DAVID: You've neatly sidestepped the issue of "was it built in stages or all at once?" My highly pertinent questions lead to a logical conclusion: it had to be planned in advance.
> 
> How on earth do you expect me to know if it was built in stages? However, a nest is not like an organ, which either functions or doesn't. For all we know, the complexities may well have been added in stages, and as Matt has suggested, generations may have learned by observation.
Unless you look at the pictures of the knots you will not fully understand the point of my rhetorical question. Is half a nest functional? And this is a very complex nest. And the little weavers looked on and learned. Not reasonable.-> dhw: Meanwhile, you have not so neatly sidestepped the question I asked you, in response to your point that such a complex nest was unnecessary. Why would your God create such an unnecessarily complex nest when his aim was to produce humans? -I've told you, I don't know, but I'm sure the nest was designed by God.
 
> dhw: You have not made the connection. You have asked why weaverbirds build such unnecessarily complex nests and why plovers fly such vast distances, and you insist that God made them do it. So I look forward to hearing why you think your God made them do such unnecessary things.-I have no idea why He had them do these complex things and lifestyles, but I cannot see how the animals learned to do it by themselves. total difference in viewpoint.-> 
> dhw: It is possible that the drive to complexity came from your God. I have even given you two alternative theistic hypotheses that allow a special place for humans.... Please note, this part of our discussion is devoted to your personal reading of God's mind, not to God's existence. -I'm where I am because I cannot explain the unnecessary arrival of humans any other way of theorizing..-> 
>dhw: How does that justify dismissing the conclusions of such respected scientists as “absolutely wrong”? Why not stick to the 50/50 you agreed to in the past?-50/50 are the reasonable odds since there are only two choices, but the studies I read lead me to 90/10 controlled by onboard information. This is instructional information which allows the protein molecules to function cooperatively to create life. Each protein is not alive. the complex is following instructions.

dhw: Under "Bacterial intelligence?"

DAVID’s comment: This is an editorial description of her work, and describes how highly organized and controlled are the systems in any bacteria. It reeks of intelligent design.

dhw: I don’t know why you headed this: “Bacterial intelligence?” The article has nothing to do with the decision-making capabilities of bacteria. All organisms have highly organized and controlled systems that work automatically, and that “reek of intelligent design”. That doesn’t mean they are not intelligent.

DAVID: Headed that way because we are in constant discussion about bacterial intelligence. If all of their activity is automatic, they are no innately intelligent.

dhw: But the article has nothing to do with bacterial intelligence. Your “if” is countered by the equally pointless response that if some of their activities are not automatic, then they are innately intelligent! I have reproduced a long list of activities in support of the argument for intelligence, but of course this has been ignored.

Not ignored. Your vaunted reproductions simply show the activities of the organisms have the appearance of intelligent decisions. Without direct proof, yours is just opinion, as is mine.

From Charles Henry Turner's research:

https://knowablemagazine.org/article/living-world/2023/rediscovering-legacy-charles-hen...

“'Turner was one of the first, and you might say should be given the lion’s share of credit, for changing that perception,” says Charles Abramson, a comparative psychologist at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater who has done extensive biographical research on Turner...Turner also challenged the views that animals lacked the capacity for intelligent problem-solving and that they behaved based on instinct or, at best, learned associations, and that individual differences were just noisy data.

***

"In one of his early studies, Turner set out to investigate if spiders built webs through rigid instinct or if they could respond creatively to novel situations. Meadows make for fairly uniform conditions in which to build webs, he wrote in 1892. “But when the external environment becomes more heterogenous, it is interesting to note how the spiders become masters of the situation.” He meticulously described structures of 27 webs he found on windowsills, down railroad embankments, in log piles. “Was this web the result of blind instinct? I think not,” he wrote about an especially contorted web above a hole in a stone wall that effectively cornered insect prey.

"Turner coupled his observations with experiments that forced spiders to deal with awkward spatial challenges in their web-building. He collected spiders and placed them first into cylindrical bottles, where they constructed circular webs, and then moved them into boxes, where a few made rectangular ones. Finally, he destroyed parts of existing webs and found that the spiders came up with clever solutions to efficiently patch them up. All these experiments pointed to a capacity for learning, contradicting the dominant scientific narrative. Although web-weaving is instinctive, Turner concluded, “the details of construction are the products of intelligent action.” (my bold)

***

"In a series of creative experiments that involved running ants of a dozen different species through an elaborate maze, Turner concluded that the creatures weren’t guided by a homing instinct, but instead relied on a variety of cues as well as memory, all coming together as a simple form of learning. In a separate study, he placed an ant on a small island and observed that the ant attempted to build a bridge to the mainland using materials at its disposal. The ant went beyond trial-and-error learning, seeming to size up the situation and come up with a goal-directed solution — something ants were not considered capable of at the time. (my bold)

***

"Without a doubt, the barriers Turner faced in establishing and maintaining his scientific career were extremely steep and were forged by flagrant racism and by the mundane circumstances that it engendered. He found a mentor at the University of Cincinnati, where he completed undergraduate and master’s degrees in 1887 and 1892, respectively. He earned a reputation as diligent and brilliant, which likely helped him gain a position as an assistant lab instructor, something few other Black students would have been considered for. But his luck on that front ran out when he sought a faculty position at the University of Chicago after he finished his PhD in zoology there in 1907, likely the first Black scientist to do so, Abramson says. He was considered for a post, but the professor who invited him to apply died and, according to sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, his replacement refused to hire a Black scientist.

