the end simply concluded that I don't know the answer to this big question. I have my thoughts, and - probably more important - my experiences, and they're all still in flux, altering day-to-day, and NO this doesn't mean I'm locked in on some existing religion.
But it IS to say also that I have my views of anyone who thinks we're ALREADY at some evolutionary pinnacle, and so well-equipped we can sort this stuff out with any degree of confidence. I find that stance to be just... ummmmm... ignorant. Worse, it's clear that these guys don't know what they don't know. Which would roughly put them in the "True Believer" box. Where they would have some fundamentalist company I don't think they'd much enjoy...
Anyway. Thoughts for the Day. (Pun intended.) thanks for sending me off on another mental journey Doctor Dick. ;-)
March 1, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
On going evolution. you betcha!!! We might have doubled our knowledge for awhile at the rate of 1,000 years, then 100 years, then 10...
I just take that from tech advances, and these damned computer chips.
Atheist--I am with you on that. I do not wish to waste my time on that issue. Maybe in a context where I am with friends in a bar with some nice ales.
Agnostic--yes. If there is a god we know that this universe is so absolute beyond our comprehension that what is the use? Then you have to get into defintions. Pius XI or XII was quite taken by the Big Bang theory. Cosmological argument. but that does not mean that we were part of the big banger's plan....blah blah blah
Oh and what I call the 10% solution. We are told we only use ten percent of our brain. I dont even know what that means. If we were running 90% would he have a higher frequency of fevers? hahahahah
Thank you for joining in this Q.
March 1, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Canadians love that "Humans only use 10% of their brain" analogy. Except we like to expand upon it a bit, especially when talking to Americans in bars:
"As you know, scientists have proven that humans only use 10% of their brain. And as you also may know, Canada has only 10% of the population of the United States. {.... Long pause.....} {... Run for exit....}"
March 1, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, and you guys are massed on our borders...
March 1, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our main hesitation is that you guys may have secretly concentrated your collective intelligence somewhere in the limbic/reptilian/violent portions of the brain.
Turns out most of the scouts we've sent to explore this part of the American mind never return. Though the one that did had sustained multiple gunshot wounds... appeared to be drunk... but scrawled a message that appears to read, "Wow. Just got laid."
Our translators are still working on that last bit of his message.
March 1, 2009 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Q - just on the 'pinnacle of evolution' issue, which I agree on. The evolution is actually vastly speeding up now with brain implants - both artificial computer chips and new technology permitting neural (re)generation. I have a friend working on expanding rats' brains through generation of new neurons as well as the richness of their connection through dendrites. I don't have a clue about the details, but both great and freaky possibilities. You may be able to figure out your God question sooner than you think...
March 1, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I'm suspect it's considered pretty basic for you and your associates Obey, I really enjoyed that Norman Doidge book, "The Brain That Changes Itself" that came out a couple of years back. (My buddies and I choose a book every couple of years and insist that everyone read it. Earlier it was Diamond's "guns, Germs & steel - but this is the one that came after.)
About how the brain constantly regrows and reroutes and changes, especially when responding to new activities or bodily shifts that are extended and sustained. Doidge talks about how the brain plasticity can help us as we grow old, help people recover from brain damage, help explain addictions like those to porn, and so on. It's partly what I was getting at in my jawing about how the brain and its pathways are not fixed, but that culture and technology and such can change it. Here's the Wiki on Doidge.
I'm sure they'll come up with dozens of means to physically multiply those connections, although I'm not at all certain the new links would necessarily be "good" or useful. They might even lead - if the rest of the brain wasn't growing in some sort of harmony - to it shorting out!
Nonetheless, it strikes me as quite possible that the shift of children to where they are now raised on the Internet and computer games and constant fast communications with peers... is likely literally "rewiring" their brains. This doesn't necessarily bother me, as I suspect TV and reading/books did the same thing.
It does interest me though that people can quite casually discuss how the creation of external forms of storing memories (such as in books) could produce MASSIVE changes in human culture, such as in relation to religion... but then not wonder very much about our own shift to the Internet... or even a shift from typing to voice recognition & audio-based systems.
Same way, I was just reading how one of the brain's GREATEST organs is... OTHER BRAINS. i.e. The ability to live and fully utilize a social world, in which you may not know the answer to a question, but you know SOMEBODY who will know. Take that out further, and add search engines, Wiki's, chats, followers, links etc.... and - without having to artificially add a single new neuron to our brains, or a single inserted chip, we've just massively expanded these "lobes."
In short, you and Dick and Tom and the rest are now PART OF MY BRAIN! Mwooooohooooohahahahaha!
