Jaynes and Weird Minds
Steve Dodson,
Languagehat,
Apr 11, 2023
Steve Dodson ponders a point raised in a review of Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind: "the minds of primitive people are pretty weird, and I believe that, but they don't seem quite as weird as Jaynes wants them to be. So the question becomes whether we would notice if some people worked in a pre-bicameral and pre-conscious way." Which seems impossible until we read of a person who never thought in language. "Growing up, I never ever thought with language. Not once did I ever think something in my mind with words like 'What are my friends doing right now?'" P.S. I enjoyed The Dancing Wu Li Masters; I didn't think of it as "crackpottery" when I read it in the 1980s. I don't know what I would think today. Image: Time, What it's like to be mind blind.
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