"Unable to secure the University of Chicago position, Turner became a science teacher at Sumner High School in St. Louis, the first Black high school west of the Mississippi."

Comment: Turner, as a black Ph.D. was unfortunately ignored. He clearly showed (note my bolds) that instinctual behavior with additional perception created solutions for problems.

I ran out of space, but I wanted to sum up:

The most important part of Jaynes' observations here is when he treats the Iliad as an archaeological record of language and then traces the development of words like psuche which throughout the entire Iliad only carries the meaning of blood or inner organs--so that by the time of Antigone we now have the same word, psuche being used now as descriptions of inner states... that process has a history, and the practical consideration is this: if the language lacks words for describing our dynamic inner states--it's reasonable to conclude that we were incapable of reasoning about those things. You *have* to have the words to be able to effectively reason about it. All known languages exhibit this tendency away from inner thinking the further back in time we go.*

Part of the problem is that we learn words like "psyche" and "consciousness" and then take for granted that these things are relatively new and open up new avenues of exploration that didn't exist prior. We extrapolate our present backwards and assume that ancients "thought like we do" and this is false. Would we still have an inner life? Of course. But without an ability to reason about that inner life, we lose--in my opinion--that bit that makes us fully human.

Jaynes opened me up to some vast arrays of possibilities, and even if I'm not utterly convinced of his main argument, putting a section of ancient texts under the microscope like that has convinced me that language is central to the development of the kinds of rich and varied societies that we have today. Why I downgrade the intellect here is because all of that language was created by that combination of analogy and metaphor--very simple processes. Yes, eventually we reached a point where words could be invented from scratch--John Locke invented "consciousness" because English lacked a word to describe it, so he went to latin and created the word using the roots "con" (together) and "scio" (to know). I state this only to suggest that our natural instinct is always to create from what is already there.

*A criticism I myself have about this language theory of consciousness is that written records began as a way to record inventories and transactions, and because societies at that time had rich oral traditions, its entirely plausible that these ancients just didn't think to use writing to record things like inner emotional states. However, for me this is overshadowed by the simple fact that particular words we use to discuss inner states patently did not exist and that they are themselves historically contingent.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

dhw: But we did spill into new places! Our non-sapiens and our sapiens ancestors’ bones are to be found all over the world, as are their artefacts. It’s not language that enables exploration and invention, though no doubt exploration and invention would have resulted in an increased vocabulary of sounds. Again, I’d say it is our intelligence that has given us domination, and our language is a tool invented by our intelligence but also enabling us to use, communicate and expand our intelligence to maximum effect.

xeno: So when I mean "spill into new places," I didn't mean geographically. I meant the mental world.

Ah, OK, but the argument also applies to the artefacts, which were the RESULT of thought and engendered new language, and to the mental world (see below).

xeno: by the time of Ecclesiastes, you have someone who is speaking about their own internal life using introspective words and phrases. There's a co-evolution going on between our use of language and our ability to be conscious.

There is no question that language developed to cover more and more areas of our existence. Only what has expanded, in my view, is not the “ability” to be conscious but the range of things we are conscious of.

xeno: Jaynes makes the point very well I think, that our ability to be conscious--entirely relies on language--which is good because it means we can *always* increase our ability to be conscious just by virtue of having a deeper vocabulary.

I sort of agree, but this is too simplistic for me. I will use “awareness” as a synonym of consciousness in order to make my argument clearer. I see the process in phases: 1) awareness/ the “ ability to be conscious” is always present; 2) our awareness of each new experience/invention/ concept spawns new language; the language does not spawn the experience; 3) however, we use the new language to pass on the range of subjects that other humans can then be made aware of. And so language is a tool which enables consciousness to expand the range of what it is aware of – and of course this expansion was massively enhanced by the invention of writing. That’s why you have chosen books to illustrate the whole process. As time goes by, we see a complexification of vocabulary which corresponds to and results from the complexification of the thoughts arising from new experiences, discoveries etc.

xeno: Intelligence is necessary but not sufficient to explain our difference with the rest of the animal world. Our intelligence creates new connections but only on the foundation built by prior words and concepts.

Only partly agreed. The principle is the same for animals, which use their own language to meet their own needs, but because of our superior intelligence, our needs cover an almost infinitely larger range of subjects than theirs, and so our language is almost infinitely more complex. Each NEW word results from the need to give expression to the thought – it does not create the thought.

xeno: The further back in time, the more concrete and specific the language. Less room for a rich mental consciousness. Less room for an inner space.

Yes, because as time goes by, the range of experience broadens for lots of different reasons – and language is one of them, because it enables others to build on each new line of thought.

