Mark,
I am going to need to have this be my last communication on this issue today. I am trying to get work on my book done.
The argument for how the JH makes predictions that allow us to look at modern human consciousness is laid out in this chapter: https://www.gregghenriques.com/uploads/2/4/3/6/24368778/the_justification_hypothesis.pdf
I would not say that justifications require a "personality," that just would not be my language. The self-consciousness system is shaped by justification processes. Justification systems refers to a network of language based meaning making systems that function to legitimize action. They are the language-based building blocks that socially construct human cultures. A shared mythology is a shared system of justification. If I say, "The hunt was good, the gods must be happy with us" that, most definitely, is a justification system that the individual is plugging into, whatever their level of self-differentiation.
The key point about Jaynes centers on the question: What is exactly was the level of self-reflective identification pre-historic peoples engaged in and to what extent did/do they experienced language-based thoughts as disconnected "hallucinations from the gods" versus reflected on themselves in a meta-cognitive way and felt that they made choices under their control and could reflect on those choices? My study of the issue suggests that, although Jaynes makes a very important point regarding the nature and makeup of the human self-consciousness system and the large scale cultural systems we live in and the dialectics between them, my read of the psychology/anthropology of indigenous or prehistoric people is different from the claims Jaynes makes.
The short answer is that, IMO, he significantly over shoots in his analysis. That said, the impact of the social narrative on the nature of the self and how one conceives oneself is crucial. William Shakespeare changed us and deepened our capacity for self-reflection with his invention of the monologue, for example. Other examples abound. The fundamental experience of the self in Eastern cultures is more "we" and communal than in Western cultures. The center of justification is the individual "I," more strongly in the US perhaps than anywhere in the world. In short, I do agree that concepts invented in the social world have a massive influence on the sense of self. I just don't think he is right in the idea that the human self as the source of behavior was invented 1000 years ago.
Re Donald and Jaynes, maybe Donald has internalized Jaynes far more so than he did since 1991. His book does not cite the bicameral mind and I don't agree with the notion that mythic culture, at least as Donald writes about it in Origins of the Modern Mind, is synonymous with Jaynes' much more radical bicameral habit-hallucination hypothesis of human consciousness prior to the Iliad...
Bottom line: Culture on the ToK represents the emergence of shared, language based systems of justification that took off about 50,000 years ago. That domain of justification is the "space/time grid" that is "where" both myth of prehistoric societies and this conversation resides in the taxonomy of behavioral patterns provided by the ToK.
Best,
G
-----Original Message-----
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mark Stahlman
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 9:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Humans and Language
Gregg:
Interesting (no you didn't mention it) -- so how would you know that this occurred . . . ??
Donald is a "follower" of Jaynes and, in fact, keynoted the last major Jaynes conference. So, his *mythic* is Jaynes's "bicameral." Throw out Jaynes and you also throw out Donald.
"Justification" (as I understand it) requires a *personality* which is distinct from the mass of people with whom you live. That doesn't happen to people under "mythic" conditions. It only shows up when people have the presence-of-mind to begin to record their "own" views of the world -- as opposed to simply following the "collective" (i.e.
mythic) view.
Without *literacy* (i.e. an audience of people who can read what you've written), this just doesn't happen. If "justification" doesn't require this separation of one person from another (and, crucially, from their born-in-place absence of an "identity"), then how is this concept applied to *radically* different people (i.e. us) who do have this "third-stage" mentality?
And, what does "The tripartite model of human conscious, based on the JH, is far superior, more generalizable and more integrative" mean in this regard . . . ??
Mark
Quoting "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask]>:
> That is an area we disagree.
>
> Language, not literacy, resulted in the problem of justification and
> the development of justification systems. That is the fourth
> dimension. Literacy was important, but not the real game changer in my
> view. Of course, literacy does lay the ground work for ever more
> emerging technologies and was central to our current phase shift.
> But, language was far more important.
>
> As I think I mentioned to you on the phone, I don't buy Jayne's origin
> of consciousness narrative.
>
> The tripartite model of human conscious, based on the JH, is far
> superior, more generalizable and more integrative.
>
> Best,
> Gregg
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion
> <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mark Stahlman
> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 8:34 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Humans and Language
>
> Gregg:
>
> Thanks! As you know, what was really the "game-changer" -- in terms
> of humans that we would recognize as such -- was *literacy* and not
> "language." That didn't happen until c. 500BC.
>
> This is the third-phase on Donald's schema and the "origin of
> consciosness" in Jaynes's. It was the "Axial Age" (so-called by
> Jaspers), from which the "Great Religions" and the civilizations based
> on them arose -- generating the world in which we now live.
>
> Obviously people can speculate as far back as they like but for what
> purpose? If the task-at-hand is understanding the world we live in
> today, what does it matter when you date early "language" . . . ??
>
> Mark
>
> Quoting "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> Hi Mark and Tim,
>>
>> Yes, my approach overlaps with Donald's significantly. My
>> "justification systems" are essentially his mythic culture period.
>> Full symbolic language into the development of justification systems.
>> Best guess is that full language is sometime between
>> 150,000 and 75,000. By 50,000 years we see an explosion of artefacts
>> suggestive of a mythology/justification system. Then technology
>> shifts things more, with agriculture and again with writing (earliest
>> ~5K) and philosophy 2500K ago and more recently science and digital
>> processing.
