Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

Dante: Feb 8, 2003

fspades posted:

Let me just say I'll do some more reading about it, including the book's sequel "Bicameral Mind 30 Years On" and then get back to you about if they found any credible evidence for it or not. I'm just curious about it.

People migrated to the australian continent tens of thousands of years before this "bicameral mind" broke down. This means A. Aboriginals didn't become conscious until the Europeans toddled off their ships and B. That the rash of uncontacted tribes that integrated with the modern world in the 70s in Papa New Guinea suddenly became concious in a couple of years at most. From that it follows that it can't be a neurological evolution at all, and that the theory is that somehow a certain cultural development rewires our brain and makes us conscious. That also means that a child that grows up without cultural contact will have this bicameral mind.

This is obviously completely untrue.

edit:

This is horrible

Dante fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jul 4, 2013

# ? Jul 4, 2013 13:43

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# ? May 7, 2024 22:28

Namarrgon: Dec 23, 2008; Congratulations on not getting fit in 2011!

Yes I'm sure most of us will still be here if you find something but do keep that in mind; if it were some fundamental shift in human nature that changed it has to explain all examples. If not, it must have a very good reason why the others are exceptions.

And him throwing his hands up and going "well it fits so well for all the other cultures" is not a good reason.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 13:45

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

God gently caress everyone destroying pyramids in Latin America lately. IT'S THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD FROM A DEAD CULTURE WE DON'T GET ANY MORE OF THEM. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I am generally anti death penalty but I am fine with everyone who destroys something like that getting a bullet in the head.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 14:32

haakman: May 5, 2011

fspades posted:

edit: To carry the discussion to a different direction: what do you all think of Bronze Age collapse? What the hell happened there? Is there a good book that gives an overview of it?

In the span of 50 to 60 years you see the collapse of all of the major civilisations surrounding the Mediterranean. We still don't know the exact cause. You have the Sea Peoples (a bunch of different people, not affiliated with each other - such as the Phillistines)) wrecking poo poo, as well as Doric Greeks coming down from the mountains to plunge Greece into a 400 year Dark Age, but I always consider these tribes an effect, rather than a cause, of the collapse. What caused all these various tribes to start running amok? Drought? Ironworking? Vulcanism?

It's an absolute mystery, and it's bloody fascinating.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 16:23

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

I think Jaynes' theory is more about the beginning of introspection rather than consciousness.
At least that's what I took away from a little reading on it.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 16:39

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

Libluini posted:

Seems plausible. In the thread about Mesoamerican cultures I learned some cultures in Middle- and South America actually developed agriculture for religious ceremony, instead of feeding people with food. So apparently in those cultures the organisational capacity came first, agricultural development later. Getting better maize was just a nice coincedence.

I was reading about the recent discovery of an ancient temple that appears to predate agriculture, so the agriculture -> organized society theory may be taking a beating.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 16:48

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

There's a site of organized dye/paint (don't remember) production somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa that is like 30,000 years old.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 16:54

SlothfulCobra: Mar 27, 2011

I've always felt that "consciousness" is one of those arbitrary subjective terms that is never clearly defined enough to really worry about. I've only ever heard the concept used to explain that animals don't think so it's okay to mess with them.

I mean, who cares about whatever "consciousness" is supposed to be when you're busy figuring out basic irrigation and making progressively sharper rocks out of other rocks?

# ? Jul 4, 2013 16:59

Deteriorata: Feb 6, 2005

haakman posted:

In the span of 50 to 60 years you see the collapse of all of the major civilisations surrounding the Mediterranean. We still don't know the exact cause. You have the Sea Peoples (a bunch of different people, not affiliated with each other - such as the Phillistines)) wrecking poo poo, as well as Doric Greeks coming down from the mountains to plunge Greece into a 400 year Dark Age, but I always consider these tribes an effect, rather than a cause, of the collapse. What caused all these various tribes to start running amok? Drought? Ironworking? Vulcanism?

It's an absolute mystery, and it's bloody fascinating.

The theory I've seen most often is that there was a disruption on the Russian steppes (probably related to the discovery of iron smelting) that caused a cascading series of displacements. The flood of refugees South overwhelmed Greece and the Aegean, which then produced more refugees East (wiping out the Hittites and almost the Assyrians), while others took to the seas and headed for Egypt. They almost overran Egypt, but were held off and the Pharaoh granted them land in exchange for leaving him alone. They then became the Philistines.