P.S. Am trying to set up future joke playing off of "Every Tom, Dick & Obey," but couldn't quite clinch a punchline yet. All suggestions gratefully received.
March 1, 2009 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
very proud to have a place in your brain! (hopefully a penthouse, with a view on the rest...) Seems like a big place with room for lots of us! lol.
Yes, what I had in mind was more in addition to everything you say. There's our natural brain plasticity and the radical new way in which information is transmitted and allocated. And then there's all this new brain technology, which frankly has me much more impressed and worried at the same time. There is an incredible new ability to affect in multiple ways very localized brain functions, accompanied by an extremely weak understanding of how the various functions fit together and interact. Two examples which shocked me: the ability, through magnetic resonance, to wipe out short-term memory (with no observable side-effects), and to weaken moral perception/motivation to the point of passively accepting injustice.
Your scepticism about the generation of new neural connections, though I don't know this stuff intimately, seems unjustified. The procedure involves stimulating neurogenesis, where the neural connections then occur 'naturally' depending on how the brain is stimulated. So you don't get brain development that somehow remains inert. Depending on where the ethical limits are established, the development of this kind of technology can go very far very fast. And then there's all the artificial implant technology, which I won't bore you with now. But this, to me, is going to be the real revolution.
I was thinking of putting together a link-fest for this stuff, but can't find much 'popular' reading material on it...
March 1, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just another thought - one way of putting it is this: you are talking about a reworking of the software, and I'm talking among other things about targeted hardware upgrading. You're saying our brains are moving from '80's MS DOS to Linux, and I'm saying we're moving from a commodore 64 to, well, something new and very impressive in processing terms.
Actually the analogy is a problematic one, because I don't like the computer analogy for how the mind functions. But that's another discussion.
March 1, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
See, this is part of what I find so fascinating about the Plastic Brain stuff. That we can change behavior, culture, and it turns into a physical, hardware, change. We all know this from when we were kids, learning to cycle, skate, play video games, etc. But I also found there was just incredible untapped general learning capacity - available to adults - which I didn't appreciate until forced into some rather intensive learning experiences. But all this from "soft" cultural approaches, that literally seem to send out physical tendrils, make connections, strengthen them, prune others.
Not that I'd mind a pure physically-led upgrade. I could probably use a shot of that every Monday morning.
March 1, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
A linkfest would be great, popular or techie. (We just beat our feet on the ground until somebody expert in the field has to come in and explain it to us.)
Got no problem with the neural expansion stuff, but would just like to see it start with regenerating lost/broken stuff first, 'til we get our legs under us... then maybe begin rolling our super-generation. I'd hate to see some sort of intellectual monsters created, who had relatively downsized their ethical capacities.
Oh wait. We already have them. Seems they went into banking. See? There's a warning for ya! ;-)
March 1, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just another thought (hahah - and then i'll stop harassing you). Wanted to say that I very much like your view on the simplistic 'incrementalist' way in which the evolutionary literature often regards the development of the modern mind. Mostly they look for some rudimentary antecedent function (cognitive or emotional) that then develops into our current high-powered version. And for a lot of what our mind does, it's simply radically new functions where the evolutionary road is hard to imagine, and difficult to reconstruct. That's part of the problem with the debate on self-consciousness.
March 1, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember studying biology and the Profs talking about how often we'd develop an organ or capability for one function, but then at some point in evolution, we'd turn it to some other use. Which was cool, but I wasn't convinced this was always the way it worked. Other times, they took that teensy weensy incrementalist approach, where al this stuff just slowly slowly inched its way out to the full form we see now.
But with the mind, neither of those two approaches comes out completely happily for me. I just keep thinking how delicate the brain's chemistry is, and how much "mental illness" and "dysfunction" we see from small changes. And I know myself, just from concussions (we'll set aside the general madness), how incredibly frustrating it is when something goes on the blink. And these people/animals would have had to make these changes in life/death settings.
So in the end, I really don't know how it happened. Other than I very much expect that for the poor "mutant" bastards who got hit with these changes first, they must have had one hell of a time handling it.
March 1, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I loved the mutant bastard story. I laugh when I picture them freaking out, the poor buggers (yes, I sometimes have an empathy deficit...lol). I keep forgetting half of the thought in these comments. I had meant to finish off the comment on your 'freak-out intermezzo' story of brain-evolution with the remark that the coming changes are likely to be almost as freaky and difficult to adapt to. (your ultra-violet sensor implants are really just around the corner).
As with the finance innovation, we have a lot of technical expertise with precious little understanding of knock-on effects - how fragile and interdependent these supposed mental functional 'modules' are. So the future is looking trippy...
