Myths vs. Facts About Julian Jaynes's Theory

by Marcel Kuijsten

"The human mind likes a strange idea as little as the body
likes a strange protein and resists it with a similar energy."
— W. I. Beveridge

There are a number of common myths and misconceptions regarding Jaynes's theory. I created this page to provide answers to the most common misconceptions seen on blogs, Amazon customer reviews, Wikipedia articles, or that frequently come up in conversation with those vaguely familiar with Jaynes's theory.¹ The problem with myths and misconceptions is they are often unquestioningly taken as fact and then repeated until they take on a life of their own. I hope this page will help clear up some of the most common misconceptions, so that the debate can focus on Jaynes's actual theory, rather than misconceptions of it. If you feel I am mistaken on some point or would like to see another issue addressed here, please post a comment on the Discussion Forum or contact us.

Myth: Jaynes's book was not peer reviewed.

Fact: While Jaynes ultimately chose to publish his book with a non-academic publisher, which he felt might keep it in print for a longer period of time, Jaynes's book was reviewed and commented on by a number of academics during the publication process. These include Stanford psychologist Ernest Hilgard, psychologist Isodor Chein, an anonymous anthropologist, as well as others. Jaynes went on to publish articles and commentaries on his theory in peer-reviewed journals such as Canadian Psychology and Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Myth: Modern neuroscience has disconfirmed Jaynes's ideas.

Fact: Quite the opposite. Recent neuroimaging studies have tentatively confirmed some of Jaynes's early predictions. For a full discussion of this issue see Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited, pgs. 116-120. See also: Olin (1999) "Auditory Hallucinations and the Bicameral Mind" and Sher (2000) "Neuroimaging, Auditory Hallucinations, and the Bicameral Mind."

Myth: Jaynes's theory has been disproven.

Fact: Jaynes's theory breaks down into four main hypotheses, each of which can potentially stand or fall on their own: 1. consciousness based on language, 2. dating the emergence of consciousness, 3. a previous mental model based on auditory hallucinations called the bicameral mind, and 4. the neurological model for the bicameral mind. When someone says "Jaynes's theory has been disproven," the first question should be, which aspect of it?

As with any new theory that challenges existing paradigms, there is certainly disagreement with regard to each of Jaynes's four hypotheses. This is the norm in the scientific process, and disagreement does not equate to refutation. New research continues to shed new light on each of Jaynes's hypotheses, for example brain imaging studies of auditory hallucinations and the ongoing debate over the role of language in consciousness. There have been very few published, substantive criticisms of Jaynes's theory. An early criticism by philosopher Ned Block (that Jaynes confused the emergence of consciousness with the emergence of the concept of consciousness) was effectively countered by Jaynes as well as Daniel Dennett (1986). More recently, Block's arguments were meticulously countered by the Dutch philosopher Jan Sleutels (2007).

Myth: Jaynes was mistaken in areas outside of his expertise.

Fact: Jaynes — unmarried, without children, and uninterested in seeking tenure — dedicated his life to studying topics related to his theory. He read widely and was well acquainted with many academic disciplines. Jaynes studied several of the subjects related to his book during the 1960s while writing his lengthy History of Comparative Psychology, which he never completed. While writing The Origin, Jaynes consulted with scholars who were experts in many of the areas he discussed. These include Ronald Baker, Ph.D. (trance states), Joseph Bogen, M.D. (dual brain/neuroscience), Stevan Harnad, Ph.D. (neuroscience), John Kihlstrom, Ph.D. (hypnosis), Leonide Goldstein, D. Sc., (schizophrenia), A.K. Shapiro, M.D. (Tourette's Syndrome), Willard Van Orman Quine, Ph.D., among others.

While many of Jaynes's ideas remain controversial — for example, the necessity of language for consciousness, the origin and neurology of schizophrenia, and the mentality of ancient civilizations — and it is likely these issues will be debated for years to come, to date we are not aware of any major flaws in Jaynes's analyses that seriously call into question any of his four main hypotheses. Jaynes himself acknowledged there was much more work to be done, and areas that may require revision as new discoveries are made.

