"bicameral mind" meaning in English

See bicameral mind in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: bicameral minds [plural]
Etymology: Coined by Julian Jaynes as a “rather inexact metaphor to a bicameral legislature of an upper and lower house” (1989) and appearing in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Head templates: {{en-noun}} bicameral mind (plural bicameral minds)
  1. (psychology) The hypothetical mentality, neurology and sociology of the theory that before the historical emergence of introspective consciousness ancient humans and the earliest civilizations were governed by auditory hallucinations ‘spoken’ by the right cerebral hemisphere and ‘heard’ by the left hemisphere as the voices of gods. Categories (topical): Psychology Synonyms: bicamerality, bicameral mentality Related terms: bicameral, bicameralism Translations (the hypothetical mentality of ancient humans that was governed by auditory hallucinations): mente bicameral [feminine] (Portuguese)
    Sense id: en-bicameral_mind-en-noun-WYQkWulH Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Topics: human-sciences, psychology, sciences

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for bicameral mind meaning in English (3.5kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by Julian Jaynes as a “rather inexact metaphor to a bicameral legislature of an upper and lower house” (1989) and appearing in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "bicameral minds",
      "tags": [
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  "head_templates": [
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Psychology",
          "orig": "en:Psychology",
          "parents": [
            "Social sciences",
            "Sciences",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1976, Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 1990",
          "text": "In distinction to our own subjective conscious minds, we can call the mentality of the Myceneans a bicameral mind. pg.75\nThe bicameral mind is ... that form of social control which allowed mankind to move from small hunter-gatherer groups to large agricultural communities… pg.126\nThe two hemispheres of the brain are not the bicameral mind… [It] is an ancient mentality demonstrated in the literature and artifacts of antiquity. pg.456\n[At Delphi in C.E. 363] the bicameral mind had come to one of its many ends. pg.331",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, A.E. Cavanna, et.al.: The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: a critical reappraisal of Julian Jaynes’ hypothesis.",
          "text": "The present paper provides a brief summary of the bicameral mind model, followed by a critical reappraisal of […] the putative cerebral basis of bicamerality.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Todd Gibson, Listening for Ancient Voices: Julian Jaynes's Theory of the Bicameral Mind in Tibet, Kuijsten, published 2016, page 271",
          "text": "[…] one should not regard the connections discovered here as an attempt to \"prove\" Jaynes's theory of the bicameral mind. Although his theory certainly accounts for the whole of the data presented here more concisely and cleanly than any alternative yet proposed, in the end, theories are only theories, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The hypothetical mentality, neurology and sociology of the theory that before the historical emergence of introspective consciousness ancient humans and the earliest civilizations were governed by auditory hallucinations ‘spoken’ by the right cerebral hemisphere and ‘heard’ by the left hemisphere as the voices of gods."
      ],
      "id": "en-bicameral_mind-en-noun-WYQkWulH",
      "links": [
        [
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(psychology) The hypothetical mentality, neurology and sociology of the theory that before the historical emergence of introspective consciousness ancient humans and the earliest civilizations were governed by auditory hallucinations ‘spoken’ by the right cerebral hemisphere and ‘heard’ by the left hemisphere as the voices of gods."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "bicameral"
        },
        {
          "word": "bicameralism"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "bicamerality"
        },
        {
          "word": "bicameral mentality"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "human-sciences",
        "psychology",
        "sciences"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "the hypothetical mentality of ancient humans that was governed by auditory hallucinations",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "mente bicameral"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "bicameral mind"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by Julian Jaynes as a “rather inexact metaphor to a bicameral legislature of an upper and lower house” (1989) and appearing in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "bicameral minds",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
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      "expansion": "bicameral mind (plural bicameral minds)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "bicameral"
    },
    {
      "word": "bicameralism"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
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        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "en:Psychology"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1976, Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 1990",
          "text": "In distinction to our own subjective conscious minds, we can call the mentality of the Myceneans a bicameral mind. pg.75\nThe bicameral mind is ... that form of social control which allowed mankind to move from small hunter-gatherer groups to large agricultural communities… pg.126\nThe two hemispheres of the brain are not the bicameral mind… [It] is an ancient mentality demonstrated in the literature and artifacts of antiquity. pg.456\n[At Delphi in C.E. 363] the bicameral mind had come to one of its many ends. pg.331",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, A.E. Cavanna, et.al.: The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: a critical reappraisal of Julian Jaynes’ hypothesis.",
          "text": "The present paper provides a brief summary of the bicameral mind model, followed by a critical reappraisal of […] the putative cerebral basis of bicamerality.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Todd Gibson, Listening for Ancient Voices: Julian Jaynes's Theory of the Bicameral Mind in Tibet, Kuijsten, published 2016, page 271",
          "text": "[…] one should not regard the connections discovered here as an attempt to \"prove\" Jaynes's theory of the bicameral mind. Although his theory certainly accounts for the whole of the data presented here more concisely and cleanly than any alternative yet proposed, in the end, theories are only theories, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The hypothetical mentality, neurology and sociology of the theory that before the historical emergence of introspective consciousness ancient humans and the earliest civilizations were governed by auditory hallucinations ‘spoken’ by the right cerebral hemisphere and ‘heard’ by the left hemisphere as the voices of gods."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "psychology",
          "psychology"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(psychology) The hypothetical mentality, neurology and sociology of the theory that before the historical emergence of introspective consciousness ancient humans and the earliest civilizations were governed by auditory hallucinations ‘spoken’ by the right cerebral hemisphere and ‘heard’ by the left hemisphere as the voices of gods."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "human-sciences",
        "psychology",
        "sciences"
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    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "bicamerality"
    },
    {
      "word": "bicameral mentality"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "the hypothetical mentality of ancient humans that was governed by auditory hallucinations",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "mente bicameral"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bicameral mind"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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