# When did we start thinking in first person? **URL:** \ **Category:** General Philosophy\ **Tags:** literature\ **Created:** [October 30, 2026, 8:45pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852 "2026-10-30T20:45:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Friend0fDiotima](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/friend0fdiotima/32/1690_2.png) [@Friend0fDiotima](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Friend0fDiotima)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 8:45pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/1 "2026-10-30T20:45:35Z")
Language is it not merely a tool for communication, but the foundational mind tool that allowed humans to construct an internal “mind-space” or analog “I” capable of introspection. I am putting forth Julian Jaynes’s theory—known as the **bicameral mentality** or the **bicameral mind** his proposes that human consciousness is not an ancient but a recently learned cultural and linguistic process that developed roughly 3,000 years ago. Jaynes analyzed ancient literature such as 3,000 year old Homer’s _ **The Iliad** _ arguing that early characters did not introspect or make deliberate internal choices, but were instead directly commanded by god’s and spirit during critical moments. Julian Jaynes’s , _[The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618057072/?tag=julianjaynessociety-20)._ Or Julian Jaynes’s article “[Consciousness and the Voices of the Mind](https://www.julianjaynes.org/pdf/jaynes_consciousness-voices-mind.pdf). Consciousness is not all of mentality. There are things that the nervous system does automatically for us. All the variety of perceptual constancies, all done without any help from introspective consciousness. If not 3,000 years ago when do you suppose we turned the corner and for the first time thought “I think, therefore I am”? René Descartes ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 9:28pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/2 "2026-10-30T21:28:19Z")
Fascinating topic. Here I’ll only register my interest as I want to read the attached lecture but will probably be unable to give any time to it for a couple of days, before I comment further. Suffice to say I feel that the entire issue of the way conscious awareness evolves over aeons is very sadly neglected and that Jaynes’ ideas are an important source. ---
**Author:** ![Ecurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Ecurb](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Ecurb)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 11:55pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/3 "2026-10-30T23:55:20Z")
I haven’t studied Julian Jaynes theories carefully. However, they seem so whacky that they violate Ockham’s Razor. The essence of Jaynes theory is that until 3000 (or so) years ago the two hemispheres of the human brain were in imperfect communication, and the subjective consciousness we experience today was lacking. Such communication was facilitated through auditory hallucinations. Hence the communication with Gods found in ancient literature like the Bible or the Iliad. The problem is that there is no biological evidence for such a dramatic transformation. The other problem is that there are equally persuasive (and far more likely) explanations for the reported communications with deities. Nonetheless, Jaynes experienced some academic and popular acclaim. In Jean Auel’s “Clan of the Cave Bear” series the Neanderthals had bicameral minds, and only Ayla (a Cro-Magnon) was able to reason about certain things without ritual hallucinations. ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 12:59am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/4 "2026-10-31T00:59:57Z")
> [@Friend0fDiotima](#): > > I am putting forth Julian Jaynes’s theory—known as the **bicameral mentality** or the **bicameral mind** his proposes that human consciousness is not an ancient but a recently learned cultural and linguistic process that developed roughly 3,000 years ago. > Jaynes analyzed ancient literature such as 3,000 year old Homer’s _ **The Iliad** _ arguing that early characters did not introspect or make deliberate internal choices, but were instead directly commanded by god’s and spirit during critical moments. That’s just the way they wrote back then - in the third-person omniscient point-of-view. That literature has evolved since then is not evidence that the human brain evolved, too. And believing supernatural beings have influence over human lives is a tradition that existed up to pretty recently! But it’s worth noting that Jayne is more than 1,000 years off from the earliest known use of first-person point-of-view in recorded poetry/literature. Mesopotamian [Priestess Enheduanna](https://www.worldhistory.org/Enheduanna/) - who celebrated the place of femininity in spirituality as equal to that of the masculine - wrote circa 2300 BC (She’s the earliest recorded author) Here’s a passage from _The Great-Hearted Mistress_ _My lady…I am yours! This will always be so! May your heart be soothed towards me!