# Julian Jaynes' ideas on consciousness **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 12, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695 "2015-08-12T22:30:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/21 "2015-08-13T23:39:07Z")
If nothing else, you must admit that the title is itself really great; it just rolls off the tongue. I wonder if there were any alternate titles considered. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/22 "2015-08-14T00:13:34Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > Well, I don’t remember the book well enough to repeat what argument he made, but if consciousness is essentially an adaptive cultural adaptation, it would have spread, and non-bicameral populations would have succumbed or been replaced. That’s not to say he’s correct about bicamerality, but you find some level of tool use among every human population, and tool use is a cultural phenomenon–it doesn’t occur to us to wonder why there’s no human group that doesn’t use tools. So I’m not sure that’s the best counter. > > ETA, but that doesn’t account for New World populations though, does it? I suppose it could have arisen separately, like agriculture. Tool use is not useful in this context; it appears nearly 3 million years ago, before the genus Homo. That’s the problem with Jaynes: anything you argue is human or culture is negated by his claim that humans could have functioned perfectly well while thinking that gods told them what to do. The difficult problem is determining why and how that changed. What in our brains can account for that? How can that be a cultural adaptation? What could make that universal? Shouldn’t there be evidence in all cultures for this radical change? If so, what do we even look for? Are metaphors in ancient writings sufficient? Jaynes himself couldn’t go forward; his follow-up book was never written. If you argue that the book was literary criticism rather than science - and people do - you can analyze as the screed of a man who never fit into to any society or hierarchy, who at every moment in his life believed that other people _thought_ wrongly, and who was obsessed with religion as something modern culture diminished. He dressed up a cult treatise with academic language and left a cult - the Julian Jaynes Society - as his legacy. Why not? It’s as sound as saying that he and he alone had the secret to the universe. > [@Peremensoe](#): > > You can do the test yourself, for yourself, if not for anyone else. Are you defending him? If the test is not objective then it isn’t a test. You’re essentially proclaiming that his work is pseudoscience, or rather, exactly equivalent to a religious belief. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/23 "2015-08-14T01:44:13Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The difficult problem is determining why and how that changed. What in our brains can account for that? How can that be a cultural adaptation? What could make that universal? Shouldn’t there be evidence in all cultures for this radical change? Is there not evidence for the rise of consciousness in your own mind? Do you not personally experience the evidence every day? > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Are you defending him? If the test is not objective then it isn’t a test. You’re essentially proclaiming that his work is pseudoscience, or rather, exactly equivalent to a religious belief. Any conscious person can verify the fact of their own (subjective) consciousness to themselves. Outside each of our own heads, we have to have a measure of trust that other people are also capable of it, if they say so. I agree that Jaynes’ larger theory is not objectively testable, so not science, but, as noted, neither is any alternative that I’m aware of. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/24 "2015-08-14T01:58:31Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Not everywhere at once, he says. But contact between conscious and bicameral peoples gradually spread the learning of consciousness. Just as, oh, agriculture, writing, smelting, monotheism, whatever, were culturally transmitted, in patchwork fashion, to peoples that hadn’t come up with those on their own. So, how did it get to Australia? Or did the first European explorers encounter bicameral peoples there a few hundred years ago? Because that would waaaay cool!!! ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/25 "2015-08-14T02:04:14Z")
Maybe they did! Or maybe, as I suggested, it could have arisen independently in different places, as agriculture did. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/26 "2015-08-14T02:11:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, how did it get to Australia? Or did the first European explorers encounter bicameral peoples there a few hundred years ago? One of many misconceptions about Jaynes’ theory is the assumption that all primitive people have bicameral minds. Instead, Jaynes specifically asserts that the development of bicamerality was the “final stage in the evolution of language,” that it was needed for the move from hunter-gatherer bands of thirty individuals or so, to the larger groupings of the Neolithic – groups too large for the chief to be in frequent contact with his entire band. Thus the Australian aborigines never developed bicamerality – they were still in bands small enough for direct communication. Is Jaynes correct about this? I don’t know. But at least let’s debate Jaynes’ theory instead of a half-cocked imitation of the theory from those who’ve never read, or have forgotten, Jaynes’ book. