Dictionary

bicameral mind en · NOUN

Etymology

Coined by Julian Jaynes as a “rather inexact metaphor to a bicameral legislature of an upper and lower house” (1989) and appearing in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

Meanings

1. The hypothetical mentality, neurology and sociology of the theory that before the historical emergence of introspective consciousness ancient humans and the earliest civilizations were governed by auditory hallucinations ‘spoken’ by the right cerebral hemisphere and ‘heard’ by the left hemisphere as the voices of gods.
   • […] one should not regard the connections discovered here as an attempt to "prove" Jaynes's theory of the bicameral mind. Although his theory certainly accounts for the whole of the data presented here more concisely and cleanly than any alternative yet proposed, in the end, theories are only theories, […] 2016, Todd Gibson, Listening for Ancient Voices: Julian Jaynes's Theory of the Bicameral Mind in Tibet, Kuijsten, published 2016, page 271:
   • In distinction to our own subjective conscious minds, we can call the mentality of the Myceneans a bicameral mind. pg.75 The bicameral mind is ... that form of social control which allowed mankind to move from small hunter-gatherer groups to large agricultural communities… pg.126 The two hemispheres of the brain are not the bicameral mind… [It] is an ancient mentality demonstrated in the literature and artifacts of antiquity. pg.456 [At Delphi in C.E. 363] the bicameral mind had come to one of its many ends. pg.331 1976, Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 1990:
   • The present paper provides a brief summary of the bicameral mind model, followed by a critical reappraisal of […] the putative cerebral basis of bicamerality. 2007, A.E. Cavanna, et.al.: The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: a critical reappraisal of Julian Jaynes’ hypothesis.:

Forms

Relateds

bicameralism · bicameral

Synonyms

bicameral mentality · bicamerality

Translations (1)

pt mente bicameral (the hypothetical mentality of ancient humans that was governed by auditory hallucinations)