| We do know that stimulating the right temporal lobe with electrodes causes auditory hallucinations. This is the same area that is responsible for actual speech processing on the left side. We also know that the left side wernicke and broca's areas are used in conscious language production while the right side does not seem to be at all (in the vast majority of people, with some exceptions where the lateralization is flipped). Where it gets interesting is his review of historical literature and cataloguing use of metaphor (or lack thereof) in ancient writing. He takes the Illiad and shows where in the original greek, there's essentially no metaphor for internal emotional or psychological states that's conclusively non-physical. Even apparent references to emotional states reference physiological responses, not specifically emotions. This was right on the cusp of when he suggests the change occured. In the Illiad when someone describes their motivation, it's almost always attributed to a god telling them to do it. Similar accounts abound in literature. There are many accounts of ancient rulers directly conversing with some hallucinated being as if they're there. As is there art depicting it. But it slows down around and stops around the time of the bronze age collapse in the region. His suggestion is that it originated with people hallucinating their dead relatives, their dead tribal leaders etc. which is why they would sort of prop them up like they're still alive and have something to say. I was very, very skeptical at first, but the neuroscience was actually pretty thorough for being written in the 80s and I couldn't find any of it that has been debunked to my knowledge. |
I quizzed an ancient-Greek scholar about Jaynes, and his story about evolution of Greek language. He said there is no such phenomenon in Attic Greek, and Jaynes had confabulated it. Such confabulations have long been an occupational hazard of Classics scholarship. Modern statistical methods have proved necessary to banish them.