REVIEW: The Symbolic Species (Terrence Deacon)
Anthony Campbell
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Terrence Deacon
THE SYMBOLIC SPECIES
The co-evolution of language and the human brain
_________________________________________________________________
Book review by Anthony Campbell. Copyright Š Anthony Campbell (1999).
_________________________________________________________________
Deacon starts this book by posing a question: why don't animals have
language? After all, some of them show good evidence of intelligence
in other respects, yet language eludes them. So the book sets out to
examine what it is about the human brain that makes it capable of
speech.
Deacon approaches the subject from three angles. In Part 1 he
considers the nature of symbolic communication; in Part 2 he looks at
how the brain is constructed in relation to language, and in Part 3 he
sets the discussion in an evolutionary context. As my summary
indicates, this is an ambitious book but Deacon is well qualified to
write it. He does research in developmental and comparative
neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and Boston University, and is
also Associate Professor of Biological Anthropology at Boston
University. Moreover, he is an excellent writer.
In Part 1 Deacon draws on the work of the American philosopher Charles
Sanders Peirce to construct a theory of how human language works
(semiotics). This uses three terms: icon, index, and symbol, which are
related to one another in a hierarchical manner, and Deacon makes the
important and very interesting point that acquiring a grasp of this
system, which all human language users must do in order to
communicate, requires unlearning as well as learning. In order to
shift to a higher level in the hierarchy you have to unlearn the
associations you made at the lower level. Deacon uses this idea to
explain the astonishing ease with which small children acquire
language and also relates it to attempts to teach language to
chimpanzees, especially a young bonobo called Kanzi.
It is certainly puzzling that young children have this remarkable
ability to learn a complex language, but Deacon does not agree with
Noam Chomsky's view that there is an innate Universal Grammar encoded
in our brains. He proposes a very interesting alternative idea:
namely, that it is language itself which provides this facility. In
other words, he suggests that languages "evolve" in order to be easily
learnt by young children; those that are easily learned tend to be
selected by a sort of evolutionary process. We can think of languages,
he suggests, as independent life forms that parasitize human brains.
(This idea is reminscent of Richard Dawkins's memes, although Deacon
does not mention them.)
The icon-index-symbol relationship is not entirely easy to grasp, but
it's important for what follows because it underlies the whole of the
rest of the book. One intellectual predecessor who I thought might
have been mentioned in this context, but wasn't, is the late Gregory
Bateson, who put forward a rather similar scheme of logical levels of
meaning and who also emphasized the idea that mind is not confined to
the body but ramifies out into the symbolic universe around it.
In Part 2 we come to the brain structures which underlie the ability
to acquire language; mere increase in brain size, as Deacon
demonstrates by a comparative study, is not enough. Specific
structures are required to make vocalization possible; Deacon relates
the extraordinary story of a harbour seal called Hoover, who
acquired--apparently as the result of brain damage caused by
infection--the ability to utter speech. But of course, merely being
able to form words is not enough either; there must also be structures
that allow for symbol formation, and here it is the prefrontal cortex
that seems to be important.
Localization of speech function within the brain is discussed in
detail in relation to animals and also to humans with various forms of
language disorder, congenital and acquired. Certain brain areas
(Broca's area and Wernicke's area) are known to be connected with
speech, but Deacon doesn't accept that speech is somehow localized in
these places; many brain areas are involved in speech. He thinks that
these are sites in the brain that act as bottlenecks for information
that is passing through the brain as a whole. This explains why damage
to these areas disrupts language, but it doesn't mean that language
actually resides there.
In Part 3 we look at how the ability to use symbolic communication may
have evolved and how this has in turn influenced human evolution. This
part of the book is necessarily more speculative than what has gone
before. The puzzle is to explain how our apelike ancestors could have
developed speech; no living species of ape has this ability apart from
us. It's not only the brain that would need to evolve, but also the
vocal tract; our larynx has moved to a lower position in our throat
compared with other apes, which makes it possible for us to produce
more sounds but also makes us liable to choke when swallowing. How far
Homo erectus and the Neanderthals were able to speak is uncertain, but
Deacon thinks the Neanderthals, at least, were probably able to speak
well. He believes that their demise when our own ancestors appeared on
the scene was due not to cultural or linguistic inferiority but to
diseases brought by the newcomers to which the unfortunate
Neanderthals had no inbuilt resistance. This idea is plausible but
unverifiable.
