Title: Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness Julian Ja Paperback – 1 Jan. 1841

An insightful book that complements the original theory by Jaynes as well as presenting some of his own unpublished ideas.

A good updating of previous Jayne Theory

In the seventies a largely unknown Princeton academic by the name of Julian Jaynes published a book with the most leaden title imaginable:  The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind . It was, and is, an extraordinary book, which playfully announces an utterly preposterous premise: that human beings acquired consciousness less than 3000 years ago, that it was a cultural rather than a physiological development, and this cultural acquisition either led to, or was prompted by, a deterioration in the previously prevailing human mental configuration which, in a nutshell, involved hallucinating gods out of the effigies of fallen leaders and was, more or less, schizophrenic in nature. You read that right: human civilisation got past the point of the Iliad courtesy of imaginary voices.Having announced that absurd premise, Jaynes' book then impishly, wittily, elegantly but always compellingly, set out to justify it and, while it did not revolutionise the fields on which it expressed opinions (and there were many, including anthropology, psychiatry, linguistics, epistemology, biology and philosophy) - which is what it would have needed to do to gain widespread acceptance - Julian Jaynes' outrageous theory has proved surprising elusive of its critics. Only philosopher Ned Block has had a really good go at it, and the consensus is that his efforts have largely been in vain.Thus, and against all odds, Jaynes' theory hangs on, long after its progenitor's passing, and still attracts the odd furtive glance from the establishment: Dan Dennett gave admiring if qualified support, and Richard Dawkins was at least sufficiently moved to mention it in his  The God Delusion , even if by all appearances he hadn't really read or thought about it in any great detail.Jaynes' book is interesting not only in its own right, but also because it is such a fantastic example of the operation of scientific paradigms in the sense identified by  Thomas Kuhn . Jaynes isn't properly credentialised at all - he was never tenured and only received his Ph.D. late in life and apparently only then almost by accident - and his theory flies in the face of the accumulated wisdom of so many unrelated research programmes that it is no wonder it has never been taken entirely seriously. Note that, pace  Karl Popper , nor has it been humiliatingly dismantled or falsified - it has, for the most part, been quietly ignored, the traditions that it challenges not being particularly "in crisis"; the questions which Jaynes answers so much more convincingly (why did the ancients bury their dead with food and possessions? Why did they have such a visceral, apparently delusional, affection to gods? What made the ancients believe they were engaging in conversations with beings who weren't there?) are ones which the prevailing paradigms simply don't feel the need to ask, or are happy to cast off with a shrug of the shoulders. (Dawkins: religious people are simply deluded: Jaynes: as a matter of fact, back in the day this may have literally been the case).Again, Jaynes' failure to attract attention - to not even get an audience - is what Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions suggests tends to happen when an internally robust theory is challenged from outright left field in such a way.So, especially now he's dead, we can expect Jaynes' book and the small fame he acquired to wither on the vine - but not if Marcel Kuijsten has any say in the matter. Kuijsten's an enthusiastic adherent of Jaynes' and is doing what he can in this present volume to keep the flame alive. He's retrieved a few odds and sods from Jaynes' unpublished papers and has invited a few like-minded souls to contribute further thoughts on the implications of Jaynes' work, particularly in light of subsequently published neurological research which Kuijsten tells us (without a lot of detail) supports and confirms Jaynes' theories.Kuijsten has a delicate balance to trike: on one hand he needs to bolster the delicate superstructure of the theory by setting a solid platform of academically robust support for it; on the other, to avoid seeing sycophantic and credulous he needs to subject the theory to constructive criticism, but without making it look like an obvious lemon.The trouble is he manages neither. Jaynes' own pieces are short and largely restate material already put more elegantly in the original book. The new third-party material he's got doesn't really develop Jaynes' work,and the more thoughtful pieces tend to be the most equivocal about Jaynes' theory, and are yet riven with qualifications and distracted by irrelevant reservations about the theory itself. Missing are new contributions from the very two world renowned academics who have previously expressed views: Dennett and Block.In a nutshell, if you haven't read the Jaynes' original, you definitely should; until you do this book won't be much use to you; if you have, I'm not sure this collection will get you a whole lot further down the track.For completists only.Olly Buxton

Consigliabile a chi è già esperto delle teorie di Julian Jaynes sulla coscienza soggettiva.