Myth: Jaynes's theory proposes that a dramatic neurophysiological change to the human brain took place that couldn't possibly have happened in such a short time frame (see, for example, Cavanna, et al. 2007).

Fact: First, Jaynes did not imply that the shift from bicamerality to consciousness was a neurophysiological one. The same biological brain was used in a new and innovative way based on changes that occurred culturally. A child today raised in a bicameral society would be bicameral and a child from an ancient bicameral civilization raised in modern culture would be conscious. Consciousness in the Jaynesian sense is a learned process based on language. To use the computer metaphor, the transition from bicamerality to consciousness was a software change using the same hardware.

Having said that, there could have been a slight genetic component to this change, and new research in genetics shows that humans are still evolving and that genetic changes can move through a population much more rapidly than was previously believed. Consider this quote from the anthropologist Gregory Cochran:

"There is evidence that such change has occurred. My anthropologist colleague at the University of Utah Henry Harpending and I have made a strong case that natural selection changed the Ashkenazi Jews over a thousand-year period or so, favoring certain kinds of cognitive abilities and generating genetic diseases as a side effect. The geneticist Bruce Lahn's team has found new variants of brain development genes: One, ASPM (abnormal spindle-like microcephaly associated) appears to have risen to high frequency in Europe and the Middle East in about six thousand years. We don't yet know what this new variant does, but it certainly could affect the human psyche ... This concept opens strange doors. If true, it means that the people of Sumeria and Egypt's Old Kingdom were probably fundamentally different from us: Human nature has changed — some, anyhow — over recorded history. ... Jaynes may have been on to something" (Cochran, 2007).

Cochran also states that recent discoveries have revealed that "...the rate of human evolution over the past few thousand years is far greater than it has been over the past few million years" (Biello, 2007).

Or this from neuroscientist Michael Persinger:

"Within the last five years science has found that single point mutations on genes can produce permanent changes in speech production. There is now evidence that point mutations, whose mechanisms must still be discerned, can diffuse within decades throughout entire populations. There have been approximately 15 million changes in our species' genome since our common ancestor with the chimpanzee. There are human accelerated regions in the genome with genes known to be involved in transcriptional regulation and neurodevelopment. They are expressed within brain structures that would have allowed precisely the types of phenomena that Jaynes predicted had occurred around 3,500 years ago. Related genes, attributed to religious beliefs, are found on the same chromosome (for example, chromosome 10) as propensities for specific forms of epilepsy (partial, with auditory features) and schizophrenia. ..." (Persinger, 2007).

Finally, recent studies of brain plasticity show that massive changes can take place in an individual's brain during their developmental years. For example, if someone is blind, their occipital lobe (normally used for vision) can take on new roles, in some cases processing auditory or tactile information instead. Hemispherectomy patients, who have had one brain hemisphere removed (usually performed during childhood as a treatment for severe epilepsy), also show dramatic changes in the function of brain areas. Language processing can switch from the left to the right hemisphere in cases where the left hemisphere is removed. Musical abilities, motor capabilities, and attention span can switch to the left hemisphere in cases where the right hemisphere is removed (Battro, 2001). If the brain can adapt this rapidly in an individual, we can also imagine changes in brain function over just a few generations due to cultural or environmental factors given the right conditions.

Myth: There are instances that show introspection in the Iliad, therefore Jaynes's theory must be wrong (for example, see Leudar & Thomas, 2000).

Fact: It should be first pointed out that evidence for consciousness in the Iliad relates primarily to Jaynes's second hypothesis, or the dating of the emergence of consciousness, and would not necessarily impact hypotheses 1, 3, and 4. In other words, if this statement were true, it does not contradict the many instances of human behavior directed by gods found in the Iliad, and the entire process Jaynes describes could theoretically have taken place at an earlier date.