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/27 "2015-08-14T02:18:51Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Thus the Australian aborigines never developed bicamerality – they were still in bands small enough for direct communication. Right, but presumably they still would have had to acquire modern subjective consciousness at _some_ point. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/28 "2015-08-14T02:22:44Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > One of many misconceptions about Jaynes’ theory is the assumption that all primitive people have bicameral minds. Instead, Jaynes specifically asserts that the development of bicamerality was the “final stage in the evolution of language,” that it was needed for the move from hunter-gatherer bands of thirty individuals or so, to the larger groupings of the Neolithic – groups too large for the chief to be in frequent contact with his entire band. > > Thus the Australian aborigines never developed bicamerality – they were still in bands small enough for direct communication. > > Is Jaynes correct about this? I don’t know. But at least let’s debate Jaynes’ theory instead of a half-cocked imitation of the theory from those who’ve never read, or have forgotten, Jaynes’ book. All the questions I asked earlier apply here as well. Are the aboriginals still bicameral? If not, then why and how did they change? Most importantly, how does anyone know whether they have or not? Surely some of his defenders have tackled these questions. What are their answers? How were they derived? I wish all of you who find truth in his book would give even one concrete answer. But that would raise the question I also asked: why does virtually no one in the multiple worlds of science his book touches pay any attention to his ideas if they purport to answer so much? ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/29 "2015-08-14T02:43:24Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But that would raise the question I also asked: why does virtually no one in the multiple worlds of science his book touches pay any attention to his ideas if they purport to answer so much? I don’t know, but if you do, I would like to know. That’s partly why I started this thread. I’m not an expert on consciousness and I don’t intend to become one. I’m happy to accept that his ideas are mostly discredited/disbelieved. I wondered if he had had any influence on current mainstream thought, and although I didn’t specifically ask this question, I’d also like to know what the mainstream is and how that differs from what Jaynes said. I mentioned this upthread, but the notion of consciousness as a map struck me as pretty evocative/interesting/convincing. If the people who study such things these days have better ideas, wonderful. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/30 "2015-08-14T02:54:23Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > I don’t know, but if you do, I would like to know. That’s partly why I started this thread. I’m not an expert on consciousness and I don’t intend to become one. I’m happy to accept that his ideas are mostly discredited/disbelieved. I wondered if he had had any influence on current mainstream thought, and although I didn’t specifically ask this question, I’d also like to know what the mainstream is and how that differs from what Jaynes said. > > I mentioned this upthread, but the notion of consciousness as a map struck me as pretty evocative/interesting/convincing. If the people who study such things these days have better ideas, wonderful. Consciousness is the Big question. It’s considered a Hard problem. I don’t believe we have even the start of a clue about it. That does not mean people can say anything they want and have others take them seriously. If you want to explore the question, I’m sure there have been lots of threads in Great Debates and people will flock to another. We’ve given you the GQ answer. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/31 "2015-08-14T03:02:47Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Are the aboriginals still bicameral? Was this a typo? I just explained that Jaynes did NOT claim hunter-gatherers were bicameral. There are various reasons why progress is slow on “soft” sciences, especially with claims as elusive as Jaynes’. You’d know this if you were a scientist. Jaynes may have thought bicameralism is still present, e.g. in schizophrenics. I think some studies would be of interest. For example, bicameral minds might be more eaily hypnotised. Are there statistics of ease of hypnosis by culture? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/32 "2015-08-14T03:10:58Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > As far as I know, his work is not highly regarded (I heard him speak back in the 1980s at my university - he was a good speaker), but I think it’s an interesting idea even if not true - be a great basis for a science fiction novel (and may have been so used) It was explicitly the inspiration for the short story “Bluff” by Harry Turtledove. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/33 "2015-08-14T03:21:20Z")
