The Origin of Consciousness
Yesterday, I finally got around to finishing The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Published in 1976, it was Julian Jaynes’ only major work. TOCBBM has been harshly criticized by many in the scientific and academic establishment but has, at the same time, developed a kind of cult following over the decades. It’s not a book I chose. It was given to me for Christmas four years ago by my wife’s crazy aunt, and then it sat on a shelf. I picked it up when it was recommended to me by a reader earlier this year. I started reading with serious doubts, because the theory seems a bit too fantastic. Having now read the entire book, I’m thoroughly impressed with the abundance of evidence Jaynes presented from a variety of disciplines. I have tried to find some work discrediting Jaynes, and all I have found is the groundless dogmatic criticism one would expect any “establishment” to heap upon any iconoclast. All in all, I buy it.
The theory is that some time around 3,000 - 4,000 years ago man developed consciousness. Jaynes’ definition of consciousness as a metaphorical representation of the world and a new concept of self is not what you think about when you hear the word, but the first couple of chapters thoroughly support his view of what it means to be conscious. Prior to the origin of consciousness, man existed in a state of “bicamerality,” in which the brain’s hemisphere’s operated largely independently of each other, with the right hemisphere “telling” the left hemisphere what to do. In this state, bicameral man would have obeyed unseen voices and sometimes hallucinated the source of those commands. In other words, the right hemisphere was god. When consciousness emerged, the gods disappeared.
Jaynes analyzes literary evidence, linguistic nuances, artistic representation, neurological discoveries, religious texts and historical events to support his theory. He examines the relationship of the bicameral mind to prophecy, poetry, hypnosis and schizophrenia, looking for traces of bicameral man in the modern world. If you’re looking for the Cliffs Notes version, the Julian Jaynes Society provides a nice table summarizing the evidence here. Most of the pieces of the puzzle can be easily interpreted in other ways, but the totality of evidence lends credence to Jaynes’ theory.
Near the end of the book is a fabulous paragraph that does a nice job of summarizing the work…
This drama, this immense scenario in which humanity has been performing on this planet over the last 4000 years, is clear when we take the large view of the central intellectual tendency of world history. In the second millennium B.C., we stopped hearing the voices of gods. In the first millennium B.C., those of us who still heard the voices, our oracles and prophets, they too died away. In the first millennium A.D., it is their sayings and hearings preserved in sacred texts through which we obeyed our lost divinities. And in the second millennium A.D., these writings lose their authority. The Scientific Revolution turns us away from the older sayings to discover the lost authorization in Nature. What we have been through in these last four millennia is the slow inexorable profaning of our species. And in the last part of the second millennium A.D., that process is apparently becoming complete. It is the Great Human Irony of our noblest and greatest endeavor on this planet that in the quest for authorization, in our reading of the language of God in Nature, we should read there so clearly that we have been so mistaken.
Jaynes sees religion as man’s struggle to deal with the disappearance of our gods from day-to-day life. It started as an effort to appease them so that they would return. If he is right, as I now believe he is, religion is, as I have said, doomed. It may take centuries or millennia, but we will eventually outgrow gods. The potential for that kind of good news is reason enough to pick up this book.
I welcome any informed criticism in the comments, but if you haven’t read the book, keep your opinion to yourself and go get a copy. Like most Christians with the Bible, it’s very easy to develop an opinion on a book you’ve never bothered to read. If it’s important enough for you to want to argue over, it’s worth examining.
~I AM~
November 10th, 2005 at at 9:48 am
I just ordered it from Amazon. From reading the information in the table, it is a quite plausible idea, and certainly provides a nice storyline to the evolution of man. However, I won’t jump on board just yet.
I am quite a fan of Susan Blackmore’s theory of the evolution of consciousness, as described in her book, “The Meme Machine”.
November 10th, 2005 at at 10:34 am
I read that a long time ago, in college, and it presented a really interesting theory. However, I tend to think that a lot of the “God is speaking to me” stuff found in political writings or literature was not a literal manifestation of schizophrenia, but rather a control mechanism or allegory. I don’t think you could really construct functioning societies where a majority of the population is troubled by intrusive hallucinations.
November 10th, 2005 at at 11:11 am
norbizness:
“I don’t think you could really construct functioning societies where a majority of the population is troubled by intrusive hallucinations.”
