lew (02/15/83)
A brief explanation of Julian Jaynes theory as presented in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" : Jaynes theory is that consciousness consists in a sort of conversation between our left and right cerebral hemispheres. He asserts that humans in the time of the early Greeks were pre-conscious. Their hemispheres communicated by auditory hallucinations. These were perceived as the voices of the gods, and so recorded. He has a chapter on the Iliad in which he cites the language used there as evidence for his thesis. The last two thirds of his book (which I never finished) is devoted to an interpretation of the development of western civilization in terms of his ideas. The consensus of the correspondence I've received on this is "Interesting, but not really convincing". I reread the first third of the book last night, and his arguments are already stretching pretty thin by that time. "Loony" was a poor word to apply to this work, but I think it is what you would call a fringe theory. I believe it was OMNI that had a piece on Jaynes a few years ago, in which he was portrayed as a sort of academic martyr, hanging on to a lowly instructor's position at Princeton. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew