So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - Entry for Friday 2 November 2007

Anyone who has read Douglas Adams books will know immediately from the title what this blog is about.

It's about DOUGLAS ADAMS.

Who is Douglas Adams, for the unaware? Simply put, he wrote The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and various other books including So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.

" One Thursday lunchtime the Earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the galaxy is a very strange and startling place."

He was a brilliant man who introduced the world to an extraordinary way of looking at life. You are never quite the same after reading his books.

I just wanted you to know, it's now 204 days and some hours minutes and seconds until Towel Day 2008

The above link will take you to the site which will tell you all about that.

Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness Edited by Marcel Kuijsten - II

At the foundation of Julian Jaynes's bicameral theory found in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" (OC) is the idea that prehistoric people had a different kind of mentality to modern humankind; they were not conscious. And the theory does not view consciousness as an attribute of evolution since evolutionary traits take millions of years to develop. The theory views consciousness as a recent characteristic that developed in time measured in thousands of years and not millions, being revolutionary.

The word "bicameral" means two chambers and the theory postulates that in early humankind the left and right brain hemispheres were all but isolated from each other. Further, the right hemisphere constitued an executive part of the individual's mentality and played the role of God or parent or other authority figure. When the man or woman felt stressed by the need to make a decision, the executive part would come into play (in some way assess and interpret the situation) and then issue instructions in a spoken form. These instructions the individual would hear as external speech, as if someone was standing behind him or her and to the left. Differently to the way modern humans behave, the individual did not weigh these instructions in the balance and then opt to follow or not follow them. The voiced commands were the end-part of the decision-making process or, put differently, they were the conclusion of the brain's workings to devise a strategy to deal with a given situation, which the individual would then follow, automatically and without question.

Modern people, instead, consciously consider the options, using thought, which is heard as inner dialogue and, for us, the whole brain-working exercise of decision-making is patently encapsulated in our brain cases.

Of course that may not be the case for modern-day individuals who do experience auditory hallucinations.

In "Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness" (RDC) Marcel Kuijsten comments that "The issue of the complexity of Jaynes's theory and its multi-disciplinary nature is one possible reason for the absence of greater formal discussion on the topic. But perhaps the most common reason for the rejection of Jayne's theory is due to a misunderstanding (or complete lack of awareness) of Jaynes's definition of consciousness; there have have been countless times I've heard someone offer a strong opinion on Jaynes only to discover they've never read his book."

Kuijsten continues "The notion that ancient civilizations were populated by unconscious people generates a knee-jerk response that the theory is "preposterous" primarily because of the deeply ingrained but mistaken notion that consciousness is necessary for the majority of higher mental processes (and even basic sensory perception), coupled with the tremendous difficulty in comprehending a mental state without an internal dialog for anyone that has one. ... Put simply, critics reject the notion of pre-conscious civilizations prior to 1200 B.C. based on *their* ["italics"] definition of consciousness, not Jaynes's."
... to be continued

Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness Edited by Marcel Kuijsten, 1

This book revisits a book by Julian Jaynes.

I came across Jaynes’s book, “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” around the middle 1970’s. It was featured in the library on a top shelf, which place (in the library scheme of things) signified that the book was a recent purchase. I retrieved “OC” from the library three times in the same year before I read it in its entirety. I remember it as a large volume which I read with the help of a dictionary because of the jargon used – and Jaynes was a psychologist – so, layperson that I was (and am), I read it in “bite sized” pieces rather than “whole hog”. And though I have yet to re-read the book it has always loomed large in my mind. Not least for its long title, which I took care to remember.

But mostly because what I read in OC, I considered a possible new truth. It didn’t sound impossible to me. True I had a mind prepared for novelty, I was someone brought up on a mixed bag of beliefs, anything from Christian dogma to spiritualist philosophy to agnosticism to atheism; and each of my critical role models, in their minds, compartmentalised the world in a different way which I, as the youngest family member, found somewhat confusing.

I, however, chose the safe route and maintained a traditional Christian belief in God up to my middle twenties when I felt a need to go deeper into myself, looking for an answer to the question, does God exist, and in OC I found an answer that seemed to satisfy.

For such a big book the basic theory is easily captured in a few paragraphs but Jaynes was in the position of presenting a novel hypothesis to the world (or is that theory?) and had to submit a lot of proofs to support it.

Jaynes put his professional reputation on the line by publishing OC, and he was apparently often damned by his peers as he strove, in this large book, to prove that human brains worked differently in prehistoric times to what they, on the whole, do now. The evidence for which is of course, nominally, non-existent, but “echoes” of a mentality change may just be detectable in what remains of ancient cultures - in artefacts - and what remains of ancient peoples in their modern-day counterparts. Us.

… to be continued

Proven, humans are not inately murderous of nature as some people have said.

And, in fact, a prehistoric site (don't remember where now) that was uncovered identified trade as the first device for triggering established settled community, and not defence against the warring hordes.