March 1, 2009 11:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like where you went with this quinn. I personally think being agnostic about this is the only "intellectual" position that is really defendable, even though I personally have trust in Holy Mystery.
March 1, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn, your writings have inspired me; your posts have made me laugh and think; but this link to the World Question Center is a gift I cannot quantify -- it is fantastic -- thank you so much! Even without searching the answers from these various and interesting thinkers, the QUESTIONS !!! I just love this! I will spend hours just perusing and thinking and challenging myself on this site. I love it!
I just called my best friend and told her about this site and she is jealous because her computer is broken! Now she has a reason to go out and get a new one!
Quinn, I am not kidding; it is rare that intellectually challenging things come up like this outside of work -- I really appreciate it!
March 1, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks CV. I only found the site because Dick got me wound up about Jaynes, and I started following links, and once I landed there.... well, I've burned a few hours already. Like you, I've already flipped it to some friends - it's just a great "brain candy" site, eh? I find I'll read a couple, and they'll bore me (or lose me) and then hit one and go... "OH. That's brilliant or interesting or amazing."
If you or your friends find any great ones, make sure to link 'em in future comments, eh? There's hundreds there, so it'll be weeks for me to chew 'em up! Plus, that way, if I come back here babbling about some brilliant but totally weird idea, someone else will have read it too! ;-)
March 1, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will definitely come back to you with any interesting directions; I owe it to you! Just the two questions have started a quest! After reading a couple of essays, I am purposely holding back so I can think them through for myself.
I mean, how often does one get a question that one has never been asked before?
Based on this, have you thought of a question that would be worthy? I can't imagine! I am humbled!
March 2, 2009 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, Cville, the questions they asked are some pretty great ones. I think they're all listed on this page.
It might be fun if someone threw one of their questions out to TPM'ers, led by a blog that just briefly listed a couple of the responses from the site, plus their own, and then... let people loose in the comments.
I only blog every couple of weeks, and then it's usually on some demented chase of my own, but if you or anyone was interested, I think it might make a really cool series of blogs. Maybe if a few other people here liked the site, people could take it in turns to do one.
Hint hint!!! ;-)
March 2, 2009 12:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dang, well said, and boy, do I wish you had been here a couple years back when several militant fundie atheists populated the Cafe (to be clear, all current company exempted.) Real mean arrogant ones, you know the type, they latch onto a believer like they've found a vampire and they need to kill it to protect humanity, perhaps more accurate to say worse than the most militant jihadi.
When stuck in such a thread, I used to like to use this: "Among the Non-Believers:
The tedium of dogmatic atheism" by Chris Lehmann.
But your presentation is better, I think. :-)
March 2, 2009 2:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
The mere fact that this conversation is being conducted supports my belief in God...How could all of this "thought" be the result of a bunch of random molecules swirling around and finding each other?
We can debate religion until the end of time, but I just can't believe there isn't someone in charge of all this.
March 1, 2009 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stilli, I am not an atheist. But at times I see such order in this universe. So I am convinced there is a god. The issue is whether or not god has anything to do with me, with the human population.
But I am not here to disprove god.
And thank you for taking the time to read this.
Honest. It means a lot.
March 1, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope that you didn't take my comment as suggesting that I thought you were! There are a lot of atheists on this site, so it was directed at them, and not in a bad way, just that this whole lash-up is so complicated, it seems improbable that it happened by chance...
March 1, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stilli - I am an atheist (at least in the sense that God plays little to no role in the way I lead my life). But among the arguments for God - though I don't think people base their faith on argument - the issue of consciousness is, to my mind, the one thing that perhaps lies outside the capacity of science to explain. And it's not a whim of mine. It's an issue I've spent a lot of time on, working with psychologists and neuroscientists. And we are all so far from getting a handle on the 'nature' of the phenomenon, that, yes, it's one of those places where I start to wonder where else to look for an understanding of it.
In short, good point! :0)
March 1, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stilli, I AM an atheist, and I don't see how this proves the existence of god, but as far as I am concerned -- whatever floats your boat is fine with me. I just hope that you think about what you believe, and that your life goes along with the answers that you have figured out.
I guess what bothers me most about religious people is that they make the assumption that those of us who don't BELIEVE are somehow immoral; that we don't have a moral compass.
In my case, I can say that I think all the time about "what is the right thing to do?" and try to do it. I don't do it because of fear of hell-fire, although, having been brought up as a Baptist, that is what I was taught.
