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What It Feels Like To Hear Voices: Fond Memories of Julian Jaynes

What It Feels Like To Hear Voices: Fond Memories of Julian Jaynes
What It Feels Like To Hear Voices: Fond Memories of Julian Jaynes
Julian Jaynes's profound humanitarian convictions not only prevented him from going to war, but would have prevented him from ever kicking a dog. Yet according to his theory, not only are language-less dogs unconscious, but so too were the speaking/hearing Greeks in the Bicameral Era, when they heard gods' voices telling them what to do rather than thinking for themselves. I argue that to be conscious is to be able to feel, and that all mammals (and probably lower vertebrates and invertebrates too) feel, hence are conscious. Julian Jaynes's brilliant analysis of our concepts of consciousness nevertheless keeps inspiring ever more inquiry and insights into the age-old mind/body problem and its relation to cognition and language.
consciousness, language, Julian Jaynes, Dennett, bicameral, mind, Descartes
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b

Harnad, Stevan (2008) What It Feels Like To Hear Voices: Fond Memories of Julian Jaynes. Biennial Julian Jaynes Conference on Consciousness, University of Prince Edward Island. 07 - 09 Aug 2008. (In Press)

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Julian Jaynes's profound humanitarian convictions not only prevented him from going to war, but would have prevented him from ever kicking a dog. Yet according to his theory, not only are language-less dogs unconscious, but so too were the speaking/hearing Greeks in the Bicameral Era, when they heard gods' voices telling them what to do rather than thinking for themselves. I argue that to be conscious is to be able to feel, and that all mammals (and probably lower vertebrates and invertebrates too) feel, hence are conscious. Julian Jaynes's brilliant analysis of our concepts of consciousness nevertheless keeps inspiring ever more inquiry and insights into the age-old mind/body problem and its relation to cognition and language.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 8 August 2008
Additional Information: Invited Keynote, Biennial Julian Jaynes Conference on Consciousness, University of Prince Edward Island, 7-9 August 2008 http://www.upei.ca/~sgreer/jaynesconference08.html Event Dates: 7-9 August 2008
Venue - Dates: Biennial Julian Jaynes Conference on Consciousness, University of Prince Edward Island, 2008-08-07 - 2008-08-09
Keywords: consciousness, language, Julian Jaynes, Dennett, bicameral, mind, Descartes
Organisations: Web & Internet Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 266601
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/266601
PURE UUID: dfdcb5f3-fbb2-4dcd-acb3-bc00784c97e9
ORCID for Stevan Harnad: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6153-1129

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Date deposited: 26 Aug 2008 20:04
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48

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Contributors

Author: Stevan Harnad ORCID iD

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