This is the homepage for IDS 101 §25: The Nature and Origins of Consciousness, a College Colloquiumcourse offered by Fritz Ruehr of the Computer Science Department of Willamette University.
We think of human beings as different from animals because we are conscious, thinking beings, possessing language, a sense of self, and free will. But where did consciousness come from, and how does it work? Many people have tackled these questions over the millennia, but some of the most intriguing ideas were presented by psychologist Julian Jaynes in the 1970’s: Jaynes described the development of consciousness as an almost cultural phenomenon, relating it to language, social hierarchies, brain structure, and the “voices of the gods”. His ideas are compelling and well-defended, but so outrageous that they are difficult to take seriously, leading to a wide variation in reactions to his work. Jaynes’ influence nevertheless continues to this day, for example as the basis for the development of “android consciousness” in the popular TV series Westworld. We will read Jaynes’ original book and several related articles, as well as some critical works attacking and supporting his ideas. We will also read a number of other authors to explore related topics in consciousness and the philosophy of mind; the origins of language and writing; brain-hemisphere specialization (“left brain/right brain”); and academic controversy.
Welcome to the Fall 2017 teaching of the course!
I added Ex Machina to the end of the movie list below.
Here are some Youtube and other links related to movies we might want to watch as a class. They tend to be biased toward older works (due to me being old, I suppose), except for Arrival, which on the other hand may have less to do with issues of consciousness proper.
Quest for Fire: a movie about some early proto-humans and their quest to get access again to fire (which they had, but only tenuously, and then lost). It might be interesting for insights into what early humans (or close thereto) might have been like.
Brainstorm: another 80s film, this time more science fiction, which looks at the consequences of a technology that allows one person’s conscious experience (including emotional and physiological responses as well as sensory ones) to be transferred to another person.
(the original) Westworld movie: this is the movie on which the current HBO TV series is very loosely based. The movie is not based on the works of Julian Jaynes, but it does raise some similar issues about the “rise” of consciousness in robots.
Altered States: yet another 80s film, this time relating drugs and shamanism to consciousness (and thus appealing perhaps especially to one of our little sub-groups). It is usually described as a fictionalization of John Lilly’s life and work, but I think there is a little bit of Timothy Leary in there, too.
Arrival: this is a 2016 film, science fiction proper, about first contact with aliens, from the perspective of an academic linguist who is conscripted to help understand the aliens. There are some other plot wrinkles that have a little more to do with consciousness, but I don’t want to spoil them, and they’re not too much to do with it.
Ex Machina: this higly-acclaimed 2015 film focuses on the question of whether androids could be conscious; specifically, whether they could pass the “Turing Test” by convincing someone of their humanity. (From the trailer, a lot of the actual plot seems to center on sexuality and relationships: the humans in the film are male, the androids female … .)
What is consciousness? (from Michael of VSauce): this is a little different, very short and not fiction, but with some insights into consciousness. (I found it on the way to the others above.)
OK, here are some links I found while searching for other theories of the development of consciousness, i.e., not Jaynes’ theory. I haven’t yet verified that any of these is actually spot-on the topic; rather these are just in the for of raw “leads”. My hope is that we can work as a class or in small groups to track down some of these leads and check them out, to see how they stack up to Jaynes.
Here are some books available at the Hatfield Library here on campus that deal with other theories of consciousness:
And here are some other books (I don’t think I could find them at Hatfield):
Here are some links to links on various sites (including videos on Youtube) that seem relevant; again, these are just some raw leads, things that looked worth pursuing, with a few others pre-culled out as irrelevant. Caveat emptor.
I forget who is planning to investigate color perception in their next essay, but I did figure out the book I was talking about, by author Guy Deutsher (see below). In any case, here are a number of links about color perception, some of them addressing specifically the color perception that Homer reveals to us in … The Iliad!
From the Business Insider (of all places), comes this article by Kevin Loria, No one could describe the color ‘blue’ until modern times (Mr. Loria mentions Homer’s odd usage, as many of these articles do).
From The Daily Mail (is this a trustworthy source?) comes this article by Ellie Zolfagharifard with a very long title, but some interesting pictures: Could our ancestors see blue? Ancient people didn't perceive the colour because they didn't have a word for it, say scientists.
From the Science Magazine (surely we all trust them, right?) comes this article by Zach Zorich: Is the sky really blue? Some hunter-gatherers don’t describe colors the same way most people do.
Getting closer to our goal (the book below), here is a podcast from RadioLab (only about 20 mins) that features Mr. Deutscher: Why Isn't the Sky Blue?.
Finally (!), here is the book by Mr. Deutscher, linked via an Amazon page (tsk!), but also available through our own library (via Summit, if I recall correctly): Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages.
Finally-finally (!!), here is a review of Mr. Deutscher’s book from the New York Times, by Derek Bickerton: Words Cannot Express;
And, at last, if you’re going to read this kind of stuff, you’re going to run into what is called the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” (no relation to Captain Picard’s security officer); I’ll let you look that one up on your own, but just don’t go quoting anything about how many words there are for ‘snow’ in certain languages, as it would drive Geoffrey Pullum nuts. See his short paper on the subject The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax (free to read on the web); there’s also a whole book he wrote, though it’s not clear whether that contains more than the essay linked above on this particular subject.
Linked below is an article about advances in understanding the evolution of various parts of the brain that are now thought to be crucial to consciousness. The article is by Michael Graziano and appeared in The Atlantic (a popular but ‘sophisticated’ magazine); see A New Theory Explains How Consciousness Evolved.
You can find some defense of Jaynes’ theories relative to various critiques and new evidence and thinking over the years in the following pages at the Julian Jaynes Society (the articles are written by, and the site maintained by, Society Executive Director Marcel Kuijsten):
According to the research linked in these (popular) articles, dogs may be just as conscious as humans; that write-up references this New York Times article by one of the researchers (Gregory Burns). (But please put some mental emphasis on the “may” part.)
OK, here are some recent articles on the development of consciousness in infants, and the definition of consciousness as opposed to meta-consciousness:
You can find some handouts and other documents in this folder on Willamette’s servers.
A copy of Timothy Leary’s book Exopsychology can be found here on the web ; the related comic book, by Leary, Pete Von Sholly, George DiCaprio, etc al., can be found in the handouts directory.
You can watch an “illustrated” Youtube video about split-brain stuff based on the work of Ian McGilchrist at this link.
[more to come here soon!]
[more to come here soon!]