_ _Your divinity is resplendent in the Land! My body has experienced your great punishment._ _Lament, bitterness, sleeplessness, distress, separation…mercy, compassion, care,_ _Lenience, and homage are yours, and to cause flooding, to open hard ground and to turn_ _Darkness into light._ (lines 218, 244-253) [_The Epic of Gilgamesh_](https://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab1.htm) - circa 2100 BC - also makes use of the first-person - Here’s a short bit of it - _I was afraid, so I did not go up to him._ _He filled in the pits that I had dug,_ _wrenched out my traps that I had spread,_ _released from my grasp the wild animals._ _He does not let me make my rounds in the wilderness!"_ These are our earliest known poetical writings. Anyway - I don’t think that the manner or style of producing poetry or literature necessarily translates to evidence of what in particular the human brain was capable of at the time. Maybe it just reflects the cultural milieu. And indeed, there is no neurobiological, archaeological, or genetic evidence showing that human brain structure or consciousness fundamentally shifted around 1,000 BCE I think our human consciousness can be traced at least as far back as our earliest use of art and symbols, to around 100,000 year ago And also it co-evolved with the evolution of our highly developed [theory of mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind) ---
**Author:** ![Ecurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Ecurb](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Ecurb)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 1:22am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/5 "2026-10-31T01:22:29Z")
> [@questioner](#): > > Anyway - I don’t think that the manner or style of producing poetry or literature necessarily translates to evidence of what in particular the human brain was capable of at the time. Jaynes was, if whacky, a serious academic and based his theories on a diversity of evidence, not merely literary style. His book, “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” is very long (which is why I haven’t read it), heavily annotated, and influential (although few academics buy his basic theory). Nonetheless, it’s worth thinking about whether different modes of thinking create a dramatic divide within human consciousness, genetically similar though we may be. What causes such a divide (if it exists)? Well, maybe not bicameral minds. Do (for example) languages with different approaches to “tense” influence a vastly different world view among native speakers. I personally think, “different, but not VERY different”. But who am I to know compared to Julian Jaynes? ---
**Author:** ![Paine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@Paine](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Paine)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 1:26am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/6 "2026-10-31T01:26:34Z")
The theory is hard to line up with Achilles complaining to his mother (a goddess) on the shore next to where all the boats were parked. ---
**Author:** ![Hanover](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/hanover/32/38_2.png) [@Hanover](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Hanover)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 1:44am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/7 "2026-10-31T01:44:32Z")
Jaynes was a crackpot. [https://philpapers.org/archive/BLOROJ-2.pdf](https://philpapers.org/archive/BLOROJ-2.pdf) I’m not sure his position is taken seriously by anyone serious ---
**Author:** ![Ecurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Ecurb](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Ecurb)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 1:48am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/8 "2026-10-31T01:48:25Z")
> [@Hanover](#): > > I’m not sure his position is taken seriously by anyone serious Maybe not. But it’s still fun. Do we need to be so serious? ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 1:50am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/9 "2026-10-31T01:50:47Z")
> [@Ecurb](#): > > about whether different modes of thinking create a dramatic divide within human consciousness This is a very interesting question. My first thought is - yeah - we all think differently. By the word “mode” what exactly do you mean? My thoughts go to _[The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion](https://www.amazon.ca/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307377903)_ by Jonathan Haidt He makes a case for differing moral foundations, and that our groupishness has us aligning with others who share our interpretation of what is right and what is wrong. General structure and function are the same for all human brains - but each brain develops differently, according to not only genetics and hormonal influences in utero, but lived experience (especially in the first few years of life) I cannot say there are different types (modes?) of human consciousnesses - only the contents of the consciousness > [@Ecurb](#): > > languages with different approaches to “tense” influence a vastly different world view among native speakers. I personally think, “different, but not VERY different”. And it is more than language, too. For example, North American indigenous peoples have a different worldview from the Europeans ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 5:07am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/10 "2026-10-31T05:07:03Z")
