With discussion of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

by Daniel Keane

The human being, the philosopher Martin Heidegger claimed, is the only being “whose being is an issue for it.”

Heidegger had a fondness for repetitive and cryptic formulations, but the statement contains a basic truth.

Consciousness is a strange affliction. As far as we can tell, we humans are the only creatures who have the capacity to examine and question our own natures, to ask what it is like to be us. Whether this is due to the vagaries of evolution, or is instead by design, makes no difference to this brute fact. Alone among the animals, we carry the weight of the ability to think.

These ideas are raised in an entertaining yet provocative way by the HBO show Westworld, which has just commenced its second series. The program depicts a giant Western-style theme park (called Westworld) which is populated by extraordinarily life-like robots. Apparently unbeknown to their creators, the robots – who are referred to by their engineers as “hosts” – are on the verge of crisis and revolt, perhaps even freedom.

Despite the efforts of engineers to limit their memories, the hosts have acquired enough intelligence and experience to start questioning the world around them.

In the show, the Westworld park is open to high-paying guests who are able to harm the hosts but cannot be harmed themselves. The park fulfils the guests’ cravings for a life in which there are no moral consequences. It is, in fact, the ultimate fantasy machine; there is no rulebook. Guests are at liberty to unleash their most savage instincts upon the hosts, who are treated like mere characters in a computer game and are, in fact, like Nietzschean creatures trapped in the logic of eternal recurrence.

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*Contains spoilers*

Episode 10, the season finale, is titled “The Bicameral Mind” after Julian Jaynes’s theory, which states that prior to the development of introspective consciousness, our brain hemispheres operated more independently than they do today, with the right hemisphere acting as the “god-side” and the left acting as the “man-side,” and neither being conscious. In stressful situations, the brain used language to transmit information from the right hemisphere to the left in the form of what we would today call an auditory hallucination. Ancient peoples took these voices to those of their chief, king, dead ancestors, or the gods. Over time, consciousness was learned through metaphorical language and the voices were suppressed, although many retain vestiges of bicameralism in the form of hearing voices even to this day.

Near the beginning of this episode there is an interesting exchange between Arnold and Dolores where Arnold explains his breakthrough realization in developing consciousness in the hosts. That “consciousness isn’t a journey upward, but a journey inward. Not a pyramid, but a main…”

The center of the maze represents not a place but the host’s development of their own introspective mind-space, the point at which Arnold’s guiding bicameral hallucinations become their own internal dialogue.  In Jaynesian parlance, their own analog ‘I’ narratizing in a mind-space.

Arnold declares that they must not open the park, because Dolores is on the verge of self-awareness. Because he and Ford disagree, Arnold decides he must destroy the park rather than allow it to open with the hosts on the verge of self-awareness.

The episode ends with a powerful scene with Dolores and Arnold in opposing chairs. Arnold then becomes Dolores, as his “voice” becomes her own… and she finds the center of the maze. In the final scene, Dr. Ford introduces his highly anticipated new narrative.

It will be very interesting to see if the show’s writers continue to integrate ideas from Julian Jaynes’s theory in Season 2.

by Melissa Dahl

Part of the fun of Westworld is the vague feeling that you, much like some kind of hapless host, are understanding maybe 50 percent of what’s going on in a given scene. Every question answered only causes 15 more questions to immediately take its place.

There is one idea, though, that may be worth studying up on, because the show returns to it again and again: that consciousness begins when a being (be it human or host) stops believing that the voice inside their own head is a message from the gods, and starts recognizing that voice as their own. Consider, for instance, the coding choice initially made by park co-creator Arnold: As Anthony Hopkins’s Robert Ford explains, Arnold purposefully designed a version of the hosts so they would hear their programming as a kind of inner guide, “with hopes that, in time, their own voice would take over.”

