Julian Jaynes: Did Consciousness Begin Only 3,000 Years Ago?
The Origin of Consciousness (2008)
A look at Julian Jaynes's controversial theory that human consciousness is a recent development, arising around 3,000 years ago. Jaynes argues that before this, humans operated in a 'bicameral' state, with the right brain generating hallucinated commands from gods. The post explores evidence from ancient texts and modern neurology, and touches on a bizarre case of alien hand syndrome linked to involuntary masturbation.
Nearly everyone seems to agree that this is either a work of profound genius, or of profound crackpottery, and also that they aren't sure which it is.
- txrx0000
The article's definition of consciousness is precise, but it's not what people are referring to in most cases where the word "consciousness" is used. Of course, a word can have multiple definitions. But colloquially, when people say consciousness, we usually mean the thing that goes away when we sleep or are anesthetized. I don't think there's a much better way to define that. The contrast between the wakeful and non-wakeful state as oneself experiences from the inside is precisely what defines consciousness in the colloquial sense. It seems to be a self-defining concept because I can't even define what "experiences" means without thinking about the wakeful/non-wakeful contrast phenomena that is consciousness, and "experiences" was supposed to be a part of the definition of "consciousness" one sentence ago.
- nemo
Jayme's theory depends on trade emerging post-Bronze Age collapse of a sort that requires a new kind of theory of mind and processing in a low trust environment driven by international trade. The Ea-Nasir letter was written c. 1750 BC shows that the same issues were already around ~ 800 years earlier and there's lots of international trade going on even in the 3,000s BC. The content of the Ea-Nasir letter and the personal reflections and issues presented there really destroy the central thesis of the book. It's also got a few other serious historic flaws (false claims about the existent of omens ignoring previous examples thousands of years earlier) that make it the kind of book that's interesting but without question also completely wrong in its central thesis.
- GlenTheMachine
Isn't this a testable hypothesis? If consciousness spread virally and isn't a natural outgrowth of the physical structure of the brain, then presumably isolated indigenous tribes would still have pre-consciousness mental processes, and that should be detectable somehow.
The being said, I'm reading "Proto" By Laura Spinney, and the thing that strikes me is how recently the world's major languages developed. Everyone assumes we had language fifty thousand years ago, but the actual language families we know about all seem to trace to no more than about 10,000 BCE, and maybe a lot younger than that. The odds of Proto-Indo-European being traceable to a single tribe in the Black Sea region circa 4500 BCE seem really low to me, but that's what seems to have happened.
- pavel_lishin
I think this was also one of the inspirations for Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash", which also deals with (among other things) the nature of consciousness and religion in the human mind.
- smalltorch
Apparently you don't need much brain to be conscious. This boy was born with 2% of a brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKelkdfi25k
I think of it when someone tries to explain it. Perplexing!