Talk:bicameral

[EDITING NOTE] Need an new entry for "bicameral" (noun, derogatory). Used (coined?) by Strachan for modern unthinking tribalists; hence, also his usage (coinage?) of "bicameralism" as an "epidemic" social condition, a sick mentality]. B.Sirota (talk) 06:17, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

• Questions for Moverton: a) What is gained by moving the quotes about 'bicameral legislatures' from the 'government' definition to the general definition? b) The redone first definition seems quite redundant: "having...a system having..."B.Sirota (talk) 22:26, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

  a) When I see "a bicameral legislature", I read it to be equivalent to "a two-chambered legislature" (the 1st sense), but when I see something like "a bicameral constitution", I read it as "a constitution having a two-chambered legislative system" (the 2nd sense). Maybe that isn't a distinction others would make. b) You could change the second "having" to "with" if that makes it sound less redundant. It is saying that it is "of, having, or relating to a certain kind of system". Which kind? The kind of system "having two separate legislative chambers or houses". -Mike (talk) 17:57, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

  I completely agree with your distinction, but it should be defined generally, not just for 'government'. It's the main reason I proposed two new senses #4 and #5 (i.e. 'mentality' and 'history'). It's hard to be concise about the distinction: (a) having a bicameral structure; (b) referring to, relating to, signifying, or being the product of an entity that has bicameral structure. There are two problems, I think: (1) Should the two senses be combined into Sense #1, or should each have its own definition? (2) Will citations be required to satisfy the unconvinced? I think I prefer a combined entry, showing a few generic examples of both meanings rather than citations, leaving actual citations for the special senses such as 'government' or 'mentality'. (I think all 'government' citations should stay together, and I would happily combine senses 4 & 5 and their citations into 'mentality'.) B.Sirota (talk) 09:00, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

  You could do subsenses for the generic items in a and b, but I tend to believe less is more, and it may be too hard to really delineate where one sense ends and the other begins on those usage examples. So I would keep them together. I'm not opposed to having the separate government sense just because so often bicameral is used in that context, probably more than any other context, and I won't argue too vigorously if the government examples are kept together. Interestingly an old dictionary like Century would only have the one generic definition not specific to government, but many newer dictionaries will only have the government specific entry without mentioning any sort of generic usage. -Mike (talk) 21:08, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

  I assume all 'old' dictionaries were constrained by the physical realities of printed books that could override an ideal product. Who knows how the old lexicogs might have used WikiT? B.Sirota (talk) 12:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Check the new generic definition. Can you use that? It allows me to 'merge' 4&5 B.Sirota (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

re 'Mentality'

<from Rfv on 'bicameral'>: Something like luminiferous aether or relativity are spoken of without context. Jaynes' bicameralism seems to always be Jaynes' bicameralism. That's a big difference, that makes it marginal in terms of CFI.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:11, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

• (a) Are you suggesting that your examples ‘mean more’ than my word ‘bicameral’, because your words ‘don’t need context to be understood’? Well, I think context is everywhere. If 120 years ago you walked into a physics classroom and spoke about “ether”, the classroom provided the context; if you went into the same classroom complaining about a sore tooth, your very complaint would be specifying a different context of meaning for a different kind of “ether”, the kind found in a dentist’s office. The young physicists would be poor souls indeed if they could not tell the difference by context. (b) The very “ether” of your example includes a contextualizing adjective “luminiferous” to make your meaning clear. And both your examples, of course, are nouns, which often do stand alone. If you mentioned only the adjective “luminiferous” the word would convey an incomplete sense, because an adjective needs a noun or a referent for context. And certain adjectives only go with certain nouns. My RFV, for example, concerns the adjective “bicameral”. My citations demonstrate that the word indeed is used in a specific context of nouns, with a specific meaning more precise than its meaning in other contexts. When a physicist speaks of “strange quarks”, most laymen would probably say that all quarks are strange to them. If I dared to speak of “bicameral quarks” I would be speaking nonsense in any context. (c) I don’t see marginality listed as a criterion of exclusion from Wiktionary. CFI is “attestation” of “independent” usage to “convey meaning”. There are plenty of people using Jaynes' terms to convey very definite meaning. (BTW, I know what “bicamerality” and “bicameral mind” mean in the context of Jaynes’ hypotheses of human mentality and consciousness, but I have no idea what “Jaynes’ bicameralism” means. Do I have grounds to believe that you are not familiar with the literature, so you’re not sure what the words mean? Or, perhaps you do have an opinion about what these words mean, albeit in the absence of a dictionary entry to help you out?) (d) Finally, perhaps by “marginal” you mean “fringe theory”. The ‘hard’ sciences have the easy luxury of dealing with measurable ‘physical’ phenomena. Yet it took hundreds of years of hard-fought theoretical battles to arrive at so-called ‘mainstream’, standard, or orthodox positions validated (not proven) by scientific method. Jaynes is dealing with something much, much more difficult: he is trying to provide a naturalistic explanation – not a reductionism – for what ever any body thinks they mean by “human mind”. Jaynes indeed challenges all the conventional assumptions on the matter, but I doubt that anyone can honestly claim there is anything near a mainstream or standard ‘theory’ about ‘mind’; in which case his rational proposals are revolutionary, but not “fringe”. B.Sirota (talk) 19:08, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

RFV discussion: May–July 2019

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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bicameral

Rfv-senses

• Relating to the relationship of the two cerebral hemispheres in ancient human beings ‘hearing’ the speech of gods or idols, according to Julian Jaynes's model of the bicameral mind.

CITATIONS have been added. B.Sirota (talk) 18:09, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

• Relating to the interpretation of historical phenomena as evidence supporting the theory of the bicameral mind, without implying a bicameral (two-part) structure.
• Of a disorder of reasoning, the inability to think conceptually, rationally, independently.

