I have just finished reading the latest copy of the “Jaynesian”. This is the newsletter of the Julian Jaynes Society. (http://www.julianjaynes.org
As many of you will be aware the book “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”was of profound influence upon me and my writing. Written by Julian Jaynes in 1976 this book presents an interesting (and somewhat itladian) theory about schizophrenia, temporal lobe epilepsy and the evolution of consciousness. Indeed in his comments after reading both ITLAD and THE DAEMON Jaynes’ one-time associate at Princeton University, Dr. David Loye, really honoured me by stating in an email to me that in his opinion my “Cheating The Ferryman” was an exciting a development in our understanding of consciousness as was Jaynes’ “Bicameral Mind” thesis. (And David should be in a position to state this as he was the first person to proof-read Jaynes’ manuscript back in the early 1970’s and it was David who suggested that Julian should attempt to have his theory published in book form).
As such I am a member of the Julian Jaynes Society Forum and I have been in contact with the President of the JJS, Marcel Kuijsten. I was therefore delighted to receive a pdf copy of “The Jaynesian” from Marcel on Christmas Eve.
The opening article is a fascinating discussion countering a (very) critical review by Dr. John Smythies of Marcel’s book “Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes’s Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited”. Dr. Smythies review appeared in the “Journal of Scientific Exploration (21, 4, pages 793 – 796). John Smythies is a Cambridge-educated neuroscientist now at the University of California San Diego Center for Brain Cognition.
What struck me about this review was how Jaynes (and Kuijsten) seem to fall in exactly the same position I do …. Being approached with suspicion by both materialists and dualists/idealists. Marcel describes this position perfectly when he writes:
“The acceptance of Jaynes’s theory faces obstacles from both sides; it is dismissed out-of-hand due to close-mindedness by some in mainstream academia and rejected as ‘reductionist’ by some that hold more mystical beliefs about consciousness”.
I can personally relate to this observation.
It seems that those who believe that consciousness exists outside of the brain do not like my suggestion that all of the NDE perceptions are generated by neurotransmitters (aka “Reductionism”) and the materialists who believe that matter is all that exists dislike intensely my suggestion that consciousness is the base-line of subjective awareness.
Both totally misunderstand the subtlety of ITLAD/CTF in that in one way it is both reductionist and mystic and in another it is neither. Just as Jaynes attempted a radical new way of explaining self-awareness and auditory hallucinations, so do I in trying to suggest a model of survival of consciousness after the (apparent) death of the body that does not contradict the idea that consciousness is generated by the brain, nor does it suggest that post-mortem is possible or impossible. Indeed the same position is taken in relation to the location of consciousness. It matters not one jot to the effectiveness of my argument whether consciousness is simply an epiphenomenon of brain processes or whether the brain is a “receiver” of consciousness from some other dimension of reality (but it does come down firmly in support of Huxley and Bergson’s idea that the brain acts as an attenuator or “reducing valve”).
To clarify, my hypothesis does not use either model to explain what may happen to human consciousness at the point of death …. And as such does not compromise the reader’s position vis-à-vis either paradigm.
Indeed as I have stressed many, many times, ITLAD/CTF does not have any opinion on what happens to human consciousness after death. This it leaves to the individual beliefs and intelligence of the reader.
This position should not generate antipathy or criticism from either viewpoint. However as always seems the way, partisan groups always work on the assumption that if you are not “with them you are against them”.
