
Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking - samsolomon
http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking
======
ninkendo
I really like the article author's description of the subconscious:

> Focus is required to learn to put together puzzles or execute a tennis serve
> or even play the piano. But after a skill is mastered, it recedes below the
> horizon into the fuzzy world of the unconscious. Thinking about it makes it
> harder to do.

It makes me think of consciousness like training AI neural networks.
Consciousness is akin to training a neural net by testing the result and
triggering the reward function accordingly, whereas the subconscious is when
you don't bother checking the result, you just "execute" the neural net from
the control signal and take whatever result.

I'm sure the analogy breaks down quite heavily, but it works pretty well as a
simplification: when you're learning you're constantly providing yourself
feedback to try to strengthen the neural pathways that led to a positive
result through a reward system ("good, that was the right note", "bad, that
was the wrong note"). But presumably once those neural pathways are
satisfactorily shaped, trying to use that reward system (ie. "thinking about"
what you're doing) could serve to just mess you up. Because you don't want to
modify those neural pathways further if they were already "good" to begin
with. (Problem is, I don't think you're ever not conscious of whether your
piano playing sounds right, so your brain is always going to be mutating those
pathways whether you want to or not. But if you're already good at the piano,
the less you can think about your playing, the better.)

~~~
peter303
The Brain is like XXXX technology, where XXXX is: 1) Clockwork (18th century)
2) Factory (19th century) 3) Computer (10th century) 4) Nueral Net (21st
century) 5) None of the above! Ding Ding Ding

~~~
wyager
The brain is quite literally a neural network (in a more traditional sense of
the word "neural"). A biological brain (especially a simple one) could
probably be modeled somewhat accurately and with reasonable efficiency by a
cyclic NN.

Unless you have religious objections, it's also quite reasonable to call the
brain a computer.

~~~
geographomics
A model containing only neurons may be too simplistic - glial cells also seem
to modulate cognition in ways that haven't yet been fully elucidated. Then you
also have rather more asymmetric synaptic behaviours such as volume
transmission, where the neurotransmitter is diffused across a less well-
defined area, rather than being kept neatly within a shared synaptic cleft.

------
mystique
Ancient Hindu monks have pondered on the question of consciousness forever.
Ancient Hindu texts elaborate on differences between Self, Consciousness,
Experiences, Knowledge. Some of this is intertwined with the Hindu concept of
souls. All of Hindu philosophy is based on the concept that Self (pure
consciousness) and Brahman (total reality, universe) is the same if we dig
deeper and our goal as a human being is to find that union. In Sanskrit, the
term itself is similar to "same yet different" \- Advaita Vedanta
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta))

Lot of spirituality and even if you do not believe in those religious
teachings, monks who wrote those texts thousands of years ago were conscious
and questioning their consciousness.

~~~
jerf
So I just poked briefly through Wikipedia on the dates; your link suggests a
time of ~200-300 BC for those writings, the Iliad ~760-710 BC. Given the slow
rate of diffusion of ideas at the time, it strikes me as just as likely that
_even if_ this idea is true and the Iliad was written by humans with a
profoundly different psychology than ours, it was some peculiarity of Greek
culture rather than a universal human condition. The spread of consciousness
at this time in history can hardly occurred that quickly.

(By no means am I claiming that these areas are _entirely_ isolated from each
other, but note the bandwidth of the cultural communication from the travel
between them is so low that the net effect is that the various areas of the
ancient world were basically unaware of each other. Even if some travelers
occasionally made the hikes they didn't amount to much at the civilizational
scale.)

And I find it far more parsimonious an explanation that this is just a crazy
idea from a too-close reading of a work of literature that thematically
chooses to be about "the gods" to imbue the work with mythic power, just the
fact our culture has Star Trek does not mean that we have warp drive or that
Gene Roddenberry's vision of happy coexistence has been realized. A fun idea,
a great idea to build some sci-fi on, but not really a serious idea supported
by the _totality_ of the evidence we have from history, in which humans have
been musing about the nature of consciousness for basically all of recorded
history.

~~~
coldtea
> _So I just poked briefly through Wikipedia on the dates; your link suggests
> a time of ~200-300 BC for those writings, the Iliad ~760-710 BC. Given the
> slow rate of diffusion of ideas at the time, it strikes me as just as likely
> that even if this idea is true and the Iliad was written by humans with a
> profoundly different psychology than ours, it was some peculiarity of Greek
> culture rather than a universal human condition. The spread of consciousness
> at this time in history can hardly occurred that quickly._

It didn't. The very idea that Ancient Greeks didn't have an inner self-
consciouness (as proposed in the book) is invalid (even the article says so).

That said, what ancient civilizations didn't have, and was developed
culturally and through time, is the kind of complex self-introspection we have
now.

In a way the Ancient Greeks (and other people) were more like James Stewart
(straightforward and simple) than Woody Allen or Orson Wells (full of clashing
thoughts, ideas about guilt, sin, self-introspection etc). Their inner
thoughts they externalized to some degree (which is also the basis behind the
book). E.g. guilt was seen as external entities "haunting you" (e.g. "furies"
in ancient greek tradegy). Of course in a degree they understood it was coming
from them, but they didn't have a fully developed framework to talk and
introspect those feelings.

A lof of those ideas only developed fully in the 2.5 centuries since then, and
Christianism played some role in that, as did religions like Zen Budhism etc
in the East, that re-examined and explored lots of things about the "inner
self".