According to Greek scholar Richmond Lattimore (1951), the events that led to the legend of the Iliad probably took place somewhere around 1250–1150 B.C., and were recounted via singer-poets until written by Homer around 850 B.C. These dates are only speculative and based on statements by Herodotus (484 B.C.–ca. 425 B.C.) and others. Also, tradition holds that Homer was blind and that the poems were not actually written down by him, but may have been dictated to a scribe. This is also a matter of debate. Very little is known about Homer and some scholars question whether he actually existed. Also questioned is whether or not the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed (or even transcribed) by the same person, with the majority of scholars now concluding they were not, simply referring to them as "Homeric literature."

Of particular relevance to the current discussion, Lattimore notes that "it is quite possible that the text was edited at Athens in the time of Peisistratos" (~560 to 528 B.C). Jebb (1887) writes that "The poems were handed down by oral recitation, and in the course of that process suffered many alterations, deliberate or accidental, by the rhapsodes. After the poems had been written down circ. 550 B.C., they suffered still further changes."

Later editing and additions to the Iliad is highly relevant to this aspect of Jaynes's argument, yet is not even mentioned by Leudar & Thomas in their criticism of Jaynes's theory. It is likely that the Iliad is made up of various older and more recent layers, with the older layers reflecting a more bicameral mentality and newer layers showing evidence of consciousness. Jaynes discusses the issue of later additions on page 77 of The Origin, as well as in subsequent lectures. Perhaps he did not emphasize it enough. For more on the issue of later additions to the Iliad, see Leaf (1886), Lawton (1905), and Jebb (1887).

When evaluating the evidence for consciousness in Iliad (and contrasting it with the Odyssey), we must keep certain facts in mind (Weissman, 1993):

1. The Iliad was recited orally for centuries before being written down (or dictated) by (most likely) someone named Homer. It was not immediately written down in the manner someone would compose a poem today.
2. The Iliad only tells us about the end of the bicameral period, not the beginning.
3. Large parts of the Iliad show bicamerality, i.e. when the characters receive clear commands from the gods similar to command hallucinations experienced by schizophrenics.
4. Parts of the Iliad show instances of consciousness, i.e. when the gods are speaking to each other and are not issuing commands. The discussion of the gods with one another show things like planning and deceit, seem to reflect a later mentality, and may indicate a later addition to the poem.
5. Different parts of the poem reflect different stages in human consciousness. It is difficult to know which sections of the Iliad reflect specific time periods, i.e. what were the later additions to the oral poetry of previous centuries.
6. The use of prayer and omens in the Iliad shows that people were no longer entirely bicameral, or these sections were added at the time it was written down, or sometime thereafter. Furthermore, the omens are sometimes ignored.
7. The Odyssey contains important differences from the Iliad, including less reliance on direct commands from the gods, a growing dependence on prayer, omens, and divination, increased use of deception, the possibility of disobedience to the gods, an increased awareness of time, and less rules and more freedoms for both men and women.

The Iliad is one piece of evidence for Jaynes's bicameral mind theory which should not be viewed in isolation but rather within the larger context of the overall pattern of evidence, which includes evidence of auditory hallucinations in other ancient texts, behavioral commands experienced by modern voice-hearers, historical linguistics, idols, oracles, divination, split-brain research, the psychology of pre-modern tribes, etc.

Myth: Jaynes was an "ethnocentrist."