Many archaeologists point to the appearance of cave paintings in the
Neolithic as evidence of a "great leap forward", and are puzzled by
the apparent suddenness with which this occurred; it has even been
taken to be evidence of the origin of language. Deacon is rather
dismissive of this idea. He suggests that it may have had other
causes--perhaps nothing more complicated than increased leisure time
thanks to an abundant supply of game. His point is not that this or
that cause was definitely responsible for this "advance", but rather
that the idea of "advances" itself is a mistake. Many changes that
took place, such as the development of agriculture, were probably
responses to environmental degradation brought about by human
depredation; once made, these changes became irreversible.
In his final chapters Deacon ranges still further afield to consider
the implications of his analysis for the angst which, he says, has
afflicted modern societies since Descartes. We are increasingly
unhappy at the apparent soullessness of the world; there seems to be
no place for human values or meaning. This, he holds, is a mistaken
view; the universe isn't just mindless clockwork but meaning is
intrinsically part of it. He may be right about this, although I think
the angst he refers to is more a Western than an Eastern phenomenon;
Indian and Chinese thought has historically been less afflicted by the
dichotomy.
I found this an immensely stimulating book, in fact one of the most
stimulating I've read in years.
_________________________________________________________________
%T The Symbolic Species
%S The co-evolution of language and the human brain
%A Terrence Deacon
%I Allen Lane (The Penguin Press)
%C London
%D 1997
%G ISBN 0 713 99188 7
%P 527 pp
--
Anthony Campbell - running Linux Debian 2.2 (Windows-free zone)
Over 100 book reviews: http://www.cix.co.uk/~acampbell/bookreviews/
Skeptical articles: http://www.cix.co.uk/~acampbell/freethinker/
"Palo y tente tieso." (Spanish proverb)
Free translation: "Holdfast is your only dog."
Pascal Zerling
Anthony Campbell <a_cam...@acampbell.cix.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrn8u39rg.u...@acampbell.cix.co.uk...
> In Part 3 we look at how the ability to use symbolic communication may
> have evolved and how this has in turn influenced human evolution. This
> part of the book is necessarily more speculative than what has gone
> before. The puzzle is to explain how our apelike ancestors could have
> developed speech; no living species of ape has this ability apart from
> us.
Deacon speculates that language evolved because of a specific social need.
In hunting and gathering societies men did the hunting while women stayed
at home. Hence there was the problem of how the men could be sure their
wives remained faithful while they were away. Conversely, the women would
like to make sure their husbands would always be there to take care of them,
and their offspring. Deacon argues essentially that the only way to
effectively enforce the institution of marriage is through the abstract
system of language.
It's a weird theory. But is it true? We'll never know because no traces of
primitive brains have been preserved.
> Many archaeologists point to the appearance of cave paintings in the
> Neolithic as evidence of a "great leap forward", and are puzzled by
> the apparent suddenness with which this occurred; it has even been
> taken to be evidence of the origin of language. Deacon is rather
> dismissive of this idea. He suggests that it may have had other
> causes--perhaps nothing more complicated than increased leisure time
> thanks to an abundant supply of game.
The archaeologist Steven Mithen argues in his book "The Prehistory of the
Mind" that such a "great leap forward" indeed took place. Mithen thinks cave
paintings appeared together with language some 30,000 years ago. The cause
was a new link between various parts of the brain that were previously not
connected. He calls this new feature "cognitive fluidity". Again, we really
have
no way of verifying any of these speculations, but they're interesting.
> Many changes that
> took place, such as the development of agriculture, were probably
> responses to environmental degradation brought about by human
> depredation; once made, these changes became irreversible.
This is an interesting idea, and there is some evidence in the archeological
record to support it. It is taken up at length by Mark Nathan Cohen in his
book "Health and the Rise of Civilization". Cohen argues that most of the
changes in civilization were due to the necessity of adjusting to the
depletion
of natural resources, not "progress" (i.e. something that we planned to do
in order to improve society). Most changes in society were just slow gradual
adjustments to new situations.
Anthony Campbell
<pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>
[snip]
>It's a weird theory. But is it true? We'll never know because no traces
>of primitive brains have been preserved.
>
True. This applies to most speculating about human prehistory.
>The archaeologist Steven Mithen argues in his book "The Prehistory of the
>Mind" that such a "great leap forward" indeed took place. Mithen thinks cave
>paintings appeared together with language some 30,000 years ago. The cause
>was a new link between various parts of the brain that were previously not
>connected. He calls this new feature "cognitive fluidity". Again, we really
>have
>no way of verifying any of these speculations, but they're interesting.
