Saturday, July 16, 2011

Julian Jaynes Bicameral Breakdown: On Human Responsibility

Julian Jaynes Bicameral Breakdown Series, 4 of 8

The soldiers of the Trojan War were noble automatons who knew not what they did (p75).

Man and his early civilizations had a profoundly different mentality than our own. They were not conscious, not responsible for their actions and cannot be given credit of blame. Instead, each person had a part of his nervous system [the right hemisphere of the brain] that was divine, by which he was ordered about like a slave (p201-202)

The debut of human responsibility: Solon (Greek, credited with “Know Thyself”) warns his fellow Athenians not to blame the gods, but themselves (p386).

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, 1976.

ISBN 0-395-20729-0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Jaynes

http://www.julianjaynes.org/

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