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The Julian Jaynes Collection

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:18 pm
by Moderator
The Julian Jaynes Society has just released a new book, The Julian Jaynes Collection.

Check it out here:

www.julianjaynes.org/julian-jaynes-collection

Re: The Julian Jaynes Collection

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 3:01 am
by DanBlocker
Just finished reading the book. It is nice to have some other work of Jaynes available now presented in a beautiful book. And reading it I felt that it is really a shame that he never delivered the second promised book on the Consequences.
The book is quite redundant, especially the second section with the interviews and discussions but I rather enjoyed it. Some of the stuff just needs to be repeated again and again. I wish though that he would have given us different examples from time to time. It is very true that "I see a table" is a very poor example for a conscious thought and it is surely funny that Russell should have thought about the alimony for a new Lady Russell. But in the case of a joke like this it looses some of its charm by repetition.
Speaking of examples, I always felt that a ship plowing through the sea is a very poor example of a metaphor. I do not see what is really added to the picture of a ship on sea by the image of plowing and even less how the concept of plowing is enriched by being a metaphier on (for?) the moving of a ship. I wish Jaynes would have given us some better examples in this case.

There are some remarks on behaviorism that I found interesting. But I seem to remember that I read an article by Jaynes where he describes himself as a neo-behaviorist, meaning that the Analog 'I' creates a kind of second level behavior. Is there such a work or am I making this up?

Re: The Julian Jaynes Collection

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 3:34 pm
by Moderator
Glad to hear that you enjoyed the new book. Yes I think having Jaynes address similar questions in slightly nuanced ways should help clear up many of the lingering misconceptions about his theory. I don't recall the "neo-behaviorist" reference off-hand. He generally described himself as a behaviorist with regard to non-human animals.