Yes. And Nicholas Humphrey has pointed out a number of similarities
between the cave paintings and the drawings of Nadia, an autistic child.
He thinks these make it at least conceivable that the cave painters did
not possess modern language or modern consciousness.
Pascal Zerling
Anthony Campbell <a_cam...@acampbell.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> Pascal Zerling <pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
> >The archaeologist Steven Mithen argues in his book "The Prehistory of the
> >Mind" that such a "great leap forward" indeed took place. Mithen
> >thinks cave paintings appeared together with language some 30,000
> >years ago. The cause was a new link between various parts of the brain
> >that were previously not connected. He calls this new feature "cognitive
> >fluidity".
>
> between the cave paintings and the drawings of Nadia, an autistic child.
> He thinks these make it at least conceivable that the cave painters did
> not possess modern language or modern consciousness.
The problem with this is that cave paintings were not the only new
element in human behaviour that appeared around this time. Generally
speaking, we can date the origins of culture to this period. Before this
time, human behaviour was very similar everywhere. There were no major
regional variations in dress, habitation, or hunting practices. Also, there
was a systematic lack of creativity. We find collections of hundreds of
handaxes made in exactly the same way, as though they were made by a
machine.
Then suddenly, 30,000 years ago, the archaeological record is full of new
things. Communities in France dress differently from those in Germany.
They design their weapons differently. They live in different kinds of
dwellings. And so on. Also, cave paintings are not the only sign of
creativity. There appear other art objects, such as statuettes carved
from ivory or bone. It really does seem as though people began to
think and behave differently. Or to put it another way, that first the first
time in prehistory, modern people like you or me appeared.
Mithen suggests that when various parts of the brain were connected
together in new ways, language and creativity became possible. The brain
could compare and connect previously unconnected things. This is what
creative thinking is. When you think about it, what the mind does best
is to form analogies between just about any two things. The philosopher
John Locke already speculated about the "association of ideas" as a key
mental process.
Richard Harter
My understanding is that the boundary is not at all clean and
definite. ISTR that mammoth bone huts in the Ukraine are as old as
45,000 BC frex. Another book that is worth reading is Dunbar's,
_Gossip, Grooming, and the Evolution of Language_. The argument
there, in essence, is that language is a replacement for grooming.
Grooming in primates is a key for social communication. As such it is
a limiting factor for group size. There is some evidence that H.
erectus tribe sizes were larger than chimpanzee troop sizes, implying
that they had solved a social communication problem. This ties into
Mithen's argument, of course.
Mithen's argument depends strongly on module theory which is by no
means a done deal. Be that as it may, Deacon's observation that
languages evolved to be easy to learn rather than people evolving to
learn languages is astute.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://www.tiac.net/users/cri
"It was half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold"
Hunter S Tolkien "Fear and Loathing in Barad Dur" - Iain Bowen
Pascal Zerling
Richard Harter <c...@tiac.net> wrote:
> Pascal Zerling <pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
> >The archaeologist Steven Mithen argues in his book "The Prehistory of the
> >Mind" that such a "great leap forward" indeed took place. Mithen
> >thinks cave paintings appeared together with language some 30,000
> >years ago. The cause was a new link between various parts of the brain
> >that were previously not connected. He calls this new feature "cognitive
> >fluidity".
> >
> >Before this time, human behaviour was very similar everywhere.
> >There were no major regional variations in dress, habitation, or hunting
> >practices. Also, there was a systematic lack of creativity. We find
> >collections of hundreds of handaxes made in exactly the same way,
> >as though they were made by a machine.
>
> >Then suddenly, 30,000 years ago, the archaeological record is full of new
> >things. Communities in France dress differently from those in Germany.
> >They design their weapons differently. They live in different kinds of
> >dwellings. And so on.
> >
> definite. ISTR that mammoth bone huts in the Ukraine are as old as
> 45,000 BC frex.
Yes, you're right. The beginnings of culture were more gradual than I
hastily suggested. There were many isolated cultural phenomena as early
as 50 or 60 thousand years ago. But art was a not a worldwide
phenomenon before around 30,000 BC, after which it spread quickly
almost everywhere. In this sense there was a more or less sharp
discontinuity. By art I mean objects that either represent something, or
are a part of some symbolic code. Art is crucial for dating the origins
of the modern mind because it is a much more creative activity than
anything that came before it.
> Mithen's argument depends strongly on module theory which is by no
> means a done deal.