~~~
coldtea
> _in the 2.5 centuries since then_

That would be "millenia".

------
laserDinosaur
So here's my takeaway from the article: concious thought is the evolutionary
advantage of being able to modify our own subconscious thoughts. The simple
fact that we are aware of our subconscious gives us the profound ability to
actually change it - nothing else seems to be able to do this. An earthworm
can't suddenly realize that all its day-to-day routines exist in a tangible
sense and make an effort to change those. A dog can't do this, apes can't do
this. They might exhibit strangely human behaviours sometimes because their
subconscious can get quiet advanced, but they still can't change it, they have
no control over it. When you think of it in those terms, that our concious
thought is just this thin veneer that sits on top of our unconscious thoughts
(which might make up more of our day to day choices than we expect), it's
kinda creepy. Could we meet someone who seems human in nearly every way, but
they have no awareness of their subconscious? Would that person be a concious
being?

~~~
bweitzman
What does it even mean to modify a subconscious thought? The notion of a
subconscious thought is contradictory.

I am increasingly drawn to the idea that there is no difference between the so
called conscious and subconscious mind. It seems more natural for me to think
that experience literally is processing millions of tiny things at the same
time. The idea is still muddy but the concept of a level of abstraction
observing itself seems very compelling to me. Douglas Hofstadter explores this
concept in his book "I Am a Strange Loop".

~~~
alchemism
If I offered you bites of savoury meat, and halfway through the meal announced
that you were eating my beloved horse (or dog...) would you get nausious?

A visceral reaction caused by cultural programming (e.g. taboos against
consuming the flesh of certain animals) is a great example of subconscious
thought.

~~~
bweitzman
I'm not sure I agree, it seems like more the absence of any thought is
replaced by an unpleasant thought. It's not as if our subconscious is
constantly churning unbeknownst to us over how the meat that we are eating is
non horse meat.

~~~
MacsHeadroom
>It's not as if our subconscious is constantly churning unbeknownst to us over
how the meat that we are eating is non horse meat.

Actually, that is exactly what your subconscious does. You are literally
thinking vocal thoughts to yourself constantly. You could be having a
conversation at the dinner table while your subconscious mind vocally
(internally) remarks about the colour of someone's tie and the taste of the
meat you're eating all at the same time. You don't usually hear these thoughts
or realize that you're thinking them. Through meditation anyone can come to
hear the actual vocal versions of these subconscious streams of thought.

Psychotropic drugs can help too.

~~~
bweitzman
> You don't usually hear these thoughts or realize that you're thinking them.

So we can't sense them, but they exist? Seems questionable to me.

> Through meditation anyone can come to hear the actual vocal versions of
> these subconscious streams of thought.

Isn't it possible that meditation isn't "unlocking" our subconscious but
rather just changing the process by which we think consciously?

A thought is something that is brought about by thinking, and thinking is
something that is done consciously. A subconscious thought is a contradiction.

~~~
MacsHeadroom
>thinking is something that is done consciously. A subconscious thought is a
contradiction.

That is a ridiculous assertion.
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22subconscious+t...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22subconscious+thought%22)

------
copsarebastards
Bicameralism is no more than a difficult-to-test hypothesis at this point and
should not be mistaken for factual. Jaynes' work is basically pure
speculation. It happens to be speculation that has piqued the interest of some
high-profile scientists, but until there's some hard evidence for or against
the idea, it's basically useless.

There's a good amount of information here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29#R...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29#Reception)

~~~
gipp
I don't think anyone anywhere regards it as fact. It's completely speculative,
and acknowledged as such in the book. The evidence laid out in the book is
narratively compelling but totally circumstantial. For example, the way it so
perfectly explains the obsession with physical idols in such a huge and
disparate array of cultures around the world is really profound, but of course
is no proof at all.

It's just that it's one of the most utterly original and compelling bits of
speculation ever written about the mind. It's almost certainly off-base, but I
still think it's invaluable reading for anyone interested in consciousness and
the mind, if only as an example of how strange a satisfactory explanation may
end up being, and as a way of exposing one's own unstated assumptions about
consciousness.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>so perfectly explains the obsession with physical idols

Those primitives! (clutches cross around neck and looks out window at the
towering skyscrapers, all of them flying American flags on the ground level).

Personally, I think the narrative of ancients being that different from us is
fairly out there and deep into crackpot territory. Seems to me that a lot of
STEM majors haven't read the ancient sources. The idea that Herodotus,
Plutarch, or Aurelius had some pre-modern mind is asinine. I can't see how
someone who sat down and read The Meditations would walk away with such a
conclusion. Jayne's Illiad argument stating that every character has no
freewill and playthings of the gods is super weak sauce. Greeks simply weren't
that devout in real life, and stuff like he's seeing is a story telling
narrative. Not understanding something that simple about the Greeks further
discredits him. Imagine if our society and entire conscious structure was
judged by the Twilight books.

Even if we step back another couple thousands years, Egypt had a full blown
society with professional tradesmen, government, militaries, etc 2500BC.
Before that, Mesopotamia had all those things in 3100 BC. The Code of
Hammurabi invalidates this guy's thesis pretty easily, although I can imagine
him weaseling a more technical and strict definition of "consciousness" to
avoid being completely discredited, but at that point this is all useless
sophistry.

Also, are we ignoring ancient Hinduism and Buddhism's near obsession with
consciousness here?

> perfectly explains

I find geeks seeks out "perfect" and "simple" solutions, which make sense in
code, but in the world of history, anthropology, etc are reductionist and
wrong. There's also quite a bit of atheistic evangelism here, which I think is
why its on HN and not in the dustbin of bad history.