I think that’s true. However, where EVERYONE is experiencing the world in the same way, it doesn’t matter how weird that way may seem to us. I think that society could function as well as the one that built the pyramids. Actually, for a task like that, the bicameral mind may be superior.
Jaynes talks about political difficulties that he believes arose from the beginning of consciousness, when most people were bicameral, but some were not. That’s the scenario you’re describing.
November 10th, 2005 at at 1:09 pm
I have not read the book. It is one of a handful that I routinely stop to open at a local used bookstore but have never bought. I have been aware of Jaynes’ proposal for some time, although I remain unaware of how he defines consciousness. It seems that combining the two would give a good measure of credibility in light of more modern fields like neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Included in an analysis of that combination should be a comparison of Jaynes’ definition with what we have learned since he wrote the book.
Some scientists think that the brain is still evolving. Do you get the sense that consciousness, as defined by Jaynes, is still evolving? The answer seems intuitively obvious, but brain evolution and conscious evolution may not go hand in hand at all times, just as brain evolution and visual perception or hearing or taste sensation may not go hand in hand. It seems that it would depend on what evolves and what it affects. I do not have a clear sense of what consciousness affects, or even where consciousness is located in the brain. It may be located everywhere as a synthesis of different funtionalities, in which case changes in consciousness affect everything about the brain or at least higher brain region of the cerebrum.
If consciousness is still evolving, then what does this say about religious people today? There is evidence that religious adherence can be caused or heavily influenced by brain disorders as widely different as epilepsy and schizophrenia. Is it possible that those who are most inclined to be religious have been given lesser evolved or weaker functioning brains? When you say that religion will pass away because of conscious evolution, are you not thinking these things as well? They, too, seem intuitively obvious.
November 10th, 2005 at at 1:11 pm
Im curious about this 4000 year timeline. Humans have existed for much longer than that. But if a human 4000 years ago didnt have a “consciousness” then was it really qualifiable as a “homo sapien” (thinking man)?
Also, I think that today there are still lots and lots of people who think that God is talking to them and are still suffering from this bimaceral condition that is described in the book. Like that obese crazy Christian lady from trading spouses.
November 10th, 2005 at at 1:19 pm
Interesting. I had not heard of Jaynes before. It sounded like an interesting theory, but I was skeptical from my training in ancient cultures. I did a little reading online and found a very good discussion of the text.
http://www.cosmoetica.com/B103-DES58.htm
Now, I admit I haven’t read the book, so I realize the limitations of my criticisms. From what I’ve read, there’s at least one piece of data I can call to mind immediately that doesn’t fit into his theory. According to Jaynes, over 3000 years ago there was not a conception of “I”, of selfness. Well, that’s not quite true. China has a very long tradition of poetry with many examples from ancient times that have survived. There’s one I can think of that dates from at least 1100 BC. It goes on about “I wait by the wall for my lover, where can she be?” It is most definitely filled with “selfness.” Also the Chinese don’t have a strong tradition of the gods talking directly to people. Shang Di was only personified and given verbal abilities in much later Daoist traditions. The earliest references to Shang Di are most definitely not anthropomorphized. Shang Di does not talk to people, but instead works through the natural rythms and forces of nature. Shang Di was never speaking in someone’s brain, but instead would cause floods or earthquakes and it was up to humans to interpret.
Also, archaeological evidence shows clearly that there were strong verbal traditions that must have incorporated complex communication about the state of the person going back long before Jaynes’ threshold date. Think of the discoveries at Mohenjodaro in Pakistan that support traditions of yoga-like exercises and meditation that predate Jaynes’ transformation date by several thousand years.
This is not to say that this is not a facinating and compelling book. I’ll add it to my list and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.
Truth Be Told
November 10th, 2005 at at 1:30 pm
As I understand Jaynes’ proposal, he may have allowed there to be a few conscious (or, should I say “conscious”?) individuals in ancient societies, just as there are a few highly intelligent and extraordinarily talented people today who perform great, magical feats like solving Fermat’s last theorem or painting the Mona Lisa. Additionally, it might help to note that there seems to be a definite negative correlation between religious belief and intelligence, as distasteful as this may sound to some, particularly very bright and/or accomplished theists out there.