Yes. If I recall correctly, Mithen divides the mind into three basic parts -
one is responsible for social communication, another for making and
using tools, and the third for dealing with the natural world. Basically,
art, creativity and language became possible when these three "modules"
started to interact freely. A work of art combines the intention to
communicate with the craftsmanship that goes into toolmaking. In
addition, Mithen argues (rather implausibly it seems to me) that symbols
and works of art acquired a meaning by analogy with the way
prehistoric man interpreted the meaning of natural "signs" like
hoofprints. All this is highly speculative and very schematic, but can
we hope to do better?
Anthony Campbell
[snip]
>Mithen suggests that when various parts of the brain were connected
>together in new ways, language and creativity became possible. The brain
>could compare and connect previously unconnected things. This is what
>creative thinking is. When you think about it, what the mind does best
>is to form analogies between just about any two things. The philosopher
>John Locke already speculated about the "association of ideas" as a key
>mental process.
>
As there have been several references to Mithen here, and I agree his
book is important, I thought I should re-post my review of this:
(http://www.cix.co.uk/~acampbell/bookreviews/r/mithen.html)
Steven Mithen
The prehistory of the mind
A search for the origins of art, religion and science
_________________________________________________________________
Book review by Anthony Campbell. Copyright Š Anthony Campbell (1999).
This review originally appeared in the Journal of Consciousness
Studies.
_________________________________________________________________
The subtitle of this book promises quite a lot, but Steven Mithen
makes a brave attempt at living up to the task he has set himself. As
an archaeologist he believes, not surprisingly, that we cannot fully
understand the way our minds function today unless we take account of
the way they have developed. However, he does not rely on archaeology
alone to construct his theory, but draws on evidence from psychology,
linguistics, anthropology, observations of the behaviour of
chimpanzees, and a variety of other sources.
He postulates two contrasting types of intelligence. One is "general
intelligence". This is a capacity for non-specific learning, which can
be applied to a wide range of problems. The "linguistic" abilities of
chimpanzees are, he suggests, of this nature. The second type of
intelligence is specific and is concerned with particular domains of
knowledge, For example, there is technical intelligence, linguistic
intelligence, social intelligence, and natural history intelligence.
These kinds of mental ability are supposed to be added on to the core
of general intelligence, and their presence can be detected in our
evolutionary relatives; chimpanzees, for example, have a good deal of
social intelligence, quite a lot of natural history intelligence, some
technical intelligence (they make simple tools in the wild), but
little or no linguistic intelligence. General intelligence underlies
these specialized abilities and can to a certain extent stand in for
any that are lacking or not fully developed, as happens when
chimpanzees are taught to manipulate linguistic symbols to
communicate.
One problem with these specialized intelligences is that they often
can't communicate effectively with one another. In an interesting, if
very speculative, chapter, Mithen suggests that this may have been the
case with the Neanderthals and other types of "archaic homo sapiens",
who in some ways seem so like us yet who seem never to have developed
art or other forms of advanced culture. The decisive step that led to
human awareness appears to have been an increase in communication
among the various types of intelligence. Hence we have what Mithen
believes to have been the essentially human tendency to attribute
personality and social relationships to plants and animals, thanks to
an integration of social and natural history intelligences. On the
other hand, an integration of technical intelligence with natural
history intelligence led to our tendency to manipulate animals and
plants as if they were artifacts. We tend to think of this as an
essentially modern capacity (perversion?), yet it probably goes far
back into prehistory.
The essential thing to understand about the theory is that it is
evolutionary; it is extended in time. Mithen believes that the mind
has evolved in a cyclical or oscillating fashion. First, general
intelligence develops; this allows its possessor to deal with a
variety of problems as they arise, but not with maximum efficiency.
Then specific intelligences evolve; these are more efficient than
general intelligence in relation to the domains to which they pertain,
but the penalty one pays for possessing them is that some aspects of
awareness are cut off from the rest. Only when communication among
specific intelligences develops can this disadvantage be overcome, but
there may be a penalty to pay for allowing too much
intercommunication.
As will be clear from this summary, Mithen is mainly concerned with
the "easy questions" about consciousness: the form that consciousness
takes rather than the existence of consciousness itself, which is the
"hard question". He does however touch here and there on this latter
problem, when he considers to what extent early humans may have been
conscious. Here he takes the line that reflexive consciousness, in the
modern sense, had to wait on the development of language that was
flexible and rich enough to allow non-social ideas and information to
be imported into the domain of social intelligence, The Neanderthals
may be supposed to have had very compartmentalized minds and probably
could not stand aside from whatever they were doing and think about
themselves reflexively. The argument here is a little reminiscent of
that put forward some years ago by Julian Jaynes.