~~~
gipp
There's no need to be so confrontational about this. Everyone agrees it is
speculation; I think we need to have room for people to speculate and discuss
speculation without being ridiculed about the fact that it's not fact (which
of course everybody already knows).

Herodotus, Plutarch, and Aurelius all lived thousands of years after the
period discussed by the book.

And a considerable portion of the book is devoted to exploring the possibility
of consciousness being something very different from what we imagine it to be,
yes; something not necessarily required for civilization or law. Calling that
"useless sophistry" isn't really proof otherwise, it's just dismissing the
idea out of hand.

Hinduism is made of a large array of different traditions evolving together
over thousands of years. The early texts do not have that "obsession with
consciousness" (and this, also, is discussed extensively in the book).
Buddhism, also, post-dates his proposed "bicameral" period by millenia.

Nobody thinks this explanation is _true_ , just extremely interesting and
worthy of discussion.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>Herodotus, Plutarch, and Aurelius all lived thousands of years after the
period discussed by the book.

The article cites him citing the Iliad as evidence of his theory. That's a
1200BC story. Homer lived around 800BC.

~~~
mistercow
Jaynes uses the Odyssey as a _post_ bicameralism work. The Odyssey was written
well before any of those people were alive.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Article:

So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to
look for signs of people who aren’t capable of introspection—people who are
all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad. He writes that
the characters in The Iliad do not look inward, and they take no independent
initiative. They only do what is suggested by the gods.

\--

The Iliad is from 1200BC story, so that means he calling a good chunk of
written history and those civilizations (Egypt, early Greece, Mesopotamia) as
having this ridiculous pre-modern consciousness.

~~~
mistercow
> So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to
> look for signs of people who aren’t capable of introspection—people who are
> all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad.

Right, not in the Odyssey. And I've read the book; he specifically contrasts
the Iliad with the Odyssey.

>The Iliad is from 1200BC story, so that means he calling a good chunk of
written history and those civilizations (Egypt, early Greece, Mesopotamia) as
having this ridiculous pre-modern consciousness.

Yes, that is correct. But not the people who you listed.

------
DiabloD3
This is actually rather disturbing on multiple levels. Is there any actual
basis for this science, or is the guy a crackpot? The article kinda seems
vague on it, which makes me think the guy straddles that fine line between
insanity and genius.

I mean, I'm sitting here rather terrified that I can't comprehend such a state
without saying everyone back then was 100% schizoid (or whatever you'd call
this in modern psychological medicine), and could be fixed with a few pills
(in theory, anyways).

I know HN frowns on macro memes and all, but
[http://goo.gl/5FQ0kI](http://goo.gl/5FQ0kI), this is the only way I can
currently describe my mental state.

~~~
gus_massa
I wish to simplify your question: Is there any actual basis for this?

Or in other framework: I there an experiment that can prove that this theory
is wrong? I this theory falsifiable?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)

From the article:

> _A psychology based on rats in mazes rather than the human mind, Jaynes
> wrote, was “bad poetry disguised as science.”_

Ok, let's forget rats for a moment. Try to apply this to a closer relative:
chimps

Does this theory imply that chimps are conscious xor they have gods? (Or
chimps are too dumb for any of them?)

~~~
the_af
I don't know why you're being downvoted. I truly enjoyed Jaynes' book, but I
think you hit the mark. His theory is not falsifiable, and that's the biggest
flaw. I don't think there's a single experiment we could make that could
refute it, short of travelling back in time and... and I'm not even sure
_that_ would help. How would you check, upon meeting the ancient Greeks,
whether they are bicameral? Definitely not by chatting with them, or even
dissecting their brains!

I love the book, though. Even if you disagree with the premise, I really
recommend you read it. It's an amazing (if inconclusive) thought experiment.

~~~
NoMoreNicksLeft
The trouble is that even if Jayne is right, none of the people who experienced
life like this still exist. We've contaminated the pool of test subjects,
100%.

This isn't the same as being non-falsifiable, we understand what resources
would be required to test it... we just don't have them available.

> How would you check, upon meeting the ancient Greeks, whether they are
> bicameral?

Interviews. Observation. There would be communication anomalies. Some would no
doubt claim these were merely translation errors, but it would become
increasingly apparent that explanation was insufficient.

It would probably filter through our preconcpcetions such that they were
universally (and profoundly) mentally ill or defective.

The big trouble here is, having met them, we might only have a few years to
study them. I suspect that our form of consciousness might be contagious,
especially to their younger demographic. So by the time we would almost start
understanding it, it would be gone.

------
T-A
Unmentioned in the article, but quite possibly the most enjoyable consequence
of Jayne's work, is that it provided the back story for Snow Crash [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash)

~~~
jessaustin
I loved _Snow Crash_ , but Peter Watts' more recent _Blindsight_ is a
fascinating and more direct exploration of this theme.

