> Imagine losing the guiding voices you’d always relied on and suddenly being forced to invent an “I,” a subjective self, to navigate a chaotic world.

I first heard this idea a few days ago. Seems far fetched as a general idea already. The idea that this is also something that suddenly happened to every individual at once is ridiculous.

The bicameral hypothesis seems impossible to me. Consciousness must precede language, no? The invention and use of the latter is impossible without some theory of mind, which requires first a theory of self. Therefore language cannot be integral to the advent of consciousness.

Like Strauss-Howe "generational theory" or astrology, Jaynes ideas are fun to think about.

I like the idea of a recent history of human evolution where inner voices were not united as a sense of a common self.

I've heard of a science of bi-lateral hemispheric partitioning in cognition, and a science that the conscious intentional self is not a cause of action but a manifestation of awareness over subconscious agency.

Such science seems at least loosely related to Jayne's speculations.

But I have also heard there's no science of such and that Jaynes views are generally regarded as having been debunked.

I personally like the McGilchrist-Jaynes exchange on this topic and I find McGilchrist's idea actually fascinating.

> McGilchrist likely felt compelled to go out of his way to criticize Jaynes’s theory because McGilchrist is arguing for the exact opposite case as Jaynes: that rather than our brain hemispheres being more integrated today than in the distant past, he argues that they are now less integrated, and that our brains have essentially been hijacked by our left hemispheres. Further, according to McGilchrist, this left hemispheric dominance is the cause of most of the ills of Western civilization. For all of these sweeping claims, he presents shockingly little evidence.

https://www.julianjaynes.org/about/about-jaynes-theory/criti...