What's This Blog About?

"The bold hypothesis of the bicameral mind is an intellectual shock to the reader, but whether or not he ultimately accepts it he is forced to entertain it as a possibility. Even if he marshals arguments against it he has to think about matters he has never thought of before..."
                                                                            -Ernest R. Hilgard

“Having just finished The Origin of Consciousness…I’m not quite sure what to make of this new territory; but its expanse lies before me and I am startled by its power.” 

                    --Edward Profitt

I created this blog as a way of exploring the fascinating work of Julian Jaynes as expressed in his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (OCBBM), first published in 1977. As I add new posts, I hope I can attract others to respond to what I have written, and we all can deepen our understanding of bicameral mind theory and this extraordinary internal experience we call consciousness. For those completely new to Jaynes and his work, the Wikipedia page on bicameralism is as good as any short overview of the subject and would be useful to read before getting into the posts on this blog. I would also suggest reading the post O, What A World...There Is Only Awe which explores the tone Jaynes' sets for OCBBM in the book's opening paragraph. For more resources, see the Julian Jaynes Society web site.

In the late 1980s when I first read the book, I was left in awe. I was uncertain how to interpret its content, and not even sure I believed many of Jaynes’ main theses. However, I was convinced that Jaynes was one of the most insightful and original thinkers ever to consider the nature and origins of the human mind. I have read over and over again people reporting similar experiences upon reading Jaynes’ opus. Even the famous evolutionary biologist, and usually very sure of himself, Richard Dawkins implies his own struggle to take in the depth and breadth of Jaynes’ ideas when he refers to OCBBM as, "… one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between!”

Over the years I have thought about and studied Jaynes in the context of my own work and interests related to clinical psychology, evolutionary psychology and the study of consciousness. However, I have never given the in-depth focus I would have liked to the vast landscape of ideas that are all integrated into Jaynes’ bicameral mind theory. Through the writings in this blog I wish to remedy that lack of attention. My ultimate hope is that this blog will be one of my primary tools in developing a popular book for the general reading public about Jaynes’ work, and have it ready in time for the 40th anniversary of the publishing of OCBBM. Therefore, I intend to write this blog in a style suitable for such an audience, so those of you who are scholars and students of Jaynes and/or other fields related to consciousness, please forgive me if at times I seem to be stating the obvious.

My method for this blog will be to once again read through OCBBM and blog as I go. Besides talking about the contents of the book itself, I will also be attempting to enrich and update the material Jaynes covered by including references and discussions of related material from current sources and from my own developing ideas. This means some of my posts will be directly addressing a section of OCBBM, and others will be addressing topics related more broadly to Jaynes' ideas and will at times include my own speculations. I not only hope to carefully consider Jaynes’ specific propositions, but also use all the wide ranging topics that make up the bicameral mind theory as a vehicle to explore some of today’s cutting edge ideas relating to consciousness coming from fields like neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, analytic philosophy, behavioral genetics, cognitive psychology, etc.