------
tim333
>humans were not fully conscious until about 3,000 years ago, instead relying
on a two-part, or bicameral, mind, with one half speaking to the other in the
voice of the gods with guidance whenever a difficult situation presented
itself

Sounds well nuts to me.

~~~
ekianjo
Indeed, I find it hard to believe that unconscious beings would be capable of
art and self-reflection.

~~~
JonnieCache
Have you ever tried to create art through conscious effort? It's ineffective
to the point of masochism.

~~~
ekianjo
What I meant is, you don't create art if you are not conscious of your
existence and of your mind in the first place.

~~~
the_af
Why? And is religious/burial/ceremonial art "art" in the sense you mean it?
Maybe ancient people didn't think they were creating "art". And what beauty we
find in it -- and they found it too, I'm sure -- can be quite _unconscious_!
You don't need to be aware of your own mind in that case.

You can create something beautiful out of inner impulses, without "thinking"
about it or even intending it. Maybe it is religious awe for someone, and
artistic beauty for another, but the end result is the same!

------
escape_goat
Did the bicameral mind ever exist in Polynesia? If it didn't, why not? If it
did, then when and how did it disappear? Are Polynesians actually conscious
after all? If consciousness is an artifact induced by "cultural development
and knowledge about the world", then are people born into deprived
circumstances perhaps not as conscious as the rest of us? If consciousness is
a psychological development induced by specific linguistic features, then what
are those features? Are people capable of consciousness if they can only speak
an insufficiently advanced language?

~~~
simonsquiff
This is my issue with the theory - it's very euro centric. Somewhere like
Papua New Guinea where the millions of highlanders had no contact with the
rest of the world until the 1930s just don't fit the theory. Presumably they'd
have to be bicameral before and in a very small period of time full conscious
- doesn't sound plausible.

~~~
irl_zebra
Or the various tribes, such as those in the Andaman Islands, who have NEVER
been contacted. Do they have no consciousness at all, even now?

~~~
jessaustin
It seems possible, but if so one would expect some indirect indications from
those Westerners who've written of their experiences with "first" contacts.
There probably haven't been many neurologists among them, but one would at
least expect a number of linguists, who could have been expected to notice
_something_.

~~~
escape_goat
Well, in many instances the primary source material we have for initial
Western contacts with ethnic groups in Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific
refer to them as "primitive savages" or "unthinking brutes," and historically,
such peoples were generally regarded as sub-human by many of the Westerners
most familiar with them. So if a lack of consciousness on the part of those
not previously contacted by Westerners is something that seems possible to
you, then these might be the sources of evidence you were looking for.

------
andybak
I've described this to someone as "The most interesting wrong idea I've ever
heard".

------
riemannzeta
Just about everything I've read about this book has gotten it wrong in the
particulars. Jaynes's is a nuanced argument, with many caveats and exceptions.
It may be impossible to do justice to it with a summary.

Anybody interested should just read Part I of the book. Parts II and III are
where he starts to run off the rails a bit.

Although not a neuroscientist, my understanding is that a quite a few of his
observations in Part I have been reproduced, along with a few of his
speculative hypotheses.

In my experience, the main benefit of reading the book was in gaining a more
precise definition of consciousness. We tend to have many different things in
mind when we talk about consciousness. :-) Jaynes gets very precise about what
he means by "consciousness" before he introduces his theory. Within the scope
of his narrow definition, I find compelling his argument that consciousness
developed after and as a result of language.

Also, for those who are also familiar with and fans of Tim Gallwey's _The
Inner Game of Tennis_ you should note that Gallwey first published a few years
before Jaynes.

------
superuser2
If you're interested in an (even more) heavily fictionalized version of this
sort of thing (specifically a historical transition from following gods'
orders to independent conscious thought), it's the primary subject of Neal
Stephenson's _Snow Crash_.

------
jotm
The bicameral mind sounds a lot like an early type of consciousness. I think
Jaynes' timelines are off, but it is possible that our consciousness worked
differently back in the day. After all, we've seen how much humanity changed
after switching to agriculture and farming.

Also _" The picture Jaynes paints is that consciousness is only a very thin
rime of ice atop a sea of habit, instinct, or some other process that is
capable of taking care of much more than we tend to give it credit for"_

Isn't this more or less the current theory of what consciousness is?

That it's a small part of the brain, and has little direct control over the
brain/body, instead controlling it through indirect means such as habits,
reflexes, instincts and other subconscious activities?

I mean, excluding all the "soul" and "God" theories, of course.

~~~
mtbcoder
> The bicameral mind sounds a lot like an early type of consciousness. I think
> Jaynes' timelines are off, but it is possible that our consciousness worked
> differently back in the day.

I agree, I see no reason that consciousness wouldn't follow evolutionary
processes over time.

------
jqm
The majority of people in this day and age are still not conscious most of the
time (if you consider consciousness as self awareness or awareness that one is
conscious).

Generally people act out of habit, conditioning, or mechanical
stimulus/response. This lack of actual consciousness is the cause of many
tragedies, accidents, cruel behaviors and downright stupid decisions.

Maybe the evolution of consciousness is just getting started. I hope anyway.

~~~
chippy
I'd say the lack of actual consciousness is something we aspire too - we want
to get in the zone for that game or for the work task - we want to perform
automatically where time flies by. We want to be untroubled by conscious
thought which causes worry and fear and escape via entertainment, or yoga, or
sex etc.

