bicameral mind

English

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.

Noun

bicameral mind (plural bicameral minds)

1. (psychology) 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.
   • 1976, Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 1990:

     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

   • 2007, A.E. Cavanna, et.al.: The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: a critical reappraisal of Julian Jaynes’ hypothesis.:

     The present paper provides a brief summary of the bicameral mind model, followed by a critical reappraisal of […] the putative cerebral basis of bicamerality.

   • 2016, Todd Gibson, Listening for Ancient Voices: Julian Jaynes's Theory of the Bicameral Mind in Tibet, Kuijsten, published 2016, page 271:

     […] 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, […]

Synonyms

• bicamerality
• bicameral mentality

Translations

the hypothetical mentality of ancient humans that was governed by auditory hallucinations

• Portuguese: mente bicameral f

See also

• bicameral
• bicameralism

References

• Cavanna, A.E. et.al., "The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: a critical reappraisal of Julian Jaynes’ hypothesis." In Functional Neurology 2007; 22(1): 11-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20190716042127/https://www.functionalneurology.com/materiale_cic/224_XXII_1/2108_the%20bicamiral/index.html
• Jaynes, Julian. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1976, 1990 (491 pgs). →ISBN (pbk.)
• Jaynes, Julian. "Verbal Hallucinations and Pre-Conscious Mentality". Presented at a conference at the Harvard University Department of Psychology, October, 1989. https://www.julianjaynes.org/articles/verbal-hallucinations-and-preconscious-mentality.php
• Kuijsten, Marcel (ed.). Gods, Voices and the Bicameral Mind: The Theories of Julian Jaynes, Julian Jaynes Society, 2016 (312 pgs). →ISBN https://www.julianjaynes.org/gods-voices-bicameral-mind/pdf/Gods-Voices-and-the-Bicameral-Mind.pdf