It’s an appropriately trippy theory of human consciousness, one that’s essentially copy-pasted from The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, a blockbuster 1976 book by psychologist Julian Jaynes; the series finale is even titled “The Bicameral Mind.” (Westworld does not always go in for subtlety.) In his book, Jaynes argued that consciousness is a relatively new thing for humans, beginning just three millennia ago. The book, which earned a National Book Award nomination, was, unexpectedly, a best seller, and a new edition was printed in 2000. Now, the success of Westworld has seemed to revive new interest in the subject matter: Google searches for “bicameralism,” understandably flat for most of 2016, spiked in October, just after the show’s premiere.

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*Contains spoilers*

Episode 9 opens with Bernard interviewing Maeve, but she quickly assumes control of Bernard, who has lost awareness of his host status.  She issues post-hypnotic suggestion-like commands, which he dutifully carries out.

A little later we see a meeting between Bernard and Dr. Ford on one of the headquarters’ lower levels with the decommissioned hosts. When Dr. Ford says, “I built your mind Bernard, I have every right to wander through it’s rooms and chambers and halls…” we are reminded again of Jaynes’s opening lines from The Origin of Consciousness: “… an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do…” and the metaphor of physical space for our inner mind-space.

In the following scene we see Dolores experience a bicameral hallucination: “Remember.”

Next, Hector, talking to his fellow bandits, talks about “the riches the gods have in store for us” and Maeve’s prophesy about his immediate future gets his attention. Maeve also refers to the gods.

For Maeve, the “gods” are Ford and the park’s administrators who are dictating the park’s story lines and determining the hosts’ every outcome. For  ancient man, and more recent preliterate societies, the gods and spirits played a central role in their daily life in a way that’s difficult for us to comprehend. We think of gods as distant and remote, but for bicameral people, the gods were ever-present, offering commands, advice, and admonishments, guiding behavior in a way similar to the bicameral hallucinations of Arnold heard by Dolores.

In another interesting parallel, Maeve has woken up to the fact that every aspect of their lives is determined by the park’s directors: “I died with my eyes open, saw the masters that pull our strings. Our lives, our memories, our deaths are games to them…”

Yet the hosts such as Hector believe they have free will. So while the hosts’ lives are completely pre-determined while having the illusion of free will, conversely in the ancient world, bicameral people had no concept of chance and believed everything to be the will of the gods. As the bicameral voices subsided, people turned to oracles and divination to discern the will of the now-silent gods. Lots were cast to discern their wishes, which, incidentally, is the origin of gambling. It is only with the advent of consciousness that the concept of free will is born.

Later in the episode we revisit the conversation between Dr. Ford and Bernard regarding the hosts hallucinating the voice of Arnold and their discussion of Arnold’s pursuit of consciousness for the hosts via the bicameral mind.

The conversation cuts to Dolores entering the church. The religious imagery here is noteworthy. Although beyond the scope of this post, Jaynes’s theory of consciousness also explains the origin of gods and therefore religion.

Dolores enters the church, and the pews are populated by hosts talking to their bicameral hallucinations (presumably “bootstrapping consciousness”). As a side note, most people today don’t realize that a significant percentage of the “homeless” are people partially relapsing to the bicameral mind and experiencing persistent debilitating hallucinations, along with the the delusions that result from living in a world that no longer shares their experience or accepts the authority of their voices.

Dolores enters the confessional, which turns out to be an elevator, and she descends to find herself in the underground hallways of the corporate headquarters. … The fact that the headquarters are constructed entirely underground may itself be a metaphor for the ever deeper layers of the unconscious mind.

Her trip through the hallways appears to be a walk through earlier times in the park’s history, where she first encounters lights flickering and the bodies of hosts strewn about, perhaps the first “incident” that is often referred to. This is followed by a more organized scene, where she observes functioning hosts and encounters a young Dr. Ford walking past. The scene is interspersed with the ongoing present-day conversation between Ford and Bernard, with Ford reiterating his dark view of humanity and his disdain for consciousness.

