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Talk:The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

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metaphor links to wrong article

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In the section "Jaynes's theories", there is a passage in the article here "from language, and specifically from metaphor" [5].

The citation and meaning are correct, though the link behind the word "metaphor" hyperlinks to the Wikipedia article for "Metaphor" the Figure of Speech. I suggest that it should link instead of the Wikipedia article for "Conceptual Metaphor" as this is the mechanism of thought which Jaynes refers to.

I am, however, only a beginner in the art of Wikipedia, so I would like the more experienced folks to consider or undertake this, please. Ross Bennett (talk) 20:57, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Crbennett: Yes, it seems you are right and I've made the requested edit. Skyerise (talk) 21:04, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very kindly! Ross Bennett (talk) 21:08, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FRINGE, MERGE

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FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Talk:Julian Jaynes#It needs to be made clearer that his overall hypothesis is WP:FRINGE.
Please see also: Talk:Julian Jaynes#Move to The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind?

Summary: Aspects of his hypothesis having "inspired" some later research doesn't equate to his work being proven correct, and cognitive science and related displines descreasingly support it, most especially his central notion that consciousness only arose a few millennia ago. Furthermore, it was proposed at that article to move it and reshape it into an article on the book, since the person is not notable for anything other than one book. Instead, someone has WP:CFORKed it, and this is not good. The bio mostly just repeats claims from the book article, and both are faulty articles, so we have double the maintenance burden.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS: It's worse than I suspected, with a third fork at bicameral mentality, which has similar problems to some extent, but is more inclusive of the criticism and including enough of it (from a certain era) to lean already in the FRINGE direction. However, it is missing most of the more recent conclusions of cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and related fields.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

He claimed that English is descended from Sanskrit

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Direct quote: "Even such an unmetaphorical-sounding word as the verb 'to be' was generated from a metaphor. It comes from the Sanskrit bhu, “to grow, or make grow,” while the English forms ‘am’ and ‘is’ have evolved from the same root as the Sanskrit asmiy “to breathe.”" ("Origin of consciousness", p. 51)

This man claims to be a researcher of ancient cultures and languages. I don't think there are many high-schoolers who think that English is descended from Sanskrit. P.S. Those Sanskrit words don't even mean what he says they mean, according to wiktionary they mean "to be" and "am". 212.3.196.172 (talk) 02:54, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They are both descendants of Proto-Indo-European. And there are sometimes shared cognates. I don't think you know as much as you think you do. How should this information be used to improve the article? Do you have a third-party source that criticizes Jaynes for this? Otherwise it is simply your own personal observation which cannot be added to the article. See our policies on original research and synthesis. And basing observations on Wiktionary rather than a proper etymological dictionary is inadequate. Wiktionary, like all other user-contributed content including Wikipedia itself, is not considered to be a reliable source here. Skyerise (talk) 11:19, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously the English verb "to be" is a cognate of the Sanskrit word. But Jaynes says that it "comes" from the Sanskrit word. That is absolutely insane. English is descended from Proto-Germanic which is directly descended from Proto-Indo-European. Sanskrit was not involved in any way. Unless you believe that the English conquered India in the 18th century and then borrowed from them the English word "to be".
You could say, oh he misspoke, he meant "it's a cognate", not that "it comes from". But also on the same page he claims "The very concept of law in Greek derives from nomos, the word for the foundations of a building." The Greek word nomos (meaning "law") comes from "nemo" (verb "to distribute"). I happen to know Ancient Greek and have a bunch of dictionaries, even the classic 19th century Liddel-Scott dictionary notes that nomos is derived from nemo, while the actual etymological dictionaries (Frisk, Chantraine, Beekes) don't even list "nomos" separately and list it under "nemo", since to every student of Greek the relation is totally obvious. And none of these dictionaries mention any kind of meaning like "the foundations of a building". In fact "nemo" is mostly connected with lots of different words about pastures and grazing which is as far away from construction as possible.
And regarding the two Sanskrit words - I don't know Sanskrit at all (neither did Jaynes), but I don't see why wiktionary articles on these words aren't sufficient evidence. You can also simply type "bhu Sanskrit" in Google, and you can see that the word is apparently simply the Sanskrit word for "to be", not "grow" as Jaynes claims. 80.89.78.188 (talk) 14:12, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And also the wiktionary articles on the Sanskrit words have references to dictionaries in the end. 80.89.78.188 (talk) 14:35, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This web page isn't for discussing the book, but rather for discussing how to improve the article about the book. I see nothing in your post that is about improving the article based on sources. Please see WP:NOTFORUM. Do you have a proposed change to the article based on sources? Otherwise, please desist in using this talk page as if it were a forum for such discussions. As I pointed out above, all criticism of the book must be sourced to a writer who directly levies that criticism: the observations of random Internet IPs, however erudite they are or think they are, have no place in an encyclopedia article. Skyerise (talk) 23:07, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well if someone happens to look at this talk page they might get an idea of what a fraud this author is. This was literally the first page of the book where he went out of the area of his actual expertise and started talking about languages and history, and right away there's four ridiculous errors in that single page, including an extremely blatant one of claiming that English verbs have descended from Sanskrit. I can only imagine the amount of shoddy research that was put in for the rest of the book (which I personally have no ability to verify, since I don't know anything about Babylonian literature or Mycenean architecture or whatever - I do know something about Indo-European comparative linguistics so I can see this guy is full of s-t). 212.3.198.98 (talk) 13:25, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But just out of interest - if I would submit correctly formatted quotations from Beekes' etymological dictionary of Greek (considered standard reference right now) showing that "nomos" has nothing to do with "foundations of a building", and a quotation from an English etymology dictionary showing that "to be" is not descended from Sanskrit and "is" is not related to any word meaning "to blow", could this be put in the article? Or would you just say, "oh that's just a single page of the book, it's not relevant"? 212.3.198.98 (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I could put in a section called "Dubious claims" and phrase it without making categorical claims myself, for example: "Numerous claims in the book are contradicted by generally accepted reference works. In the section "Mind of man", the author claims that the English verb "to be" comes from the Sanskrit word "bhu" which according to Jaynes means "to grow, or make grow". The generally accepted view is that "to be" comes from the Proto-Germanic *biju- "I am, I will be" [quotation from etymonline.com], while the definition of the Sanskrit verb "bhu" (भू) is "to be" [quotation from a Sanskrit dictionary]." 212.3.198.98 (talk) 13:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No you couldn't, unless you can provide a source that explicitly levies the criticism against Jaynes' book. See WP:SYNTH: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." It's your own opinion, not a citable one, and doesn't belong in the article. I've provided that link once already, but clearly you didn't read it. Skyerise (talk) 19:07, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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