An excellent scholarly set of essays by different authors, each helping readers understand the essential ideas of Julian Jaynes. There is only one serious attempt to criticize his ideas, in Jan Sleutel's "Greek Zombies" article, for me the best chapter of all. Of course there are many other criticisms of Jaynes's Bicameral Theory than are featured here, arguments and theories which strike at the roots of every materialist viewpoint, but the few presented by Sleutel set us off in the right direction.Like me you might feel that the final chapter could have been left out and the reader spared. I wanted to more about Jaynes and his ideas, not to learn Chinese.A highly recommended book about a fascinating subject, problem, and genius in the form of Julian Jaynes. The question as to whether our ancestors had a sense of I, a sense of subjective consciousness, a capacity for introspection, and sense of individuality is explored here.Of course, theories about the absence of introspection as a mental reality prior to three thousand years ago, may find support in the colorful sagas of Homer's Illiad, or from an analysis of the behavior of Old Testament characters, even of the behavior and activities of men from ancient China. It weakens considerably when we turn to pre-Celtic and Celtic lore.The accounts of the world contained in the works of the Welsh bard Taliesin certainly reveal profound self-awareness. The proclamations of Irish sun-god Lugh as to his mastery of all the arts, clearly and definitely shows self-awareness, individuality and I-ness, as does the striking Song of Amergin, bard of the Milesian Gaels:I am the wind on the sea,I am a wave of the ocean,I am the roar of the wave,I am an ox of seven exiles,I am a hawk on a cliffe,I am a tear of the sun,I am a turning in a maze,I am a boar in valour,I am a salmon in a pool,I am a lake on a plain,I am a dispensing power,I am a grass-blade in the earthSubject to decay,I am a creative, weaving godWho counsels the head.Who else clears the stones of a mountain?Who is it who declaims the sun’s rising?Who is better to tell where the sun sets?Who brings cattle from the house of Tethra?Upon whom do th cattle of Tethra smile?Who is the ox?Who is the weaving god who mends the thatch of wounds?The incantation of a spear - the incantation of the wind!This poem or incantation is was recorded by monks in the Book of Leinster and Book of Invasions, but dates from a period of greater antiquity - the so-called Mythological Cycle of Irish prehistory. Whoever composed the story (probably as a personification of the sun through the 12 houses of the zodiac) was himself self-conscious and capable of composing highly metaphorical works.There is nothing non-subjective, non-introspective and automatic about these statements, nor any in Lugh's delineation of his many skills, making him the "Samildanach."The conversations between Arjuna and Krishna found in the Vedic Mahabharata, also show a high degree of self-consciousness.This does not invalidate Jaynes' theory, but we must not accept it wholesale. In my estimation, the Bicameral Period probably did exist, but it was a temporary state of consciousness brought on by the effects and aftereffects of terrestrial cataclysm, as delineated by the great Immanuel Velikovsky.Velikovsky's "Mankind in Amnesia" must be read by everyone tackling the theories of Julian Jaynes and his well-meaning advocates.

Acquistato come ebook.Interessanti considerazioni su uno dei libri più affascinanti degli ultimi decenni, Il crollo della mente bicamerale e l'origine della coscienza, di Julian Jaynes.