We see Bernard’s first awakening, where he asks the question, “Who am I?” Ford concedes, “That is a very complex question, for which I can only offer a simple answer…”

It’s an interesting question to ponder. We tend to define ourselves by various roles, and often life changes such as divorce or the loss of a job can feel like the loss of part of our very identity. But who are we really, and how is our concept of the self and consciousness related? In “Imagination and the Dance of the Self” in The Julian Jaynes Collection, Jaynes delves into the links between consciousness and our self concept.

Toward the end of this episode, we see Dolores descend yet another flight of stairs, where she has a hallucinatory encounter with Arnold, leading her to another level of self-awareness…

“Remember…”

*Contains spoilers*

Like much of Ford’s speech, the instruction he gives to Bernard in the opening of Episode 8 is written and spoken very much like a hypnotic script… Anthony Hopkins could have been a successful hypnotist. And as I’ve previously noted, the verbal commands given to the hosts are very much like post-hypnotic suggestions.

Hypnosis is a subject that has long been a mystery to psychology, and too often it has been ignored or marginalized, as the field of psychology struggled to become “scientific” and wanted to rid itself of any associations with what might be considered “fringe” topics.

As I have written elsewhere, and as Julian Jaynes explains, hypnosis is perhaps best understood as a vestige of the bicameral mind. Because of our previous bicameral mentality, we are predisposed to follow an externally perceived, guiding voice. Furthermore, if consciousness were biological and innate, we would not expect it to be altered as easily as it is with hypnotic trance.

Later we see Dolores with William by the river, where she experiences another bicameral hallucination (“Come find me”) accompanied by a vision.

Back at the Westworld corporate facility, Maeve is learning more about herself and the other hosts. She makes what may be a subtle reference to Julian Jaynes’s bicameral mind theory:

“Parts of me are quite old. There are some elegant formal structures, a kind of a recursive beauty, but complex, like two minds arguing with each other. There are things in me, things I was designed to do, that are just out of my reach. They almost seem to be dormant. Who is Arnold?”

In an interesting exchange between Ford and Bernard, Ford articulates what one might describe as a radical behaviorist view: that consciousness does not exist and that all of our behaviors are to some extent “programmed” — by our genes, by classical and operant conditioning, etc.

You can see the discussion here:

While Julian Jaynes would disagree with this view, he does argue that consciousness makes up a much smaller part of our thinking that we realize. Using the metaphor of a flashlight in a dark room, Jaynes explains that everywhere the flashlight points the room is lit, giving rise to the illusion that the room itself is brightly lit. So too with us — we fall under the illusion that our consciousness is everything because we cannot be conscious of that which we are not conscious of.

In reality, much of our daily life is accomplished without consciousness at all, through habit, routine, and unconscious problem solving.

Finally, I found it interesting that near the end of this episode, in the hallucinatory scene where Dolores enters the strange town, the dance instruction for the hosts is identical to what we saw previously during Ford and Bernard’s discussion of the bicameral mind in Episode 3.

*Contains spoilers*

Near the beginning of Episode 7 we see Maeve is no longer responding to the technician’s commands and appears to be continuing on her path to self-awareness.

Speaking with William on the train, Dolores appears to be on a similar trajectory.

In a conversation between Bernard and Theresa, we gain more insight into the hosts’ path to consciousness. “The ability to deviate from programmed behavior arises out of the hosts’ recall of past iterations. … there’s a connection between memory and improvisation. Out of repetition comes variation, and after countless cycles of repetition these hosts — they were varying. They were on the verge of some kind of change.”

This brings us back to the first episode, and Ford’s alleged insertion of the “reveries.” But was it really Ford after all? In any case, as we’ve discussed previously, the introduction of autobiographical memory is a key element of consciousness: It requires the development of an analog ‘I’ narratizing in a mind-space, able to spatialize time and “see” one’s life on a timeline. Without consciousness, we would always be living only in the present.

The episode ends in the powerful exchange between Ford and Theresa, and the shocking discovery that Bernard is a host. Ford hints at what Julian Jaynes describes as the “consequences of consciousness,” saying, “Their lives are blissful, in a way their existence is purer than ours. Free of the burden of self-doubt.”

