🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul31.151013.3411@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>I agree with the sentiments of the second poster.  Jaynes's position
>is absurd.  Here is an obvious reason: if there were anything in his
>hypothesis, large parts of the population of the world would _still_
>be in his presumed "bicameral" state, and their psychological
>differences from the rest of us would be obvious and profound (the
>hypothesis would have been proposed long before the 20th century).

Jaynes deals with this. He explains why it now almost universally
established in the civilised world, but that there is a significant
minority of the population who fail to learn the new mode of
consciousness. They are to be found in lunatic asylums, and Jaynes
points out how some otherwise odd features of certain mental illnesses
can be explained by his hypothesis.

On the other side, we simply have your assertion that it is "obvious"
that there are not, for example, profound differences in the kind of
consciousness possessed by existing preliterate primitive societies,
and our modern Western selves. You may be right, but you need to put
forward a much stronger and more detailed argument to support your
view.
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205