Suppose Jaynes’s theories were correct. If you had two people in front of you, one of them with a modern integrated consciousness, and the other with a neolithic bicameral consciousness, how could you tell the difference between them? If you couldn’t tell the difference between them, then how could you tell the difference between an ancient civilization that had a bicameral consciousness, and one that had a modern consciousness? This is as incoherent as the notion of a philosophical zombie–that is, a person who acts exactly as if they were conscious, but actually is not conscious. What exactly do they think consciousness is, if it’s not acting as if you were conscious? It’s like someone acting as if they understood what was being said, they could carry on a conversation, read, write, take tests, follow instructions, give instructions and so on, but claiming that there’s no way to prove that the person really understands human speech, they could be merely acting as if they understood it, and are just engaging in some elaborate instinctive behavior. The theory is complete nonsense. It’s not even wrong. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/34 "2015-08-14T04:14:10Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Consciousness is the Big question. It’s considered a Hard problem. I don’t believe we have even the start of a clue about it. > > That does not mean people can say anything they want and have others take them seriously. > > If you want to explore the question, I’m sure there have been lots of threads in Great Debates and people will flock to another. We’ve given you the GQ answer. I don’t think anyone has given me the GQ answer. You and others have said, and I’m paraphrasing, he’s a crackpot. No one has said what better ideas have taken its place, or specifically whether anything he said is still considered useful, or whether his ideas have been comprehensively rejected from top to bottom. “It’s considered a Hard problem. I don’t believe we have even the start of a clue about it” is an assertion, and at bottom it boils down to “Jaynes _could_ be right!” I’m not here to take up the cudgels for Jaynes. But I’d like more actual info about the state of research into and thought about consciousness and why is does not, or does, comport with his ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/35 "2015-08-14T04:14:46Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Suppose Jaynes’s theories were correct. If you had two people in front of you, one of them with a modern integrated consciousness, and the other with a neolithic bicameral consciousness, how could you tell the difference between them? . . . Wouldn’t one of them be hearing voices and taking them as real? The guy who suddenly nods and says, “Say, yeah, thanks!” when no one has actually spoken to him is the one with the bicameral mind. The guy who looks at him and asks, “Who the heck are you talking to” is the guy with the integrated mind. Or maybe just a skeptic. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/36 "2015-08-14T04:15:22Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Suppose Jaynes’s theories were correct. If you had two people in front of you, one of them with a modern integrated consciousness, and the other with a neolithic bicameral consciousness, how could you tell the difference between them?.. > > The theory is complete nonsense. It’s not even wrong. So you haven’t read Jaynes’ book either. He quotes several ancient writers who describe bicameralism; he is very clear about differences in mentality. His theory is probably too reductionist, and may be wrong. But it isn’t “not even wrong” in the cocky way you think. Among modern-day bicameralist he mentions the Umbanda people of Brazil. [Here’s a recent Jaynes disciple commenting on the Umbanda](https://books.google.co.th/books?id=oOyIiM21AHIC&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102) that “possession” (a manifestation of bicameralism) is “a learned menatality.” Obviously Jaynes’ theory hasn’t “taken the world by storm.” But there are Professors of Anthropology that continue to develop the theory. And, unlike many in this thread, these scholars _have_ read Jaynes’ book. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/37 "2015-08-14T05:48:19Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > One of many misconceptions about Jaynes’ theory is the assumption that all primitive people have bicameral minds. Instead, Jaynes specifically asserts that the development of bicamerality was the “final stage in the evolution of language,” that it was needed for the move from hunter-gatherer bands of thirty individuals or so, to the larger groupings of the Neolithic – groups too large for the chief to be in frequent contact with his entire band. > > Thus the Australian aborigines never developed bicamerality – they were still in bands small enough for direct communication. > > Is Jaynes correct about this? I don’t know. But at least let’s debate Jaynes’ theory instead of a half-cocked imitation of the theory from those who’ve never read, or have forgotten, Jaynes’ book. Which is even more absurd. It places peoples like the Australian