Fact: This origin of this misconception is particularly confusing. A definition of ethnocentrist is: "the tendency to evaluate other groups according to the values and standards of one's own ethnic group, especially with the conviction that one's own ethnic group is superior to the other groups." This myth probably arose with individuals who did not read Jaynes's book but skimmed it or read summaries which mistakenly lead them to believe Jaynes based his entire argument on ancient Greece. Jaynes focuses on Greece because the oldest reliable writing (the Iliad) comes from Greece. He also examines the evidence for his theory in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Mesoamerica. He did not know Chinese so he could not evaluate the evidence for the transition from bicamerality to consciousness in ancient China. However, this has been done by Dr. Michael Carr (see Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness, pgs. 343-416). Similar evidence for vestiges of bicameralism can be seen in nearly all pre-literate or pre-modern societies (Lévy-Bruhl, 1926). The fact that some cultures value trance states and hallucinatory experiences is evidence for Jaynes's theory, not against it (specifically his third hypothesis), as is sometimes argued. The transition from bicamerality to consciousness took place at different times in different places around the world. Furthermore, nothing about Jaynes's theory implies the superiority of one culture over another.

Myth: Jaynes argues that people in ancient times heard the actual voices of gods or other supernatural entities.

Fact: I attribute this misconception to three things: 1) People that read a summary of Jaynes's theory (rather than his actual book) and misunderstood this aspect, 2) Jaynes's somewhat poetic writing style and the fact that he didn't make this point more clearly (presumably in an effort to not offend anyone), resulting in some individuals with a predisposition towards favorable ideas about divine intervention and spirit communication coming away with this misconception, and 3) the fact that Jaynes often dodged the question after lectures (again, presumably because he wanted to avoid offending anyone).

To clarify: Jaynes believes that people in ancient civilizations experienced auditory hallucinations emanating from their right temporal lobe and these people misinterpreted these auditory hallucinations as the voices of their dead relatives, chief, king, and eventually "the gods."

Let me provide some examples of statements made by Jaynes that will help put this myth to rest:

• "The gods ... were amalgams of admonitory experience, made up of meldings of whatever commands had been given the individual" (Jaynes, 1976/1990, p. 106).



• "[Hearing voices] was far more common back then ... you heard a voice telling you what to do. Of course I am thinking the voice is coming from somewhere in the brain. I am not thinking of spirits outside or anything of that sort" (Jaynes, 1982).



• "The immediate results of this loss of hallucinated voices giving directions are several and new in world history. The idea of heaven as where the gods have gone; the idea of genii or angels as messengers between heaven and earth; the idea of evil gods such as demons — all are new phenomenon" (Jaynes, 1986).



• "Verbal hallucinations ... evolved along with the evolution of language during the late Pleistocene as the response part of the brain register of all admonitory information. Its survival value at first was simply to direct an individual in various long-term tasks, which cued their occurrence. By 9000 B.C., such voices were called what we call gods. This theory is thus one that explains the origin of gods and therefore religion" (Jaynes, 2007).

Myth: Chimpanzees can recognize themselves in a mirror, and this "provides clear evidence of self-awareness in chimpanzees" (Griffin, 1978).

Fact: Jaynes addresses this in the Afterword in the 1990 and later editions of his book (p. 460):

"This conclusion is incorrect. Self-awareness usually means the consciousness of our own persona over time, a sense of who we are, our hopes and fears, as we daydream about ourselves in relation to others. We do not see our conscious selves in mirrors, even though that image may become the emblem of the self in many cases. The chimpanzees in this experiment and the two-year old child learned a point-to-point relation between a mirror image and the body, wonderful as that is. Rubbing a spot noticed in the mirror is not essentially different from rubbing a spot noticed on the body without a mirror. The animal is not shown to be imagining himself anywhere else, or thinking of his life over time, or introspecting in any sense — all signs of a conscious life.

"This less interesting, more primitive interpretation was made even clearer by an ingenious experiment done in Skinner's laboratory (Epstein, 1981). Essentially the same paradigm was followed with pigeons, except that it required a series of specific trainings with the mirror, whereas the chimpanzee or child in the earlier experiments was, of course, self-trained. But after about fifteen hours of such training when the contingencies were carefully controlled, it was found that a pigeon also could use a mirror to locate a blue spot on its body which it could not see directly, though it had never been explicitly trained to do so. I do not think that a pigeon because it can be so trained has a self-concept."

