The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Discussion of Julian Jaynes's first hypothesis - that consciousness (as he carefully defines it) is based on language, and related topics.
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Dustin
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The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Post by Dustin »

I don't understand the difference between Jaynes's "analog I" and the regular I.

Surely people had a regular pronoun "I" during the bicameral period. What is the difference between this and the "analog I".
Jimbean
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Re: The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Post by Jimbean »

How do you know that ancients used "I"?

The ability to form analogies is a conscious trait.
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Re: The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Post by Moderator »

You can think of the analog "I" as similar to "the mind's eye" where you to imagine yourself doing things in various places. The evidence suggests that this was absent, or very limited, prior to 1200 B.C.

Some of the most interesting evidence for this comes from the first recorded dreams, which were nearly all visitation dreams, where a god, ghost, or ancestor visits the sleeper and issues a command.

Modern, conscious dreams, where we see ourselves engaged in various activities in different places, are a good indicator of an analog "I". This is consciousness operating during sleep. For the most part we do not see these types of dreams in the ancient world, or in children before a certain age.

See Jaynes's chapter on dreams in The Julian Jaynes Collection, Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity (Harris), and Children's Dreaming and the Development of Consciousness (Foulkes).
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Re: The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Post by Moderator »

** Restored post from JBrubaker after forum was restored from a backup. JBrubaker - please feel free to copy and repost under your username.**
"The mind's eye" where you imagine yourself doing things in various places.
When I dream, daydream, or plan some future action, I don't imagine myself doing something as though from an external camera, and see my body. I see as though through my eyes, my hands doing something, the surroundings in which I am.

Do others imagine a disembodied mind that observes oneself?

Related, I have never understood on a personal level the existence of multiple persons within the mind - people say "I am so mad at myself," "I couldn't control myself," as though there were two minds involved - the controller and the controlled. I have never experienced such a thing. People will say something to the effect that their conscience told them not to do something, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Is this a vestige of bicameralism? I don't seem to have a conscience as I understand it to be; I decide consciously what is right and wrong, and have no "little voice in my head" telling me what is right or wrong. Have I evolved past this - not physically, but mentally?

Somewhere in my studies, I have perused Freudian theory of Ego, Superego, and Id, but never gave it any credence - it sounds to me as pure hogwash, basically. Was Freud trying to implant the idea of bicameralism (or even tricameralism) in the public discourse?
JBrubaker
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Re: The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Post by JBrubaker »

Moderator wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2013 4:00 pm "the mind's eye" where you to imagine yourself doing things in various places.
When I dream, daydream, or plan some future action, I don't imagine myself doing something as though from an external camera, and see my body. I see as though through my eyes, my hands doing something, the surroundings in which I am.

Do others imagine a disembodied mind that observes oneself?

I would really appreciate someone responding to this, I have wondered about it all my life, but have been afraid of talking about it in person with anyone lest I appear mentally problematic.

Related, I have never understood on a personal level the existence of multiple persons within the mind - people say "I am so mad at myself," "I couldn't control myself," as though there were two minds involved - the controller and the controlled. I have never experienced such a thing. People will say something to the effect that their conscience told them not to do something, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Is this a vestige of bicameralism? I don't seem to have a conscience as I understand it to be; I decide consciously what is right and wrong, and have no "little voice in my head" telling me what is right or wrong. Have I evolved past this - not physically, but mentally?

Somewhere in my studies, I have perused Freudian theory of Ego, Superego, and Id, but never gave it any credence - it sounds to me as pure hogwash, basically. Was Freud trying to implant the idea of bicameralism (or even tricameralism) in the public discourse?
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Re: The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Post by Moderator »

There does seem to be some individual differences on this. The third person view of oneself seems to particularly occur when remembering embarrassing memories for some reason. So if you think of an embarrassing memory of yourself, you will be much more likely to view yourself from the perspective of others, rather than remembering the event from your own first person perspective. I can recall slipping on wet pavement in front of a group of peers when I was in junior high school, and I definitely see it from a third person perspective.

What is your experience of an embarrassing memory?

As to your second point about the divided self, Rabbi James Cohn discusses similar examples in his book The Minds of the Bible.

I think there is something interesting to this feeling of two separate "selves." On the other hand, I've come to think that some of this merely has to do with how we use have come to use language to describe certain events. Take for example the expressions, "I'm so mad at myself" or "I couldn't control myself." It sounds like the person has two "selves" and one is upset with the actions of the other. In reality, perhaps it's just a figure of speech. We might translate the meaning more accurately as "I'm disappointed with the actions that I took earlier today."

The first "self" (taking the undesired action) is merely our same "self," but at an earlier point in time from our own evaluation of our behavior.
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Re: The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Post by GtownPhil »

From the reading I have done over the years, there seems to be good evidence for the difference in functioning of the two hemispheres of the brain. The latest I have read is The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist in which he goes into great detail about the differences. I am baffled by the lack of discussion of these differences in how the two hemispheres operate - especially in the psychology community but also in the general public. I too often read the "I couldn't help myself" or "I was beside myself" statements and I am astonished that no one questions that we have two selves and what that means for our behavior toward others.
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Re: The Analog "I" and the Regular "I"

Post by Moderator »

I'm not sure this is the best thread for a discussion of brain hemisphere differences, but I would suggest that there is a very large literature on the subject in various psychology journals.

Among the general public, there was a great deal of discussion of this in books and magazines, but more so in the 80s and 90s. More recent studies came along that suggested that the entire brain is active to a greater degree in all tasks than was previously recognized. At some point, the thinking on this switched, and now the often repeated platitude is that "brain hemisphere differences were overblown."

While there is some truth to the idea that the general public exaggerated the differences, the reaction to the exaggeration has often been to now minimize or trivialize brain hemisphere differences. So the pendulum has now swung the other way, but the truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

As far as phrases like "I couldn't help myself" or "I was beside myself," while they may indicate some sense of mental duality, I've come to think that they are more often just figures of speech. "I couldn't help myself" could just mean "At the time, I didn't have the self-control that now, looking back at it, perhaps I should have." Or that "my emotions overpowered my self-control." "I was beside myself," which dates back to the Old Testament, originally meant something to the effect of being "overcome with anger to the point of madness," and now often just means, "I was angry." or "I was upset."
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