I work at what I believe, and I work at how I live my life, and I set a standard which is very high for moral behaviour. But as a (former) Baptist I am a complete loser because I don't think Jesus has anything to do with my life.
March 1, 2009 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm one of those few odd Christians that do not pass judgments on other people's beliefs. I've lived without God in my life, and I've lived with Him...my life works better with him in it. I wish that sense of peace for everyone, whether they get it from God or from something else.
I happen to think that you are a wonderful person. From all the little bits and pieces that I get from you and your life, I could never think that you were not a moral person...I'm just so sorry that your experience with "religious people" has been negative.
I have to confess that I have not been real real proud of my fellow Christians lately. As a group they have behaved badly, and I'm sure my God weeps at their lack of compassion.
Although that has kept me from going to church for some time now, it hasn't diminished my love for my God or my determination that I will continue to serve Him. Knowing that I am His witness, and His love is shown through me keeps me trying to grow closer to the person I think he wants me to be. I know that doesn't work for everyone.
March 2, 2009 1:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great stuff!!
On the important point of what it tastes like: my brother confirms - Chicken! (he was out in the rainforest in Papua New Guinea and got caught up in the local 'festivities'...)
On the origin of language, a couple of thoughts that may appear random, but will try to string them together: the short version being - I still don't get what our 'great leap forward' consisted in.
I wanted to go back to what Thera said about the role of imitation in the last thread, but after searching for x f*ckng minutes, couldn't find it. Anyway, like she suggests, you can get very far along the evolution-of-language track without a sudden God-given 'flash of light' - bang: consciousness. Imitation will do a lot of the work. We are animals, like Aristotle said, who LOVE imitation. We can't stop ourselves from imitating others, and we can't stop loving it when others imitate us. On the first, I'm thinking of my niece walking around in high heels with a mini- baby carriage or vacuum cleaner. On the second, I'm thinking of one of the few useful things I've learned from experimental psychologists. It's on seduction. In seduction, the usual touching, eye contact help. But also, bizarrely, imitating the other's expressions, words, gestures (without them noticing, of course).
And we are much more 'imitation-oriented' than our close relatives - the chimps. There is one experiment comparing human children and chimps, that goes as follows: you set up a puzzle which involves figuring out how to get at a piece of candy. You have a human adult show how to do it, and both the child and the chimp can copy the action: they both catch on to the procedure involved. Then you have an adult solve a similar puzzle, but in an unnecessarily complex and convoluted way (needlessly turning around 360 degrees in front of the candy, say). Here, the chimp drops the useless parts of the procedure, getting right at the candy, whereas the silly child copies all the pointless stuff along with the useful moves. Conclusion: chimps are smarter than kids. Yes, partly. But this evolved hyper-imitative tendency surely has a purpose. Or actually, it can be used to explain a lot about how we manage to function socially - including language. In hyper-imitative creatures, it gets easy to develop a rich language of 'intentional calls' because we are already hard-wired to catch on to what the other 'wants' us to do.
Now I'm trying to imagine what the intermediate steps of the evolution of language look like - and I'm reminded of Wittgenstein, with his story of the brick. So you have Borg and Dorg, with the basic 'intentional call' level of language, where Borg is showing Dorg how to build a wall out of stones. Borg says 'brick' which tends to produce stone-moving behavior from Dorg - piling them up. When Borg is unhappy with the result, he utters 'ack' or if he's really unhappy 'AACK!' which gets some corrective action out of Dorg. So they've got the modulations of the intentional calls as well.
At some point, as this mode of communication gets more complex and intentionally constructed, 'brick' becomes more than just an intentional call that stops when a certain desired behavior is produced in others. it becomes a noun, referring to the object - the kind of stone used for walls. And then you get complex calls - 'bring brick', 'find brick', 'remove brick' built out of the basic parts - i.e. you get syntax.
Now this is usually what people call the 'big-leap-forward' for the human mind: syntax. And one of the things Wittgenstein argues, is that it's not so significantly different Borg's original language. There is no leap from calls triggering behavior to abstract representational thought. All our language is basically highly complex procedural knowledge (as opposed to fully structured conceptual knowledge) no different in KIND from that involved in Borg's language. The meaning of our words - in particular nouns - is not some magical 'reference to concrete objects', but involves only a maze of different uses (different behavior) to which we put utterances involving a given noun-expression. And the maze is so complex, that we come to mistake one node in this maze for a stunning abstraction, something which involves a whole miraculous new relation to the world. We have this THEORY of language, based on syntax, which serves to explain our rationality, but this theory may, if Wittgenstein is right, be an illusion.