Each definition needs three independent citations. Citing Julian Jaynes three times gives one citation for purpose of RfV. DCDuring (talk) 18:31, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

> Each of the first two senses above have only one 'inline' reference to Jaynes as a source, adding a number of quotes to convey usage of the adjective in context. In addition, two independent citations are now included for the 'mentality' sense. Neither of these citations quotes Jaynes; they use or interpret the term according to the specifics of the defined sense, which is complex. Now what happens after citations are added? B.Sirota (talk) 07:07, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

All of the cites are formatted as from works by Jaynes. I don't understand the assertions in the preceding post, which seem to be either false or based on a lack of understanding about independent citations. DCDuring (talk) 11:55, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

> Referring only to the 'mentality' definition: Jaynes is cited once on the definition page, and the citations:bicameral page has two other authors, published in two non-partisan publications, many more than a year apart. Are the 'three independent citations' required to appear together to satisfy the Rfv? B.Sirota (talk) 20:05, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

They're not independent because the authors are specifically talking about what Jaynes wrote or talked about. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 20:24, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't looked at the citations page. Whether such commentary is independent, I'm not sure, though I think it is. I'd like to hear from others. DCDuring (talk) 20:49, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

> To quote 'surjection', "the authors are specifically talking about what Jaynes wrote", and that includes the phenomena to which Jaynes's terminology refers, and implications of his ideas. They are using the terms in agreement with Jaynes's meaning, and explaining their meaning in the context of his theories. What else should they be talking about? Aren't citations meant to verify the usage of terminology with a common meaning and common collocations? B.Sirota (talk) 08:00, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Something like luminiferous aether or relativity are spoken of without context. Jaynes' bicameralism seems to always be Jaynes' bicameralism. That's a big difference, that makes it marginal in terms of CFI.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:11, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

> I've put a lengthy response on the "bicameral" discussion page under Talk:bicameral#re 'Mentality'. I'm sure there's a way to do a link. Help? B.Sirota (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I inserted the link into your comment. DCDuring (talk) 21:51, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

It fails to address how when people are talking about these senses of "bicameral" they've always talking about how it's Jaynes' definition and how he said or wrote it, which again to me makes those cites not independent. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 08:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

>Thanks for the link... Yes, Jaynes said a lot, and some people seem to have difficulty accepting that he definitely originated the term "bicameral mind" (idiomatic, not SOP) to express a complex original idea for which no prior term existed. Is the problem that 'Jaynes' is in every definition? I'd like to fix that by a proper entry for "bicameral mind", and Jaynes would go into the etymology only with the explanation of his analogy from 'bicameral legislature'. The derivative terms would then need no mention of Jaynes. Would that help? Would the (now) 5 citations for bicameral 'mentality' suffice? B.Sirota (talk) 23:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

5 quotes suffice, but they can't really be used to justify all of the meanings. How is "bicameral mind" not SOP based on the definitions on bicameral though? Or is the idea to remove the definitions from bicameral and define it all around bicameral mind instead? — surjection ⟨?⟩ 08:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

> I don't care if Def 6 is deleted. Based on the current Def 1, I think Def 5 can be deleted, leaving only Def 3 to be verified, in which case, I think any 3 of the 5 citations will more than suffice to an objective observer.B.Sirota (talk) 14:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

>I started as a newbie thinking it would be easiest to edit existing pages before creating a new page for the core term bicameral mind which would have a distinctive etymology as coinage of Jaynes. Which def of bicameral do you feel supplies sufficient meaning to read bicameral mind as SOP? I think Def 1 alone can only lead to incorrect reading: there is no bare interpretation of bicameral (two-chambered) that inplies the theory of bicameral mind. Likewise, Def 3 (mentality) derives meaning from the theory of the bicameral mind beyond mere "two-chamberedness", and there are numerous collocations for the adjective within the scope of the theory that do not at all mean "bicameral mind". I think the adjective Def 3 should stand independently. B.Sirota (talk) 14:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

> I suppose the matter can't be finally settled before I make my effort to put up a page for bicameral mind. If so, I hope you will allow me the time to ensure all my supporting citations get posted before you Rfv me to death. At any rate, how does the matter finally get settled?B.Sirota (talk) 14:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. The mentality passed, the other contested senses fail, Kiwima (talk) 04:15, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

bicameralism

Rfv-senses

• Ambiguous misnomer for Julian Jaynes's theory of bicamerality, probably never used by Jaynes, rarely used in academic literature based on his work, but often found informally (compare bicameral mind and bicameral mentality):
• The anti-conceptual mentality, supposedly according to Ayn Rand, described in terms attributed to Julian Jaynes.

Looking specifically for independent cites; the definitions alone probably shouldn't be here anyway (do we really want to document the vocabulary of every fringe theory out there?) — surjection ⟨?⟩ 13:12, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

• Tosh. SemperBlotto (talk) 13:07, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  He might have had a few published followers who used his vocabulary. But it's hard to find cites that aren't encompassed by definition 1 in the entry. DCDuring (talk) 20:21, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

> By "definition 1" you meant of "bicameral" not "bicameralism". Re Def. 2 "bicameralism": I can give 3 citations, though it is ambiguous, misleading and gaining popularity because of Wikipedia. I don't care if it is deleted. I'm sure there are no objections. Re Def. 3 "bicameralism": it is based on Jaynes but with idiosyncratic meaning (1 citation). I don't care if it is deleted. B.Sirota (talk) 12:47, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Delete. Canonicalization (talk) 12:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. Misnomer for bicamerality passes. Anti-conceptual mentality fails. Kiwima (talk) 04:29, 2 July 2019 (UTC)