It is unfortunate that so much of Julian Jaynes' work gets caught up in this whole argument over what is and isn't consciousness. I am of the school that had he just said the Dawn of the "Experience of Consciousness" in the title all would have been avoided.I say unfortunate because it opens the door to a lot of unnecessary, and tedious, arguments over what words mean what. Were humans "conscious" prior to 2,000 BC (or thereabouts) or were they "unconscious?" Is consciousness limited to self-awareness (grounded in an internal experience of an 'I') or is it broader and more encompassing than that? Etc.Jaynes and his disciples go to great lengths to limit consciousness to a very specific experience of self-awareness, thus they pinpoint a moment in time when we became "conscious". But why? You can agree with this theory and find it very persuasive and factually probable without getting into the whole rigmarole of consciousness. Hegel, for example, using a different route, came to an almost exact position. He just called it the evolution of "spirit" (self=soul=interior life)rather than consciousness.Of course Jaynes is working from a more naturalistic, neurological understanding of the evolution of the human being than Hegel, which is why, perhaps, he and his disciples put so much emphasis on the question of consciousness. They are tortured to place consciousness within the gradual evolution of our species. The thinking is that as we developed greater and greater language complexity (specifically the use of symbol which "spatialized" the exterior world - or - as I prefer- drew a more pronounced division between internal and external) consciousness evolved. Prior to that moment our minds operated with little distinction between internal and external. Much like the schizophrenic mind, we "heard voices" in times of high stress and regarded them as external. (Schizophrenics and other people who experience auditory hallucinations hear them usually over their left shoulder.) This is all very persuasive and explains the omnipresence of idols and gods. That is, the voices (since they were not seen as internal in source) were attributable to external sources which were then invested with sacred and holy features.Anyone who reads the Hebrew Bible, or just paid attention in Sunday school, knows that the primary feature of the Judaic religion was it assault on idols and the exaltation of a single off-world God. For Jaynes this destruction of idols was part of the evolving mind. Because we are increasingly becoming "conscious" we therefore no longer hear these voices or identify them as external, but rather now identify them as coming from within our own head. Thus idols begin losing their authority. So religion, consequently, must be reconstituted as an internal experience. Likewise for Hegel this introduction of an off-world God produces an internal relationship with an abstraction (Yahweh), and is indicative of an evolving internal life (which Christianity continues with the idea of sin, shame and forgiveness).Simple right? So why get into the question of consciousness at all? Why not understand it simply as the increasing awareness of an internal self? The primitive mind, which Jaynes describes, vs the more modern mind which begins around 1200 BC? Why get into the question of consciousness at all? Why not call it "self-consciousness" and leave it at that?The only reason I can come up with is that the ugly head of scientific dogma wants to make sure we all understand that consciousness is an outgrowth of human evolution. It is this materialistic viewpoint that wants to limit consciousnesses to a specific moment of evolution. But the sad truth is, you can read all these essays and Jaynes' work and substitute words like "self awareness" or "experience of consciousness" for the Jaysian's use of the word "consciousness" and nothing changes. NOTHING.So why does any of this matter?Because there are those of us who see the universe as primarily a conscience entity, whereby consciousness is all around us, external and internal and that all processes in nature make manifest consciousness. We, however, as humans have an awareness of consciousness through an awareness of self. This awareness is just a small fraction of the total consciousness, but it gives us access to the greater consciousness, which is evolving and us with it.If you come from this point of view, nothing in Jaynes' argument is lost. In fact, you stand to gain a lot more from it. Because now you understand that the "bicameral" mind, as he calls it, can be a conscious mind, or a specific experience of consciousness, without a direct experience of an internal self as generating that consciousness or as the loci of that consciousness. And that on some level, this experience is still going on in the human psyche - such that we have access to a more primitive experience of consciousness and therefore on some level a greater, more abstracted psyche.Isn't that much cooler! Why put the human psyche in a conscious box? It is completely unnecessary and I believe introduces an unfortunate bias into the argument that just shouldn't be there (and trust me, these people spend a lot of time defending it).Why not just describe the phenomena and leave it at that? You're scientists, after all. Why get into speculation? I admit, my view point is equally speculative, but I don't pretend it isn't! It comes down to definitions and what you ultimately believe is the source of consciousness: Evolution or the Great Eternal Mind in the Sky (I joke, but basically, you get the idea.)

