Julian Jaynes


PDS

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Is anybody familiar with his thoughts on consciousness?

Thoughts about the implications for his thoughts on Objectivism?

More information here.

PDS:

Very interesting.

It fits into my theory regarding oral history.

Thanks, I will walk around in the site later.

A...

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I read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind in 1976, not long after it was published. I don't recall thinking that it had any particular relevance to Objectivism. I don't recall the details now, but I do recall thinking that Jayne's thesis, which he linked to Plato's hostility to poetry, was interesting. But in my judgment his main arguments were unconvincing.

Ghs

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See for a recent discussion which accords some value to Jaynes' thesis - more so to Damasio's, which a number of critics have linked to Jaynes':

A. Damasio, Self comes to mind (2010)

lunedì, febbraio 21, 2011

By Emilia Barile

Defending Damasio and Jaynes against Block and Gopnik, December 6, 2010

- See more at: http://www.phenomenologylab.eu/index.php/2011/02/damasio-self-comes-to-mind/#sthash.V8au9kMq.dpuf

Ellen

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I was convinced when I read The Bicameral Mind. I already knew the empirical evidence from reading Denise Schmandt-Besserat's monumental works on the origins of writing. ("Accounting for Civilization" on my blog here.) Jaynes' theory explained those facts which were discovered after he wrote.

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I am reading his original work right now, and find it quite fascinating.

For those interested in a nutshell of that work, see here.

I have for some time been interested in right/left brain synchronicity, which is the sometimes unappreciated goal of meditation, and is also likely the physical manifestation of enlightenment experiences discussed by mystics--true mystics, anyway. Jaynes' theories seem to bear directly on this topic.

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MSK:

I think you would get a kick out of this material, especially as it relates to your fondness for the impact of "story" on marketing. One point I am seeing made in this context is that our collective attachment to "story" grows out of the mind-space created by consciousness, and because consiousness is largely described and functions by way of metaphor, humans naturally (instinctively) use stories to make sense of information.

Of course, we all have too much stuff we want to read, don't we...?

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There might be something to what James says. There is definitely a specialization of the right and left portion of the brain. Could these "half of the brain" correspond to the bicameral consciousness?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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There might be something to what James says. There is definitely a specialization of the right and left portion of the brain. Could these "half of the brain" correspond to the bicameral consciousness?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob:

I think this theory definitely has something useful to say about Autism and Aspies, and the left/right brain relevance to those conditions. I will add more later. Gotta run to court!

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There might be something to what James says. There is definitely a specialization of the right and left portion of the brain. Could these "half of the brain" correspond to the bicameral consciousness?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob:

I think this theory definitely has something useful to say about Autism and Aspies, and the left/right brain relevance to those conditions. I will add more later. Gotta run to court!

Much obliged.

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MSK:

I think you would get a kick out of this material, especially as it relates to your fondness for the impact of "story" on marketing. One point I am seeing made in this context is that our collective attachment to "story" grows out of the mind-space created by consciousness, and because consiousness is largely described and functions by way of metaphor, humans naturally (instinctively) use stories to make sense of information.

Of course, we all have too much stuff we want to read, don't we...?

David,

I have The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, but I haven't read it yet.

I first heard of Jaynes in an offhand comment from a guy I was studying for marketing, evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. (I have his book, Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior, and it's quite a read, although I have not finished it.) I don't remember whether Miller liked Jaynes or disliked him (I think he was a bit negative, but I would have to find the comment again to be sure).

Here's a recent lecture by Miller. It's twenty minutes, but it's quite a curveball if you have never encountered this way of thinking.

About Jaynes, he gives a lot of food for thought, even if you don't buy into his particular idea of the way ancients used to think. I know I was intrigued enough by Miller's comment to look Jaynes up on Google and start reading about him. I was so impressed, I got his book. I have also seen his name pop up here and there in other weird places I ferret around in.