Given that iron-working seemed to accompany the arrival of the Sea Peoples, the theory that iron weapons made their wielders almost invincible against their bronze-clad opponents and thus produced the cascading population disruptions is certainly plausible. No one really seems to know.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 17:10

Slantedfloors: Apr 29, 2008; Wait, What?

The most important thing to remember about the Bronze Age Collapse is that all the writing left behind is creepy as gently caress

Suppiluliuma II, King of the Hittites posted:

(to Ammurapi, King of Ugarit)The enemy advances against me and there is no number..our number is�.send whatever is available, look to it and send it to me.

Ammurapi, King of Ugarit posted:

(to Eshuwara, King of Alasia) My father, behold, the enemy's ships came; my cities were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots are in the Hittite country, and all my ships are in the land of Lukka? . . . Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us.

Eshuwara, King of Alasia posted:

In my land the hand of Nergal my lord has killed all the men of the land and so there is no one to produce copper�the hand of Nergal is upon my land and upon my house; my wife bore a son who is now dead...

Slantedfloors fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jul 4, 2013

# ? Jul 4, 2013 17:38

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; by vyelkin

Yeah, Bronze Age Collapse is one of the creepiest things ever.

This series of paintings always reminds me of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Course_of_Empire

# ? Jul 4, 2013 17:46

karl fungus: May 6, 2011; Baeume sind auch Freunde

How far did the ancient Egyptians explore, before the time of Greece and Rome? Did they go deeper into Africa or the Middle East? How about Europe itself?

# ? Jul 4, 2013 17:54

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

DarkCrawler posted:

Yeah, Bronze Age Collapse is one of the creepiest things ever.

This series of paintings always reminds me of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Course_of_Empire

What I find creepy is my inability to find anything in German. Even wikipedia has nothing about the "Bronze Age Collapse". Can someone toss out a few names so I can try and find/compare sources?

# ? Jul 4, 2013 18:03

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

That is odd. Normally the German classical scholarship is very strong.

Looking in kinda outdated books, but not quite my area of expertise:

V. R. d'A. Desborough, The Last Mycenaeans and their Successors (Oxford 1964); The Greek Dark Ages (London 1972)
A. M. Snodgrass, The Dark Age of Greece (Edinburgh 1971)
Rhys Carpenter, Discontinuity in Greek Civilisation (Cambridge 1966); since challenged in Antiquities 41 and 42 by H. H. Lamb and H. E. Wright Jr. respectively.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 18:14

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

A funny thing about the Bronze Age collapse is that there may in fact have been accurate reports and records of what really happened, but we're unlikely to ever see them due to being lost over the millenia. The only things that seem to have survived is the desperate reports of cities resisting whoever was invading - we don't for example have anything from settlements that welcomed them with open arms or something like that.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 18:18

Koramei: Nov 11, 2011; I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.

This episode of the Ancient World Podcast gives a pretty quick (comparatively) overview of the Bronze Age collapse for lazy people like me in case anybody is interested. Actually I'm curious as to what people here have to say about its veracity; it sounds good to me but then it's not a subject I know much about.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 18:57

sbaldrick: Jul 19, 2006; Driven by Hate

haakman posted:

In the span of 50 to 60 years you see the collapse of all of the major civilisations surrounding the Mediterranean. We still don't know the exact cause. You have the Sea Peoples (a bunch of different people, not affiliated with each other - such as the Phillistines)) wrecking poo poo, as well as Doric Greeks coming down from the mountains to plunge Greece into a 400 year Dark Age, but I always consider these tribes an effect, rather than a cause, of the collapse. What caused all these various tribes to start running amok? Drought? Ironworking? Vulcanism?

It's an absolute mystery, and it's bloody fascinating.

I personally hold to the environmental factors theory caused a mass migration more then likely caused be either a long term drought or little ice age.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 20:40

Slantedfloors: Apr 29, 2008; Wait, What?

Install Gentoo posted:

The only things that seem to have survived is the desperate reports of cities resisting whoever was invading - we don't for example have anything from settlements that welcomed them with open arms or something like that.

The fact that pretty much every city outside of Egypt was burned to the ground suggests that the guys who tried to hug it out probably didn't make it either.

Slantedfloors fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jul 4, 2013

# ? Jul 4, 2013 21:11

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Slantedfloors posted:

The fact that pretty much every city outside of Egypt was burned to the ground suggests that the guys who tried to hug it out probably didn't make it either.