Extending from that (in this brain space anyway) this news report - Scientists find Neanderthals' Last Refuge - said:

"Prior findings suggested the Neanderthals went extinct in Europe 35,000 years ago, while modern humans arrived in Western Europe 32,000 years ago. The fact the span between the arrival of modern humans and the extinction of the Neanderthals looked so relatively brief hinted that Neanderthals got out-competed."

... by humans. But not necessarily so. The same news report reveals that new findings:

"... suggest Neanderthals survived after modern humans moved in, and as the environment changed due to climate shifts, Neanderthals faded away."

I reckon ... with more proofs that humans are NOT, instinctively, murderous scum, we better our chances of expressing a distain for violence and cruelty, which blights the lives of so many people.

Onya humans!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14817677/

Man: The Fallen Ape by Branko Bokun

In Man: The Fallen Ape”, Branco Bokun offers the opinion that the human race stemmed from apes that were fringe dwellers of an ape troop which they had originally been born into but the hypothesis points to our ape ancestors as the failed apes that were made unwelcome by those living in the "mainstream" of the troop.

The fallen apes - both male and female, lived separate from the larger group that abided by the instinctively embedded codes of conduct which ruled (and rule) ape society; which standards our ancestors failed to meet.

They caused trouble, notably they behaved promiscuously, and they were ultimately chased by the larger group even from dwelling on the fringe of the ape society in the relative safety of the forests, into the "badlands" of the savannah. Whereupon this isolated and highly vulnerable group of apes survived at least long enough to hand on their genes to a very long line of creatures that led to humans - if the hypothesis be true - originally, due to the ministrations of the females among them, which creatures, due to their bearing offspring, had learned some abilities to nurture themselves and others, even in an alien landscape.

The hypothesis speculates that the greatest offence was the "fallen apes" didn’t live in harmony with natural laws to mate seasonally which, I would think, would have caused the troop to dysfunction.

The ejection of the Fallen Apes doubtless offered a short-term remedy for the troop to have things return to “normal”, but how many times did it happen that disordered apes were outcast; and how narrow a squeak was it that our ape ancestors survived to maturity where, I speculate of course, others similarly cast out, didn’t.

And, yes, it is only an hypothesis. But it might explain something about the human impetus to copulate at any time without a “shared” rhyme or reason.

There is no natural universal signalling among our species to premeditate coupling. We instead each have our own personal whims and foibles what is a turn on.

If we accept Bokun's theory for the moment, to look at this splintering of the small group from the large group, the author seems to highlight a time when the "becoming humans" were at a turning point in their evolution from which there was no turning back; while ahead there could easily have lain extinction not too far away for these little apes. But with their enterprise succeeding, and Bokun believes it did - by an (unwitting) investment in a change of sexual habit they bequeathed to their descendents - so, that would us! - an incredible mind- broadening and body changing journey through distant eons.

Anyway for your interest, an extract from the book. I've had it for years, and it is probably out of print by now:


“Most anthropologists assert that human stock, the brightest of existing animals, came one day out of its natural, ideal environment, with food in abundance and no danger, and chose to start a new life in the hell of the savannah, with limited food, no safe shelter, and a savannah filled with dangerous predators … This theory is not acceptable by any natural logic. No animal will voluntarily leave a good environment for a bad one. …

These explanations follow modern human logic, which is based on conceit. … I think that the most compelling evidence that humans were evicted from the woodlands into the savannah is the fact that the human mind, when it started to function, created the idea of paradise. … If any other animal ever became capable of creating abstract ideas, it would never imagine paradise. ... Paradise arises from an experience of humiliation which animals never face. No animal has ever been thrown out of its environment and survived. … Our human ancestors, our Adams and Eves, were evicted from Paradise.

The only difference is that historically they were not evicted by Almighty God but by fitter apes.”


You may not view it, as I do, a fascinating theory but, for me, it swings things around and almost compels the individual to understand that the words “strength” or "fitness" are relative to something, they don't exist independently even though our inclination towards biases might persuade us to think of them as having a static meaning.

In the primitive ape world, perhaps the slowly "becoming" humans made bad apes and were unfit in ape society because they lacked a sexual instinct disciplined and controlled by oestrus but, contrarily, they might have made half reasonable humans, to the effect that increased coupling meant increased numbers, and our numbers are what has helped to give us a monopoly of the planet.

In the close to the book, the author asks these questions:

"Can it be that man's last chance is, once again, woman?"

"Can the human female, who once saved the fallen ape in the savannah now save god-man, fallen with the onipotence of his mind?"

"Is her instinct for the preservation of the species strong enough to prevent this catastrophe?"

And these are some of the statements Bokun makes:

"When the adolescent male rebelled by taking the dominating role and inventing abstract ideas and beliefs, woman adapted herself to the absurd world man had created. "

"By imitating man, woman has also succeeded in imitating ... man's most harmful vices. "

"One can only hope that women will return to reality and induce man to listen to her natural wisdom. She can do this by ceasing to strive for equality with man. Equality with man means descending to man's pathetic and ridiculous level. Women should liberate herself from imitating man and from adapting to man's abstract world."

"Woman's common sense is part of a woman's nature and that nature only comes to light when she is not imitating man or adapting herself to his world."