Ford continues: “I read the theory once that the human intellect was like peacock feathers. Just an extravagant display intended to attract a mate. All of art, literature, a bit of Mozart, William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and the Empire State Building. Just an elaborate mating ritual. Maybe it doesn’t matter that we have accomplished so much for the basest of reasons. But, of course, the peacock can barely fly. It lives in the dirt, pecking insects out of the muck, consoling itself with its great beauty. I have come to think of so much of consciousness as a burden, a weight, and we have spared them that. Anxiety, self-loathing, guilt. The hosts are the ones who are free. Free, here, under my control.”

Julian Jaynes did not see consciousness as an adaptation for the purpose of increasing sexual attraction (this was proposed by Geoffrey Miller in The Mating Mind). But the last few sentences seem to be directly inspired by Jaynes, who tells us the many ways, both positive and negative, that consciousness operating on our emotions transforms our thought. Fear becomes anxiety, shame becomes guilt, mating behavior becomes love, anger becomes hatred.

Consciousness, for all its benefits, has come with significant costs.

(For a good discussion of this, see “The Origin of Consciousness, Gains and Losses: Walker Percy vs. Julian Jaynes” by Laura Mooneyham White in Gods, Voices, and the Bicameral Mind.)

P.S. Does anyone else think that Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), the Executive Director of the Board for Delos, seems far too young for the role? But perhaps there’s more to this….there’s already a lot of speculation that she may be one of the other character’s daughters. We’ll see what unfolds…

*Contains spoilers*

In Episode 6, the links to Julian Jaynes’s bicameral mind theory that have already been established continue.

Through her interaction with Felix the technician, Maeve continues on her path to discovering the nature of her reality and gaining consciousness.

Elsie makes reference to the “bicameral system,” telling Bernard: “That bicameral system you told me about … I think that’s what they used to hack the woodcutter. The voices the hosts have been hearing? I think someone’s been broadcasting to them. …. There’s still relays out there in the park, and it looks like someone turned one on.”

Elsie is getting closer to uncovering the nature of Arnold’s bicameral command hallucinations to the hosts:

“Theresa was using the old bicameral control system to reprogram the woodcutter. But she’s not the only one.  Someone else has been using the system for weeks to re-task hosts … these modifications are serious … ”

Next, we see Ford questioning the younger host version of himself. The boy reveals he heard a bicameral voice of Arnold telling him to kill his dog.

As a side note, many more people today experience hearing voices than is generally known, and many of those that do hear voices hear what’s called “command hallucinations” that direct their behavior — a vestige of our earlier bicameral mentality.

Finally, it appears that “someone” has already been altering Maeve’s code. Will increased overall intelligence lead to Maeve’s gaining consciousness? To what degree are intelligence and consciousness related?

My own view is that intelligence is necessary but insufficient. Intelligence is largely (but not entirely) genetic, whereas consciousness (as Jaynes defines it) in learned through language. To use the computer metaphor, our intelligence is predicated on our hardware whereas consciousness is like our operating system. And some of us appear to be running both the bicameral and conscious operating systems to some degree in parallel.

*Contains spoilers*

Episode 5 opens with Dr. Ford telling a story from his childhood to the retired host he is often seen speaking with. As a child his father bought him and his brother a retired greyhound. The greyhound spent its entire life chasing something but when it finally caught it, it didn’t know what to do. Is Ford’s story a metaphor for consciousness in the hosts?

In the next scene we see Dolores in a graveyard with William and Logan. She experiences a bicameral hallucination that commands “find me,” accompanied by a vision, and responds “show me how.” Who is issuing the verbal commands? Is “Arnold” prompting her?

Later we see Dolores, talking to William, beginning to question her reality. Next she has a vision of herself in the parade, where she receives the “deep and dreamless slumber” hypnotic suggestion and wakes up being interviewed by Dr. Ford.

Ford asks if she has been “hearing voices” — if Arnold has been “speaking” to her. Interestingly she lies, saying no — something she should not be capable of. Ford seems to be concerned that Arnold is interfering with the hosts, and for the first time we learn of Arnold’s original intention “to destroy this place.”

