Now that I finally have some extra time, I find myself to be spending quite a lot of it reading Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. It is a particularly interesting book and it is a must read if you're interested on the subject of consciousness, as I myself am. By far it is one of my most favorite books which is why I am reading it again for the second time. What I especially love is the originality of the whole concept which the book revolves around, Julian Jaynes' hypothesis is one like no other and he provides great evidence to support his general position. I find his stance to be somewhat convincing, even though the first time I read this book, I found it quite absurd and hard to accept, but all the proof is there. So I figured a re-read of this book during the summer would definitely be worth it and insofar it is.
The book was written in 1976, so some things could have changed since then but I'll postulate that not much has. The term Julian Jaynes coined is bicameralism wherein his hypothesis argues that the human mind was once divided into "two-chambers" so to speak. His hypothesis of bicameralism is that the cognitive functions of the human mind were divided between the right-hemisphere which is responsible for the hallucinations of the "gods" (similar to those of schizophrenics), and the left-hemisphere which obeys the voices of the former. He states that this form of mentality (bicameral mentality) was the ubiquitous state of the human mind some 3,000 years ago, and there are some reminiscence of that form, which can mostly be seen in schizophrenics today. Throughout his reasoning, he examines historical evidence from the way literature was written and at which time, such as Homer's Iliad, Homer's Odyssey, the Old Testament, The Epic of Gilgamesh, literature of that sort, etc. He also makes connections to various vestiges which he claims to be the remains of the bicameral mind. He argues that this bicamerality, which was the main form of mentality some 3,000 years ago, is what allowed civilizations to function through the transition of living in small communities to living in complex civilizations.
I find it quite interesting how he made note of today's modern-day schizophrenics and their "lower-stress threshold levels", meaning that persons who have been diagnosed with this illness are more susceptible to auditory hallucinations when they are confronted with a series of decisions to make or something quite similar. That is because even the slightest amount of stress, levels which majority of people today can withstand except those diagnosed with this illness, experience auditory hallucinations. Of course, the main cause of schizophrenia isn't only stress, but it is now a well-known factor. And it is quite plausible for this to be the case, as ancient civilizations began to emerge from small agricultural groups which consisted of maybe only 50 or so people, to large-scale civilizations far greater than that of 150 people. Which meant that early civilizations were under constant stress, thus causing them to only being able to operate under these hallucinated voices, which were louder than that of any others' and that is what forced them to obey it. Only when civilizations became too complex is when the breakdown of the bicameral mind started to take place. And through this, somewhere in time emerged consciousness as a mere result of this collapse, and there are speculations that natural selection was forced upon it as well. A lot has been said about the psychological suffering which is happening as a result of too large of civilizations. The only difference now, is that we have forms of social media to help ease the stress and whatnot, as a result allowing for greater pressures to be put on complex societies until some other form emerges and so on.
I won't go into too much detail here, because I don't want to spoil the read for some of you. In addition, I'm planning on reading The 10,000 Year Explosion (Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending) for the second time as well, right after I finish this one. This time it'll be more for my knowledge sake, rather than for the thrill of just reading. It argues that the development of agriculture greatly propelled the rate of human evolution. From what I remember, they also touched upon various biological adaptations such as lactose intolerance and disease resistance, as well as gene flow. I'd recommend this book to many, if you haven't already read it.