Mcluhanisms: bicameral-unicameral mind as expresses

of two different types of media

From correspondence with Tzo`-Nah, an native Indian scientist, the author of the book I am Joseph, The Instruction: American Indian philosophy for the modern times

Dear Tzo`-Nah, The idea of your guide-teacher of a nine sens system is very interesting. It challenges these questions about the origins and nature of human conscious. I think the work of Marshall Mcluhan can help you to understand better the relationship between human senses and his, mostly technological, environment. He claims the media (not only of communication, but and in purpose of trade, like money, or cars, arms etc.), are the extensions of human senses and functions. So, phonetic alphabet is en extension of the sense of sight, the clothes is extension of a skinend the electrical based media (such as television etc.) are the extension of human central nervous system. He also anticipated (he died in 1980) that in the future of mankind there is going to be a media that will extend the human conscious itself (so the all mankind will have one common conscious). I think the work of Mcluhan is very much corresponding with the subject that you are researching. For example, about Julian Jaynes notion of ancient bicameral and modern unicameral mind. He thinks that some sort of external environmental stress caused the change form bicameral to unicameral mind (the assumption that you have adopted, as it seems to me?). But, Mcluhan claims that ear-based socits or cultures (in pre-literate times) with their specific tribal sensorium begin to disappear with discovery of writing, especially of phonetic alphabet. He also thought that inventory of movable typography-print (that one of the Johanes Gutenberg in the year of 1455) has finally separated the ear-based culture or epoch form eye-based culture and epoch. Typography gave people and cultures the eye instead of ear, he wrote and marked an emergence of modern era and civilised men (as they are identified according to ability to write, read and produce the books). Typography is intensified extension of our sense of sight. So, what is the idea of this excursion? Bicameral mind is probably one of a tribal society and cultures, which were ear-based socits with freely interplay among the senses, called synesthesia (so they were called and cool cultures). This interplay of senses has finally disappeared with the inventory of a movable print (typography), when human cultures became eye-based and so called hot cultures (because of emphasis on the extension of one sense, namely of the sens of sight via typography, then books, magazines etc.). Instead of an oral, cool and synesthesiatic man (and maybe that one with bicameral mind) came the so called typographic man, with one sense extended in a huge degree, which is rational, logic, and hot (versus cool oral man), and does not know the interplay of the senses (called synesthesia). So, modern cultures became hot cultures based on the eye, on technologies that extended the sense of sight. Probably, the human mind became unicameral. So, the cause of this crucial change is not some mysterious environmental stress, but it was a shift from oral to written and print cultures and socits. The cause was the nature of the main media one epoch was communicated through (within itself, past and the future). So, the print produced the effect known as explosion and also fragmented human existences, socits and cultures (the effect called fragmentation). But, with emergence of electric

circuit media (like telegraph, telephone, radio, television), the humankind again experienced the interplay of the senses and synesthesia, in the process which Mcluhan marked as re-tribalization (or new tribalism). Thanks to electrically based media which nature is synesthetic one (they again caused freely interplay of all human senses), the whole humankind became again much more ear-based nor eye-based, much more again cool rather then hot culture: the world, thus, became a global (tribal) village. Instead of the print era of explosion and fragmentation arrises the electrical epoch of implosion and integration. Human central nervous system is extended into electromagnetic waves, McLuhan claims, making the basis for appearance of collective brain and collective conscious of the humankind (maybe you would say these are Children of god, or spirit-mind in us?). So, it is very interesting question in what external media are extended the senses that Henry-Joseph pointed out. Especially the eight and the ninth sense, or solar plexus together with spirit-mind? Are the Internet or so called digitalized media those extension? But, this is the question that you have to answer. I hope this will help to your efforts to know these phenomena better. Personally, what I like the most are the parts of native myth and philosophy. I like the idea of a sense brothers (fear and emotions); the story how god made people warmed up; and explanation of how spirit-mind of a man, when communicates with the water, does that only with the same spirit-mind of the water! 16.8.2012.