Myth: No one in academia takes Jaynes's theory seriously.

Fact: Jaynes was in high demand as a lecturer, and was frequently invited to lecture at conferences and symposia and as a guest lecturer at colleges and universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Emory, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, Tufts, York, Dalhousie, Wellesley, Florida State, Northwestern, SUNY at Genesco, Plattsburgh, Oswego, and Brockport, the Universities of New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts at Amherst and Boston Harbor. He was Scholar-in-Residence at Skidmore, Lake Forest, and the University of Prince Edward Island. In 1983 he gave the keynote address at a conference on "Language: The Crucible of Consciousness." In 1984 he was invited to give the plenary lecture at the Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchburg, Austria. He gave six major lectures in 1985 and nine in 1986. He was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by Rhode Island College in 1979 and another from Elizabethtown College in 1985. A conference dedicated to studying Jaynes's theory is organized every other year at the University of Prince Edward Island. Jaynes's book was translated into Italian, Spanish, German, and French.

There are many scholars interested in Jaynes's theory, but few if any are able to focus on it full time. Scholars who have either written or spoken favorably on Jaynes's theory include:

• Mel Alexenberg, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Art and Education, Columbia University
• Ciarán Benson, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University College, Dublin, Ireland
• Morris Berman, Ph.D., Sociology Department, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
• Roberto Bottini, Department of Human Sciences, University of Bergamo, Italy
• Michael Carr, Ph.D, Chinese and Japanese culture and linguistics, Otaru University of Commerce, Japan (retired)
• Charles Carter, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego
• Edoardo Casiglia, M.D., Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Padova, Italy
• Andrea E. Cavanna, M.D., Institute of Neurology, UK; Department of Neurology, Amedeo Avogadro University, Italy
• Kyle Cave, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Gregory Cochran, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, University of Utah, expert in genetics and human evolution
• Jack Copeland, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
• Timothy J. Crow, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Price of Wales Center, University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford
• Marcel Danesi, Ph.D., Professor of Semiotics and Linguistic Anthropology, University of Toronto, Canada
• Daniel Dennett, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University
• Michael Finch, Ph.D., Math and Theoretical Physics, UK
• Takashi X. Fujisawa, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow at the Research Center for Human Media, Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan
• Elkhonon Goldberg, Ph.D., Clinical Professor of Neurology, New York University School of Medicine
• Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, George Washington University Medical School
• Scott Greer, Ph.D, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Prince Edward Island
• John Hainly, M.A., Department of Philosophy, Southern University
• John Hamilton, Ph.D, was Director of Psychology, Gracewood Hospital (retired)
• Charles Hampden-Turner, Ph.D., MBA, Senior Research Associate, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
• Klaus J. Hansen, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Queen's University, Ontario
• Thomas Hare, Associate Professor, Department of Asian Language and Comparative Literature, Stanford University
• Masanori Ishimori, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Faculty of Human Relations, Kyoto Koka Women's University, Japan
• Julie Kane, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Language and Communication Department, Northwestern State University
• John Kilhstrom, Ph.D, Professor of Psychology, U.C. Berkeley
• Robert K. Kretz, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist
• David Lewis-Williams, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Archaeology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
• John Limber, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of New Hampshire
• Ferren McIntyre, Ph.D., Earth & Ocean Science, National University of Ireland, Galway
• Brian J. McVeigh, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Arizona
• Rachel L.C. Mitchell, Ph.D., School of Psychology, University of Reading; Neuroscience and Emotion Section, Institute of Psychiatry, London
• Henry A. Nasrallah, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Neuroscience and Director of the Schizophrenia Research Program, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
• Christopher Lee Niebauer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology, Slippery Rock University
• Robert Olin, M.D., Ph.D., Karolinska Institute, Professor Emeritus of Preventative Medicine, Sweden
• Michael Persinger, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Laurentian University, Ontario
• Carole Brooks Platt, Ph.D., author and independent scholar
• Robert Pos, M.D., was Professor of Psychiatry and Psychiatrist-in-Chief, Toronto General Hospital, and later Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia (retired)
• Thomas B. Posey, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Murray State University
• Theodore Remington, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of English and Foreign Languages, The University of Saint Francis
• Alessandro Salvini, Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Padova, Italy
• Jeff Sandoz, Ph.D., Professor, Counseling Education, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
• John Schedel, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Medaille College
• Leo Sher, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and a Research Psychiatrist at the at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Department of Neuroscience
• Dorothy G. Singer, Ed. D., Senior Research Scientist, Department of Psychology and Child Study Center, Yale University
• Jerome Singer, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Yale University
• Jan Sleutels, Ph.D, Professor of Philosophy, Leiden University, Netherlands
• David C. Stove, Ph.D. (1927–1994), was Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Sydney
• Michael R. Trimble, M.D., Professor of Behavioral Neurology, Institute of Neurology, UK
• Evan Harris Walker, Ph.D. (1936–2006), Physicist, former President of the Walker Cancer Research Institute
• Mary M. Watkins, Ph.D., Clinical and Developmental Psychologist, Pacifica Graduate Institute
• Judith Weissman, Ph.D. (1946–1998), was Professor of English, Syracuse University
• Heward Wilkinson, MSc Psychotherapy, Psychotherapist, UK
• Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., Theoretical Physicist
• William Woodward, Ph.D. Professors of Psychology, University of New Hampshire
• Clive Wynne, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Florida

