*Words as Gods; Creationism; Language and its Matrix*

Post Reply New Topic

Although humans in the Middle East, ( the "fertile crescent" ), began to abandon nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles from 12,000-10,000 BC onwards; to grow crops, domesticate sheep and goats, and build increasingly complex houses out of mud and thatch, ( some of which lasted for quite long periods of time ), the first real towns, with thousands of inhabitants, and highly complex infrastructure, did not exist until 3,500 BC, or thereabouts, ( in the Middle East, and into India ). And something changed radically from around 2,000 BC.

Historians describe the change, which occurred in societies in the Middle East, N. Africa/Egypt, India, and China, between 2,000 and 500 BC, as an "axial shift". And Julian Jaynes, in his book "The Dawn of Consciousness", and other writings about the "bicameral mind", ( his theory that until very recently we heard language-based thoughts as if they came from outside of us, from gods/ancestral spirits, etc ), suggested that it was ( more-or-less ) during this period that we "learned" to hear thoughts as if they were self-generated rather than produced by outside forces.

What if what Genesis describes were not the creation of the real world, but the creation of the world as rendered in language? ( Creationists argue that the world was created around 4,000 BC, or perhaps a bit earlier ). What if what the ancient greek myths describe was in fact the "history" of the birth of abstract/metaphorical language, in which one word after another was born, ( each one describing things we can not touch/feel, hear, see, smell or taste, but only "think" ), because until the transformation/revolution of consciousness, posited by Jaynes, words were still consciously experienced as "gods", with immense power over us.
.

Last edited by ouinon on 13 Jun 2009, 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

well, the problem is finding when spoken language started. I tend to think it goes back at least to Neolithic times. Probably someone better versed in paleontology would be able to trace the development of vocal chords to see when they were first developed.

Vocal cords etc no guarantee of language use. Speech requires cognitive capacity to control vocalisations, and use of it with others requires considerable theory of mind, ( including desire to deceive ! ).

Animal signals not same as syntax!

And metaphorical/abstract language use may be very different to concrete language use; describing/referring to things noone has ever seen, felt, heard, tasted or smelt, things with no objective existence.

.

Last edited by ouinon on 13 Jun 2009, 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

mmm...to an extent. There're no talking dogs, because they don't have the proper vocal chords. I'm imagining a more evolutionary approach; in essence, vocal chords developed the way they did because they bestowed an evolutionary advantage (coordination on hunts, faster communication) to those who had the evolutionary change.

the problem is that until the development of written language, you can't tell what they were actually saying. There's paintings of animals 40,000 years old in Lascaux (sp?), that indicate the beginnings of tying symbols to ideas.

I leave the rest in your capable hands.

Debunked; most pack/group animal species manage this incredibly well, better than humans, without language.

.

Not recognising your own thoughts as your own is a symptom of schizophrenia.

The percentage of the population with genes that contribute towards schizophrenia has actually been increasing over time, not decreasing.

If your hypothesis was correct, 100% of the population would have had said genes thousands of years ago and then rapidly decreased over time, this isn't the case.

I'm still trying to cognitively relate what that means, are you relating to the notion that at a given time in our history we only used words as warnings of impending peril rather than for communication or introspect?

No, Jaynes' hypothesis, after studying schizophrenics, and other people who "hear" voices, for many years, was that for some reason they are unable to learn and/or carry out the cognitive process required to integrate language into their sense of their own identity, as most people are able to do in the face of social conditioning during language acquisition, ( it could be that this capacity is disturbed by chemical states, or other things ).
.

Last edited by ouinon on 13 Jun 2009, 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, Jayne's theory is that at a given time in our history humans experienced most, or all, language-based thought as coming from outside of them, emanating from gods/ancestral spirits etc, acting on them, commanding, guiding, teaching, encouraging/supporting, reproving, putting pressure on them, etc. Just think of what you've read about people who hear voices.

.

