Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness Edited by Marcel Kuijsten - II

At the foundation of Julian Jaynes's bicameral theory found in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" (OC) is the idea that prehistoric people had a different kind of mentality to modern humankind; they were not conscious. And the theory does not view consciousness as an attribute of evolution since evolutionary traits take millions of years to develop. The theory views consciousness as a recent characteristic that developed in time measured in thousands of years and not millions, being revolutionary.

The word "bicameral" means two chambers and the theory postulates that in early humankind the left and right brain hemispheres were all but isolated from each other. Further, the right hemisphere constitued an executive part of the individual's mentality and played the role of God or parent or other authority figure. When the man or woman felt stressed by the need to make a decision, the executive part would come into play (in some way assess and interpret the situation) and then issue instructions in a spoken form. These instructions the individual would hear as external speech, as if someone was standing behind him or her and to the left. Differently to the way modern humans behave, the individual did not weigh these instructions in the balance and then opt to follow or not follow them. The voiced commands were the end-part of the decision-making process or, put differently, they were the conclusion of the brain's workings to devise a strategy to deal with a given situation, which the individual would then follow, automatically and without question.

Modern people, instead, consciously consider the options, using thought, which is heard as inner dialogue and, for us, the whole brain-working exercise of decision-making is patently encapsulated in our brain cases.

Of course that may not be the case for modern-day individuals who do experience auditory hallucinations.

In "Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness" (RDC) Marcel Kuijsten comments that "The issue of the complexity of Jaynes's theory and its multi-disciplinary nature is one possible reason for the absence of greater formal discussion on the topic. But perhaps the most common reason for the rejection of Jayne's theory is due to a misunderstanding (or complete lack of awareness) of Jaynes's definition of consciousness; there have have been countless times I've heard someone offer a strong opinion on Jaynes only to discover they've never read his book."

Kuijsten continues "The notion that ancient civilizations were populated by unconscious people generates a knee-jerk response that the theory is "preposterous" primarily because of the deeply ingrained but mistaken notion that consciousness is necessary for the majority of higher mental processes (and even basic sensory perception), coupled with the tremendous difficulty in comprehending a mental state without an internal dialog for anyone that has one. ... Put simply, critics reject the notion of pre-conscious civilizations prior to 1200 B.C. based on *their* ["italics"] definition of consciousness, not Jaynes's."
... to be continued

Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness Edited by Marcel Kuijsten, 1

This book revisits a book by Julian Jaynes.

I came across Jaynes’s book, “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” around the middle 1970’s. It was featured in the library on a top shelf, which place (in the library scheme of things) signified that the book was a recent purchase. I retrieved “OC” from the library three times in the same year before I read it in its entirety. I remember it as a large volume which I read with the help of a dictionary because of the jargon used – and Jaynes was a psychologist – so, layperson that I was (and am), I read it in “bite sized” pieces rather than “whole hog”. And though I have yet to re-read the book it has always loomed large in my mind. Not least for its long title, which I took care to remember.

But mostly because what I read in OC, I considered a possible new truth. It didn’t sound impossible to me. True I had a mind prepared for novelty, I was someone brought up on a mixed bag of beliefs, anything from Christian dogma to spiritualist philosophy to agnosticism to atheism; and each of my critical role models, in their minds, compartmentalised the world in a different way which I, as the youngest family member, found somewhat confusing.

I, however, chose the safe route and maintained a traditional Christian belief in God up to my middle twenties when I felt a need to go deeper into myself, looking for an answer to the question, does God exist, and in OC I found an answer that seemed to satisfy.

For such a big book the basic theory is easily captured in a few paragraphs but Jaynes was in the position of presenting a novel hypothesis to the world (or is that theory?) and had to submit a lot of proofs to support it.

Jaynes put his professional reputation on the line by publishing OC, and he was apparently often damned by his peers as he strove, in this large book, to prove that human brains worked differently in prehistoric times to what they, on the whole, do now. The evidence for which is of course, nominally, non-existent, but “echoes” of a mentality change may just be detectable in what remains of ancient cultures - in artefacts - and what remains of ancient peoples in their modern-day counterparts. Us.

… to be continued