Imagination and the Dance of the Self

Julian Jaynes, lecture presented on June 9, 1980.
In Marcel Kuijsten (ed.), The Julian Jaynes Collection (Julian Jaynes Society, 2012).

Excerpt: Who am I? It’s such a terribly important question to us at various times of our lives, particularly in adolescence. Who and what am I? Do I have a purpose in life? What does my life mean? Why do we have such a problem with this particular aspect of what is our real self? Why is it such an ephemeral thing that when we try to touch it, it isn’t even there? …