The

'Bicameral
Mind'
Explains
What's Next
for
'Westworld'
An obscure theory from the late 1970s is at
the heart of TV's biggest mystery.
 Andrew Burmon
 Westworld
 October 17, 2016

T he idea that technology inevitably mimics — then trumps —

evolution is, on first blush, the subtext of HBO’s new hit
show Westworld. This makes the prestige science fiction drama
zeitgeist-y as hell. At the dawn of the age of artificial intelligence,
the public is used to hearing from neural net weavers
and Judgment Day prophets claiming that robot self-awareness is a
few software updates away.

But what makes Westworld fascinating and unexpectedly subversive

is that its allusions to cutting-edge research seem to have been —
to a degree — an intellectual smoke screen. Fans just got a peak
through that haze in Episode 3, “The Stray,” when Dr. Robert
Ford (Anthony Hopkins), the show’s modern Prometheus, name-
checked Julian Jaynes’s theory of the “Bicameral Mind.” For an
instant, the show was laid bare.

Introduced in the blockbuster 1976 treatise, The Origin of

Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, bicameralism
suggests that the human brain hasn’t always functioned in the
same manner. As recently as 3,000 years ago, the theory goes, men
and women lacked what their ancestors came to define as self-
awareness because they didn’t yet have the linguistic tools for
introspection. In essence, bicameralism states that humans needed
better code to function like individuals rather than like horny
defecation machines. That code was metaphorical language.

In introducing the concept, Westworld’s writers make it clear that

the show’s artificially intelligent robots aren’t breaking out of pre-
programmed bondage because of a glitch or a virus — as was the
case in the original film. They’re breaking out because of their
exposure to increasingly complex language. They are being given
the code mankind developed over millennia on parchment and
papyrus. Not only does this explain why one of Westworld’s most
powerful engineers is so furtive about providing a bot with access
to Lewis Carroll, it explains why the show seems to vacillate
between literary and technological ideas at neck-breaking speed.

In short, bicameralism, as a concept, organizes the show’s key ideas

into a narrative line. And yes, it’s a straight path toward
confrontation.

Michael Crichton didn't write this one.

Inverse reached out to Marcel Kuijsten, author of Reflections on the

Dawn of Consciousness and the executive director of the Julian
Jaynes Society. An IT professional fascinated with the idea of
emergent consciousness, Kuijsten provided new insight into what
has been going on in Westworld and what is likely to happen next.

The theory of the bicameral mind is name-checked in the third

episode of Westworld, and a character immediately suggests that
it’s been debunked. Has it?
It’s really never been debunked, just ignored. That’s how I would
put it. It’s definitely not mainstream, and it’s definitely not
considered something that is widely accepted in academia.

What are the key differences between a bicameral mind and a

modern human brain?

When we’re talking about the bicameral mind, we’re talking about
this period after language develops, but before we learn
consciousness. In lieu of an introspective mind-space, we’re hearing
a commanding voice when we have decisions to make. As language
gets more complex through metaphor, we develop the ability to
have introspection and little by little, the hallucinations are
suppressed.

The term bicameralism is borrowed from civics. It alludes to the

interaction of two governing bodies. What are they, and how do
they function in concert?

We have language areas in both hemispheres, but we’re really

mainly using the dominant one — if you’re right-handed, the
language area is in your left hemisphere. The question was always,
“What are the areas in the non-dominant hemisphere doing?” And
for a long time people thought, well … nothing. It wasn’t until the
late ‘90s — actually 1999 — that the first MRIs were done that
confirmed what Jaynes called the “neurological model.”

When people have a hallucination, the non-dominant language

areas are activating, and then that hallucination is perceived in the
dominant language areas. This produces a voice we don’t associate
with our sense of self. It’s perceived as coming from outside of us.

How would we know if we met a being, robot or human, with a

bicameral mind?
When Jaynes is talking about bicameralism, he’s not talking about
someone in a sort of zombie-like state. That’s a total
misconception. He’s describing a highly intelligent, linguistic
person minus the introspection. The truth is, we can all actually get
through most of our days non-consciously. If the robots
in Westworld are bicameral, then they would be responding to some
kind of external guiding voice.

There is no spoon. There is also no hallucination.

So it’s a deeply internal thing that would be hard to diagnose in

someone else.

People that don’t read Jaynes’s book often say, “Well, evolution
doesn’t work that fast and we couldn’t have seen such a rapid
transition in the brain.” But Jaynes never makes the argument that
it’s a biological, evolutionary change. He’s talking about a learned
process.

Daniel Dennett, the philosophy professor, uses a metaphor: It’s a

software change, not a hardware change. So it’s like a new
operating system.
So, within the context of Westworld, that would suggest that the
robots would inch toward consciousness every time someone read
them a book, something that happens a lot. Would that transition
be apparent to the engineers putting these automatons through
high school English Literature curriculums?

I think there’s a sense that Jaynes makes it a little bit more of a

stark transition, and I think he had scientific reasons for doing that,
to make the theory seem more testable. But the more I’ve learned
and the more I’ve read ancient literature, it looks like consciousness
is not a sort of an on-off type of switch, but a package of features.

Julian Jaynes, life of the party.

The robots on the show are starting to have hallucinations. Let’s

assume they’re in a bicameral state, what would they represent
within that state? What is the function of hallucinations within a
bicameral state?

Historically, it’s how we came to this whole notion of God.

The voice functions sort of both as a form of social control and also
as a way to direct behavior. You would hear the voice of the chief
of the tribe, or the king, and then as the leader died, what would
happen was that followers would still hear his commanding voice.
So that’s why you see all around the world, the dead are treated as
living, and fed, and propped up, and worshiped. So in the death of
the leader, we see the birth of the concept of the gods. In ancient
Egypt, for example, each king that dies becomes the God of Osiris.

The robots on the show are less like machines, and more like pre-
modern humans.

In modern religion, it’s all so remote, but in the ancient world, the
gods were not distant at all. A friend of mine once said the old gods
are like your high school football coach: They’re right there telling
you what to do all the time.

So, when the Dolores bot hears a disembodied voice telling her
what to do, she’s engaging on some level with self-consciousness
within a social context.

Many, many more people have hallucinations than most people

realize. And a lot of the people who have hallucinations have what
are called “command hallucinations.” It’s exactly like what Jaynes is
talking about: They hear a voice and it directs their behavior.

What the Westworld writers have done is taken this idea that the
robots are non-conscious, and acting out these behavioral routines
when they start getting these glimmers of memory. That’s the
beginning of introspection, and sort of parallel to that, they’re
getting voices directing their behavior.

Sounds like we’re on the road to self-consciousness and we’re going

to get there one passage of Alice in Wonderland at a time.

The question is: “Can a robot with sufficiently complex language

become conscious?”

I guess there’s no reason to really think that it’s completely

impossible if they have the metaphorical basis of the external
world to build up an interior space.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Photos via Melting Asphalt, Westworld

Andrew Burmon@andrewburmon
Andrew is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. A New England native and
recovered Californian, he previously worked for Men's Journal, Maxim,
Salon.com, and The Cambodia Daily, among other outlets. Andrew is the
Managing Editor of Inverse.