>>
>> Exactly when language and its various forms developed is much debated
>> and hard to know. Steve dropped off the list a few months back, so I
>> am not sure what he says about that exactly. The idea that language
>> could have been represent 500,000-600,000 k ago is possible, but not
>> much in the way of very convincing data. Some stuff on the evolution
>> of the throat and hyoid bone and other structures. The folks who look
>> at the evolution of speech (as opposed to language) tend to go deeper
>> in the evolutionary time than the evolution of language folks. (see,
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__web.archive.org_web_20070809073918_http-3A__www3.isrl.uiuc.edu_-7Ejunwang4_langev_localcopy_pdf_fitch00speech.pdf&d=DwIBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=u_p9FYYQva2cLiNs3hrX61Y3gjSjjMH56RqUbUtExKY&s=V239e__0Kj_JPCVjYsJOW_6VNRrYskgBKhEQUtT404k&e=).
>>
>> Here is a link to Steve's talk, which was on how hunter gatherers
>> solve relational issues by fostering autonomy and community and
>> regulating dominance.
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.gregghenriqu
>> e
>> s.com_evolution-2Dwell-2Dbeing-2Dand-2Dhuman-2Dvalues.html&d=DwIBaQ&c
>> =
>> eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6
>> C
>> fxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=u_p9FYYQva2cLiNs3hrX61Y3gjSjjMH56RqUbUtExKY&s=m
>> o M74q2xpF-Ui0QowTviWTw6I82HGdXsoZTBqr_FiuI&e=
>>
>> Best,
>> Gregg
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: tree of knowledge system discussion
>> <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mark Stahlman
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 7:35 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Humans and Language
>>
>> Tim:
>>
>> The approach I take is (and I had thought) the *same* one taken by
>> Gregg -- which is to say the one put forward by Merlin Donald. He is
>> an evolutionary neuro-psychologist who is working with my Center.
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org
>> _
>> wiki_Merlin-5FDonald&d=DwIBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nB
>> E
>> mmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=jtGEWYngeGkLHbp
>> F
>> 05r9EOzFOXrDYqAZf6kwj_zoHrc&s=rb0Iuiu_vOCGc7Bu3aATEPwe70hZGrXfXmx27c-
>> a
>> 6b4&e=
>>
>> His 1992 "Origins of the Modern Mind" -- which sharply distinguishes
>> "mimetic" from "mythic" cultures -- is a further elaboration of the
>> 1976 Julian Jaynes "Origins of Consciousness." I was also Jaynes'
>> "last student."
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_O
>> r
>> igins-2DModern-2DMind-2DEvolution-2DCognition_dp_0674644840&d=DwIBaQ&
>> c
>> =eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo
>> 6
>> Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=jtGEWYngeGkLHbpF05r9EOzFOXrDYqAZf6kwj_zoHrc&s=
>> 9 ReDL2pIk9yhs1Xyp2AA5RSDruPmvgwox8sh9YqihjA&e=
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_O
>> r
>> igin-2DConsciousness-2DBreakdown-2DBicameral-2DMind_dp_0618057072&d=D
>> w
>> IBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-
>> U
>> Opybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=jtGEWYngeGkLHbpF05r9EOzFOXrDYqAZf6kwj_zo
>> H rc&s=Hauk9nsswBw-L3LLMnciM-smw6qtvEarRKDrKFAl5zM&e=
>>
>> No I wasn't at Gregg's conference and if someone else has a different
>> view on this topic, which I've been studying for many years, I'd be
>> happy to take a look if you can provide a reference .
>> . . !!
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> Quoting Tim Henriques <[log in to unmask]>:
>>
>>> Hi Mark - I wanted to get clarification on the post you mentioned
>>> below
>>>
>>> Homo Sapiens did *not* have anything like human language as a direct
>>> result of its own biological evolution. From 200,000+ years ago
>>> until some time much more recently -- perhaps only 10,000+ years ago
>>> -- humans most likely didn't have spoken language and written
>>> language is only 2500 or-so years old.
>>> Just to make sure I am reading that correctly, is the claim you are
>>> making that we didn't have spoken language 200k years ago or more?
>>>
>>>
>>> Did you happen to attend the ToK conference that Gregg held earlier
>>> this year? There was interesting presentation on Hunter Gatherer
>>> society as one of the main topics of a lecture, and in that
>>> presentation the presenter (Steve Keefer I believe) made that case
>>> that humans had reasonable working language at 600k years ago if my
>>> memory serves correctly. I am not an expert on this topic myself
>>> and so I can only relate the information presented. I imagine one
>>> of the points of contention is "what constitutes language". It was
>>> a subject I was interested in so I specifically asked about him
>>> about this and his basic point was that the hunter gather community
>>> could communicate quite well with each other and broader tribes.
>>> From a justification point of view they could ask each other "why
>>> did you do that" and then expect an answer. I asked him if that was
>>> more of his 'pet theory' or if there was reasonable consensus on
>>> that and he seemed to indicate the latter.
>>>
>>>
>>> Does that information jive with your account of history or do you
>>> take a different approach?
>>>
>>>
>>> Tim Henriques
>>> Director, NPTI VA/MD/DC
>>> 703-531-0795
>>> NPTI's Webpage
>>>
>>> Did you know I wrote a book about Powerlifting?
>>>
>>>
>>> Refer a friend to NPTI and receive a FREE CEU Class of your choice
>>> (including TRX and KB) if they sign up
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: TOK-SOCIETY-L <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Tue, Sep 25, 2018 5:48 pm
>>> Subject: Re: Stam's critique
>>>
>>> Gregg:
>>>
>>> As we've discussed, there is no simple "identity" between language
>>> and humans.
>>>
>>> Homo Sapiens did *not* have anything like human language as a direct
>>> result of its own biological evolution. From 200,000+ years ago
>>> until some time much more recently -- perhaps only 10,000+ years ago
>>> -- humans most likely didn't have spoken language and written
>>> language is only 2500 or-so years old.
>>>
>>> Yes -- Merlin Donald is probably the best source on all this . . . !!
>>>
>>> Mark
>>
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