Compared to Other Scientific Ideas, Jaynesian Psychology Isn’t So Farfetched

— But How Confident Can We Be that Jaynes Is Right?

Summary: The blog post “Compared to Other Scientific Ideas, Jaynesian Psychology Isn’t So Farfetched” by Brian J. McVeigh argues that Julian Jaynes’s theory of consciousness, while unconventional, is not as implausible as some might think. Jaynes proposed that human consciousness emerged relatively recently in history, evolving from a “bicameral mind” where individuals experienced thoughts as auditory hallucinations or commands from gods.

McVeigh suggests that, compared to widely accepted scientific theories like Darwinian evolution or quantum mechanics, Jaynes’s ideas are grounded in interdisciplinary research spanning psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and the study of ancient texts. He emphasizes that many scientific breakthroughs were initially met with skepticism, and Jaynes’s theory deserves similar open-minded consideration.

The post encourages readers to view Jaynes’s work as a serious and thought-provoking contribution to our understanding of human consciousness, rather than dismissing it outright due to its unconventional nature.

We accept as fact the magical transformation of species (Darwinian evolution), the warping of spatiotemporal fabric (Einsteinian astrophysics), and the superposition of particles and “spooky action at a distance” (quantum mechanics). So surely, one would think, acknowledging the cultural roots of consciousness and that supernatural visitations and visions (hallucinations) governed societies seems rather tame. Compared to other well-established scientific ideas, Jaynes’s arguments do not seem so implausible. But many of us still find his ideas unpersuasive. Indeed, while we are comfortable with the way the hard sciences defy our commonsensical assumptions about the how the natural world works, when it comes to consciousness, we feel uncomfortably challenged if confronted by something as so supposedly radical as Jaynesian psychology. It seems we are all “experts,” convinced that our own views must accurately describe something so personal, immediate, and “obvious” as subjective introspectable self-awareness.

The Necessity of Persuasive Evidence

Sweeping pronouncements may be true, but we still need to get into the weeds of empirical investigation and hypothesis testing. Scientific facts rest on decades of painstaking data collecting and experimentation. Progress is often more of a dialogue between competing but equally plausible viewpoints. Rarely are what seem like advances a definitive series of self-assured declarations. Refining terminology, agreeing on protocols, qualifying theoretical stances, and searching for subtlety of expression should be the goal. We need to remember that the aforementioned wild ideas in this essay’s opening sentence do not appear so improbable now, especially after decades of meticulous work that includes the application of mathematical modeling, testing with sophisticated instruments, exploration of unchartered parts of the globe, etc.

What Are the Odds that Jaynes Is Correct?

At least for this writer, the more we learn about human history and our anthropological record as a species, the more commonsensical Jaynes becomes. Let’s look at what we do know. First, hallucinations presently play a salient role, in clinical as well as nonclinical “normal” populations. However, to date they have not been adequately explained. Second, even a cursory examination of Bronze Age civilizations show how utterly different they were compared to post-first-millennium BCE societies. Such dramatic differences need to be confronted intellectually, in particular the role of hallucinatory experiences and the lack of clear-cut mental words where we have written records. Third, the part performed by metaphors in driving forward the evolution of mental words as a response to changing social situations is well established. Fourth, anomalous but ubiquitous psychological behaviors — spirit possession, hypnosis, imaginary playmates, glossolalia, hypergraphia, autoscopy, etc. — have not been adequately positioned into an explanatory and satisfactory framework. No one set of theories (except for Jaynes’s) ties all these behaviors into a neat, parsimonious theoretical package. Unlike the natural sciences, theory-testing in the social sciences and history should be allowed more latitude since the number of variables is so great. With that stated, the validity of a theory can be measured on a scale from highly unlikely, unlikely, 50-50, likely, to highly likely. The question, then, is given the reviews, criticisms, critiques, commentaries, elaborations, and testing of Jaynesian ideas to date, where do his hypotheses fall on the scale? Readers, of course, can decide for themselves. But for this writer we are very much passed the indeterminate 50-50 point, confidently and comfortably in the “likely” position, and probably into the “highly likely” quintile.