I don't think Wittgenstein's story is right. But it's an important challenge. What makes us think we are so different from other animals? What we clearly are superior at, is procedural knowledge - we are technically much more skilled than other animals. But that comes from our hyper-imitative nature. Look at the Quant mathematicians in the banks, behind all the securitization and risk-management. Extremely skilled at certain manipulations of formal (mathematical) structures. But they had no clue what they were doing. The moral being, I'd rather have a chimp doing my risk-management!
(sorry, that was too long...)
March 1, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is not way too long. I am for a slower evolutionary track also. And you make such good points.
And Each time this subject is brought up I want to emphasise my belief that Homo Erectus (our real missing link) walked erectly, used fire and made fire, immigrated from Africa through Europe , Russia and China as well as Indonesia and figured out how to go brief distances in boats.
When you understand the magnitude of 800,000 years. It is just there are no pictures until 35,000 years ago on the cave walls. Did they draw pictures and the evidence is lost? Jaynes is saying there really is no change in weapons until 40,000 years ago. I thing something happened but it might have taken fifty thousand years.
I know I must come back and read yours again assuming we get some long winded comments later on so that I can reread my own redacted redacted post and your comment within that context.
March 1, 2009 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a quick follow-up, which comes from an exchange I just had with Libertine. The question of consciousness reminds me of Douglass Adams take on the answer to life, the universe and everything. The answer, according to him was 42. What teh question was, however, turned out to be the harder nut to crack. lol.
I love that take. It's the same with the question of consciousness, we've got all the answers - we know all the neural correlates for most of our conscious experiences, we've got all the theory of the different elements going into it, but that somehow doesn't really Explain anything unless we establish WHAT THE QUESTION IS...
March 1, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a quick follow-up, which comes from an exchange I just had with Libertine. The question of consciousness reminds me of Douglass Adams take on the answer to life, the universe and everything. The answer, according to him was 42. What teh question was, however, turned out to be the harder nut to crack. lol.
I love that take. It's the same with the question of consciousness, we've got all the answers - we know all the neural correlates for most of our conscious experiences, we've got all the theory of the different elements going into it, but that somehow doesn't really Explain anything unless we establish WHAT THE QUESTION IS...
March 1, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I could not figure out what Libertine was talking about and I think Stilli was accusing foreign substances. hahaha But You have clarified this and now I am laughing.
I seem to remember an old joke that ran along these lines.
The guy finally gets to heaven after 200,000 years in purgatory. He asks his maker what is the answer.
And the great voice in heaven says: 42.
What is it. Why is a stupid question. When, how or what works better.
When did we first 'find' god
How did we first 'find' god
What exactly was it (singular or plural) that got us to 'find' god.
March 1, 2009 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I still think the foreign substances played a role!! LOL!
In general - what a great post and a beautiful thread you've created, ... again!! So pleased you decided to start giving this Paleo-neuro-philosophico-theologico-scientific seminar! love it.
March 1, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
OMG!!! Foreign substances??!! I don't take any of that stuff...just stuff that can be found here on Earth. :-P
March 1, 2009 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Errrrrr.... Maybe with possible exceptions for Colombian, Mexican, Moroccan, Nepalese, Afghani and British Columbian "produce," eh Libertine? ;-)
March 1, 2009 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Distilled ice weasel tears - all the hipsters and flipsters are down with the "drops" - you will not be sorry! Ribbit, zwint, kronk!!!
March 1, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just be careful, there's a lot of bogus "ice weasel tears" out there. I mean, let's face it... they're pretty much impervious to pain.
Though "crying with laughter," they got that down.
And crying at acts of extreme economic cruelty. But that shit's recent, and I pretty much a hammerlock on supply. And if any of the IW's have been end-running my lil tear collection operation, there's gonna be hell to pay from the Boss. (I told the Chief 40% of the profits were going to a Widows and Orphans Fund.)
March 1, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bogus tears - you know, I was beginning to have my suspicions regarding the authenticity of these drops, what with the faint but discernible whiff of pee drifting from the vial - still and all - the colors, dude!
March 1, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure if this was what you were looking for:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2009/02/the-origin-of-consciousness.php#comment-3390749
Or maybe it was on another thread, maybe your own blog? Because we've discussed this more than once.
My brain is fried. I'm gonna make dinner!
March 1, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, that wasn't it. I was refering to the bit Dick took the quote from for his post. But thanks. :0)
March 1, 2009 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great new consensus on progenitor language and an the modern-human exodus from Africa, in "Before the Dawn", by Nicholas Wade. Best evidence is it occurred 50,000-60,000 years ago, probably across southern end of Red Sea, which was shallow and narrow. Proto-language is now thought to closely resemble click languages of San and !Kung. Likely the exodus was inspired by crowding/fighting at home, but the adventurers had to fight their way past earlier humans, like Homo Erectus and Neanderthal, thus ogre stories.