------
leaveyou
Richard Dawkins about "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the
Bicameral Mind": "It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or
a work of consummate genius, nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm
hedging my bets." Whoa !

~~~
dalke
Also, used as the premise to Neal Stephenson's early novel "The Big U" and
part of the plot for "Snow Crash."

~~~
oliwary
And the excellent "Wake, watch, wonder"-trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer.

------
mrb
Here is an interesting thought experiment that came to me: some persons live
with only half a brain, for example after a
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy).
And they can sometimes still execute actions that the missing hemisphere was
normally responsible for, like speech or motor control, because the other
hemisphere learns how to do it due to plasticity. What if we had the medical
ability to take the hemisphere that is removed from person A and to transplant
it into another person, B? Would the consciousness of the original person now
be 2 independently functioning consciousnesses, A and B? Would your memories
be split, eg. person A remembering half of your life, and person B remembering
the other half? Would A and B feel they have the same consciousness? Could we
go further and split a brain in 4? Would splitting a brain more and more
progressively degrade the quality/complexity of consciousness? If so what is
the smallest part of the brain that can still be capable of self-awareness,
introspection, etc?

So many questions...

On an unrelated note, I have a crazy idea, but bear with me for a second:

A central point of the New Testament is that the "Holy Spirit" was given to
men when Jesus died. Could the "Holy Spirit" be a term used by people to
describe what it felt like to have consciousness appear in their mind? Jaynes
says consciousness appeared ~3000 years ago, but if he is right, if society
caused consciousness to appear, then it did so at different points in time for
different societies, because each society develops at a different pace. So it
could be that to the people living around Jerusalem consciousness appeared
2000, not 3000, years ago.

------
ThomPete
One of the most interesting books I have ever read. If nothing else it helped
me change perspective on how I think about consciousness.

------
joshu
Or maybe gods providing directions was the narrative structure of the time.

I do like the idea that consciousness is learned and that it replaced a less
effective system, if only because it allows us to imagine a system better
beyond what we have now...

------
digi_owl
Reading that brings to mind Peter Watts' Blindsight.

[http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm](http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm)

Watts seems to have a real obsession with consciousness.

~~~
Flenser
Peter Watts is certainly aware of Julian Jaynes work
[http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=104](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=104) and
the sequal to Blindsight seems to be more specifically about this:
[http://www.rifters.com/echopraxia/enemywithin.htm](http://www.rifters.com/echopraxia/enemywithin.htm)
which has probably generated interest in Julian Jaynes and so I suspect
Echopraxia is partially responsible for the commissioning of the submitted
article.

~~~
digi_owl
Seems he gave up on reading it after some pages (if that).

[http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=104#comment-1346](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=104#comment-1346)

------
peter303
It was a kook idea then and is still one now. No scientific support, just
conjecture.

------
rictic
If you're interested in a more rigorous analysis of what is known about
consciousness today, I'd recommend the book Consciousness and the Brain:
[http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Brain-Deciphering-
Codes-...](http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Brain-Deciphering-Codes-
Thoughts/dp/0143126261)

------
jordan0day
This is very interesting, in large part for the reason the author of the
article mentions -- it's not the sort of thing most of us think about very
often. And when we do, we usually leave off having no more insight than when
we started.

Anyway, I've seen some other comments here wondering about how "consciousness
as an evolutionary adaptation" could have spread so rapidly, or going so far
as to suggest that they've met people who were (to paraphrase) "less evolved".

I wonder if rather than it having been an evolutionary process, consciousness
may have been meme-like in its' spread. That is, perhaps humans had the brains
required to handle consciousness for many generations before it really sprang
up, and when it did, it occurred because of the spreading of the _idea_ of
consciousness, and not some particular set of genes.

------
JackFr
Despite its non-falsifiablity, Jaynes will still be read when every hopelessly
vapid and uninspired fMRI 'breakthrough' is long forgotten. Modern
neuroscience assumes the brain is like a computer and proceeds from there,
failing to see that that itself is a hypothesis.

~~~
musicaldope
I don't think any modern neuroscientist "fails to see" that modeling the brain
as a computer is a hypothesis. Many wouldn't even subscribe to that theory,
and those who do undoubtedly treat it as a working model.

------
sebastianconcpt
Well, there is no proof of Consciousness as Epiphenomenon that's why
Panpsiquism is gaining traction. If Consciousness is not Computation, then we
need a better framework.

[http://youtu.be/hTIk9MN3T6w](http://youtu.be/hTIk9MN3T6w)

~~~
cristianpascu
The classical argument against an immaterial soul is that something material
CAN NOT interact with something material. BUT, we don't know what matter is.
Attributing properties of supposedly immaterial substances to material
substances is just as bad. One has to account for why matter has those
properties, that is, the contingency of the fact that electrons are capable of
posting cat pictures on the on the internet.

I believe that the contingency of the matter itself points to intelligence,
thus consciousness, metaphisically prior to matter. But this comment box is
not sufficient for me to prove this novel statement of mine, made for the
first time in history.

~~~
bkst
The interactionist problem was solved by Berkeley when he proved, without
refutation, that matter is the fiction while mind is the obvious empirical
fact.

Quantum mechanics came along and re-confirmed what he already proved.

"Matter"\--something solid, mechanical, deterministic--is nothing but an
ancient Greek myth. There is nothing in nature that has the properties of
matter, therefore nothing is matter, therefore matter doesn't exist.

Quantum randomness is not deterministic. Bosons refute materialism. The wave-
function itself refutes materialism.

Materialism is an ancient greek faith-based religion. Berkeley killed it a
long time ago but people were so shocked they still haven't accepted that
their God is Dead.

