Just now, trying to reach a work-related (though public-facing) web page of little to no interest to anyone that isn't me, I was mysteriously redirected to this Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini

Anno Domini

Am I meant here to infer some kind of mysterious transformation that has taken place in my life? Yes, I was sick yesterday with lymph nodes swollen from here to tomorrow, but, although I am now restored and rested, I just do not feel divinely reconstituted. Perhaps fate is saying otherwise?

Or perhaps fate is saying that my imagination is incredibly overactive? There is a theory (much espoused by Dave of late) that human beings in 1200 B.C. and earlier did not possess selfhood, were not conscious in the way that people are now. Those humans were said to have a "bicameral mind," that is, a mind with a portion that caused schizophrenia-like hallucinations that they associated with a god or authority figure telling them what to do.

I find this theory both compelling and disturbing: it's partially based on literature from that which, evidently, does not contain many (if any) human beings acting of their own accord. Rather, it's all literature of a Divine Mover. I'm not certain that that is evidence enough of a huge psychological shift: couldn't it just be evidence of a huge rift in our and their storytelling?

Are people greedier now?
More self-motivated?
Certainly we have a culture that puts much more importance on the concept of "I" than have existed in times past. People now are more prone to view themselves or their children as pinpoint centers of the universe, as uniquely capable, as important to the world by dint of their very existence. But then again, it isn't as if cultural difference weren't still rampant: In America (land of, believably enough, the American Dream) parents tell their children from day one how special they are, how they can do anything they want, and how the world had better watch out. In Russia on the other hand, although children are still loved and spoiled, there's less of a sense of Original Entitlement. A parent whose child wants to go immediately from high school into the highest reaches of the government might say: "What, you're too good to start at McDonald's like everybody else?"

So those are some of my doubts. But they don't really take into account that psychologist Julian Jaynes, who originally presented the theory of the bicameral mind, has actual psychological and physiological evidence for his theory too.