November 10th, 2005 at at 2:05 pm
My favorite book along this line is Leonard Shlain’s “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” in which he examines our shift to patriarchal thinking as societies became literate in the alphabetic rather than the iconic sense of communication. I think it meshes nicely with this work to cover TBT’s criticism of the Chinese form of consciousness… in other words, without the ever-increasing influence of alphabetic writing in their world, preserving the “gods talk to us mentality”, perhaps they were able to break free of that mindset without the preserving behavior of revealed holy texts. That might be, for example, why the eastern Asian religions are much more personal/philosophical and much more atheistic than the Sky Deities we see in the west. Perhaps if the Phonecians had not screwed us, we’d have moved into a sort of global Buddhism as we evolved, rather than this current wave of “preserve the book!!” style fundamentalism we’re seeing today.
November 10th, 2005 at at 2:24 pm
On a side note, I understand that Shlain’s earlier Art & Physics is very interesting as well. The book you mention has been controversial because, among other things, it appears to be a case of correlation not equaling causation. However, like Jaynes’ book, it seems to present a compelling argument on behalf of its relatively unusual hypothesis and how better can one spend an afternoon than by thinking outside the evolutionary box?
November 10th, 2005 at at 3:09 pm
I have not actually read the book, but the subject intrigues me. As is often the case with science, if a claim is made, and we lack evidence in a familiar setting or in humans, we look to fossils or maybe non-human animals as a way to compare. Are there any comparisons made between humans and non-human primates? We are not that different, and if there is some truth to these assertions, one surefire way to get evidence would be to look for something like it in other primates. Personally, I don’t like the time span. It fits well with historical understandings, but does not necessarily line up with biological changes. I believe there is a percent chance of genetic change, and another chance that these changes will actually be retained and passed on to the next generation. If the changes in the brain occured according to these parameters, we can get an idea as to how long it would take. I don’t have the info, nor any numbers, as I am not a biologist.
I will see if anyone I know has a copy of this book so I can read it for myself. I withhold any firm judgement until I examine the evidence. But from I know about the brain and memes now, I would tag along with Matt and Blackmore and chalk much of the origins of consciousness to memetic development.
November 10th, 2005 at at 3:24 pm
Sorry, one more comment is in order. Mookie, I would say that the means by which consciousness developed and the amount of time it took are not mutually exclusive. Is that not what you meant? I have had too much caffeine, if anyone can tell.
November 10th, 2005 at at 5:35 pm
I haven’t read the book but how would having this kind of mind work? How would the person function? Would everything they do be done in a deity’s name, or some of it, or what? Does Jayne talk about it? Sorry for the… 4 questions in a row.
November 10th, 2005 at at 5:48 pm
Uberkuh:
If consciousness is still evolving, then what does this say about religious people today? There is evidence that religious adherence can be caused or heavily influenced by brain disorders as widely different as epilepsy and schizophrenia. Is it possible that those who are most inclined to be religious have been given lesser evolved or weaker functioning brains? When you say that religion will pass away because of conscious evolution, are you not thinking these things as well? They, too, seem intuitively obvious.
Well, strictly speaking, the brain is evolving, as every new generation is an evolution of the one before it. But is it changing significantly? I’d have to ask a neurorologist or someone like that.
But I dont think that this would necessarily mean we’ll evolve out of religion; there’s nothing that requires evolution to continue upon any one set path. We could always backslide into greater religiousity, if the circumstances were right. Scary…
I don’t know if less conciousness, so to speak, necessarily means overall lower brain ability. After all, people can be savants in one area and idiots in another.
Thanks, I Am, now I have another book to put on my “Really Should Read but I Know I Won’t Because I’m Too Busy” List.
November 10th, 2005 at at 8:20 pm
Consciousness> Man> Bicam(Hyp)> Synctazos> Eritree/Ethiope> the process continue…
Breakdown? Bicameral? Conciousness? Explain?
How about GODS voice. How about ART & POETRY? How about divine LIGHT of YHWH & ALLAH & SARA (nauvoo)?
This is the disease and this is the perpertrated by Jesus Jaynes and Jexubels. Hate devourse like a worm insinuate disastered and foul.
And you call this fair play? You call this beast work? This is Christian hack theory and Darwin shots and MR OM NO hilarity!
CONCSIOUS OSOS still DOES NOT exist except through the REVELATION of SARA who is YHWH who is ALLAH who is REBORN in NAUVOO and is contact with HIGHER POWERS in CASSIPOPEIA. WITHOUT this LIGHT (which thou hate) there is not incarnation of SARA or DESPOND.
