Critique 7 – Imaginary Companions
Critique: “Jaynesian bicameralism would have had to start with a child’s earliest thinking. That would bespeak a rather severe form of mental disorder for which there is no present-day parallel.”
Response: Here Robinson appears to be completely unaware of the phenomena of imaginary companions, although Jaynes discusses the topic on pages 396-397. Robinson is probably also unaware of what have been termed “conscience-related” imaginary companions, which direct children’s behavior (similar to the children’s character Jiminy Cricket, and to voices that guided behavior in the bicameral era). So, contrary to Robinson’s claim, there is a present-day parallel to bicameralism in children. Robinson also ignores Jaynes’s arguments about the importance of culture or what he terms “the collective cognitive imperative” in whether or not the bicameral paradigm is activated – parents today typically discourage their children’s voice-hearing. Apart from Jaynes’s theory, there is no compelling explanation for the continued widespread occurrence of imaginary (or hallucinated) companions in children. For a discussion of conscience-related imaginary companions, see Hilgard, Personality and Hypnosis: A Study of Imaginative Involvement and my article, “Hypnosis as a Vestige of the Bicameral Mind” in Contemporary Hypnosis (Vol. 29, Issue 3). For more research on imaginary companions, see my Introduction to The Julian Jaynes Collection and the Imaginary Companions page in the Supporting Evidence section of this website.
Learn about about Julian Jaynes’s theory by reading our latest book, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind: Interviews with Leading Thinkers on Julian Jaynes’s Theory.