A researcher in Canada could make subjects hear God by recording brain waves from one hemisphere and playing them back into same. One's internal voice gets made to appear external.
As to bicamerality, MRI shows professional musicians have enlarged corpus callosi, we ain't broke down, thank you.
As to evolution of religion, I find the strongest correlation is that our sense of active agents, also called theory of mind, also called the intentional stance (Dennett), grew from an existing pattern-sensing selective pressure. Any talent at spotting repeated phenomena was quickly rewarded. A slight increase in short-term memory (3 seconds or so) would allow remembering animal calls, and would allow mimicry. (This is something apes can barely do.) One gene that restrains skull growth is for a jaw muscle. It is weak in humans, which may have been enough to allow just more cortex.
So we started noticing stuff like weather, volcanoes, floods, weird psychoactive foods. We attributed to them the same intention we assigned to our fellows. (It's an easy shorthand for predicting, without complicated mechanical process explanations.) We therefore had animism.
But as we also learned there was a wider world, i.e. people beyond the Nile Delta, we thought there might be a larger controlling entity, so we got Aten. This became Yaweh.
And as our understanding of the Universe grew in size, our sense of God grew from a local, jealous guy with a favorite team, to an immense Universe-creator.
BTW, my theory of language growth is it followed show-off sound skills. These were first just peacock's tails, fitness indicators that men competed with and females chose. But the talent was useful in hunting, (as modern hunters call their prey in). The pressure to have this talent rewarded short-term memory, and so on. But the vocabulary probably grew first among the social-networking situations, like grooming. Hunting is deadly quiet, so only in planning would language have helped.
But one way to be really popular as a kid is to be able to make cool sounds, whether whistling, hooting with closed-fist flute, blowing an a blade of grass (predator call). And don't forget groupies. They don't only go for healthy, buff singers. Those scrawny bare-chested metalheads get their share. Still, women don't throw their clothes at bankers, or even generals.
Sorry to digress.
March 1, 2009 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow Tom, Wow!!!
"A researcher in Canada could make subjects hear God by recording brain waves from one hemisphere and playing them back into same. One's internal voice gets made to appear external."
Love that. Q was talking about his dad who heard colors.
"As to bicamerality, MRI shows professional musicians have enlarged corpus callosi, we ain't broke down, thank you."
We aint broke down. Good Good Good.
"But as we also learned there was a wider world, i.e. people beyond the Nile Delta, we thought there might be a larger controlling entity, so we got Aten. This became Yaweh."
I am an Aten guy. Although we say Amen instead of Aten. They are both sun gods. Freud's monograph on this is great. Akhenaten was not Moses. he posits that a priest of Aten was.
Of course I have been reading your stuff all along. But you can say more in four paragrphs...
March 1, 2009 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Tom's just revealed the secret Theoretical take of Musicians:
"Groupie-Driven Human Evolution."
Tom... I'm ashamed and appalled. (That I never became a musician.)
March 1, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mark Wahlberg put thus---"Girls wouldn't look at me until I became a star".
It's why Americans would rather be famous than rich. (See: Idol, American.)
March 1, 2009 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am a Secular Humorist and I laugh at all concepts of existence!
Hahahahahahaha!
March 1, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love to read this and play with it because it is fun. And I see links to other things.
The same reasons I read you.Ha!
March 1, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love your description of yourself. I'm more of a co(s)mic believer myself.
March 1, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
i intend to post this on its own, but it certainly applies to this discussion:
The Myth of Chimeral Evolution
by
Justice Putnam
Darwin, Berkeley and Nietzsche were traversing through
the primordial soup when a Booming Voice echoed
throughout the world,
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" the Booming Voice joyously announced,
for He was a joyous and happy Booming Voice, "so you
have quite a conundrum before you now!"
Berkeley, as was his manner, nudged ahead of Nietzsche
and announced,
"I know or am conscious of my own being; and that I
myself am not my ideas, but somewhat else, a thinking,
active principle that perceives, knows, wills and
operates about ideas. I know that I, one and the same
self, perceive both colors and sounds: that a color
cannot perceive a sound, nor a sound a color: that I
am therefore one individual principle, distinct from
color and sound; and, for the same reason, from all
other sensible things and inert ideas. But, I am not
in like manner conscious either of the existence or
essence of Matter. On the contrary, I know that
nothing inconsistent can exist, and that the existence
of matter implies an inconsistency. Further, I know
what I mean when I affirm that there is a spiritual
substance or support of ideas, that is, that a spirit
knows and perceives ideas. But, I do not know what is
meant when it is said that an unperceiving substance
hath inherent in it and supports either ideas or the
archetypes of ideas. There is therefore upon the whole
no parity of case between Spirit and Matter."