For some readers, this book will probably seem too speculative. As
Mithen himself points out, we can never get inside the minds of our
evolutionary forebears. I think however that he was right to make the
attempt, and I am sure that he is right to insist that no account of
how the mind is constructed can be adequate unless it has this
evolutionary dimension. Whether or not one agrees with his analysis,
he has put his case together very well and there are ample references
and suggestions for further reading for anyone who wants to go back to
his sources. The book is also very readable and triumphantly bridges
the gap between the scholarly and the popular. Some sections are
tantalizingly short, particularly the couple of pages dealing with
religion, but perhaps it would take another book to apply the theory
fully to that.
_________________________________________________________________
%T The Prehistory of the Mind London: Thames and Hudson, 1996, 288
pp., ISBN 0-500-05081-3.
%S A search for the origins of art, religion and science
%A Steven Mithen
%I Thames and Hudson
%C London
%D 1996, 288 pp
%G ISBN 0-500-05081-3.
%P 288 pp
_________________________________________________________________
Pascal Zerling
Anthony Campbell <a_cam...@acampbell.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> As will be clear from this summary, Mithen is mainly concerned with
> the "easy questions" about consciousness: the form that consciousness
> takes rather than the existence of consciousness itself, which is the
> "hard question". He does however touch here and there on this latter
> problem, when he considers to what extent early humans may have been
> conscious. Here he takes the line that reflexive consciousness, in the
> modern sense, had to wait on the development of language that was
> flexible and rich enough to allow non-social ideas and information to
> be imported into the domain of social intelligence, The Neanderthals
> may be supposed to have had very compartmentalized minds and probably
> could not stand aside from whatever they were doing and think about
> themselves reflexively.
Hmm. I think this is an important point. Consciousness is not something
physiological; it's not in the brain. We could never hope to explain it
using just, say, neurobiology. Nor is consciousness functional, so we
can't explain it using just cognitive science. For what it's worth, I think
the right approach is the one taken by "cultural psychology", such as
by Michael Cole in the U.S. and the Russians Lev Vygotsky and
Alexander Luria.
According to them, consciousness is a social entity; it is formed through
repeated interaction with other people and the world. Although we
cannot reduce thinking to just language, the richness of language partly
determines the level of reflexive self-awareness. You need a rich
vocabulary to think and talk about yourself. So the mind is not inside
your head, in some sense it's "out there" in society. The objects around
us don't only exist physically, they also exist as symbols. We could
even say the mind is made up of the collection of symbolic objects we
surround ourselves with.
This also means, I think, that we need to look at cultural and intellectual
history in detail to understand how the level and nature of consciousness
changed throughout the ages. I tend to think people a thousand years
ago were not as reflexively self-aware as we are now. I don't think
people were as self-aware during the Middle Ages as in the 18th century.
This may seem like an outrageous statement, and is not very politically
correct, but I think it can be made plausible.
I remember reading accounts of thousands of French peasants cheerfully
marching to Paris to take part in the arduous task of building the cathedral
of Notre Dame. They willingly sacrificed a great deal of their time for
their faith. I think people back then thought very differently from us.
Their whole worldview was shaped by a dogmatic faith. The more
rational and lucid people of Europe during the 18th century would
never have acted like that. They were already too concerned with
their own interests, i.e. they were more reflexively self-aware. And
their higher level of self-awareness was reflected in the new ideas
and language of the Enlightenment.
So what I'm saying is that consciousness and reflexive self-awareness are
historical constructs, they are determined by the details
of the culture and time in which a person happens to live.
Richard Harter
<pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>
>Anthony Campbell <a_cam...@acampbell.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>> As will be clear from this summary, Mithen is mainly concerned with
>> the "easy questions" about consciousness: the form that consciousness
>> takes rather than the existence of consciousness itself, which is the
>> "hard question". He does however touch here and there on this latter
>> problem, when he considers to what extent early humans may have been
>> conscious. Here he takes the line that reflexive consciousness, in the
>> modern sense, had to wait on the development of language that was
>> flexible and rich enough to allow non-social ideas and information to
>> be imported into the domain of social intelligence, The Neanderthals
>> may be supposed to have had very compartmentalized minds and probably
>> could not stand aside from whatever they were doing and think about
>> themselves reflexively.
>
Shades of Jaynes's Bicameral Consciousness.
I have a theory which I'm not prepared to defend but which feels as
though there were some truth in it, that our self-consciousness is a
byproduct of our having an awareness of other selves like our own.
