Ever hear of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_th e_Bicameral_Mind#Breakdown_of_bicameralism)?

According to Jaynes, ancient people in the bicameral state would function in a manner similar to that of a modern-day schizophrenic. Rather than making conscious evaluations in novel or unexpected situations, the person would hallucinate a voice or "god" giving admonitory advice or commands, and obey these voices without question.

Its an interesting hypothesis to say the least. I would write more, but I'm too tired to think of and organize all the interesting things I can think of in relation to this.

This reminds me of something I saw on TV about certain contributors to the Bible being stoned while they were documenting things that went into the Bible. It's probable that most of the writers had something screwing with their head.


Jaynes theorized that a shift from bicameralism marked the beginning of introspection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introspection) and consciousness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness) as we know it today. According to Jaynes, this bicameral mentality began malfunctioning or "breaking down" during the second millennium BC. He speculates that primitive ancient societies tended to collapse periodically (as in Egypt's Old Kingdom and the periodically vanishing cities of the Mayas) due to increased societal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society) complexity that could not be sustained by this bicameral mindset.It's interesting to consider that cognition may actually be evolutionary. It doesn't seem like much research into it has really been conducted. Is it possible that it's part of some Darwinian process of human evolution?