The Julian Jaynes Collection

Discussion and questions specific to The Origin of Consciousness; Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind; Gods, Voices, and the Bicameral Mind; The Julian Jaynes Collection; Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness, and The Minds of the Bible books.
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The Julian Jaynes Collection

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The Julian Jaynes Society has just released a new book, The Julian Jaynes Collection.

Check it out here:

www.julianjaynes.org/julian-jaynes-collection
DanBlocker
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Re: The Julian Jaynes Collection

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Just finished reading the book. It is nice to have some other work of Jaynes available now presented in a beautiful book. And reading it I felt that it is really a shame that he never delivered the second promised book on the Consequences.
The book is quite redundant, especially the second section with the interviews and discussions but I rather enjoyed it. Some of the stuff just needs to be repeated again and again. I wish though that he would have given us different examples from time to time. It is very true that "I see a table" is a very poor example for a conscious thought and it is surely funny that Russell should have thought about the alimony for a new Lady Russell. But in the case of a joke like this it looses some of its charm by repetition.
Speaking of examples, I always felt that a ship plowing through the sea is a very poor example of a metaphor. I do not see what is really added to the picture of a ship on sea by the image of plowing and even less how the concept of plowing is enriched by being a metaphier on (for?) the moving of a ship. I wish Jaynes would have given us some better examples in this case.

There are some remarks on behaviorism that I found interesting. But I seem to remember that I read an article by Jaynes where he describes himself as a neo-behaviorist, meaning that the Analog 'I' creates a kind of second level behavior. Is there such a work or am I making this up?
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Re: The Julian Jaynes Collection

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Glad to hear that you enjoyed the new book. Yes I think having Jaynes address similar questions in slightly nuanced ways should help clear up many of the lingering misconceptions about his theory. I don't recall the "neo-behaviorist" reference off-hand. He generally described himself as a behaviorist with regard to non-human animals.
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