Consciouness and the "RAM" of the Brain
Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:39 am
First off, I would just like to say hi. I am a new member and was surprised and pleased to find a forum discussing Julian Jaynes. Most of the time when I mention Julian Jaynes to people, they are most likely to go "huh?". I am strictly a lay person, but when I read Julian Jaynes a few years ago, I was struck by the cross-discipline approach and his eye for details that to most people remain unconnected. I also appreciated his novel approach on the ideas of consciousness, perception and learning.
I can't remember if Jaynes discusses this specifically, but I know of a person who seems to be not fully conscious; I have known this person all my life. It would appear that there may be a spectrum for consciousness with some individuals being more or less so.
I was recently flipping through TOOCITBOTBM and was struck by Jaynes' description of endurance and the apparent lack of fatigue in patients with schizophrenia. He indicates that one of the products of consciousness could be fatigue. Could it be that consciousness takes a lot of power or energy, much in the way that certain programs bog down the random access memory on our computers? As Jaynes notes, schizophrenics excel at simple sensory perception. I am not sure if the filters the rest of us have are caused by just being conscious or if the development of such filters allows us to be conscious. Again, maybe Jaynes does discuss this, but it has been a few years.
edit: grammar. It is not prudent of me to write before the coffee starts working.
I can't remember if Jaynes discusses this specifically, but I know of a person who seems to be not fully conscious; I have known this person all my life. It would appear that there may be a spectrum for consciousness with some individuals being more or less so.
I was recently flipping through TOOCITBOTBM and was struck by Jaynes' description of endurance and the apparent lack of fatigue in patients with schizophrenia. He indicates that one of the products of consciousness could be fatigue. Could it be that consciousness takes a lot of power or energy, much in the way that certain programs bog down the random access memory on our computers? As Jaynes notes, schizophrenics excel at simple sensory perception. I am not sure if the filters the rest of us have are caused by just being conscious or if the development of such filters allows us to be conscious. Again, maybe Jaynes does discuss this, but it has been a few years.
edit: grammar. It is not prudent of me to write before the coffee starts working.