{"id":301,"date":"2026-01-04T13:02:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/?p=301"},"modified":"2026-01-04T13:02:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:02:39","slug":"%c2%a7-1-5-la-voz-de-los-dioses-la-voz-de-los-hombres-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/01\/04\/%c2%a7-1-5-la-voz-de-los-dioses-la-voz-de-los-hombres-1\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a7 1.5. The voice of the gods, the voice of men (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind<\/em>, Julian Jaynes elaborates an intriguing hypothesis about the roots of self-consciousness and human hierarchies. In broad strokes, the primitive human, given a \u201cbicameral\u201d neurological structure, could \u201chear\u201d the voices of the gods through auditory hallucinations that put him in touch with a part of the brain that modern humans have relegated to the unconscious. This, of course, doesn\u2019t mean that the idea of God can be dismissed as a simple hallucination, it would be rather a radically different organization of the nervous system. \u201cThe gods were in no sense \u2018figments of the imagination of anyone,\u201d says Jaynes, \u201cthey were<\/em> man\u2019s volition.\u201d1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Jaynes, during the dawn of civilization, this hallucinatory faculty was centralized in the figure of a god-king who could listen to the divine commands and transmit them to his people. However, demographic explosion, the increasing complexity of human societies during the Bronze Age, and the appearance of writing considerably weakened the bicameral ability of sovereigns to listen to their gods. An example of this transition would be the reign of the Babylonian king Hammurabi who left a legal code of 282 pronouncements from a number of gods in a block of basalt seven and half feet high and covered in cuneiform script. Of Hammurabi\u2019s code, says Jaynes, one should note \u201cthe cold economy of words in contrast with the bellicose blustering of the prologue and epilogue,\u201d2<\/a><\/sup> which would have been written directly by the king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Indeed they sound like two very different \u2018men\u2019 and in the bicameral sense I think they were. They were two separately integrated organizations of Hammurabi\u2019s nervous system, one of them in the left hemisphere writing the prologue and epilogue and standing in effigy at the side of the stele, and the other in the right hemisphere composing judgements. And neither of them was conscious in our sense.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

five centuries after Hammurabi\u2019s reign the social and psychological conditions of Mesopotamia had changed radically, the bicameral structure that allowed the sovereign to rule in the name of the gods was about to collapse. Around 1230 BC, Tukulti-Ninurta I, an Assyrian tyrant\u2014identified in the Old Testament as Nimrod\u2014ordered the construction of an unprecedented stone altar. In the carving Tukulti-Ninurta is shown twice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

first as he approaches the throne of his god, and then as he kneels before it. The very double image fairly shouts aloud about this beggarly posture, unheard of in a king before in history. As our eyes descend from the standing king to the kneeling king just in front of him, it is as emphatic as a moving picture, in itself a quite remarkable artistic discovery. But far more remarkable is the fact that the throne before which this first of the cruel Assyrian conquerors grovels is empty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No king before in history is ever shown kneeling. No scene before in history ever indicates an absent god.4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tukulti-Ninurta's Altar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far from the gods\u2019 supervision, the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I was marked by excess. He was killed by his own son (1.1<\/a>) and his more conservative nobles, who imprisoned him in the new city he had built on the other side of the Tigris and set it on fire, letting it burn to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cuneiform tablets of the time testify to the absence of the gods and the disconsolation of men:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

My god has forsaken me and disappeared,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My goddess has failed me and keeps at a distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good angel who walked beside me has departed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My god has not come to the rescue in taking me by the hand,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor has my goddess shown pity on me by going at my side.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Tiglath-Pileser I, one of the successors of Tukulti-Ninurta, led an authentic reign of terror. \u201cHis exploits are well known from a large clay prism of monstrous boasts. His laws have come down to us in a collection of cruel tablets.\u201d6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then all sovereigns have been heirs to the empty throne of Nimrod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
  1. Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind<\/em>, 202.\u00a0 \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. Ibid., 200. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  3. Ibid., 147. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  4. Ibid., 224. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  5. Ibid., 225. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  6. Ibid., 214.\u00a0 \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    En El origen de la conciencia en la ruptura de la mente bicameral, Julian Jaynes elabora una intrigante hip\u00f3tesis sobre las ra\u00edces de la autoconciencia y de las jerarqu\u00edas humanas. A grades rasgos, el humano primitivo, dada una estructura neurol\u00f3gica \u201cbicameral\u201d, estuvo dotado para \u201cescuchar\u201d las voces de los dioses a trav\u00e9s de alucinaciones auditivas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274836558,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"Julian Jaynes, El origen de la conciencia en la ruptura de la mente bicameral<\/em>, 183.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"5ed5630b-aa77-4637-ac6c-d9dfc446382b\"},{\"content\":\"Ib\u00edd., 181.\",\"id\":\"74178a0e-3b1e-497a-8e69-f0bddba7d497\"},{\"content\":\"Ib\u00edd.\",\"id\":\"f324fcff-2b37-430d-8024-0f84c2649e30\"},{\"content\":\"Ib\u00edd., 200.\",\"id\":\"2ad30b2f-4546-447d-ad4e-ba9366133e19\"},{\"content\":\"Ib\u00edd., 202.\",\"id\":\"cfa466b2-c9f2-47fa-a9ab-a2dc34b2814c\"},{\"content\":\"Ib\u00edd., 192.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"c598ff66-ce34-41a3-8ca2-b0e3b4f3843e\"}]","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[786109031],"tags":[786109026,786109024,786109025,786109027,786109029,786109028],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitulo-1","tag-codigo-de-hammurabi","tag-el-origen-de-la-consciencia-en-la-ruptura-de-la-mente-bicameral","tag-julian-jaynes","tag-nimrod","tag-tiglath-pileser-i","tag-tukulti-ninurta-i"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYHfz-4R","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274836558"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}