Is bicamerality bullshit?

Shouldn't be too much trouble for a bicameral person like, say, Benny Hinn, to simply ask God to ask Jerry the question and then get back to him. We all could know within day.”HM

Yes, I have strayed somewhat from the usual meaning. I'm doing that because I don't know what else to call "hearing God's voice and speaking with Him." I'm calling it "bicameral." What would you call it? Just more Tinkerbell foolishness?”HM

Yes. But why is it "self-righteous" of me if I am not bicameral? Why isn't bicamerality the true landscape of self-righteousness? How could I call myself "self-righteous" if I don't believe in God or don't hear bicameral voices? Is it self-righteous of me to believe that I'm more evolved than people who say I will go to hell if I don't believe as they do?”HM

Why not? Does my honesty offend you?”HM

Buz, do you think it is possible for one person to communicate what human consciousness means to another without either one being totally dependent upon the use of metaphors and analogs?”HM

Yes, and that was Jaynes' point. Bicameral people who pray to God and get answers are actually suffering from symptoms of schizophrenia. This means 40% of Americans are suffering from bicameral schizophrenia, including our consciousness-challenged president.Maybe you ought to read Jaynes' book. You're letting others form your opinions for you.”HM

Yes, of course. Does anybody ever talk without using metaphors. This is what Jaynes was talking about”metaphors”and using metaphors to talk about them.My point, as is Jaynes', is that bicamerality and schizophrenia are not too far apart. And bicamerality is a political imperative. Do you suppose someone could be elected president of the United States if he or she claimed to have never prayed or spoken with God? Even if you never did you better say you did and lie about your bicamerality. Otherwise you'll lose all your bicameral voters, who amount to about 40% of the electorate.Sad but true: In bicamerality we trust.”HM

arachnophilia, anglagard, nwr, and Buz”thanks for your critical reviews of my position.All right, my adversaries seem to be winning this argument, but only by popular consensus. Almost everybody here is saying that Jaynes is wrong, wrong, wrong about bicamerality. But I’m a sucker for a losing argument, and I have empirical proof of that. I’m stubborn for the cause of understanding. Nevertheless, I will declare defeat is someone can convince me that:1. Prayer is not a form of bicameralism, schizophrenia, or audio-hallucination, but instead a normal, healthy, and redeeming activity of a human mind. My position is that speaking to God falls short of what consciousness enables a human to do wrt problem solving. Why isn't prayer self-evident of bicameralism?2. People who claim to hear God’s voice and get answers from Him about their problems are entirely normal and are only exercising the attributes of what a conscious human mind is capable of. My position is that such mental exercises go on at the expense of human consciousness. G. W. Bush said he asked God for His wisdom about invading Iraq. God said, “Tell them to ”Bring it on!’” And now everybody knows what a great idea that was. Bicamerality can get you into a whole lot of trouble and drag everybody else down with you.3. Something besides bicamerality accounts for the behavior of true believers who claim to hear the voice of God. I’m giving them credit for that; I’m taking their word for it. So, OK, it isn’t bicamerality. Then what is it? Give me a name for it.I know this much: I am not bicameral. I do not speak with God, nor do I ever hear His voice. I am fully conscious, and that seems to bother a lot of people who say I will burn for an eternity in hell because there are no bicameral voices in my head to save me. But I don't have a bicameral bone in my body, nor a guiding voice a in my brain. I guess I didn't get the God gene. Therefore I must be suffering from extreme consciousness.”HM

Without even being bicameral I can hear the music very well as it arises from the White House to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers:

quote:

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"Freedom is on the march in this world. I believe everybody in the Middle East desires to live in freedom. I believe women in the Middle East want to live in a free society. I believe mothers and fathers want to raise their children in a free and peaceful world. I believe all these things, because freedom is not America's gift to the world, freedom is the almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world.

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...Americans do not presume to equate God's purposes with any purpose of our own...."[Prayer] teaches us to trust, to accept that God's plan unfolds in his time, not our own.