Dolores now seems to be in almost constant communication with Arnold. In the ancient world, the bicameral mind was a pre-conscious mentality in which the brain’s hemispheres operated more independently than they do today. The right hemisphere used language in the form of auditory hallucinations to transmit information across the corpus callosum to the left hemisphere. In Westworld, Arnold seems to be using bicameral hallucinations (the “bicameral system” as they refer to it in the show) as a means to communicate with and control the hosts.

But to what end?

*Contains spoilers*

The most Jaynesian-related scene in this episode is the opening scene with Bernard again talking with Dolores.

Dolores hints at changes that are taking place in her thinking, saying “I feel spaces opening up inside of of me, like a building with room I’ve never explored.” When viewed from the perspective of Julian Jaynes’s theory, her description is exactly what we would expect to see from someone learning consciousness, where metaphors of the physical world build up to create our inner “mind-space.”

She next makes a statement very reminiscent of “The Fall” from the Book of Genesis, saying, “I think there may be something wrong with this world.” Prior to this, Dolores seemed incapable of entertaining these types of thoughts – her script didn’t allow it.

The Garden of Eden story can be read as a parable for the breakdown of the bicameral mind and the birth of consciousness: first they were non-conscious, then they ate from the “Tree of Knowledge,” gained consciousness, and for the first time had the concept of morality and good and evil.

She fears something may be wrong with her, that she may be “losing her mind.” Bernard responds by telling her about a game called “The Maze,” and that if she can find the center of the Maze, perhaps she can be “free.”

Apparently the center of the Maze (which the Man in Black is looking for) somehow represents the emergence of consciousness.

Next we see Maeve at the Mariposa suddenly having more flashbacks and memories, recalling the workers back at the facility and a bullet being left inside her.

Maeve then sketches the technicians that she’s seen in her memories. When she goes to hide her sketch beneath a loose floorboard, she discovers similar sketches that she’s drawn in the past but doesn’t remember. The pieces are starting to come together for Maeve that things are not as they seem, and memory is playing a critical role in slowly expanding her consciousness.

Later Dolores has a bicameral hallucinatory experience, hearing the command “remember,” and seeing the white church and the maze traced in the dirt, along with memories of past events.

In the stage coach on the way to the prison, the Man in Black has a conversation with Lawrence, telling him “no choice you ever made was your own. You have always been a prisoner. What if I told you that I’m here to set you free?”

Is the Man in Black’s quest to find the Maze really an attempt to bring consciousness to all of the hosts?

Also noteworthy: the Native Americans drop a figurine that resembles the technicians, and we are told that “it’s part of their religion” (called a “shade”). And in a lunch with Theresa, Ford refers to himself and Arnold as “gods.”

Interview with Julian Jaynes Society Executive Director Marcel Kuijsten on Julian Jaynes’s bicameral mind theory and Westworld.

from Inverse

The idea that technology inevitably mimics — and trumps — evolution is, on first blush, the subtext of HBO’s new hit show Westworld. This makes the prestige science fiction drama zeitgesit-y as hell. At the dawn of the age of artificial intelligence, the public is used to hearing from neural net weavers and judgment day prophets claiming that robot self-awareness is a few software updates away.

But what makes Westworld fascinating and unexpectedly subversive is that its allusions to cutting-edge research seem to have been — to a degree — an intellectual smoke screen. Fans just got a peak through that haze in Episode 3, “The Stray,” when Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), the show’s modern Prometheus, name-checked Julian Jaynes’s theory of the “Bicameral Mind.” For an instant, the show was laid bare.

Introduced in the blockbuster 1976 treatise, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, bicameralism suggests that the human brain hasn’t always functioned in the same manner. As recently as 3,000 years ago, the theory goes, men and women lacked what their ancestors came to define as self-awareness because they didn’t yet have the linguistic tools for introspection. In essence, bicameralism states that humans needed better code to function like individuals rather than like horny defecation machines. That code was metaphorical language.

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