aboriginal not only as pre-conscious, but at a pre-bicameral stage of human development. His progression of what he, incorrectly, calls the Late Pleistocene or Neanderthal mind (assuming modern humans evolved from Neanderthals) to the Bicameral era to the consciousness era leaves populations like the Australian Aboriginals completely unaccounted for, unless he is going to claim they exist in a pre-conscious state. He relies on outdated archeological evidence that an expansion of tool development after 50k years ago points to an “earliest date” for language at that date. A bold statement for which there is not only no proof, but no ability to prove or disprove it. He claims, without evidence, that there was improvements in the areas of the brain controlling language in that timeframe. I’d love to see what physical evidence he relies on for that conclusion. Now, we can forgive him the label “Neanderthal”, since it’s just a label and could easily be changed to something more accurate. But it’s a clear symptom of a hypothesis (I will not call it a theory) based on outdated archeology. There is an active debate about when language, as we know it, evolved, but it would be absurd to make the claim that language could not have evolved prior to 50k years ago, as he does. Which brings us back to Australia. The first reliable dates for the remains of “Mungo Man” (mid 1970s) coincide with the publishing to the book in question. Again, pointing to his lack of access to current archeological data. Suffice it to say that with what we now know about the expansion of humans out of Africa, his hypothesis just doesn’t make any sense. He remarks that, in what he calls a weak hypothesis, that there could have been conscious humans existing alongside these bicameral peoples, but he rejects that in favor of the strong hypothesis that no such peoples existed. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/38 "2015-08-14T14:27:30Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Was this a typo? I just explained that Jaynes did NOT claim hunter-gatherers were bicameral. Yes, sorry. That should have been \*not \*bicameral. Now, do you have a concrete answer to my questions? > [@TSBG](#): > > I don’t think anyone has given me the GQ answer. You and others have said, and I’m paraphrasing, he’s a crackpot. No one has said what better ideas have taken its place, or specifically whether anything he said is still considered useful, or whether his ideas have been comprehensively rejected from top to bottom. > > “It’s considered a Hard problem. I don’t believe we have even the start of a clue about it” is an assertion, and at bottom it boils down to “Jaynes _could_ be right!” > > I’m not here to take up the cudgels for Jaynes. But I’d like more actual info about the state of research into and thought about consciousness and why is does not, or does, comport with his ideas. Science is a certain type of thinking. It is recognizable even if one doesn’t know the facts. If someone posits a hypothesis and deflects all questioning by saying “it’s in the book” then it is not science, it is religion. You don’t need to know more. Science requires testability. It requires that independent researchers be able to replicate findings. It requires that newly discovered facts be accounted for. It requires consensus; each new piece of learning either must add to the consensus to answer larger and larger questions or it must accrete to a new consensus that will overthrow the old. There are no individual theories that cover everything, complete and whole in and of themselves. Jaynes’ book was damned with the word “pseudoscience” as soon as it appeared because of this. That was inevitable. Maybe someday somebody will find the mechanism in the brain he writes around and vindicate him. If so he will be like Alfred Wegener who proposed continental drift at a time when no mechanism for the phenomenon could be imagines and was very rightly ignored. If you want to ask about consciousness, you’re in good company. [Great Debates is full of such threads](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/search.php?searchid=12406812). But I bet they don’t talk about Jaynes. Why should they? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/39 "2015-08-14T16:00:14Z")
Expanding on that, I seem to remember reading in _The God Delusion_ (I think) that Dawkins thought Jaynes was either a unique genius or a complete crackpot, but leaning towards crackpot. And to be fair, there is all sorts of speculation in the realm of evolutionary psychology and almost none of it is testable. Jaynes’ book was, as some of us noted, absolutely fascinating to read and definitely thought provoking. But his ideas just don’t stand up to close scrutiny within the context of what we know. Maybe we’re just a 50 years behind him, and will catch up someday. Bookmark this thread, and let’s see what happens between now and then! ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695/40 "2015-08-14T16:52:49Z")
[quote=“Peremensoe, post:23, topic:727695”] I agree that Jaynes’ larger theory is not objectively testable, so not science [QUOTE] OK, we agree on that. I’m not sure what other point you’re trying to make. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/julian-jaynes-ideas-on-consciousness/727695.md?page=3)