I have often wondered why so many well-credentialed researchers continue to bark up the wrong tree in their quest to understand consciousness. Many reasons could be offered, but in a recent discussion on …

It always astounds me when people express surprise at the psychological sophistication of animals. Their amazement seems premised on the assumption that an organism either has a mind or does not. A misguided corollary of this idea sometimes heard is that if an organism possesses a mind …

For many (mis)interpreters of Jaynes, the word consciousness acts as blank canvas upon which they draw and impose their own definitions of what they assume Jaynes meant by this term. The result is serious misunderstanding and a distortion of his arguments. …

I first encountered Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind almost 45 years ago. Though the book made sense to me, I could see why people would reject its arguments. Nevertheless I assumed that once carefully explained, people may not agree but would at least be able to discern a certain logic behind Jaynesian psychology. How naïve I was. …