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percy-l - Re: [percy-l] consciousness, Julian Jaynes, and Percy

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Subject: Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion on Walker Percy

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  • From: "RHONDA MCDONNELL" <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>
  • To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] consciousness, Julian Jaynes, and Percy
  • Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 11:19:47 -0700

He may have chuckled at Jaynes's theory, but he didn't rule him out entirely. He references him in this passage:

A few years ago, [language development] was thought to have begun to happen with Homo erectus perhaps a million years ago. Now, as Julian Jaynes at Princeton, among others, believes, it appears to have occurred in Neanderthal man as recently as the fourth glaciation, which lasted from about 75,000 to 35,000 years ago. During this same period, especially around 40,000 years ago, there occurred an explosive increase in the use and variety of new tools. The human brain increased in weight about fifty-four percent, much of this increase occurring in the cortex, especially in those areas around the Sylvan fissure implicated in the perception and production of speech. These are new structures, not present or else extremely rudimentary in even the highest apes. Moreover, recent experiments have shown that if one destroys this cortical region in other primates, it has no effect on vocalization, which is mediated not by a cortical but rather by the limbic system. (SIASL 118-119)

So, while Jaynes's theories about the changes to the human brain between the writing of THE ILLIAD and THE ODDESSY might have been too extravagent (do I remember Jaynes correctly--I read it in the haze of dissertation research), Percy did think Jaynes was onto something.

--Rhonda
. . . what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall . . .
--Walker Percy





From: "Karey Perkins" <karey AT kareyperkins.com>
Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [percy-l] consciousness, Julian Jaynes, and Percy
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 23:55:40 -0400

I am reading Julian Jaynes's The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown
of the Bicameral Mind, C 1976, 1990. He discusses the evolution of
language.



Questions:



1) Did Percy read Jaynes? If so, his opinion?

2) How might he have responded, in your opinion, if he had read him?

3) Did Jaynes know of Percy? He does cite Peirce, ever so briefly, but not
Percy, Langer, or Cassirer.

4) What is the general consensus of the mind-body and/or semiotic community
on Jaynes?

5) Has anyone on the list read Jaynes?

6) How does Jaynes' thoughts stand up today? (16 years after last printing)

7) What do you think of Jaynes? What is the value of his book/thoughts?

8) Any other thoughts?



I do remember Mike Frentz differentiating between the more scientific
approaches to semiotics/consciousness and the more humanistic approaches,
with Jaynes in the former camp and Percy in the latter.. I've heard this
book is an important one -



Karey





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