I need to actually read Jaynes's book in order to make an intelligent comment about his ideas, but I can talk some about metacognition since I have been trying to expand my own. It may not be in the same manner as Jaynes proposes, but I believe it is in the ballpark.

It's quite an effort to try to be aware you are angry and watch what you do and feel while you are actually angry. Ditto for purely cognitive states like being in a deductive mood, or a creative one, etc. Try actually being creative and also watching yourself doing it so you can remember how you did what you did. It will give you a friggin' headache. :)

The hardest part for me is when I get engrossed in a story, which ties to your comment. Story innately bypasses metacognition and all other forms of higher volitional functions. I find it hard as hell to watch a movie or read a novel and think, this is the inciting incident, this is the belly of the best, this is turning point from reaction to action in the character arc, etc., while engrossed in the story. I generally have to do that later, although I am starting to get some sporadic success doing it during the story.

It's an interesting journey to try to expand your metacognition. Nathaniel Branden had a suggestion of trying to be just 5% more aware each day. You never get a full 5%, but your awareness does grow over time and 5% seems doable enough to try.

You can go nuts with this stuff, too. :)

I'm not sure what the impact on me has been, yet: increased wisdom or total nuts. :)

Michael

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I am reading his original work right now, and find it quite fascinating.

For those interested in a nutshell of that work, see here.

I have for some time been interested in right/left brain synchronicity, which is the sometimes unappreciated goal of meditation, and is also likely the physical manifestation of enlightenment experiences discussed by mystics--true mystics, anyway. Jaynes' theories seem to bear directly on this topic.

I found Jaynes' essay interesting. There is a sense in which we observe other parts of our mind in action so there is a sense in which the conscious "I" is different from the existential "I". It does seem like the narrative function of our minds is tied to consciousness. We hear a voice in our heads.

I'm not sure whether I find Jaynes' definition of consciousness compelling, however. He seems to imply that hearing a voice in one's head is not enough to imply consciousness. Rather, one must realize that the voice that one hears is one's own voice.

On some level, Jaynes' definition makes sense. After all, if consciousness is a process of controlling a narrative, then a person that doesn't know the voice is his own is not conscious because he doesn't know he can control the narrative. However, coming to understand that the narrative is one's own and can be controlled doesn't require any physiological change in the brain, or at least, it doesn't appear to require any such change. It's like saying that one has to be conscious that one is conscious before one can be conscious. Or, anyone that is not conscious of the fact that he is conscious is not conscious. I find that a bit of a stretch.

Historically, it might have been the case that some people were aware that the inner voice was one's own and others who were not. But, unless there is a physiological difference between people that are aware of the nature of the inner voice and those that aren't, I would prefer to call the bicameral mind, if it existed, a kind of consciousness and date the origin of consciousness to a much earlier time, perhaps to the time that spoken language began.

In my theory, controlling the narrative is a kind of verbal imagination. I would propose that once people gained the ability to talk through physiological changes in their brains, e.g., the development of Broca's region and Wernicke's region, people also gained the ability to engage in verbal imagination --- the ability to speak to oneself silently. The development of the bicameral mind might have been an aberration among certain cultures --- a kind of denial of consciousness that might have taken over the culture.

In order for the theory that a physiological change took place to hold up, there must have been a genetic change and in order for there to have been a genetic change, modern humans would all have to have had a common ancestor dating to about 3000 years ago or a similar genetic change would have had to have occurred in several places at once.

Still, it is hard to say what the truth is. Perhaps, people really were confused about consciousness for 37,000 years, until the modern era. (The most recent theories I've seen say that modern man had a common ancestor about 40,000 years ago.)

Darrell

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What is "narrative" and "story" but a narrator-creator (a whole line of them, back in early days) serving up a ready-made Concept: abstracts, which can be easily swallowed? It saved all the hassle of people doing it for themselves.

"Out there", sure. Not anything mysterious or in the least beyond comprehension though. Our attraction to 'the story' as survival tools, entertainment and so on, is self-evident.

The discovery of localized brain functions has given rise to some fallacies, I think.

