Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- glossary [2024/04/04 21:32] – brian.m
+++ glossary [2024/04/14 14:00] (current) – brian.m
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-**Glossary of Jaynesian Terms**
+==== GLOSSARY OF JAYNESIAN TERMS ====
 **Aptic Structures**\\ Jaynes’s term for instincts. The evolved, innate neurological basis of aptitudes that guide responses in a general way when wedded to the results of environmental, developmental experiences. Such structures make the organism apt to behave in a certain way under certain conditions.
-**Archaic Authorization**\\ An aspect of the General Bicameral Paradigm. The supernatural entity to which the trance is directed or related (sometimes a person) who is accepted by the individual and his or her cultural community as an authority, and who by the [[syntax#internal|collective cognitive imperative]] is prescribed to be responsible for controlling behavior.
+**Archaic Authorization**\\ An aspect of the General Bicameral Paradigm. The supernatural entity to which the trance is directed or related (sometimes a person) who is accepted by the individual and his or her cultural community as an authority, and who by the collective cognitive imperative is prescribed to be responsible for controlling behavior.
 **Authorization**\\ Being granted permission to act in a certain way (or to believe something); how our actions are legitimized or justified. Having evolved from primates, we instinctively form dominance hierarchies, with a top dog allowing—authorizing—our behavior. We have moved from god/ancestor authorization (bicameral mentality) to self-authorization. Being basically social beings, we prefer forms of authorization that are in the form of persons but in principle anything, including convoluted, abstract ideologies (any political “ism”) can operate as authorization. As a species we are still seeking some form of ultimate authorization, whether in religion, science, or politics.
@@ Line 11: / Line 12: @@
 **Bicameral Mentality/Mind**\\ From “two-chambered,” an obsolete neurocultural arrangement in which a governing, superior supernatural being (right hemisphere) issued admonishing, advisory, or commanding hallucinatory voices and/or visions to an obedient, subordinate mortal human (left hemisphere). Ancestors or gods or were believed to be the source of the voices and visions.
-**Bicameral Vestiges/Vestigial Bicamerality**\\ Relics of an earlier, preconscious mentality. Examples include spirit possession, automatic writing, channeling, a sense of presence, imaginary childhood playmates, mediumship, glossolalia, hypnosis, and audiovisual hallucinations among schizophrenics as well as the nonclinical population.
+**Bicameral Vestiges/Vestigial Bicamerality**\\ Relics of an earlier, preconscious mentality. Examples include spirit possession, automatic writing, channeling, a sense of presence, imaginary childhood playmates, mediumship, glossolalia, hypnosis, and audiovisual hallucinations among schizophrenics as well as in the nonclinical population.
 **Cognitive Relativism**\\ A perspective that, rather than assuming psychic unity and psychic invariance, argues for psychic variability, neurocultural plasticity, and the cognitive diversity of the human species.
@@ Line 27: / Line 28: @@
 **General Bicameral Paradigm**\\ The psychosocial structure behind a class of behaviors of diminished consciousness that are partial holdovers from an earlier mentality. See collective cognitive imperative, induction, trance, archaic authorization.
-**Hypnosis**\\ A vestige of bicameral mentality. The weakening or suspension of the functions of consciousness, especially the belief in the analog “I.” That such functions can be readily arrested indicates that consciousness is culturally learned and historically recent, i.e., it is not biologically innate.
+**Hypnosis**\\ A vestige of bicameral mentality. A sociopsychological behavior characterized by: (1) heightened concentration and focused attention; (2) an enhanced capacity to respond to verbal commands ; and (3) the temporary suspension of the functions of consciousness, especially the belief in the analog “I." These aspects are interrelated, i.e., the weakening of consciousness (or its loss) leads to increased perceptual focus, facilitating an openness to external suggestions. That consciousness can be readily arrested indicates that subjectivity is culturally learned and historically recent, i.e., it is not biologically innate. It also evidences our predisposition to fit into superior-subordinate relations (see Authorization).
 **"I"**\\ A feature of consciousness. The observing self or self-as-subject; the active aspect of selfhood that “does things” in one’s quasi-perceptual introcosm.