The subject is a passage from Julian Jaynes' book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
Here it is: "Deceit may also be a cause of consciousness. But we must begin any discussion of the topic by making a distinction between instrumental or short-term deceit and long-term deceit, which might better be expressed as treachery. Several examples of the former have been described in chimpanzees. Female Chimpanzees will 'present' in sexual posture to a male to whisk away his banana when is prandial interest is thus distracted. In another instance, a chimpanzee would fill his mouth with water, coax a disliked keeper over to the cage bars, and spit the water in his face. In both such instances, the deceit involved is a case of instrumental learning, a behavior pattern that is followed immediately by some rewarding state of affairs. And it needs no further explanation.
But the kind of deceit that is treachery is quite another matter. It is impossible for an animal or for a bicameral man. Long-term deceit requires the invention of an analog self that can 'do' or 'be' something quite different from what the person actually does or is, as seen by his associates. It is an easy matter to imagine how important for survival during these centuries such an ability would be. Overrun by some invader, and seeing his wife raped, a man who obeyed his voices would, of course, immediately strike out, and thus probably be killed. But if a man could be one thing on the inside and another thing on the outside, could harbor his hatred and revenge behind a mask of acceptance of the inevitable, such a man would survive. Or, in the more usual situation of being commanded by invading strangers, perhaps in a strange language, the person who could obey superficially and have 'within him' another self with 'thoughts' contrary to his disloyal actions, who could loathe the man he smiled at, would be much more successful in perpetuating himself and his family in the new millennium" (Jaynes 219-220).
Discuss... You don't necessarily have to tie it back to this book and its specific theory just give me your thoughts on deceit as a component of the generation of subjective consciousness.
-------------------- "To those who doubt - your wounds will never heal To those who question my creation - I'm not real"
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My views are that it's likely about how this works. It's a survival trait. It's sad really, I mean from a subjective point of view. It says to me that being different than that might be very hard work and limited success. It's hard to fight nature.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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