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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bicameral mentality | 4/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:50:16.060514+00:00 | kb-cron |
==== Individual scholars' comments ==== Sociologist W. T. Jones asked in 1979, "Why, despite its implausibility, is [Jaynes's] book taken seriously by thoughtful and intelligent people?" Jones agreed with Jaynes that "the language in which talk about consciousness is conducted is metaphorical", but he contradicted the basis of Jaynes's argument – that metaphor creates consciousness – by asserting that "language (and specifically metaphor) does not create, it discovers, the similarities that language marks". Jones also argued that three "cosmological orientations" biased Jaynes's thinking: 1) "hostility to Darwin" and natural selection; 2) a "longing for 'lost bicamerality'" (Jones accused Jaynes of holding that "we would all be better off if 'everyone' were once again schizophrenic"); 3) a "desire for a sweeping, all-inclusive formula that explains everything that has happened". Jones concluded that "those who share these biases ... are likely to find the book convincing; those who do not will reject [Jaynes's] arguments". Walter J. Ong noted that the Homeric Iliad is a structurally oral epic poem so, he asserted, the very different cultural approach of oral culture is sufficient justification for the apparent different mentalities in the poem. Philosopher Daniel Dennett suggested that Jaynes may have been wrong about some of his supporting arguments – especially the importance he attached to hallucinations – but that these things are not essential to his main thesis: "If we are going to use this top-down approach, we are going to have to be bold. We are going to have to be speculative, but there is good and bad speculation, and this is not an unparalleled activity in science. ... Those scientists who have no taste for this sort of speculative enterprise will just have to stay in the trenches and do without it, while the rest of us risk embarrassing mistakes and have a lot of fun." Danish science writer Tor Nørretranders discusses and expands on Jaynes's theory in his 1991 book The User Illusion, dedicating an entire chapter to it. William P. Frost wrote that "this book threw oil on the fire of the New Age mentality and its courting of the paranormal and the occult". Historian of science Morris Berman writes: "[Jaynes's] description of this new consciousness is one of the best I have come across." Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion (2006) wrote of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind: "It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius; Nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my bets." Gregory Cochran, a physicist and adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Utah, wrote: "Genes affecting personality, reproductive strategies, cognition, are all able to change significantly over few-millennia time scales if the environment favors such change—and this includes the new environments we have made for ourselves, things like new ways of making a living and new social structures. ... There is evidence that such change has occurred. ... On first reading, Breakdown seemed one of the craziest books ever written, but Jaynes may have been on to something." In 2007, Cavanna, Trimble, Cinti and Monaco wrote in Functional Neurology that "Even today, it has been argued that a multidisciplinary approach to the problem of consciousness and its development in the evolutionary process that shaped Homo sapiens cannot leave out an analysis of Jaynes' theory of the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the preconscious bicameral mind", citing Canadian psychologist, neuroanthropologist, and cognitive neuroscientist Merlin Donald and American psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan. Brian J. McVeigh, a graduate student of Jaynes, maintains that many of the most frequent criticisms of Jaynes's theory are either incorrect or reflect serious misunderstandings of Jaynes's theory, especially Jaynes's more precise definition of consciousness. Jaynes defines consciousness—in the tradition of Locke and Descartes—as "that which is introspectable". Jaynes draws a sharp distinction between consciousness ("introspectable mind-space") and other mental processes such as cognition, learning, sensation, and perception. McVeigh argues that this distinction is frequently not recognized by those offering critiques of Jaynes's theory. Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist proposes that Jaynes's hypothesis was the opposite of what happened: "I believe he [Jaynes] got one important aspect of the story back to front. His contention that the phenomena he describes came about because of a breakdown of the 'bicameral mind' – so that the two hemispheres, previously separate, now merged – is the precise inverse of what happened." Kuijsten maintained that McGilchrist mischaracterized Jaynes's theory.
=== Conferences === There have been a number of conferences and symposiums dedicated to Julian Jaynes's theory. These include:
The McMaster-Bauer Symposium on Consciousness at McMaster University was held in November 1983, with lectures and discussion by Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett, and others. A symposium on Jaynes's theory was held at Harvard University in December 1988, with lectures and discussion by Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett, and others. The Julian Jaynes Conference on Consciousness was organized by Professor Scott Greer at the University of Prince Edward Island in 2006 and 2008 (a one-day symposium was held from 2002 to 2005), and featured speakers such as Daniel Dennett, Michael Gazzaniga, Richard Restak, Karl Pribram, and many others. At the April 2008 "Toward a Science of Consciousness" Conference held in Tucson, Arizona, Marcel Kuijsten (Executive Director and Founder of the Julian Jaynes Society) and Brian J. McVeigh (University of Arizona) hosted a workshop devoted to Jaynesian psychology. At the same conference, a panel devoted to Jaynes was also held, with John Limber (University of New Hampshire), Marcel Kuijsten, John Hainly (Southern University), Scott Greer (University of Prince Edward Island), and Brian J. McVeigh presenting relevant research. At the same conference the philosopher Jan Sleutels (Leiden University) gave a paper on Jaynesian psychology. In June 2013, The Julian Jaynes Society Conference on Consciousness and Bicameral Studies was held in Charleston, West Virginia. The multidisciplinary program featured 26 speakers over three full days, including keynote talks by Professor Roy Baumeister, Professor Merlin Donald, and Dr. Dirk Corstens.