Some animals, principally primates, and particularly chimpanzees have
elements of a theory of mind. That is, they recognize other members
of the group as having minds, motives, reactions, et cetera. Most
animals do not have a theory of self, e.g., they cannot recognize
themselves in a mirror as being themselves. Chimpanzees can.
The proposition, then, is that recognizing others as having selves
leads to recognizing yourself as having a self.
Anthony Campbell
<pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>
>
[snip]
>This also means, I think, that we need to look at cultural and intellectual
>history in detail to understand how the level and nature of consciousness
>changed throughout the ages. I tend to think people a thousand years
>ago were not as reflexively self-aware as we are now. I don't think
>people were as self-aware during the Middle Ages as in the 18th century.
>This may seem like an outrageous statement, and is not very politically
>correct, but I think it can be made plausible.
>
You're in good company here.
Julian Jaynes put forward just this idea in 1976, in a book snappily
entitled `The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind'.
In this he claimed that consciousness was very recent, in fact only
about 3000 years old. At the time some critics thought he was deluded or
a crank, but Daniel Dennett, for one, believe he was saying something
important. Nicholas Humphrey's idea that our Palaeolithic ancestors may
have had a different mentality from us is related, and the
neuroscientist Antonio Damasio is another writer who has time for
Jaynes; indeed, Damasio thinks that even Plato and Aristotle didn't have
a conception of consciousness that resembled ours. He thinks that the
preoccupation with consciousness is only about three and a half
centuries old and only really came to the fore in the twentieth century.
I wrote an article on Jaynes (`Julian Jaynes Revisited) which was
published in the last issue of The Philosopher's Magazine. There's a
copy on my website:
http://www.cix.co.uk/~freethinker/jaynes/jaynes.html
Anthony
Anthony Campbell
<a_cam...@acampbell.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>
>I wrote an article on Jaynes (`Julian Jaynes Revisited) which was
>published in the last issue of The Philosopher's Magazine. There's a
>copy on my website:
>
> http://www.cix.co.uk/~acampbell/freethinker/jaynes/jaynes.html
>
>Anthony (terrible proofreader)
Pascal Zerling
Anthony Campbell <a_cam...@acampbell.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> Pascal Zerling <pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
> >
intellectual
> >history in detail to understand how the level and nature of consciousness
> >changed throughout the ages. I tend to think people a thousand years
> >ago were not as reflexively self-aware as we are now. I don't think
> >people were as self-aware during the Middle Ages as in the 18th century.
> >This may seem like an outrageous statement, and is not very politically
> >correct, but I think it can be made plausible.
> >
entitled
> 'The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind'.
> In this he claimed that consciousness was very recent, in fact only
> about 3000 years old. At the time some critics thought he was deluded or
> a crank, but Daniel Dennett, for one, believe he was saying something
> important. Nicholas Humphrey's idea that our Palaeolithic ancestors may
> have had a different mentality from us is related, and the
> neuroscientist Antonio Damasio is another writer who has time for
> Jaynes; indeed, Damasio thinks that even Plato and Aristotle didn't have
> a conception of consciousness that resembled ours. He thinks that the
> preoccupation with consciousness is only about three and a half
> centuries old and only really came to the fore in the twentieth century.
I was not aware of Jaynes's writings, but they sound very interesting and I
will try to get a copy of his book. Based just on what you say, he seems
to be arguing that there was only one sharp break in consciousness, and
the rest of the development was smooth and gradual. This seems too
simple to me.
My own limited understanding of intellectual history is based primarily on
the works of the late Ernest Gellner, who was both a philosopher
(and follower of Karl Popper) and a social anthropologist. In "Plough,
Sword and Book", his main work on long trends in human history,
Gellner argues that there were three main phases in human intellectual
development, which corresponded to three different kinds of social
systems.
The primitive mind, which corresponded to the hunter and gatherer period
of history, was characterized by an odd syncretistic mixture of incongruous
elements. Most of thinking was aimed at maintaining social cohesion within
the group. But here and there the mind linked up with the external world,
just enough in fact to allow the primitive tribes to survive. Primitives,
according to Gellner, didn't think logically. They could quite happily
contradict themselves, and were not at all bothered by this.
In the second period, the ancient and medieval world, all thinking referred
to just one concept - God, whether it's the Christian, Islamic or Jewish
version. People think logically, but unlike many people today, they
believe that in addition to sense perception, it's possible to acquire
knowledge through divine revelation, as written down in some holy
book (Bible, Koran, etc.) Gellner thinks this way of thinking was
related to the centralized economic and political systems of the time.