In the seventies a largely unknown Princeton academic by the name of Julian Jaynes published a book with the most leaden title imaginable:  The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind . It was, and is, an extraordinary book, which playfully announces an utterly preposterous premise: that human beings acquired consciousness less than 3000 years ago, that it was a cultural rather than a physiological development, and this cultural acquisition either led to, or was prompted by, a deterioration in the previously prevailing human mental configuration which, in a nutshell, involved hallucinating gods out of the effigies of fallen leaders and was, more or less, schizophrenic in nature. You read that right: human civilisation got past the point of the Iliad courtesy of imaginary voices.Having announced that absurd premise, Jaynes' book then impishly, wittily, elegantly but always compellingly, set out to justify it and, while it did not revolutionise the fields on which it expressed opinions (and there were many, including anthropology, psychiatry, linguistics, epistemology, biology and philosophy) - which is what it would have needed to do to gain widespread acceptance - Julian Jaynes' outrageous theory has proved surprising elusive of its critics. Only philosopher Ned Block has had a really good go at it, and the consensus is that his efforts have largely been in vain.Thus, and against all odds, Jaynes' theory hangs on, long after its progenitor's passing, and still attracts the odd furtive glance from the establishment: Dan Dennett gave admiring if qualified support, and Richard Dawkins was at least sufficiently moved to mention it in his  The God Delusion , even if by all appearances he hadn't really read or thought about it in any great detail.Jaynes' book is interesting not only in its own right, but also because it is such a fantastic example of the operation of scientific paradigms in the sense identified by  Thomas Kuhn . Jaynes isn't properly credentialised at all - he was never tenured and only received his Ph.D. late in life and apparently only then almost by accident - and his theory flies in the face of the accumulated wisdom of so many unrelated research programmes that it is no wonder it has never been taken entirely seriously. Note that, pace  Karl Popper , nor has it been humiliatingly dismantled or falsified - it has, for the most part, been quietly ignored, the traditions that it challenges not being particularly "in crisis"; the questions which Jaynes answers so much more convincingly (why did the ancients bury their dead with food and possessions? Why did they have such a visceral, apparently delusional, affection to gods? What made the ancients believe they were engaging in conversations with beings who weren't there?) are ones which the prevailing paradigms simply don't feel the need to ask, or are happy to cast off with a shrug of the shoulders. (Dawkins: religious people are simply deluded: Jaynes: as a matter of fact, back in the day this may have literally been the case).Again, Jaynes' failure to attract attention - to not even get an audience - is what Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions suggests tends to happen when an internally robust theory is challenged from outright left field in such a way.So, especially now he's dead, we can expect Jaynes' book and the small fame he acquired to wither on the vine - but not if Marcel Kuijsten has any say in the matter. Kuijsten's an enthusiastic adherent of Jaynes' and is doing what he can in this present volume to keep the flame alive. He's retrieved a few odds and sods from Jaynes' unpublished papers and has invited a few like-minded souls to contribute further thoughts on the implications of Jaynes' work, particularly in light of subsequently published neurological research which Kuijsten tells us (without a lot of detail) supports and confirms Jaynes' theories.Kuijsten has a delicate balance to trike: on one hand he needs to bolster the delicate superstructure of the theory by setting a solid platform of academically robust support for it; on the other, to avoid seeing sycophantic and credulous he needs to subject the theory to constructive criticism, but without making it look like an obvious lemon.The trouble is he manages neither. Jaynes' own pieces are short and largely restate material already put more elegantly in the original book. The new third-party material he's got doesn't really develop Jaynes' work,and the more thoughtful pieces tend to be the most equivocal about Jaynes' theory, and are yet riven with qualifications and distracted by irrelevant reservations about the theory itself. Missing are new contributions from the very two world renowned academics who have previously expressed views: Dennett and Block.In a nutshell, if you haven't read the Jaynes' original, you definitely should; until you do this book won't be much use to you; if you have, I'm not sure this collection will get you a whole lot further down the track.For completists only.Olly Buxton The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral MindThe God DelusionThomas KuhnKarl Popper