Julian Jaynes
Conscious Researcher, Author
Julian Jaynes definition for consciousness takes a very thin slice of conscious experience as its definition. Jaynes primary proposition is that language was the precursor to consciousness and symbolic thought / metaphor is ultimately what consciousness is. The ConscioCentric viewpoint, along with most other physicists and consciousness researchers, defines consciousness from a much broader range of mind's eye capabilities. This is not to say that language and symbolic thought is not a key portion of "higher consciousness" - indeed it is, and that topic is discussed in detail on this site.
We appreciate Jaynes research and his book, The Origin of Consciousness, as it provides many insights and historical accounting for human history. Certainly metaphor and symbolic thought exploded with language, leading to a rapid evolution of societies and civilization... but consciousness goes much deeper. The very abilities of memory, foresight, and alternate path/choice consideration are key principles that must be accounted for as part of the spectrum of consciousness, and further, the "Hard Problem" of consciousness (as David Chalmer's puts it), is one of the major challenges to more dogmatic, materialist viewpoints of consciousness -- how do we have subjective experience and the qualia we experience.
Quotes by Julian Jaynes
"All of these concrete metaphors increase enormously our powers of perception of the world about us and our understanding of it, and literally create new objects. Indeed, language is an organ of perception, not simply a means of communication." - Julian Jaynes"The lexicon of language, then, is a finite set of terms that by metaphor is able to stretch out over an infinite set of circumstances, even to creating new circumstances thereby." - Julian Jaynes"We sometimes think, and even like to think, that the two greatest exertions that have influenced mankind, religion and science, have always been historical enemies, intriguing us in opposite directions. But this effort at special identity is loudly false. It is not religion but the church and science that were hostile to each other. And it was rivalry, not contravention. Both were religious. They were two giants fuming at each other over the same ground. Both proclaimed to be the only way to divine revelation." - Julian Jaynes
Persons shown on this website are not affiliated with or materially involved with the ConscioCentric Paradigm. Their writings, teachings, publications or quotes have been influential to the ideas of ConscioCentrism.