Left-brain, right-brain, etc.,(and I think it's been shown to be not so distinct as was first thought, with plenty of cross-over) is about as significant to existence and consciousness - as left-leg, right-leg is to running.

The insinuation/implication is that the mind - too - operates in two separate hemispheres, with separate characteristics.

A lot of self-fulfilling stuff going on.

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Interesting TED talk about left right brain disconnect via a stroke. The presenter is a brain scientist. It sounded almost like a religious experience. Reminds me of the "white light" reports of people who experience near death and believe they saw heaven. I have a copy of JJ "Origins of conciousness...." somewhere, I read it shortly after it came out. I recall some very high functioning geniuses reportedly could write in different languages with their right and left hands simultaneously, researchers theorized they had few left right brain connections and essentially two simultaneously operating brains inside their head. Can't remember the names, too many hits on google to winnow them out.

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I recall some very high functioning geniuses reportedly could write in different languages with their right and left hands simultaneously, researchers theorized they had few left right brain connections and essentially two simultaneously operating brains inside their head.

We just saw this in a movie. "He writes Greek with one hand, Latin with the other." Big deal, it's a trick. So, I googled it and got as far as "Writes Greek with o..." and it filled in the rest: Thomas Jefferson, James Garfield...

Still, quite impressive. Wish I could pet my cat here while typing because he keeps nudging me. I got up for coffee and found characters on the display when I came back. I wonder which hemisphere he used.

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I am reading his original work right now, and find it quite fascinating.

For those interested in a nutshell of that work, see here.

I have for some time been interested in right/left brain synchronicity, which is the sometimes unappreciated goal of meditation, and is also likely the physical manifestation of enlightenment experiences discussed by mystics--true mystics, anyway. Jaynes' theories seem to bear directly on this topic.

I found Jaynes' essay interesting. There is a sense in which we observe other parts of our mind in action so there is a sense in which the conscious "I" is different from the existential "I". It does seem like the narrative function of our minds is tied to consciousness. We hear a voice in our heads.

I'm not sure whether I find Jaynes' definition of consciousness compelling, however. He seems to imply that hearing a voice in one's head is not enough to imply consciousness. Rather, one must realize that the voice that one hears is one's own voice.

On some level, Jaynes' definition makes sense. After all, if consciousness is a process of controlling a narrative, then a person that doesn't know the voice is his own is not conscious because he doesn't know he can control the narrative. However, coming to understand that the narrative is one's own and can be controlled doesn't require any physiological change in the brain, or at least, it doesn't appear to require any such change. It's like saying that one has to be conscious that one is conscious before one can be conscious. Or, anyone that is not conscious of the fact that he is conscious is not conscious. I find that a bit of a stretch.

Historically, it might have been the case that some people were aware that the inner voice was one's own and others who were not. But, unless there is a physiological difference between people that are aware of the nature of the inner voice and those that aren't, I would prefer to call the bicameral mind, if it existed, a kind of consciousness and date the origin of consciousness to a much earlier time, perhaps to the time that spoken language began.

In my theory, controlling the narrative is a kind of verbal imagination. I would propose that once people gained the ability to talk through physiological changes in their brains, e.g., the development of Broca's region and Wernicke's region, people also gained the ability to engage in verbal imagination --- the ability to speak to oneself silently. The development of the bicameral mind might have been an aberration among certain cultures --- a kind of denial of consciousness that might have taken over the culture.

In order for the theory that a physiological change took place to hold up, there must have been a genetic change and in order for there to have been a genetic change, modern humans would all have to have had a common ancestor dating to about 3000 years ago or a similar genetic change would have had to have occurred in several places at once.

Still, it is hard to say what the truth is. Perhaps, people really were confused about consciousness for 37,000 years, until the modern era. (The most recent theories I've seen say that modern man had a common ancestor about 40,000 years ago.)

Darrell

Darrell:

Thanks for your thoughts on this topic.