We actually have no idea if all of those other cities burned to the ground, or if they did that it wasn't from run of the mill disasters in the century or so of minimal records.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 21:24

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Sleep of Bronze posted:

That is odd. Normally the German classical scholarship is very strong.

Looking in kinda outdated books, but not quite my area of expertise:

V. R. d'A. Desborough, The Last Mycenaeans and their Successors (Oxford 1964); The Greek Dark Ages (London 1972)
A. M. Snodgrass, The Dark Age of Greece (Edinburgh 1971)
Rhys Carpenter, Discontinuity in Greek Civilisation (Cambridge 1966); since challenged in Antiquities 41 and 42 by H. H. Lamb and H. E. Wright Jr. respectively.

That's strange allright, the German wikipedia doesn't mention this collapse with a single word. Also, I can only find information to Carpenter, Snodgrass is at least mentioned (without an article, though) but that's it. I've found something about a collapse around 6900 BCE, but that was a dud. Just some strange Middle Eastern Stone Age culture that got wiped out. If you can read German or want to trust Google-translate, here you go.

Since I'm now really curious I went ahead and wrote an e-mail to the German Association of Archaeologists. Hopefully those guys will answer my weird question.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 21:38

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

Being wrong and elegant means you're still wrong.

I'd rather not worry too much about what's "true" or "false", but what works. If an outlandish theory has explanatory value and some sort of poetry to it, I'd rather relish it than some bland and unexplainable reality.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 21:47

Namarrgon: Dec 23, 2008; Congratulations on not getting fit in 2011!

Ras Het posted:

I'd rather not worry too much about what's "true" or "false", but what works. If an outlandish theory has explanatory value and some sort of poetry to it, I'd rather relish it than some bland and unexplainable reality.

In that case; did you know it was actually aliens who uplifted us and gave us the gift of reason?

# ? Jul 4, 2013 21:49

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Also, it's super easy to travel around in space. There are ways to do it using renaissance era technology, but discovering this tends to hinder technological progress, since there's places to go/see/conquer. Humans on the other hand took The Road Less Traveled, and somehow missed this technology, so now we're technologically advanced, but can do only simple space travel, and there's aliens everywhere but we haven't found them because we're looking for the wrong thing.

PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jul 4, 2013

# ? Jul 4, 2013 21:53

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Namarrgon posted:

In that case; did you know it was actually aliens who uplifted us and gave us the gift of reason?

Hey, he's got a point. Thor Heyerdahl, though totally wrong about his big thesis, still did a lot for cultural diffusion theory just by getting out and doing stuff. You can be interestingly wrong.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 22:10

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

To give another view on the disaster that was this collapse, I'd like to quote some numbers. Again from a somewhat out-of-date book, but I think there's still some weight behind this.

pre:

Area                    Known inhabited sites (C13)  Known inhabited sites (C12)
Messenia and Triphylia             150                         14
Laconia                             30                          7
Argolid and Corinthia               44                         14
Boetia                              27                          3
Phocis and Locris                   19                          5
Attica                              24                         12

Then there's a brief period in Greece where it looks like a rally will happen, before chaos sweeps over again. You see how some areas dropped in number of inhabited sites by a full 9/10ths in those numbers? Estimates say that from the twelfth century into the eleventh, the population itself took another nosedive by up to 9/10ths. And of 320 occupied sites from the twelfth century, 40 remained settled in the eleventh. It was a really lovely time to be in Greece, and the Eastern Med generally.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 22:13

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

PittTheElder posted:

Also, it's super easy to travel around in space. There are ways to do it using renaissance era technology, but discovering this tends to hinder technological progress, since there's places to go/see/conquer. Humans on the other hand took The Road Less Traveled, and somehow missed this technology, so now we're technologically advanced, but can do only simple space travel, and there's aliens everywhere but we haven't found them because we're looking for the wrong thing.

The secret is citrus fruits. When the secret gets out, all countries who can grow lots of citrus fruits will get super-powerful and start conquering the universe. Sadly, this will rile up some seriously weird force. This force will then invade us and wipe us all out. Luckily, no one has found out the secret yet. So don't tell them, OK? :ssh:

Back to the collapse-thing, apparently human civilization went through one great collapse after another. My search found some great cataclysm around 2200 BCE, for example. I hadn't had the time to read the sparse wikipedia-entries yet, though. Does anyone knows what happened then?

# ? Jul 4, 2013 22:45

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.