I cannot imagine anyone wishing to talk in detail about the ideas and arguments in OCBBM without wanting initially to spend some time addressing the first paragraph in the book:
Before Jaynes embarked on his academic career at Princeton, he traveled to London and spent a number of years as a playwright and actor, and that side of him certainly shines through at the beginning of his tome. Those of us reading this overture are immediately confronted with the strange paradox that our personal conscious musings seem like the true essence of what we mean when we refer to our own unique self, our inner most private place were we go to reflect on who we are and any other issue needing consideration, but at the same time, it defies definition or explanation of what it actually is or where it even comes from out of the history of human evolution.
I find Rene Descartes, of "I think; therefore, I am", so illustrative of the paradox we are considering. Descartes, the man who ushered into human history modern science and the primacy of epistemology as the key to understanding what a human being is, could state that our essence is grounded in our cognitive experience. At the same time, he located the source of that consciousness, this thing we call mind, in a different dimension from physical reality that becomes a part of us, because the pineal gland in the center of our brains acts as a cosmic antennae enabling us to tap into an otherworldly energy that animates our awareness!
We are baffled when we try to understand our own consciousness.
This morning while I was working out, I was listening to a lecture on consciousness by a neuroscientist who started off by stating that consciousness is ultimately undefinable (which, if we accept that premises, made the rest of her lecture meaningless). Indeed, it is routine for authors writing about consciousness, be they scientists or philosophers, to begin by acknowledging that there is no agreed upon definition of what consciousness is.
Jaynes' passionate and poetic first paragraph reminds us that the question of the origin of consciousness is not just an interesting question for analytic philosophers or a technical question for cognitive scientists and neurologists to solved. Rather, it goes to the essence of what it means to be a human being. Jaynes puts directly in front of us the fact that this question of consciousness is about "an introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror." It is a question for science and philosophy, but beyond that it is a question of identity for each and every conscious person. It takes us back to the question humans have been asking themselves since the first glimmers of self awareness dawned upon our species, "Who am I?" With his opening paragraph, Jaynes, in my estimation, sets the proper tone for what admittedly in the rest of the book will be a cerebral and intellectual journey--though the journey is so engaging it generates genuine excitement in the reader even while he struggles to comprehend Jaynes' vast and encompassing ideas.
I am passionate about Jaynes work and all the implications and insights that emerge from the tour de force that is OCBBM. However, at some level it must be acknowledged that the attempt to understand the origins and essence of consciousness is ultimately running up against the limits of human understanding, and this opening paragraph foreshadows the trial. There are plenty of scholars who publicly acknowledge they are skeptical that we will ever be able to describe how the brain produces conscious experience. Hence, Jaynes resorts to poetic language in his opening words to describe the subject of consciousness he is about to try and corral into the confines of scientific inquiry as "everything, yet nothing at all" jarring the reader into realizing the precarious position she is in when attempting to objectively understand the most subjective aspect of the universe humans encounter. Ultimately, attempting to understand consciousness and its origins is the quest to understand how we evolved into meaning makers; that is, the only living beings in the universe, as far as we know, that have the capacity to assign endless layers of meaning, the build blocks of our truths, to everything our conscious experience can apprehend.
This process of making meaning sounds like a virtuous and worthwhile endeavor. Indeed, everyone who ever had a thought about anything which they considered important enough to say out loud, in believing in the value of that thought, by default concurs with this sentiment. I also, by writing these words and creating this blog, acknowledge my faith in the power of meaning making. Jaynes himself dedicated his life to understanding this meaning making refuge of consciousness.
However, he was also able to recognize and help us all to face the paradoxes inherent in our quest to understand ourselves and our mental lives from which identity springs. Jaynes recalls for us the soul of the words in the paragraph we are considering here in a statement he made when asked at a forum organized by Life magazine what he thought the meaning of life was. Jaynes stated, "This question has no answer except in the history of how it came to be asked. There is no answer, because words have meaning, not life or persons or the universe itself. Our search for certainty rests in our attempts at understanding the history of all individual selves and all civilizations. Beyond that, there is only awe."
No doubt a shocking statement to stand eye to eye with; just as OCBBM was shocking to so many people when they first read it.
I find Rene Descartes, of "I think; therefore, I am", so illustrative of the paradox we are considering. Descartes, the man who ushered into human history modern science and the primacy of epistemology as the key to understanding what a human being is, could state that our essence is grounded in our cognitive experience. At the same time, he located the source of that consciousness, this thing we call mind, in a different dimension from physical reality that becomes a part of us, because the pineal gland in the center of our brains acts as a cosmic antennae enabling us to tap into an otherworldly energy that animates our awareness!
