11.09.09

Consciousness evolving in historical times?

Posted in Uncategorized at 4:47 pm by nemo

http://www.julianjaynes.org/
Here’s a website devoted to Jaynes.
Anyone who feels moved to discuss Jaynes here or cite links/material about his theory are welcome to do so.
I am as critical of Bennett as I might be of Jaynes, but there is something of curious interest in Jaynes’ discussions.
Note that we enter into the chaotification of terminology: what does Bennett and/or what does Jaynes mean by the term ‘consciousness’.

Why are gods and idols ubiquitous throughout the ancient world? What is the relationship of consciousness and language? How is it that oracles came to influence entire nations such as Greece? If consciousness arose far back in human evolution, how can it so easily be altered in hypnosis and “possession”? Is schizophrenia a vestige of an earlier mentality? These are just some of the difficult questions addressed by Julian Jaynes’s influential and controversial theory of the origin of subjective consciousness or the “modern mind.”

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