Finally, we have the modern mind, whose origin Gellner dates to the
Enlightenment and industrial revolution of the 18th century, or
slightly before. Simultaneously, society changed from feudalism to a
market economy (characterized by continual economic growth), and
from a religious to the scientific worldview. Scientific thinking is
critical,
analytic and, for the first time in human history, there is a constant
improvement in how well we understand the physical world.
Each of these three periods is characterized by a different kind of
consciousness, so consciousness as we understand it only dates
to the 17th or 18th century, roughly the same period as the
neuroscientist Antonio Damasio you mentioned.
David
(Pascal Zerling) wrote:
...
> The primitive mind, which corresponded to the hunter and gatherer period
> of history, was characterized by an odd syncretistic mixture of
> incongruous
> elements. Most of thinking was aimed at maintaining social cohesion
> within
> the group. But here and there the mind linked up with the external
> world,
> just enough in fact to allow the primitive tribes to survive.
> Primitives,
> according to Gellner, didn't think logically. They could quite happily
> contradict themselves, and were not at all bothered by this.
>
> In the second period, the ancient and medieval world, all thinking
> referred
> to just one concept - God, whether it's the Christian, Islamic or Jewish
> version. People think logically, but unlike many people today, they
> believe that in addition to sense perception, it's possible to acquire
> knowledge through divine revelation, as written down in some holy
> book (Bible, Koran, etc.)
Hundreds - thousands? - of millions of people today are religious in the
way you describe.
> Gellner thinks this way of thinking was
> related to the centralized economic and political systems of the time.
So what is this way of thinking related to now?
>
> Finally, we have the modern mind, whose origin Gellner dates to the
> Enlightenment and industrial revolution of the 18th century, or
> slightly before.
So, what sort of mind did Shakespeare have?
David
Anthony Campbell
<pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>
>
>I was not aware of Jaynes's writings, but they sound very interesting and I
>will try to get a copy of his book. Based just on what you say, he seems
>to be arguing that there was only one sharp break in consciousness, and
>the rest of the development was smooth and gradual. This seems too
>simple to me.
>
Not exactly, I think. He believed that `throwbacks' to earlier modes of
functioning still occur today, e.g. possession. Were he alive now he
would probably regard `channelling' and speaking with tongues as
examples of this.
>My own limited understanding of intellectual history is based primarily on
>the works of the late Ernest Gellner, who was both a philosopher
>(and follower of Karl Popper) and a social anthropologist. In "Plough,
>Sword and Book", his main work on long trends in human history,
>Gellner argues that there were three main phases in human intellectual
>development, which corresponded to three different kinds of social
>systems.
>
[snip]
Pascal Zerling
Anthony Campbell <a_cam...@acampbell.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> Pascal Zerling pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
> >
> >I was not aware of Jaynes's writings, but they sound very interesting and
I
> >will try to get a copy of his book. Based just on what you say, he seems
> >to be arguing that there was only one sharp break in consciousness, and
> >the rest of the development was smooth and gradual. This seems too
> >simple to me.
>
> Not exactly, I think. He believed that `throwbacks' to earlier modes of
> functioning still occur today, e.g. possession. Were he alive now he
> would probably regard `channelling' and speaking with tongues as
> examples of this.
Thank you for clarifying that point.
I have now read one your articles about Jaynes, which was available at
your website. He seems to have believed that the cause of the creation of
consciousnes was physiological. You write that Jaynes held the view
that consciousness before 1000 BC was characterized by visual and
auditory hallucinations, in which gods and spirits told people how to
behave. Jaynes attributed these features to a split between the left
and right hemispheres of the brain (what he called the bicameral mind).
While I don't wholeheartedly advocate Ernest Gellner's position on
these issues, I think he made some good observations. I don't recall
Gellner speculating about the existence of such hallucinations, but I don't
see how it contradicts his own theory. Gellner's account of the origins
of a more modern kind of thinking and consciousness in the ancient
world is different from Jaynes. Gellner focuses on the cognitive effects
of the invention of writing, not physiological changes in the brain.
I don't recall the precise dates, but by about the same time as Jaynes's
postulated physiological change (what he calls the breakdown of the
bicameral mind) Gellner thinks the wide adoption of writing had
fundamentally transformed human psychology. The most important
thing about writing was that it made possible the detachment of the
meaning of a sentence from the context and speaker. This allowed
the elaboration of universal doctrines, such as in the great world
religions Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
So reality was no longer created through tribal ritual and magic, rather it
was codified for everyone to read in a holy book. This led to a new
more logical and objective kind of thinking. But Gellner was more
interested in describing this cognitive change in functional terms rather
than, like Jaynes, trying to describe what it may have felt like,
i.e. how the experience of consciousness changed.