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So Bicameral George is the appointed Agent of God.Here's a test. Suppose an atheist occupied the White House (which of course is impossible) instead of president Bush. As such, I don't think we would have preemptively attacked Iraq. What a huge margin of difference bicamerality made in that regard! Bush's prayers and his so-called "freedom" principle (i.e., in the name of God) would not have been operative in the Executive Branch. Many precious lives and much precious treasure was wasted on what Bush believed to be God's purpose as reveled by prayer.Please! We need to probe the hell out of this bullshit! I'm calling it bicameral bullshit. You guys are calling bicamerality bullshit. Meanwhile, presidential candidates rise and fall on their claims to speak with God and have a "personal relationship with Him." Those are the people I don't trust. I have empirical evidence that they get us in to deep doodoo because of their _____________ (aka "biacmerality"). And yet ya gotta be one to get elected. Holy smoke! Something is wrong here. I'm calling it "bicamerality." I could use a better word, if there one.”HM

Stand eye to eye with a born-again Christian and tell him or her that while this hymn is playing:I come to the garden alone”
While the dew is still on the roses”
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
”The Son of God discloses.””

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And He walks with me,
and He talks with me,
”And He tells me I am His own;”
And the joy we share as we tarry there,”
None other has ever known.””

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He speaks, and the sound of His voice,”
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,”
And the melody that He gave to me”
Within my heart is ringing.

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””I’d stay in the garden with Him”
Though the night around me be falling,”
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
”His voice to me is calling.””Whatever captures a person's mind with that beautiful hymn is real, I think, and I'd like to know what it is. It”"bicamerality," "religiosity," "benevolent schizophrenia," "immaculate metaphor," "divine lying"”needs to be named and examined for it value to civilization, IMO.”HM

Well, maybe not. But Max Weber found plenty of evidence that "the Protestant Ethic" haunts "the Sprit of Capitalism." Capitalism in the name of God or oil is still an economic belief system that causes us and the world a great amount of suffering. If Christianity were true to the principles taught by Jesus, Christians would eschew capitalism and embrace communism.”HM

arach, you posted this to Buzsaw about me: Yes, you are probably right. Jaynes seemed to answer a lot of questions about religion for me, mainly because I have no religious experience myself. To me, people who claim to be religious fundies are not of their right minds. And those people make personal choices and often executive decisions based on their fundamental religious beliefs. That scares the bejeezus out of me. People like Pat Robertson and his club don't appear to be fully consciousness to me. What is that? I'll tell you what it is. It's primitive behavior originating from the primal fear of death. It's a form of hysteria. What ever it is appears to be so strong that it can make some of them shake and quake and talk in hallucinated voices. It looks real to me, and scary.I thought Jaynes had it; but I'm probably wrong. He argues his points on linguistic principles, which appeal to me. Metaphors and analogs are interesting things. I suspect they, and their attendant language, have a lot to with what consciousness is all about. I don't think "religiousity," "bicamerality," you name it, is a fully conscious enterprise. To me, true human consciousness emerges from the ashes of "bicamerality."Maybe a better word would be "mortuphobia." For that you would need a Savior.”HM

Yes! And thank you. It's the best post yet on this thread.But I must say that structuralism and location are not as interesting to me as linguistics. I seriously doubt that human consciousness will ever be found to have a specific place in the brain, such as microtubules or buckyballs. So I look instead to arguments like Jaynes' to explore the matter. Despite what others say, I think metaphors and analogs make plausible tracers for revealing "the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind."For me, it's an evolutionary thing. Just looking for fossils.”HM

Jaynes posited that the metaphor "me" is a linguistic reflection of the bicameral state of mind, while the analog "I" a linguistic indication of the emergence of consciousness. He traces this in Homer's lit.”HM

The origin of religion can be traced to archeological discoveries of grave goods, pollen at first, which paid respect to the mystery of death. Religion plays this to the hilt. Christianity, for example, uses a bloodied body hanging on a cross as an icon of death and resurrection. I've often wondered that if Jesus has been hanged instead of crucified would Christians wear nooses around their necks instead crosses. Bicameral religions are about dealing with the fear of death. As such, those religions offer promises of immortality or reincarnation. You need to speak with God, in one form or another, to settle your bicameral angst about what happens to you after you die. And I don't know how people can claim to pray to God and not be engaged in bicamerality.I'm open to another word, but it will mean the same thing:Now I lay me down to sleep
And pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And if I die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.Good Lord! What are we teaching our children? I'd say bicamerality. But it's bullshit, isn't it? So what is it that would scare the little children half shitless when they are being bedded down for the night? There is a continuum running between that and strapping a bomb of a child to create a suicide terrorist. Religion is all about death and fear of it.”HM