Australian Aborigines

Discussion of Julian Jaynes's second hypothesis - the bicameral mind, specifically the subtopic of the mentality of preliterate societies, theories of primitive religion, and vestiges of bicameral mind in preliterate societies.
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DanBlocker
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Australian Aborigines

Post by DanBlocker »

On the About Julian Jaynes page it says he gave a lecture at the Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchburg.
It is Kirchberg.

I was there. It was a wonderful lecture. It is a pity that his work has not had a deeper impact. I still believe he was basically right (and certainly his prose was brilliant).

I did ask him, by the way, whether he thought it possible that the Aborigines in Australia were not conscious as late as the 18th or 19th century. He said he was not sure and that it would be worthwhile to investigate. Well, I never did and probably no one else.

Thank you.
Dan
sparrowling
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Re: Australian Aborigines

Post by sparrowling »

I just read a book on Australia: In a Sunburnt Country by Bill Bryson and I tend to agree based on what I read. The aborigines of Australia are bicameral or had been not too long ago. It’s just the descriptions of how they behaved. Too bad they were treated so horribly.
~Aimee Sparrow

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benjamindavidsteele
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Re: Australian Aborigines

Post by benjamindavidsteele »

I remember reading from somewhere, I forget the source now, of someone who observed an Australian Aborigine ritually enacting a Songline. The observer noted that the individual Aborigine seemed to change personality. It seems that each Songline was not merely presided over by an ancestral spirit but represented an entire personality structure and self-contained worldview that was invoked into lived experience. To understand the complexity and immensity of Songlines, you might be interested in reading the work of Lynne Kelly on traditional mnemonic systems, as she focuses a lot on the Australian Aborigines.
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