That's just it, I haven't heard much about this kind of cognitive disconnect between language and ownership of our own intellectual real estate - this thread might be my first.

I guess I'm not trying to challenge it so much as clarify what it means. From what your saying though I can see that it wasn't meant metaphorically - that what your suggesting is that people quite literally thought that words coming from someone else were emanations of the Gods through them? The only concern I have with the theory is it begs the question - if we had such a terrible internal grip over language, how did we originate it? Genetic outliers to this trend?

There is plenty of literature in psychology etc about people experiencing their own thoughts as voices from elsewhere. These people hold dialogues with "their voices", etc, and sincerely believe they are talking to/being talked to by "another".


I don't know what they thought of other people's speech; but Jayne's theory is that everybody, for quite a long time, experienced their own language-based thoughts as coming from somewhere else ( gods etc ). Now we experience it as introspection, as if language were a natural part of us/our experience; we have learned/been taught to see/experience it like that.

Whereas for certain schizophrenics, and others whose cognitive processes are disturbed in a certain way, language is not always experienced as part of themselves; almost as if they have taken the ( which one was it? ) red/blue pill in The Matrix, and inadvertently see language as coming from outside and pushing them around, telling them to do things ... .


Why do you say we have "such a terrible internal grip over language"? Or more to the point, what do you mean exactly?

.

One way to test this idea is to look at early writing. I think some writing systems existed before 2000BC. You could see whether there is any evidence for abstract terms before the axial shift you mentioned.

What would you count as abstract? A parrot has been shown to understand the concepts of same and different. These are not themselves given by sensory systems, they are higher order abstractions. Would you want to apply a more stringent criterion for what counts as abstract for the purpose of your argument?

Just that if we all as a race had this problem of having our sense of identity divorced from language and if it was always God talking, how did we have any ability to use it let alone originate it?

The earliest known writing which involved linguistic content as opposed to numbers and symbols for objects is Sumerian from 2600BC onwards. I am not suggesting that abstract language did not exist before 2,000BC, but that before the period of the "axial shift" and Jayne's theorised loss of the bicameral mind, abstract language was experienced in a completely different way. In fact Jayne's and others suggest that it was the invention of writing which ( eventually ) led to the change in perception of language, because it "concretised" it, gave it an apparent "body".


Parrots do not have a word for same or different, though. They can obviously, like many animals, distinguish many things, but they do not create a symbol supposedly representing their cognitive processes.

.

I don't think i represented my veiws very accurately in my first post, so i'll try and explain them a little better.

It has been hypothesised (with some evidence supporting it) that not recognising your own thoughts, is the price we pay for having the abiltiy to percieve language as we do. The two hemispheres of the brain are two seperates "minds" meshed into one to some extent. The dominant side of the brain is usually the side where the majority of language is processed, but in schizophrenics, the way in which language is processed and the way the hemispheres communicate is atypical.

It's perfectly feasible that we developed the ability to speak and then developed the ability to recognise our own thoughts. In fact, it's more likely that it happened this way around. I just don't think it started 4000 years ago, i think it's been slowly happening over a longer time period.

The idea is that in fact it is not "us" talking/speaking or thinking ( when it is in language ), but language itself.

Recent theory suggests that language exists almost like an organism, living in symbiotic relationship with our brains. Those forms of language which the majority of brains could handle survived, and flourished.

I imagine that to begin with people lived mostly as they had for many tens of thousands of years before that, without much/any language, which was restricted to religious rituals/magic/shamanic ceremonies and "incantations".

But the "words" once heard created pathways in people's brains which, ( because a major strength of language is that even a few words can be reordered to create entirely original phrases ), began to "create" "speeches" which would have seemed to come direct from the gods/spirits.

The words would have probably seemed like "one's own god/guardian", a being to be obeyed, pleased, pacified by certain behaviours etc. And I imagine it would have conveyed status and/or power on those whose brains processed language most efficiently and were able to manufacture the most phrases.

Especially those whose brain came up with new words.

.