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Subject The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind

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[quote:Anonymous Coward 860229:MV8xMTI4MzQ5XzE4MDc4ODE5X0NCRjE4OUM2]
[quote:TaRim]

It sounds to me like Jaynes is reducing everything to brain function and natural selection.

Sorry, but if he is, then I am afraid that he is painting himself into a corner.  His approach would leave out the best parts of creation; meaning, purpose, love, mystery, synchronicity, magic, quest for the Divine etc...

Often we hear circular arguments from naturalist philosophers and scientists that only allow reductionist, left brain dominant explanations; first they dictate what is to be considered evidence, then they rule out every explanation that doesn't follow their rules...

E.g. consciousness must have had a physical origin.  Why?
Because, only physical explanations can explain any given phenomenon...

Of course, it's been a very long time since I read his work,,,I could be wrong!

Sound like your putting limitations on an infinite being.

I do not discount the possibility of a creator,but I also do not limit the power of a creator to use any tool to create.
[/quote]

You don't, and I don't, but the question is, does Jaynes?

Remember, he says that the Gods are auditory hallucinations.
The word hallucination can only imply a physical malady of the brain, and doesn't suggest that we are in contact with higher powers.

The kind of people who followed his naturalist worldview are the same ones who today are prescribing Ritalin to children and putting literally millions of adults on psychotropics.
[/quote]

Original Message has anyone here read this book?

I think it is a great book for anyone interested in the study of consciousness.

The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.
by
Julian Jaynes

At the heart of this book is the revolutionary idea that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but is a learned process brought into being out of an earlier hallucinatory mentality by cataclysm and catastrophe only 3000 years ago and still developing. The implications of this new scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion - and indeed, our future. In the words of one reviewer, it is "a humbling text, the kind that reminds most of us who make our livings through thinking, how much thinking there is left to do."

[link to www.julianjaynes.org]

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