This is the enemy of all true knowledge and science and life.
November 10th, 2005 at at 9:04 pm
Tanooki Joe, I thought I was the only one with that kind of list. Actually mine is a “Things to read and do before I die ” list, but they’re basically the same thing.
I have not read the book either, and it is on my list, but I just wanted to make a general comment about some of the remarks regarding the evolution of the brain/mind.
The brain (just like everything else) is constantly evolving from generation to generation. Typically, there are not huge differences betweeen successive generations of genetic mutations. Also, it is easy to lose perspective on evolution in general because of how slowly it proceeds. Even dramatic climate changes and environmental changes that force competing species to quickly alter habits or die may not give the appearance of any great changes. The sublity and nuances of evolution are intriguing.
We can definately regress, and as far as brain capacity goes it can be deceiving. Neanderthals’ avg brain size was 83 cubic centimeters while homo sapiens’ tends to be around 82 cubic centimeters. More brain function was dedicated to autonimous (sp) functions due to larger bodysize in the neanderthals.
November 10th, 2005 at at 10:10 pm
Uberkuh:
Some scientists think that the brain is still evolving. Do you get the sense that consciousness, as defined by Jaynes, is still evolving?
For Jaynes, consciousness is not physiological. Our brains are essentially identical to those of bicameral man. Consciousness was learned and then spread. You could certainly say it’s still evolving, but here the word is not being used in the Darwinian fashion.
Aaron Kinney:
Also, I think that today there are still lots and lots of people who think that God is talking to them and are still suffering from this bimaceral condition that is described in the book.
I think most of these people are speaking metaphorically or talking themselves into something, but there are certainly some who are actually hearing the voice of god.
Truth Be Told:
You’ve actually hit on what I found to be a major failing of the book. Nearly all of his examples come from Greek or Near Eastern sources. There’s a lot of world left to examine in this light.
Thanks for that link. I’ll read it.
Kele:
I haven’t read the book but how would having this kind of mind work? How would the person function? Would everything they do be done in a deity’s name, or some of it, or what? Does Jayne talk about it?
It’s hard to imagine. The voice is not always a god. Sometimes it’s just the voice of a chieftan or a dead ancestor. Either way, everything the person does he is being told to do. The ideas are still originating in his own mind, he just doesn’t know it. For example, let’s say you’re about to jaywalk, but you choose not to because it’s dangerous and illegal. If you bicameral, rather than making that decision, you would hear the voice of an authority figure telling you not to do it. The part of you that is aware of the voice just doesn’t know that the voice is being generated from within your own mind. It’s similar to the studies that have been done in epileptics who have had the corpus collosum severed.
Atheist Messiah:
We can definately regress, and as far as brain capacity goes it can be deceiving. Neanderthals’ avg brain size was 83 cubic centimeters while homo sapiens’ tends to be around 82 cubic centimeters.
Neanderthal was not an ancestor of Homo sapiens.
Everyone:
I’m really pleased there has been so much interest in this post. Maybe I should start an atheist version of Oprah’s book club.
November 10th, 2005 at at 11:12 pm
A book club with commentors like the people here doesn’t sound that bad. There has been a lot of interesting talk about this book and I haven’t even read it yet.
Neanderthals are relatives of homo sapiens. They are on the same family tree. The path of the neanderthal is an evolutionary dead-end (it is still quite possible their extinction was due in some part to being bred out of existence by being absorbed by the competing ancestors -cro-magnon, etc.- or by annihilation by competition or even disease).
My guess would be primarily the technological advantages enjoyed by cro-magnon man made hunting for survival impossible for the neanderthals. They would have dwindled in numbers and relocated and quickly died due to lack of breeding and harsh environments. But I would imagine there were other factors as well.
The point I was even making in bringing up brain sizes was that there are many ways nature tends to diverge genetically. It is obvious the forebrain in humans is the most recent and most advanced part of our brains. My guess would be that atheists have smaller “god centers” than very religious people. Also, gay people tend to have large “god centers” as well. There are many duties that that part of the brain is responsible for. And right now it is still genetically competitive whether or not you have a large spiritual part in your brain. Memes are still consumable by religious and non-religious alike. we can all adapt and survive.
November 10th, 2005 at at 11:22 pm
I bought the book in college when it first appeared and I have reread it several time since. It is one of the very few volumes to survive the purges associated with major moves.