Not to be outdone, Nietzsche elbowed his way past
Darwin and Berkeley to his preordained spot,
"With the highest respect, I accept the name of
Heraclitus. When the rest of the philosophic folk
rejected the testimony of the senses because they
showed multiplicity and change, he rejected their
testimony because they showed things as if they had
permanence and unity. Heraclitus too did the senses an
injustice. They lie neither in the way the Eleatics
believed, nor as he believed--they do not lie at all.
What we make of their testimony, that alone
introduces lies; for example, the lie of unity, the
lie of thinghood, of substance, of permanence.
"Reason" is the cause of our falsification of the
testimony of the senses. Insofar as the senses show
becoming, passing away, and change, they do not lie.
But Heraclitus will remain eternally right with his
assertion that being is an empty fiction. The
"apparent" world is the only one: the "true" world is
merely added by a lie."
Darwin strode forward in a gentlemanly manner, cleared
his throat and began,
"As man can produce and certainly has produced a great
result by his methodical and unconscious means of
selection, what may not nature effect? Man can act
only on external and visible characters: nature cares
nothing for appearances, except in so far as they may
be useful to any being. She can act on every internal
organ, on every shade of constitutional difference, on
the whole machinery of life. Man selects only for his
own good; Nature only for that of the being which she
tends. Every selected character is fully exercised by
her; and the being is placed under well-suited
conditions of life. Man keeps the natives of many
climates in the same country; he seldom exercises each
selected character in some peculiar and fitting
manner; he feeds a long and a short beaked pigeon on
the same food; he does not exercise a long-backed or
long-legged quadruped in any peculiar manner; he
exposes sheep with long and short wool to the same
climate. He does not allow the most vigorous males to
struggle for the females. He does not rigidly destroy
all inferior animals, but protects during each varying
season, as far as lies in his power, all his
productions. He often begins his selection by some
half-monstrous form; or at least by some modification
prominent enough to catch his eye, or to be plainly
useful to him. Under nature, the slightest difference
of structure or constitution may well turn the
nicely-balanced scale in the struggle for life, and so
be preserved. How fleeting are the wishes and efforts
of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor
will his products be, compared with those accumulated
by nature during whole geological periods. Can we
wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far
'truer' in character than man's productions; that they
should be infinitely better adapted to the most
complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear
the stamp of far higher workmanship?"
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" the Booming Voice joyously continued,
"if it were not for your Minds, I would almost doubt
my own existence!"
Sources:
"Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous" --George Berkeley
"Twilight of the Idols"--Friedrich Nietzsche
"The Origin of Species"--Charles Darwin
from "The Nature of Poetics Collapsed Outside My Window"
© 2006 Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches Strophe-Verlagswesen
March 1, 2009 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is great. I will read it again when you post it. And reread it if and when we get more comments.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" the Booming Voice joyously continued,
"if it were not for your Minds, I would almost doubt
my own existence!"
There is one thing I do know about language. It can sure confuse a body.
March 1, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
... and yet, it can "uplift" a "spirit!"
March 1, 2009 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
A million thanks to you, DD, and everyone who has joined in on this fascinating discussion! A wonderful way to begin the month of March. My frog brain is stretched a bit more today.
Dick, you really made me laugh out loud with this:
"I do not know if we are to assume that God was sitting around one day and thought, eons prior to where our story begins in the bible, hey, what about a formless wasteland with water and some wind and then I will figure out something else later?" Heehee! Great point, and with great humor you articulated the very thought that was going through my head, to wit - where the hell did that stuff come from? Always a problem with any creation story (including the big bang).
March 1, 2009 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting connection to The Word - the Hindus say the universe was begun by a sound: OM (or AUM) - the primal vibration that underlies all other expressions of energy that manifest as our reality.
March 1, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the word was: Hotdog!
March 1, 2009 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
;-]
March 1, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
TT, thank you for stopping by. The beginning of the beginning. Its like the New Testament where 2? of the four books begin with a nativity, contradictory in nature. Then Christ is 12 and then he is 30ish or 40ish depending on the book and the 'expert'. And then we go to the Quran, Koran, and JC is a naughty boy. And then there is a book out there about his childhood that was never accepted.
