Thread #18432158
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How did past civilizations and other religions view the inner voice (internal monologue) some people have?
I recently discovered the Bicameral Mind hypothesis and it was such a cool and interesting rabbit hole that I was left wondering how other cultures interpreted it.
If the voice in your head isn't yours, whose voice is it?
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>>18432158
I'm not entirely sure most cultures expressed how they viewed inner monologues.
>>18432201
It only really 'pathologizes' the middle eastern/greek bronze age. And I guess also pre-columbian Amerindians, too.
And regardless, it's counter productive to see Attwood's type of person entirely in culture war terms.
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>>18432158
>If the voice in your head isn't yours, whose voice is it?
THE VOICE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS YOUR VOICE; IT IS YOUR MENTAL DISCOURSE; IF YOU LACK MENTAL DISCOURSE, THEN YOU HEAR VOICES THAT ARE NOT YOUR OWN, WHICH COULD BE, EITHER, YOUR GUARDIAN ANGEL'S, OR A DEMON'S.
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>>18432205
>thought the voice in their head was god
I find it hard to believe people actually thought their internal monologue was special. Uncontrolled voices in their heads would be a different matter though. How does one have an internal monologue and not realize it's your own self thinking?
I never read the book. I thought the premise was that it was more common to have uncontrolled voices as in schizophrenia. I don't think it even has to be especially common. Society just has to take a different stance on how to treat schizos for people with hallucinated voices to become influential. In some cultures schizos become shamans. Priests probably had severe schizophrenia for far longer than anyone realizes because now we're out of touch with that level of crazy.
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>>18432201
>I do get the impression that the theory serves as a way to pathologize the "backwards superstitious unenlightened people of the past".
In effect it doesn't because the implications of bicameral mind are hostile to organized religion, to the point where the guy who first thought it up was forced to concede that religion could only have started after people stopped acknowledging internal monologue as external voices.
I mean just think about it, if you have to listen to priests and cultural tradition to be religious, how could they have any weight when you have the literal word of god in your head telling you to follow your desires and whims?
The bicameral mind is just an all around retarded theory, regardless of what agenda you want to push with it.
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>>18432428
>How does one have an internal monologue and not realize it's your own self thinking?
There are times where thoughts only become concrete after voiced, almost like my brain is taking in the suggestion of the voice. From my perspective, it's just the voice catching up to what my brain has already processed a few milliseconds ago, but I don't think it's impossible some goat fucker 4000ya thought it was someone else's voice and he was just understand it as soon as he heard it
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>>18432158
Charlatan with zero theory of mind. IF bicameralism were true, then that would directly implicate every man during the Ice Age was a p-zombie, which is patently absurd.
>>18432205
>modern people know better, we've progressed so much
And here's a perfect subject of the typical delusional solipsistic subhuman that buys into the theory.