~~~
jqm
Nonsense.

Anyone who believes the state of consciousness exists independent of matter
should put their theory to test with a bottle of vodka.

~~~
bkst
It's not that consciousness exists independent of matter, it is that what
materialists keep calling matter... does... not... exist...

Matter just doesn't exist. In what way is the quantum wavefunction material?
It's not deterministic, it's random. It's not solid, you can have two bosons
in the same place at once. It doesn't have precise position or momentum but
exists as a kind of smudge. It doesn't even move through time in the way that
matter is defined as moving.

"Matter" has mass, yet photons don't even have mass. Massless particles take
up no space. Matter takes up space. Therefore massless particles are not
matter. Massless particles underpin all of reality, yet people want to say
reality is made up of matter.

Wavefunctions are not matter. Photons are not matter. Electrons are not matter
--they behave like waves and the properties of waves are incompatible with
matter.

So where is this matter? It's just a fiction. Berkeley already called it in
1830. There is no way you can be an empiricist materialist these days, without
being ignorant.

~~~
super_mario
This is so confused and ignorant of modern physics. Yet matter has precise
definition in physics

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter)

Of course physical fields or bosons aren't matter, no one said they were (this
is a strawman, if I ever saw one). By the way, electrons do have mass and
charge and occupy space (i.e. have volume).

~~~
bkst
You can't resolve the interactionist problem by just fuzzing the definition of
matter.

Materialism is the philosophy that all things are matter.

Quantum physics refutes the philosophy of materialism because it's
incompatible with the philosophy of materialism.

If photons are not matter, then something is not matter, and if something is
not matter, then materialism is wrong.

From that Wikipedia page:

'there is no single universally agreed scientific meaning of the word
"matter". Scientifically, the term "mass" is well-defined, but "matter" is
not. Sometimes in the field of physics "matter" is simply equated with
particles that exhibit rest mass (i.e., that cannot travel at the speed of
light), such as quarks and leptons. However, in both physics and chemistry,
matter exhibits both wave-like and particle-like properties, the so-called
wave–particle duality.'

Modern physics does not actually define matter. Matter was once synonymous
with mass, but redefining mass to include properties that are incompatible
with matter/materialism does not bolster matter/materialism's existence.

If mass is defined in such a way that it is incompatible with matter, then
either mass or matter have lost their meaning. In fact, it is the word "mass"
that has lost its meaning, while the word "matter" has been dropped by
science.

It's not me that is confused, it is the materialists who are confused.

Quantum physicists and popularizers of science go around claiming to be
materialists when quantum physics is completely incompatible with materialism
and nothing in quantum physics behaves like matter. Feynman 'sum over
histories' applies to all things, both macro and micro, and anything that
behaves in that way is incompatible with the properties of matter. Since all
things behave like quantum wave-particles, all things have properties that are
incompatible with the properties of matter. If all things have properties that
are incompatible with the necessary properties of matter, then no things can
have sufficient properties for those things to be matter. If no things can
have the properties of matter, then no things can be matter. If no things can
be matter, then no things are matter. If no things are matter, then matter
doesn't exist. If matter doesn't exist, then materialism is wholly refuted.

The logic against materialism is bullet proof from every angle. People just
keep it up out of inertia.

~~~
super_mario
I think you are getting to hang up on technicalities of definition of matter.

Is your thesis that there are things that are non-physical? If so what
evidence is there for that thesis?

~~~
bkst
The technicalities are the entire point!

If the fundamental nature of reality can't be analyzed technically, what can
be?

The evidence that things are non-physical is quantum physics experiments
showing that the fundamental components of existence lack the properties of
physical things.

The two slit experiment shows that photons behave in non-physical ways.

The indeterministic wave function shows that reality does not depend on strict
physical laws but on randomness, and randomness is not mechanisitic.
Materialism is based on mechanics but quantum strangeness violates mechanics,
therefore mechanics is empirically wrong.

The Schrodinger's cat situation shows that reality is dependent on observers--
but matter is said to exist without regard to observers at all. The physical
moon still exists when you aren't looking at it. The Schrodinger's moon does
not--just as Berkeley claimed in 1713.

Bosons show that two objects can take up the same space at the same time....
but physical things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. This is
like saying that you can drive a bulldozer into a house but the bulldozer and
house don't have to destroy each other, that they have the option of happily
occupying the same space. The materialism hypothesis would say this is
impossible. "Physical" things do not behave like bosons, therefore bosons
aren't physical things.

The evidence that the materialism hypothesis is wrong is quantum physics,
where things don't behave in the ways that the materialism hypothesis claims
they should. Therefore the materialism hypothesis has been falsified and
refuted and is wrong.

~~~
super_mario
Entire quantum physics is a mathematical model of physical things by
definition. Quantum wave function is a physical object as are all the other
fundamental fields we know about. Photons behave in very physical ways, just
not in classical ways like you would expect them based on experience with
macroscopic objects we face every day. Likewise, bosons are physical objects
that have physical and measurable/observable properties (but they don't have
volume) etc.