Pascal Zerling
> > referred
> > to just one concept - God, whether it's the Christian, Islamic or Jewish
> > version. People think logically, but unlike many people today, they
> > believe that in addition to sense perception, it's possible to acquire
> > knowledge through divine revelation, as written down in some holy
> > book (Bible, Koran, etc.)
>
> Hundreds - thousands? - of millions of people today are religious in the
> way you describe.
No, they're not. While millions of people believe in God, they don't think
like people in the Middle Ages. Back then, people's view of the cosmos
was based on religious dogma. Most people today, with the exception
of few creationists, accept Darwin's account of life, and the worldview
of modern physics. Religion today is just a kind of prop to morality, a
way of finding comfort in a cold universe. Religion is no longer a
source of serious knowledge about the universe.
In the Middle Ages, people interpreted everything in religious terms.
I recall reading descriptions of how people thought all of Nature was
evil, and the face of Satan was staring out at them from every flower,
so you had better be careful! In some countries, no windows were built
to face the sea, because it too was the work of the Devil.
> > Finally, we have the modern mind, whose origin Gellner dates to the
> > Enlightenment and industrial revolution of the 18th century, or
> > slightly before.
>
> So, what sort of mind did Shakespeare have?
Like the philosopher Francis Bacon, who was more explicit about his
worldview, he lived at just the point in history when we find the first
signs of the modern way of thinking. Bacon gave the first defence of
empiricism when he said that we must read the book of nature as it
really is. Also around this time, Galileo Galilei faced the wrath of the
Catholic Church for daring to question religious dogma, and assert
(based on his telescopic observations) that Jupiter has satellites.
So, at the end of the 16th century, religion still had a strong hold on the
minds of most people in Europe, but some skeptics and natural
philosophers were starting to apply the scientific method. If you read
various writers from the 17th and 18th century, say Descartes,
Hobbes, Locke and Hume, what you find is a gradual shift away
from the need to site scripture all the time, and towards a consistently
scientific worldview. I think this indicates a gradual change in
European mentality.
Finally, with Baron d'Holbach's "The System of Nature" in 1780 we
have the first wholehearted defence of atheism, and the rejection of
the need for the concept of God to explain the universe. Laplace
famously told Napoleon he had no need for the hypothesis of a God.
And after 1820 or so, there is an explosion of work in all the branches
of the natural sciences, so that in one generation the whole
worldview has changed completely.
David
(Pascal Zerling) wrote:
So what about the Ancient Greek astronomers, scientists and
mathematicians? They had a pretty scientific worldview, didn't they?
David
Pascal Zerling
David <sapp...@cix.co.uk> wrote:
> > Pascal Zerling <pascal....@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>
> > So, at the end of the 16th century, religion still had a strong hold on
> > the minds of most people in Europe, but some skeptics and natural
> > philosophers were starting to apply the scientific method. If you read
> > various writers from the 17th and 18th century, say Descartes,
> > Hobbes, Locke and Hume, what you find is a gradual shift away
> > scientific worldview. I think this indicates a gradual change in
> > European mentality.
>
> So what about the Ancient Greek astronomers, scientists and
> mathematicians? They had a pretty scientific worldview, didn't they?
>
Indeed they did. Classical learning achieved great things, such as
Euclidean geometry. And although there was some experimental
work too (such as in astronomy) the Greeks did not really carry
out experiments in the modern sense. They believed it was possible
to reason things out using just logic.
What happened of course is that classical learning collapsed during
the 6th century after a series of wars between Byzantium and
various barbarian tribes destroyed the last remnants of Rome.
And in 529 Justinian I, the Eastern Roman Emperor, closed down
Plato's Academy in Athens. He didn't have anything against
Greek philosophy, but thought the school was a hotbed of paganism
which he was trying to eliminate. The last Greek scientists fled
to Persia, and I like to think their ideas helped to stimulate Arab
mathematics, to which we owe a great deal.
In Europe, civilisation almost collapsed. In Italy, the monetary system
was replaced by barter. Most of the Roman teachers had beed killed
in the wars, so illiteracy increased dramatically. We can really say the
Dark Ages had arrived in Europe. People started to believe in various
crazy superstitions. In Byzantium, many people believed the Emperor
could take his head off and put it back on again, and could disappear
from sight, and reappear, at will.