Bicameral Mind Ideas

Published January 14, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey guys,

Love the podcast. Currently listening to an older one for episode 4. There’s a little known book by Julian Jaynes entitled The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. It’s one of my favorite books and I think it has given me some interesting insights into the mysteries of Westworld. In the Episode 4 Telegraph, you guys make mention of the man at the center of the maze in the scalp that the MIB carries and how it could be Arnold. In the book, early humans mistook their self reflection and thought processes as “hearing” the voices of the gods. I’m starting to feel like that is the case with the hosts “hearing” Arnold. We see that Dolores’ last conversation with Him, he is asking her questions that he would not have been able to ask. It would be easy to shrug this off as a deep ingrained remnant of Arnold’s consciousness, but I believe it to be the start of the host’s ability to recognize their own consciousness. If we replace Arnold in that flashback with Dolores having that conversation with herself, it makes more sense. She’s digging into her own mind the way HUMANS do. When I try recalling past information, I and I assume all of you, talk to ourselves in that same way, “think” “remember”. Bernard states he knows how to reach Arnold and has another conversation that couldn’t have actually happened- with his son. The origin of the hosts’ consciousness comes with the bypassing of their programming. Their programming/narrative is heard as voices in their head. Arnold is their god and like any good atheist, I believe he does not actually exist beyond being the name ascribed to the non-programmed “thoughts” the hosts begin to have.

Hope I can hear your thoughts on these ideas. Keep up the amazing work.

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