So now you are getting a bit confused here.

~~~
bkst
>Entire quantum physics is a mathematical model of physical things by
definition.

Quantum physics doesn't follow from definition, it follows from experiment.
You are confusing a priori statements with a posteriori statements.

>Photons behave in very physical ways, just not in classical ways

What are "physical ways"? What are the properties of "physical ways"? When
confronted with a hypothetical 'way', how can we know if that 'way' is
physical or non-physical?

The answer is that physicists assume that all existents are physical and then
conclude, based on that assumption, that materialism is correct. This is
circular logic because materialism is simply the doctrine that everything is
physical. So all they have done is assume that materialism is correct and then
conclude that, because materialism is correct, materialism is correct.

In order to argue that materialism is correct you first have to define what
materialism is, and what it is not. Is the materialism hypothesis even
falsifiable? Or is it the kind of hypothesis that changes as soon as it is
refuted?

~~~
super_mario
Actually quantum mechanics can be formalized and derived entirely from a few
simple and reasonable axioms (that allow for negative probabilities), but yes
historically quantum mechanics has been developed through empirical
experiments. After all physics is (empirical) science unlike mathematics.

What I meant to convey was that all elements of the theory like quantum wave
function, elementary particles (bosons, fermions etc), are elements of that
physical model and hence real in that model by definition. It kind of makes no
sense to talk about model independent reality, as quantum mechanics so nicely
demonstrates.

This is why your statement that bosons are not physical is nonsensical.

In any case most real scientists are entirely open to new evidence of what you
would call non-physical things (historically these were usually spirits,
souls, demons, gods etc), but historically no convincing evidence has ever
been provided for these. On the contrary each time mysterious phenomena turned
out to be completely physical and explainable within normal physical
framework, and in other cases clearly dreamed up.

It really isn't correct to say materialism or science is doctrinal. After it
is not required to believe everything has to be material or explainable within
our current framework (it would be akin to saying we already know everything).

However, opposite of materialism is dogmatically imposed in a lot of
religions. It is a tenet of Catholic Church for example that materialism can
not be true since souls and spirits must exist. This is not open for debate
you must accept this to be a catholic. Just so we understand distinction
between dogmatism and experience that everything we ever encountered so far
has turned out to be physical. I will take evidence over dogma any day.

------
astrocyte
I propose a thought : If, as the sciences would have us believe, consciousness
is born out of the unique biological structuring of matter in that jelly atop
your shoulders, would it not seem logical that there are varied degrees of
consciousness formed among us? Magnify a blade of grass to its 'simplest' form
and you'll see incongruency ? Then why not across the landscape of human
consciousness formed by even more complex structuring ?

and then what....

~~~
gipp
There's nothing about the idea of physical consciousness that says it _has_ to
be a continuum -- there could just be some critical mass or qualitative
attribute of brains that puts us "over the threshold", so to speak. Nobody can
give any kind of a definitive answer. For ideas about a "continuum" of
consciousness, you might read Phi:

[http://www.amazon.com/Phi-A-Voyage-Brain-Soul-
ebook/dp/B0078...](http://www.amazon.com/Phi-A-Voyage-Brain-Soul-
ebook/dp/B0078XCPQY)

Or for other views, you might check out V.S Ramachandran (neuroscience):
[http://www.amazon.com/Brief-Tour-Human-Consciousness-
Imposto...](http://www.amazon.com/Brief-Tour-Human-Consciousness-
Impostor/dp/0131872788)

Jeff Hawkins (computer science): [http://www.amazon.com/On-Intelligence-Jeff-
Hawkins/dp/080507...](http://www.amazon.com/On-Intelligence-Jeff-
Hawkins/dp/0805078533)

Hofstadter (mathematics, cognitive science):
[http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-
Golden/...](http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-
Golden/dp/0465026567)

Those are some of my favorite popular-press books on the subject.

~~~
astrocyte
* Read Jeff Hawkins (On intelligence)

* Have GEB (Covered enough of it)

My point was to bring out the implicit belief that there is :

> Some critical mass or qualitative attribute of brains that puts us "over the
> threshold"

> If consciousness is indeed a variable quantity, then every single able
> bodied adult human has more "units" of consciousness than, say, a dog.

> The variation within a species is also probably pretty small compared to the
> gap between species.

None of which are proven in any scientific way yet many believe it to be the
truth. We haven't even resolved what consciousness let alone its range of
existence.

> Just like intelligence, the amount of consciousness that a person has is not
> a measure of their value.

And yet, one draws lines to distinguish human intelligence/consciousness from
that say of a dog.

------
dourobert
I heard Jaynes speak in the early 1970s when I was a grad student at
Dalhousie, and I bought the book when it came out. At the time it sounded
crazy but it was also inspiring. The behaviourism of the time was suffocating
and his ideas told us we could dream and think big. I hope to reread the book
when I am retired, but as great literature, not science.

------
juliend2
God once told me (not audibly, but "uploaded" to my mind is a more appropriate
way of saying it) precise things I didn't know before. Facts that I validated
later to be exact. I also felt a strong feeling ("Powerful" is the closest
word to describe how it felt) of God's presence during that moment.