A Jaynsian scholar who is also a rabbi has written a book called "Minds of the Bible", wherein he calls Jaynes' definition of consciousness something more akin to what we think of as introspection. I don't know if that changes any of your thinking about Jaynes, but it helped me understand what Jaynes is actually driving at with his definition of consciousness. Introspection is less loosy-goosey and more self-evident, in my opinion.

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I recall some very high functioning geniuses reportedly could write in different languages with their right and left hands simultaneously, researchers theorized they had few left right brain connections and essentially two simultaneously operating brains inside their head.

We just saw this in a movie. "He writes Greek with one hand, Latin with the other." Big deal, it's a trick. So, I googled it and got as far as "Writes Greek with o..." and it filled in the rest: Thomas Jefferson, James Garfield...

Still, quite impressive. Wish I could pet my cat here while typing because he keeps nudging me. I got up for coffee and found characters on the display when I came back. I wonder which hemisphere he used.

According to Jaynes, and assuming your home is in Texas, the curious cat likely used only the Western Hemisphere. :sad:

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Darrell:

Thanks for your thoughts on this topic.

A Jaynsian scholar who is also a rabbi has written a book called "Minds of the Bible", wherein he calls Jaynes' definition of consciousness something more akin to what we think of as introspection. [....]

Introspection or self-reflection, self-aware awareness.

Ellen

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A Jaynsian scholar who is also a rabbi has written a book called "Minds of the Bible", wherein he calls Jaynes' definition of consciousness something more akin to what we think of as introspection. I don't know if that changes any of your thinking about Jaynes, but it helped me understand what Jaynes is actually driving at with his definition of consciousness. Introspection is less loosy-goosey and more self-evident, in my opinion.

Introspection or self-reflection, self-aware awareness.

I don't know if it makes any difference if one talks about introspection rather than consciousness. According to Jaynes' hypothesis, people weren't aware that the voice in their heads was their own until about 2500 years ago. There only appear to be two ways for that to be possible:

(1) People generally didn't have a voice in their heads until about 2500 years ago, or

(2) People were confused about the origin of the voice in their heads until about 2500 years ago.

I can see two ways for the first possibility to be true:

(1)(a) People weren't generally capable of generating an inner voice until about 2500 years ago, or

(1)(b) Some catalyst (to borrow a word from chemistry) such as writing is necessary to cause people to generate an inner voice.

I think (1)(a) is easy to dismiss. Assuming that all or almost all people alive today are capable of introspection and given the small probability of a genetic mutation that would make that possible occurring in more than one individual within a population, it seems exceedingly unlikely that people prior to 2500 years ago were physiologically unable to introspect.

To me, (1)(b) also seems unlikely to be true. Although it is true that one has to plan what to write before one can write it and that, therefore, one must introspect in order to write, I, for one, tend to think before I speak too. If I think about what I'm going to say before I say it, I'm introspecting. Or, if a guy is making a clay bowl, he might think to himself, "I should make it bigger." He might, at first say it out loud, but how hard is it to learn to say it silently and to know that one is listening to one's own inner voice? I guess one question is, do children learn to introspect before they learn to write or vice versa?

As I've said previously, I also have a hard time believing that people were simply confused about the origin of the voices in their heads for many millennia. Many people might have been, but I have a hard time believing all people were.

Darrell

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Introspection or self-reflection, self-aware awareness.

Ellen

Gee. Sometimes I wish I could do that.

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I guess one question is, do children learn to introspect before they learn to write or vice versa?

I was definitely capable of introspection before I could write. I formed my first moral principle before I was two and a half - "Remember the washing machine" - and I was aware of the inner process producing this. (Haven't time to tell the story at the moment. Later.) Also, I observed a case where I think there obviously had to be introspection on the part of my niece who was just beginning to learn to talk. (Again, later for the story.)

As I've said previously, I also have a hard time believing that people were simply confused about the origin of the voices in their heads for many millennia. Many people might have been, but I have a hard time believing all people were.

Me, too.

Ellen

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