The Wikipedia Watchword of the Week--2/12/2006
posted by Protagonist | 7:22 PM 
The Wikipedia Watchword of the Week is
Bicameral Mind Theory
Intriguing, but largely erroneous. Especially erroneous were Jaynes' theories of the Old Testament: He claims that Khabiru a Sanskrit term for wandering nomads, were the origins of the Hebrew people. Wrong. The Hebrew word for Hebrew is "Ebri", which clearly has nothing in common with the Sanskrit word.
Nevertheless, Jaynes raised some interesting ideas. Having read The Iliad in the original Greek, I'm willing to accept the theory that it is the product of mental illness. Syntax in the epic is not disorganized; it's non-existent. It's quite possible that what we'd call insanity was much more common in pre-historic/ancient times than now.
On second thought, considering that most of our ranking politicans are popularity-obsessed megalomanics, that there've been declarations of global jihad because of cartoons published 3000 miles away, and that there's no stop to anti-empirical proclamations that giving money to poor people will solve poverty, what we'd call insanity may just be "business as usual" for the human race in any age.
Bicameral Mind Theory
Jaynes asserts that until the times written about in Homer's Iliad, humans did not have the "interior monologue" that is characteristic of consciousness as most people experience it today. Jaynes believes that the bicameral mental commands were at some point believed to be issued by "gods"—so often recorded in ancient myths, legends and historical accounts—were in fact emanating from individuals' own mind.
Intriguing, but largely erroneous. Especially erroneous were Jaynes' theories of the Old Testament: He claims that Khabiru a Sanskrit term for wandering nomads, were the origins of the Hebrew people. Wrong. The Hebrew word for Hebrew is "Ebri", which clearly has nothing in common with the Sanskrit word.
Nevertheless, Jaynes raised some interesting ideas. Having read The Iliad in the original Greek, I'm willing to accept the theory that it is the product of mental illness. Syntax in the epic is not disorganized; it's non-existent. It's quite possible that what we'd call insanity was much more common in pre-historic/ancient times than now.
On second thought, considering that most of our ranking politicans are popularity-obsessed megalomanics, that there've been declarations of global jihad because of cartoons published 3000 miles away, and that there's no stop to anti-empirical proclamations that giving money to poor people will solve poverty, what we'd call insanity may just be "business as usual" for the human race in any age.
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