Or these 'giants' that are the product of angels raping women are killed in the flood. where the hell did that come from? Or the book that discusses Adam's first wife.
At any rate, you are the only one to pick up on that snide remark. hahahahha
March 1, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Genesis, 2009:
In the beginning was God, a spirit present throughout the vast unformededness, and God looked upon the nothingishness and thought: "There should be at least Something." And God spoke the primordial word, and the word was: "DUDE!" And thereupon sprang into being Something, and God looked upon that thing, and he was like: "WHOA!"
March 1, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Winner!
March 1, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that you, Keanu?
March 1, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I sure hope I'm not standing next to y'all when the lightening strikes! :-)
March 1, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Silly Stilli - don't you know lightning never strikes a frog? As for Q, he's already been there:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/quinn_esq/2009/02/ultraviolet-light-my-way.php#more
As if it wasn't obvious from his writing!
;-]
March 1, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
(pssst...here's the deal...I think Q may have been smoking the funny stuff w/ Libertine when he wrote that...just a guess.)
March 1, 2009 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Heh...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUogzf1h2UY
:-)
March 1, 2009 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
"What purpose does a god serve in the human mind?"
It's an organizing principle which is part of objectivity (purpose = objective in mind). Lesser gods are archetypal icons, they represent what a more advanced description would call Formal Ideas distilled from vague or confused notions formed from empirical impressions.
Logos, the starting point of Judeo-Christian mythology, might be what Merrill said of it, but I would suggest that we look at what English has as its arguably first derivative: Logic.
When you understand that logic is convincing force, it can follow easily that what moves minds (or more accurately moves a psyche) is at the beginning if not the end of all mindfulness, and can be an efficient mover too, aka "cause".
Thus rhetoric is effective use of language, and that persuades (which is a kind of movement into belief or action), whether compelling or merely seductive.
March 1, 2009 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is a very fine set of short paragraphs. Logos.
Logic. Order out of what first seems chaotic.
Rhetoric as the word?
Thanks for dropping by Eds.
March 1, 2009 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, rhetoric is in how the word is used. Words by themselves are impotent shadows, or perhaps quasi-random nexus evokers. Putting them together well, the syntax, is key to both poetry and effective prose.
Ineffective or counterproductive use of language would not be rhetoric, it wouldn't be moving (whether compelling or seductive).
For some there is a contrast between rhetoric and the truth. It's not an either-or thing.
March 2, 2009 3:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think I think, therfore I am... I think.
March 2, 2009 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Judging from this post and your last, a book recommendation: you might find many things in Karen Armstrong's "The Great Transformation" fruitful in support of some of your ideas. The whole book is an attempt to present historical evidence for a leap in human thought, along the lines of your "John had something new," but she sees it happening during the period 900 B.C. to 200 B.C.
As far as God being the word and the word being God being new with the Bible, well, let me play Joseph Campbell for a moment here and give one example,
Memphite Theology, inscribed on a 710 BCE stone, about the nature of the god Ptah and his role as supreme deity and creator,
@
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/creation.htm
What I see there is that language and consciousness is God, and God is language and consciousness. (The Ennaed are the main gods, Ra and his children and their descendants.)
Reading Armstrong will give you similar examples.
March 2, 2009 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. A reminder, many on this thread probably already know this, but Genesis "steals" several things from the main Egyptian creation myths. I found this chart from a quick google, it's not a very good one, but it gets across the basic idea:
http://www.aldokkan.com/religion/creation.htm
But if you surf around Egyptology and mythology sites, you can find some translations/interpretations of the several varieties of Egyptian creation myths that are just as hauntingly poetic, if not more so, because the metaphors/allegories are often very haunting and profoundly stirring (as an art historian, I of course am prejudiced and think that's partly because they come from pictographs, eh? :-))
March 2, 2009 1:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Artappraiser: I awake six hours after your post. What fun. Hauntingly poetic as you put it.
And out of Egypt they came in the Old Testament.
And that is why one of the four in the New Testament had to have Jesus go into Egypt and out again.
As I stated upstairs, with TomW, I am an Aten nut.
Akhenaten had the first documented one God focus. 17 years later he was toast.
We go to church on Sun Day. We end all our prayers with Amen (One of the other Sun Gods) December 25th was a Roman day to celebrate a Sun God.
From Egypt comes everything.
I am so pleased to have your input. Oh and I will hit your links as soon as I post my latest Camelot.
March 2, 2009 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Have you read the new book on Jaynes's theory?
"Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited"
by Marcel Kuijsten (ed.)
There is quite a bit in there on the relevance of the theory to the origin of gods & religion.
May 6, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink