In a message dated 1/29/00 12:23:55 AM Central Standard Time,
jdavis@socketscience.com writes:
> Read Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the
> Bicameral Mind". Jaynes may not have gotten it quite right, but the
> question of the sequence of events leading from preconsciousness to
> consciousness is majorly fascinating, and fits right into the puzzle of the
> emergent synaptotronic noumenon decoder. Enjoy.
i read that years and years ago....interlibrary loan...and haven't been able
to find it since. Recently I read "The Meme machine" by Susan Blackmore (i
think) and to my mind the two works correlate.
According to Susan the human brain grew to disproportionate size BECAUSE it
was a breeding ground for memes. Memes needed the room. It was a
co-evolutionary process. (similar in function to the reason male peacocks
have such glorious plumage.....no survival value...but the chicks ignore you
otherwise) After an eyeblink of time (normal evolutionary timescales) humans
have this HUGE brain (so do our cousins....neandrathals etc...but for
unexplained reasons no one else survived)
With all this room meme evolution run rampart............and self awarness
(as described by Jayne?) appeared...
I wonder how accurate that summation is? To my (very) limited knowledge it
is appealing.
EvMick
Wildwood Florida.
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