------
A_COMPUTER
The Greek oracles had all fallen silent. The final voice heard by the
bicameral mind was "the great god Pan is dead."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_%28god%29#The_.22Death.22_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_%28god%29#The_.22Death.22_of_Pan)

------
araes
In the beginning, unthinking man existed, on Earth below the heavens. To man's
eye, the Earth was without form and void, darkness covered the well of mans
potential for he held no words to name it, but was lifted when man came to the
water's edge.

And the God Voice on the water, saw the light of the morning, saw it was good,
and separated the light from the darkness in man's mind. The light was named
"day", the dark was named "night", and man was concious of morning, and
concious of night - aware of the first day as a thinking being.

\--

Neat, that was a quick 0. I ought to build a probabilistic post measurement
tool to evaluate the response to taboo language among apes. Perhaps scrape and
measure behavior and activity inside this virtual environment. How strongly
does topic manifest upward / downward vote velocity vs chosen virtual
expression environment? How is level of taboo evaluated in their little bone
casings? Can I manipulate and influence their level of taboo response through
word choice, telegraphing, inflammation method, or meta-level domino puppetry?
Requires more thought.

------
simonsquiff
There is a must read series on Julian Jaynes's ideas here, the concept of the
'selfish neuron' in particular is fascinating
[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/series/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/series/)

------
MichaelDunne
Human consciousness is a reflection of the only conscious entity that exists.
That consciousness is able to perceive life as it happens in the present
moment. Something impossible for a corpse, the body, to do. We are each, one
of the infinite reflections.

------
crimsonalucard
The Gods began when consciousness created them.

------
wodzu
I don't understand this big mystery around consciousness.

Here is my take. The brain simulates the reality. That is we don't see or hear
directly but instead the electro-chemical impulses go to our brain from our
eyes and our ears. Our brain is big enough to simulate ourselves. Our brain is
capable of noticing that the simulation of "me" is distinct from the
surrounding simulation of the reality.

~~~
gerbilly
I don't see the big deal either.

Our brain is able to observe some of its own functioning and that is called
consciousness. We can only observe a tiny fraction of that functioning, mind
you.

Practising Buddhists, who train at observing the mind, have categorized the
same 5 senses as the western tradition does, but they also add a sixth sense
that perceives 'mental formations.' The sixth sense isn't more magical than
sight or smell, or hearing.

With training one can extend the range of the internal brain mechanisms we can
observe. It's called 'expanding your consciousness' a really straightforward
concept. Not some wishy washy trippy experience.

------
carapat_virulat
Now the markets speak instead of the gods.

------
anon4
His theory may be bunk, but it ties into something that's been bugging me for
a while. How come every recorded or reconstructed earlier version of every
language spoken today is _more_ complex than the contemporary version? It's
completely illogical, language couldn't have come out fully formed with a case
system, gender system, definite/indefinite forms of words, dual forms, a ton
of verb tenses, etc. How come we only have a record of languages _losing_
features and never _gaining_ them?

~~~
KingMob
I'm not a linguist, but it's possibly because the timeline of language did not
develop in isolation. E.g., when villages were more separated from each other
and few people could read, idiosyncrasies flourished. But with the advent of
strong nation-states, the printing press, and widespread literacy, languages
standardized and became simpler.

In this case, it's not that languages naturally simplified, but that there
were external forces driving it.

~~~
stan_rogers
In linguistics, the terms are _esoteric_ and _exoteric_.

And it helps to remember that reconstructed languages only take us back so far
(where they can be reconstructed at all); there's no reason not to believe
that language (as opposed to "mere" communication) has been around at least as
long as the species has been, so it's had a lot of time to fester,
grammaticalize common concepts, overgrow, rot, have chance encounters with
other, equally-esoteric languages at levels below those that would force
simplification, etc. (We only have to go back to the 15th century to find
William Caxton complaining that "English" was really a set of almost mutually-
incomprehensible languages, and realising that he would be guiding the
language in one way or another by the words he chose when making his
translations.)

Language may have started out simple, but it rarely stays that way unless it
needs to be shared with "outsiders". Cree, Tsez or Nama/Khoekhoe would melt
the average adult American's or European's brain, but their native speakers
can handle them while tired, ill and intoxicated. If by some fluke of history
any of them were to become a dominant language learned by outsiders (after
childhood), they'd become a whole lot less, um, _interesting_.

------
imakesnowflakes
I just made this up. Feel free to downvote because this is complete
speculation....he he..

May be each incarnation of a non trivial consciousness (soul) is invocations
of some kind of recursive function call in some cosmic machinery. Nirvana is
attained when the base case is reached and there wont be any more incarnations
of the soul, and the result goes all the way back to the source of the call..

And may be our bodies are like a main function in Haskell where the IO
operations of the result of some computations are just carried out. That would
explain the concept of fate...

hehe..I always loved to think about this stuff...

~~~
gerbilly
You may like this:

[http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/resona...](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/resonance.html)

------
michaelvkpdx
One of many incredible books from the 70's, when science and humanities were
interconnected and writers were exploring the edges of possibility.

Then Reagan came around, fear was restored, and corporations took ovet
education. So much great work from the 70's and 80's and early 90's has
already been lost, as young people assume everything worth learning is on
Google or will get you a Valley job.

Is this how the Dark Ages began?

~~~
shiggerino
The Dark Ages began with the Islamic conquest.

Reagan, too, was a religious nutter, so you might not be so far off:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog#Modern_apocalypt...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog#Modern_apocalypticism)