We are baffled when we try to understand our own consciousness.
This morning while I was working out, I was listening to a lecture on consciousness by a neuroscientist who started off by stating that consciousness is ultimately undefinable (which, if we accept that premises, made the rest of her lecture meaningless). Indeed, it is routine for authors writing about consciousness, be they scientists or philosophers, to begin by acknowledging that there is no agreed upon definition of what consciousness is.
Jaynes' passionate and poetic first paragraph reminds us that the question of the origin of consciousness is not just an interesting question for analytic philosophers or a technical question for cognitive scientists and neurologists to solved. Rather, it goes to the essence of what it means to be a human being. Jaynes puts directly in front of us the fact that this question of consciousness is about "an introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror." It is a question for science and philosophy, but beyond that it is a question of identity for each and every conscious person. It takes us back to the question humans have been asking themselves since the first glimmers of self awareness dawned upon our species, "Who am I?" With his opening paragraph, Jaynes, in my estimation, sets the proper tone for what admittedly in the rest of the book will be a cerebral and intellectual journey--though the journey is so engaging it generates genuine excitement in the reader even while he struggles to comprehend Jaynes' vast and encompassing ideas.
I am passionate about Jaynes work and all the implications and insights that emerge from the tour de force that is OCBBM. However, at some level it must be acknowledged that the attempt to understand the origins and essence of consciousness is ultimately running up against the limits of human understanding, and this opening paragraph foreshadows the trial. There are plenty of scholars who publicly acknowledge they are skeptical that we will ever be able to describe how the brain produces conscious experience. Hence, Jaynes resorts to poetic language in his opening words to describe the subject of consciousness he is about to try and corral into the confines of scientific inquiry as "everything, yet nothing at all" jarring the reader into realizing the precarious position she is in when attempting to objectively understand the most subjective aspect of the universe humans encounter. Ultimately, attempting to understand consciousness and its origins is the quest to understand how we evolved into meaning makers; that is, the only living beings in the universe, as far as we know, that have the capacity to assign endless layers of meaning, the build blocks of our truths, to everything our conscious experience can apprehend.
This process of making meaning sounds like a virtuous and worthwhile endeavor. Indeed, everyone who ever had a thought about anything which they considered important enough to say out loud, in believing in the value of that thought, by default concurs with this sentiment. I also, by writing these words and creating this blog, acknowledge my faith in the power of meaning making. Jaynes himself dedicated his life to understanding this meaning making refuge of consciousness.
However, he was also able to recognize and help us all to face the paradoxes inherent in our quest to understand ourselves and our mental lives from which identity springs. Jaynes recalls for us the soul of the words in the paragraph we are considering here in a statement he made when asked at a forum organized by Life magazine what he thought the meaning of life was. Jaynes stated, "This question has no answer except in the history of how it came to be asked. There is no answer, because words have meaning, not life or persons or the universe itself. Our search for certainty rests in our attempts at understanding the history of all individual selves and all civilizations. Beyond that, there is only awe."
No doubt a shocking statement to stand eye to eye with; just as OCBBM was shocking to so many people when they first read it.
Introcosm is an interesting newly-coined word. I haven't studied the literature on human consciousness, I've only read indirectly. For example Sam Harris. As a neuroscientist, one would think he could explain the brain process. But he says he can't so maybe you are right. A definition is elusive. I don't believe, however, that we will never be able to scientifically describe how it works. I have always intuitively felt that the ability to objectify, to visualize and assign meaning to an object, is at the core of the uniquely human experience. This is essentially what all artists describe as the creative process. Once one can do that, one's own self can become an object, to be viewed separately from immediate experience. Memory is also linked to this, but it probably all comes down to sex.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughtful comments, Don. You touch on a number of points I am planning to address in my next posts. A definition is certainly elusive as we still can't agree even on what we are trying to define. I think the way you frame consciousness is pretty close to how Jaynes' is thinking about it as a place where we reflect and judge the meaning of objects want to attend to--including ourselves. Jaynes was interested in the part of mental life that is "uniquely human" as you put it, and current research in neuroscience does not think about what they are researching that precisely.
Deletehttp://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_kanwisher_the_brain_is_a_swiss_army_knife
ReplyDeleteInteresting video. It really shows what incredible breakthroughs we are making in neuroscience. Another talk that was presented at the same TED event by David Chalmers addresses some of the problems scientists are having getting to the root of the question of consciousness: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalmers_how_do_you_explain_consciousness?language=en
DeleteI am going to use part of his talk in my next post.