NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/psycholo/4474

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-21 | 1.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!decwrl!atha!aupair.cs.athabascau.ca!burt
From: [e-mail] (Burt Voorhees)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Bicameral Mind
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 21 Nov 92 18:54:42 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Lines: 29

[e-mail] (Mark Bower) writes:

>Hello. I am new to this newsgroup and Psychology in general.
>Recently, I started reading Julian Jayne's _Origin_of_Consciousness_
>and_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind and found his central
>concept fascinating and _internally_ consistent.

>I am wondering what has become of his work since it was published.
>My book lists a publish date of the early seventies ( I don't have it
>with me). Has his work been corroborated, rejected, ignored, extended,
>of otherwise pursued?

Little at all has been done on extending Jaynes book, although he does
have a new edition out with an appendix.

I'll have to say that I found his idea interesting, but not convincing.
And I found his book highly offensive in its tone.  He also plays very
fast and loose with his supporting materials.  Perhaps the most flagrent
example is when he quotes the Memphis theology (ancient Egypt) to support
his ideas, saying that all that is ever mentioned is the tounge as a
source of command.  Basically what he does, however, is to take every
other line of this text.  If one reads the full text it talks about
the heart and tongue: the heart decides what it will, and the tongue
commands.  This does not support his ideas, but it is intellectually
dishonest to selectively take lines out of context as he does.
(One might note that Aristotle, too, took the heart as the seat of volition,
considering the brain to be a "cooling organ".)

burt