X-Message-Number: 15942
From: 
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 11:48:46 EST
Subject: Breakdown of Princeton Mind

>I have been re reading Princeton psychology professor Julian Jaynes' 1976
book "The Origin of Consciousness In The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind".
I had forgotten what an amazing hypothesis he suggested and supported.  In
essence, Jaynes proposed the idea that up until about 3000 years ago, human
being were not conscious at all.

>He described in some detail how numerous mental and behavioral activities do
not require consciousness, drawing from research available up to that time
and carefully defined consciousness as the arena of "internal" mental
dialogue from which modern human beings derive decision making, free will,
etc.  Jaynes conscludes that consciousness came as a function of language
but was accidental and not evolutionary.  We didn't need to be conscious to
survive.

  "The arena of internal mental dialogue from which we derive decision 
making". This describes processes far more primitive than human or even 
chimp. My wolf goes through an easily visible internal dialogue when I tell 
him not to eat the salmon on the kitchen counter. He decides not to eat it 
while I'm looking, then comes back through a different door and grabs it 
while I'm on the phone (then tries to look innocent afterwards.) I don't 
think consciousness is unique to humans. It is our ability to do 
serial-processing robot-like symbol manipulation tasks such as arithmetic and 
geometry which make us different from wolves, chimps, or Florida voters.
  It is of course possible that the rote behaviors needed to pass as a 
psychology professor in the 1970s do not require consciousness, but the 
complex thought processes required to survive as hunter-gatherers far surpass 
what is needed by "civilized" folk in their everyday lives. I've read the 
book, and was not able to see that it makes any sort of case for the absence 
of consciousness in Sumer in 2500 B.C. (Have you read the epic of "Gilgamesh" 
[really "Bilgamesh" in Sumerian]? Do you think it was written unconsciously?)

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