There are others whose names we have not listed because they have not made their interest in Jaynes's theory public. There are likely many others of whom we are not aware.

Notes

¹ Some of these misconceptions have also been perpetuated to a certain extent by academics. For example, Robert Sapolsky (1998) makes the statement regarding Jaynes's book that "the near consenus among savants was that the book was dizzyingly erudite, stimulating, and ultimately loony." Specifically what "savants"? Published where? "Loony" in what regard? Sapolsky cites no one. After reading Sapolsky's comments the reader is left with the impression that Jaynes's theory was discussed (and refuted) in publications by a number of highly regarded scholars and this is simply not the case. I've read everything that I'm aware of on the subject and believe Sapolsky was either making this up based on his own intuitions or engaging in hyperbole based on perhaps one or two criticisms, for example Ned Block's, which has been refuted.

Sapolsky may have also misunderstood Jaynes's argument, as in the next paragraph he states "Sperry rejected the notion that there were two individuals inside anyone's head, and most agreed." Here Sapolsky is perhaps confusing Jaynes's idea of the bicameral mind in ancient man with the related but very different debate over the issue of multiple 'selves' (one per hemisphere) in contemporary conscious split-brain patients. Sapolsky's comments are also misleading on this issue. First, with regard to split-brain patients, Sperry states, "Everything we have seen so far indicates that the surgery has left each of these people with two separate minds, that is, with two separate spheres of consciousness" (1964). Sapolsky also leaves out the fact that Dr. Joseph Bogen — a neurosurgeon and colleague of Sperry's who operated on and studied split-brain patients for decades — has also argued in a series of articles that the proceduce results in two distinct 'selves', one per hemisphere (Bogen, 1983), an issue that continues to be debated.

Dennett (an early proponent of Jaynes who cites Jaynes in all of his books and is in agreement with Jaynes on the language-dependency hypothesis), made the recent statement that Jaynes is "quirky and unreliable" (Dennett, 2006). Quirky in what way? Specifically unreliable how? Dennett gives us no clues and does not offer any examples to debate.

We will be addressing these and similar criticisms in a forthcoming publication.

² Approximately 2.4 million American adults, or about 1.1 percent of the population age 18 and older in a given year, have schizophrenia (Regier, 1993).

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