I was interested in his positing transitional phases from King to Dead King to God. The King’s authority would be imbued in a statue and people would perceive the likeness to speak. This could shed light on the idolatry that lies at the heart of most religions.
Where Jaynes lost me was when he attempted to retrofit his theories to cover all sorts of supernatural phenomena like UFOs
November 11th, 2005 at at 4:33 pm
I read Jaynes many years ago. I was recalled it many years later when I finally got around to reading Herodotus’ history and was moved to write myself a little essay. If it’s not too long to post, I’ll paste in the first few paragraphs below….
I read a book a long time ago, memorable as much for its title as for its content. Julian Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind proposes the theory that humans developed conscious thought in biblical or Homeric times, not in distant pre-history. Ancient humans were aware only of the thoughts in the left hemisphere of their brains as they performed the day to day functions of their lives. The deep, poetic and mystical thoughts coming from their “artsy” and “big-picture” right brains were perceived as foreign, not coming from within themselves. Instead of consciousness, they heard voices from the gods. This theory, among other virtues, handily explains why I don’t ever hear such voices. And I suppose it says something about those among us who still do.
As is true of so many other fascinating topics, I will never know enough even to be ignorant in the field of evolutionary psychology. But my own limited conscious thought on the subject leads me to believe that Jaynes is wrong. The differences that he perceives as the growth of the conscious mind are better explained by the greater and more detailed evidence left behind as history unfolds. And the distinctions he makes are not the ones that strike me as obvious. He describes Homer’s Iliad as being created by a different mind than the Odyssey, and Genesis coming from a more ancient mind than Revelations. Nonetheless, I find the idea intriguing, even haunting, and it has helped to form a fundamental part of my perspective on humans and their history.
Although I’ve loved reading history for years, for many of those years I’ve shied away from ancient history, seeing those long ago civilizations much as Jaynes describes pre-conscious man. These people, or, I should say, the evidence they left of their existence, were boring, flat, one-dimensional. The kingdoms of Egypt or Assyria seem to me so foreign, so mundane. Simple-minded and ruthless autocrats greedily manipulate ignorant and weak peasants and slaves. Where there is evidence of deeper thought, it is so strange, so mystical, so non-sensical. These ancient hordes that created huge works of splendor did so, it seems, with no understanding of the meaning or worth of the pyramids, the sphinx, the hanging gardens. It is as if they were driven by an instinct akin to that of insect civilizations. The literature is beautiful and haunting, containing myths and fables that still appeal to the imagination after thousands of years, but where it makes sense at all it is a dream-like fantasy.
And then the world wakes up. Out of this Salvadore Dali dream-world of parting seas, tumbling walls, sirens songs and giant wooden horses, suddenly there appears a man telling a story, a man like you or I, telling a story we might tell, telling it like we might tell it (or like we would like to). In Athens in the fifth century BC, Herodotus of Hellicarnassus relates his “enquiries” of the Greek war with Persia, and human consciousness arises from the mists….
November 12th, 2005 at at 9:47 am
I have to say I am skeptical. I haven’t read the book and don’t think I will. But I’d be interested in any reaction to how I see this.
I AM has stated that this change is not Darwinian. That was my first concern. If the change was evolutionary it would take hundreds of thousands or millions of years to become common in the world population. No such change could be spread in 4,000 years.
The alternative that it is learned is problematic as well. It means each of us have to learn it. In my childhood I don’t ever remembering anyone telling me that god would not literally appear or speak to me audibly. It was only when those things didn’t happen and I asked that I was told that god didn’t always speak or appear. It seems that I was constantly manipulated to remain open to the possibility of hearing or seeing god.
Cultural evolution is much quicker than physical but a world wide cultural change in hundreds of years is also a problem. Surely there are civilizations on earth more primitive than say the middle east of 4000 years ago. Surely we could see if members of those societies fit the pre-change pattern.
November 15th, 2005 at at 9:37 pm
I haven’t posted any comments in a while as I’ve been rather short on dedicated free time in front of a pc (I type this now on my Blackberry in my Digital Fundamentals class), but I’ve got to say a book club is a great idea. I’ve always been somewhat in the dark regarding interesting, thought inducing literature and a book club would certainly help in that manner!
That being said, I’ve ordered this book and my bored mind happily awaits the moment it gets to wrap itself around something that isn’t entirely fiction (I’ve been in a rut as of late).