This is a book that I keep coming back to in an attempt to fully grok Mr. Jaynes' thesis. There is something incredibly compelling about it. I first ran across his work in an article in Psychology magazine in the 1970s and kept sticking in my head. At random times whilst pursuing the stacks in some bookstore or other I would mount a search for it. That title is so haunting that even my brain, concussed and addled as it has always been, was able to keep hold of it. Oh, I knew I could bug the bookseller. Eventually I could have found it online (I spent a long time looking) but I wanted it to come to me. I finally did, some twenty odd years after reading the first article. And I was glad I waited! I had learned so much more since I started my search that I got so much more out of it when I finally read it thru. And more the next time. And more the next time. It even increased my enjoyment of Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson. (another book I've read multiple times) And what a joy to recognize it while watching the West World TV series!

I must admit, my favorite section is the one in which he explains all of the things we do where consciousness does NOT come into play.

So, is Mr. Jaynes correct? No one I know agrees! And yet this meme has become part of my view of what makes us what we are. Of why our brains seem so messy. And why my thoughts often appear to me fully formed and ripe for the picking.