Julian Jaynes and his bicameral mind idea

Science and Technology
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I’ve been introduced to Julian Jaynes and his " Bicameral Mind Theory" theory.

Interesting stuff, not all of it feels right, but what do I know except that my first dismissal turned around soon as I started reading about it.
It didn’t take long to realize he’s worth learning about. So am listening to an interesting YouTube introduction.

I’m curious if anyone around here is familiar with Julian Jaynes.
Other thing I’m really curious about is if there’s micrographic (CT, MRI, PET, etc) evidence of lateral brain hand off of information in the way that Jaynes postulates.

My gut feeling is that a lot of it is incorrect from the biological evolutionary fact of it, however he defines the issues in way that’s good to think about.

The Theory

There are three elements to Jaynes’ theory of the origins of consciousness: (1) his definition of consciousness, (2) his notion of the bicameral mind, and (3) his argument that consciousness emerged following the breakdown of the bicameral mind. In terms of his definition of consciousness, Jaynes starts by telling us what consciousness is not, chipping away at the common misconceptions that he believes have hindered a more complete understanding of this phenomenon.

Following this process of elimination, Jaynes arrives at the following definition of consciousness:

Subjective conscious mind is an analogue of what is called the real world. It is built up with a vocabulary or lexical field whose terms are all metaphors or analogues of behaviour in the physical world. Its reality is of the same order as mathematics. It allows us to shortcut behavioural processes and arrive at more adequate decisions. Like mathematics, it is an operator rather than a thing or repository. And it is intimately bound up with volition and decision (Jaynes, 1993, p. 55).

On this view, he sees language as fundamental to consciousness, which then opens up the possibility of unlocking the origins of consciousness by studying our linguistic historical record; an endeavour that Dennett (1986) calls “software archaeology.”

It is interesting to note here that Jaynes’ definition of consciousness, quoted above, is also relevant to our discussion of volition, given that he explicitly links consciousness and volition.

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I hadn’t heard of Jaynes before. Interesting hypothesis. Thanks for sharing.

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I remember hearing of it decades ago. It’s just from his intuition, if I remember correctly. There’s nothing to back it up

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Jaynes comes up now and then when discussing how people experience the voices in their head. I it recently and then this guy. Sounds like he has some sound ideas, not just conjecture.

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Wow, I just checked at YouTube and Iain McGilchrist has been busy these past few weeks.

I’ll have to give some of them a listen. Will report back.

PS. Lausten, I seen your Dawkins posts, I don’t mean to ignore them, and haven’t, but what I’ve listened to makes me feel irritated, grumpy, disappointed in the man’s utterances. It’s the same old, same old, with too many omissions, irritates the hell out of me. But I’m not learned enough to be allowed to be irritated by such ‘great men’ so will keep it to myself, unless I find the time to explain my misgivings in better detail than I’m capable of today. At times he also personifies those smug western (Abrahamic) blinders that are at the heart of my railing on ‘philosophizers’. Such as his implication that no one ever thought about Evolution before Darwin and such.
I’m trying to focus on writing about the someones who wow me, such as my latest self-discovery of Ed Yong. (more on him shortly, the good lord will’n.
;-))

Mindscape 201 | Ed Yong on How Animals Sense the World

Jun 20, 2022 - Sean Carroll - 1:09:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAJJiVduwRA

All of us construct models of the world, and update them on the basis of evidence brought to us by our senses. Scientists try to be more rigorous about it, but we all do it. It’s natural that this process will depend on what form that sensory input takes. We know that animals, for example, are typically better or worse than humans at sight, hearing, and so on.

And as Ed Yong points out in his new book, it goes far beyond that, as many animals use completely different sensory modalities, from echolocation to direct sensing of electric fields. We talk about what those different capabilities might mean for the animal’s-eye (and -ear, etc.) view of the world.

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I’m only twenty minutes into it, but it did remind me of a personal breakthrough regarding the mystery of the left brain controlling the right side of body and visa versa, so I had an excuse to recall the thoughts and write it up.

Perhaps someone might have a few thoughts to add or subtract from this.

23:10 Try to imagine the left side, right side nerves signals crossing each others paths.
Think about the bilateral body that needs to be aware of what the other side is doing or feeling.
From a subconscious utilitarian perspective - what better way for the sides of the body to be aware of the other, than by having their respective nerve bundles & signs crossing each other at one strategic place ( corpus callosum )?

As Dr. Solms points out: ‘Our consciousness is the inside reflection of our body/brain dealing with itself and the environment it exists within.’

I imagine that this internal neural crossover is the key to animal consciousness arising as it does. (Perhaps it’s a key primal breakthrough, bye & bye being the foundation of our self-aware human style consciousness.)

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Mar 13, 2023 Full Episodes • Hidden Forces Podcast

In Episode 300 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Iain McGilchrist. Most people know Dr. McGilchrist for having authored “The Master and His Emissary” a book about what we popularly refer to as “the Divided Brain” and its role in the making of the modern world.
It is Dr. McGilchrist’s view that we have systematically misunderstood the nature of reality, because we have depended on the aspect of our brains that is most adept at manipulating the world in order to bend it to our purposes.
It’s the same part of our brains that is most proficient at constructing models or representations of the world and doubling down on them even in the face of falsifying evidence.

In the conversation that follows you will learn how the brain is divided into two hemispheres: the left hemisphere, which is designed to help us apprehend the world and thus manipulate and control it, and the right hemisphere, which is designed to help us comprehend the world — to see it for all that it is in its richness, nuance, and glory.
The problem, according to McGilchrist, is that the very brain mechanisms which succeed in simplifying the world so as to make it more responsive to our ambitions for power and control have become the primary obstacles to our understanding of it.
The consequences of this imbalance can be seen all around us in our ecosystems, our systems of government, our economies, and within the fabric of our very own societies. The rise of narcissism, paranoia, our obsession with categories and discrete identities, the rise in depression, the policing of language, and the panopticon of surveillance and control are all symptoms in Iain’s eyes of the tyranny of the left-hemisphere made manifest in the world around us.

I see what you mean that Jaynes has done his homework. l’m looking forward to listen to the rest of this.

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I thought you’d appreciate his “the philosophers let us down” comment

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There was that. I’ll give that, with the caveat him included. ; - /

McGilchrist will be interesting to catch up on.
Thanks for the tip.