This is a great (and difficult) question and one that has come up before. I'll get the discussion started but I hope others will join in. Ultimately, everyone is likely to have a different opinion because this is such a subjective issue. First off, I want to state as an aside that I don't know if mo...

Mike Finch wrote: I cannot really imagine being conscious without being conscious of my own consciousness. Unless I've misunderstood you, I think you might mean "being conscious of your own awareness." This is an important aspect of Jaynes's definition of consciousness. Like he diagrams it...

Yes, confusion over the definition of the term "consciousness" is a real problem, not only for the acceptance of Jaynes's theory but for the field of consciousness studies in general. Your point that Jaynes might have encountered less resistance using different terminology such as self-awa...

Thanks Fisherman. Is there one of his books that you recommend as a particularly good introduction to his work, or as most relevant to bicameral theory?

Another thought came to me to follow-up on your idea. Using the "Wada test," the right hemisphere can be anestized. Does anyone know if this been attempted in patients with schizophrenia? It would be interesting to see the outcome. I'll have to look on Medline.

Yes it will be very interesting to see if a consensus begins to emerge over the next few years on the right temporal lobe being implicated in auditory hallucinations, as Jaynes predicted.

I agree. There is so much evidence relevant to the bicameral theory that he raises. Not just the personator ceremony itself and the linguistic evidence of a changing mentality, but the dual burials, burials of the dead with food, two different words for 'dead' (recently dead — i.e. still 'heard' â...

The subject of susceptibility to hypnosis has been studied extensively. I think the general consensus is there is a wide range in hypnotic ability that varies from individual to individual -- from those that can barely obtain a light trance (if any) to those able to experience deep trance (approx. 1...

Just to follow up on this, I recently read that (as I suspected), the commissurotomy or "split-brain" surgeries are no longer being performed, as they are now able to better control epileptic seizures with medication. I also read that until age 4 or so, both hemispheres seem to be able to ...

My understanding is Jaynes uses this term to describe structures in the brain (he says "organizations in the brain" which I take to mean groupings of neurons) that are responsible for certain genetically based instinctual behaviors (for example, mating behavior or a mother caring for her y...

Yes, Dr. Persinger's work on a feeling of presence in the right hemisphere is highly relevant and his Foreword is a valuable contribution to the book. When you say I think Neuropsychological Basis for God Beliefs would have been a great addition to Reflections I'm not sure what you mean by that -- o...

It has always been interesting to me how people with different backgrounds can have completely different interpretations of Jaynes's book. For example, I once came across a Creationist website that talks about Jaynes's theory as support for "Christian Catastrophism" — as support for even...

This is similar to the developmental vs. historical theory of the origin of religion discussed by David Stove in Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness . This would be the developmental (transference of the feelings toward the parent in childhood) vs. historical (bicameral mind) need for external ...

It's an interesting article, thanks for posting it. Part of the problem is the people doing this type of research into animal cognition are not necessarily doing a lot of reading on consciousness, so right off the bat there is a terminology problem, as the previous poster mentioned. It'd be interest...

I agree that we tend not to realize the extent to which mental processes take place outside of conscious awareness. I think I understand what you mean by your comparison of the subconscious mind with the bicameral mind, in the sense that they both involve information processing outside of conscious ...