DAVID: Consciousness, defined as I have elsewhere as the ability for introspection, is different in kind between the neolithic age and today. And that consciousness is itself the sole difference us and all the other creatures. You simply cannot have what we have without language--language is what makes consciousness possible.

I don’t like this definition. Introspection is only one form of consciousness. One of the points you made earlier concerned our arrogance in our treatment of animals and other humans – a refusal to recognize that they too are conscious. Animals are conscious of pain, conscious of the past (through memory), consciously respond to anything that threatens their safety, consciously solve problems, devise strategies, cooperate with or fight against other animals. And I have no doubt that our ancestors were equally conscious of everything that concerned their survival, and perhaps had a range of gestures and grunts to cover all their requirements. Introspection, in my view, is not caused by language, but language arises from the need to express and communicate
this particular form of consciousness.

xeno: (And as I pointed out earlier, even the word "consciousness" didn't exist until John Locke invented it.) This means precisely that we have a greater ability to be conscious than our ancestors.

You pointed out that he derived it from the Latin. Do you believe that the Romans were not as conscious as we are, that there was no introspection? Ditto with the ancient Greeks and the ancient Egyptians? How do you know that all the homos of whom we have no written record were never introspective? My point is that language may be used to enhance consciousness by expanding the range of what we are conscious of, but language itself develops from intelligence/consciousness, and can then be used as a tool with which we can help others to expand the range of their awareness - not their ability to be aware.

I’ve run out of time, and will stop here. In any case, I’m sure this is enough to set a few sparks flying!

xeno: But coming back to Jaynes, he details the process of metaphor building and extension that to my mind unlocks the key as to bbbhowbbb we ended up dominating the planet, which ought to be a fascinating question for most of us. It also explains why we were relatively "silent" prior to recorded history--we lacked the language that allowed us to spill into new places.

DHW: But we did spill into new places! Our non-sapiens and our sapiens ancestors’ bones are to be found all over the world, as are their artefacts. It’s not language that enables exploration and invention, though no doubt exploration and invention would have resulted in an increased vocabulary of sounds. Again, I’d say it is our intelligence that has given us domination, and our language is a tool invented by our intelligence but also enabling us to use, communicate and expand our intelligence to maximum effect.

Matt: So when I mean "spill into new places," I didn't mean geographically. I meant the mental world. An exercise that Julian Jaynes has the reader perform that is IMHO a radical exercise, is to read the OT Book of Amos, and then contrast that with the OT book of Ecclesiastes.

IIRC Amos is dated around 760BCE and Ecclesiastes is dated around 450BCE. Why that's important is that the time range is contemporaneous with various Greek classics that were also being written (Antigone was written in 441BCE) The important contrast is that by the time of Ecclesiastes, you have someone who is speaking about their own internal life using introspective words and phrases.

There's a co-evolution going on between our use of language and our ability to be conscious. Jaynes makes the point very well I think, that our ability to be conscious--entirely relies on language--which is good because it means we can *always* increase our ability to be conscious just by virtue of having a deeper vocabulary. However, the process of building language is by metaphor and analogy--ideas don't spring up on their own without it being related to some prior concept.

To try to make this point a little more concise, our intelligence and ability to be analogical isn't complete without language. Intelligence is necessary but not sufficient to explain our difference with the rest of the animal world. Our intelligence creates new connections but only on the foundation built by prior words and concepts.

Jaynes had a different goal for his book, so he didn't make this argument, but I would posit that other animals are capable of analogical thinking, the separator between us is the invention and use of language. Once we began the process of using analogy and metaphor to begin expanding our vocabularies, more and more things in the world began to enter our orbit. And in the time period that Jaynes focuses on, he maps a transition between what he calls "bicameral" thinking with what we take for granted today.

In Amos, God barks commands to the people, no inner space. In Ecclesiastes, we have a rich internal space. You might think like I did when presented with this argument--maybe there was a different audience for the texts, however ancient Greek and Sumerian historical records ALSO track an identical development of language over the exact same time periods. The further back in time, the more concrete and specific the language. Less room for a rich mental consciousness. Less room for an inner space. This ratchets between 2000BCE and the time period he covers, the beginning of the end for bicamerality occurring in the Bronze Age collapse in the 200yrs of either side of 1177BCE. The core of his argument is this: the consciousness that we take for granted today is the result of metaphorical and analogical reasoning that built the language structure that in turn created and deepened the space for that consciousness in the first place. Consciousness, defined as I have elsewhere as the ability for introspection, is different in kind between the neolithic age and today. And that consciousness is itself the sole difference us and all the other creatures. You simply cannot have what we have without language--language is what makes consciousness possible. (And as I pointed out earlier, even the word "consciousness" didn't exist until John Locke invented it.) This means precisely that we have a greater ability to be conscious than our ancestors.

If you stick to just the left-hand column at this site, you'll get very quickly the partial picture of where my head is at on this issue. The Bicamerality part of his thesis is controversial but the observations he makes stand on their own outside of his more radical ideas.

There is no question language broadens the form of consciousness we have. But my dog is conscious in a minor way. I see him head for the kitchen meal with intentionality. He must be conscious in his simple way, and he knows many words.