New Member, Novelist with Work Based on Jaynes' Theory
Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:10 pm
I read the 1976 edition of The Origin when it was first published. I wasn't convinced that Jaynes had proved the applicability of his theory to human history, but the bicameral mind was a wonderful idea. In the 1980s and through the early 1990's, I published a series of novels about intelligent self-aware prehistoric big cats struggling toward civilization. The first book in the series, published in 1983 was Ratha's Creature. The fourth book in the series, Ratha's Challenge (MKM/Atheneum 1994), was, in part, an exploration of what it could be like for a self-aware conscious tribe (called the Named because self-identity and names are important to them) to encounter an essentially bicameral tribe. I also have a brief imagined description of how the beginning of the transition from bicamerality to conscious awareness might feel.
Like Jaynes' hypothetical bicameral humans, this bicameral cat tribe is guided by a sensory hallucination simply called "The Song," which originates with a tribal leader who always has the same title, True-of-voice. "The Song" is not just an auditory hallucination, but involves the sense of smell as well, since mammals have a greatly enhanced olfactory sense compared to humans.
These books have recently been re-issued and some readers have picked up on the bicameral mind idea in Ratha's Challenge. I had fun applying it in Y/A animal fantasy fiction.
For more, see
http://wandsandworlds.com/community/node/5357
Clare Bell
Like Jaynes' hypothetical bicameral humans, this bicameral cat tribe is guided by a sensory hallucination simply called "The Song," which originates with a tribal leader who always has the same title, True-of-voice. "The Song" is not just an auditory hallucination, but involves the sense of smell as well, since mammals have a greatly enhanced olfactory sense compared to humans.
These books have recently been re-issued and some readers have picked up on the bicameral mind idea in Ratha's Challenge. I had fun applying it in Y/A animal fantasy fiction.
For more, see
http://wandsandworlds.com/community/node/5357
Clare Bell