I certainly don’t think that Julian Jaynes is ‘a crackpot’. I’ve had his book on my shelf for years but must confess to not having read it. From the summaries and synopses I’ve read it’s obviously an unorthodox thesis, but then, to most here, anything that deviates from neodarwinian orthodoxy is likely to be labelled eccentric at the very least. There are other ‘evolution of consciousness’ theories out there. One is [Robert Ornstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Ornstein), who’s book I also have, and did read, although a long time ago. He’s also a syncretist who wrote on the ‘hemisphere’ theory (that the left and right hemispheres have characteristic roles in consciousness.) He also sought to integrate evolution, psychology and wisdom teachings into a coherent whole. The third one I’m a little familiar with is [Owen Barfield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Barfield), a member of the Inklings, along with C S Lewis and others. His book [Saving the Appearances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_the_Appearances) was recommended to me on the forum. He too sees the nature of conscious awareness taking radically different forms in different historical periods. Of course none of these could be regarded as empirical theories for the exact reason that Chalmers describes in ‘the hard problem’, as they concern the nature of first-person experience, which is by definition bracketed out of empirical science. I will give some time to reading the attached paper and may have more to add after that. ---
**Author:** ![Friend0fDiotima](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/friend0fdiotima/32/1690_2.png) [@Friend0fDiotima](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Friend0fDiotima)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 7:50am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/11 "2026-10-31T07:50:04Z")
> [@Wayfarer](#): > > I certainly don’t think that Julian Jaynes is ‘a crackpot’. I’ve had his book on my shelf for years but must confess to not having read it. From the summaries and synopses I’ve read it’s obviously an unorthodox thesis, but then, to most here, anything that deviates from neodarwinian orthodoxy is likely to be labelled eccentric at the very least. > > There are other ‘evolution of consciousness’ theories out there. I am keeping an open minded as I study these theories also. Kind of early to make sweeping judgement on ideas to do with consciousness. I try not to “Throw the baby out with the bathwater”. When using old text for his theoriesJulian Jaynes was careful not to use texts that were overly translated because this would contaminate the text with modern languages. Jaynes explain how within early language models there were the capability for auditory hallucinations that would help mankind in perform enduring tasks that are not finished within a short period of time but one that has to work maybe all day with something like his internal hallucinations. Allowed early man to hold concepts in his head for a longer period of time because of a voices with them giving him advantages over his environment. Then, if you couple this to a God King ruler you have the beginnings of primitive civilizations overcoming obstacles through laws. His theory is very complex and with every repeated reading I see more advantageous within his arguments. ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 7:50am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/12 "2026-10-31T07:50:59Z")
This seems worth sharing here. It’s pubilshed by the Julian Jaynes Society so can be presumed to have satisfactory provenance. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/fgTnoowcXDI/maxresdefault.jpg "The God-Shaped Hole in Your Mind: Julian Jaynes’s Groundbreaking Ideas Explained in Just 16 Minutes") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgTnoowcXDI) What if consciousness isn’t a biological feature at all? ---
**Author:** ![Friend0fDiotima](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/friend0fdiotima/32/1690_2.png) [@Friend0fDiotima](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Friend0fDiotima)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 8:01am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/13 "2026-10-31T08:01:59Z")
Wayfare, I liked this explanation of how our internal software was updated 3000 years ago as Jayne’s worked so hard to explain. This was the end of the bronze age the collapse and rebirth of a civilization. ---
**Author:** ![Friend0fDiotima](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/friend0fdiotima/32/1690_2.png) [@Friend0fDiotima](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Friend0fDiotima)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 8:51am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/14 "2026-10-31T08:51:51Z")
I participated in the end of life care, hospice for my parents and some friends over the years and recently a 106-year-old father-in-law. So I’ve been trying to comprehend these experiences as they relate to our consciousness and at the last moments of life. I’ve experienced some have set up and look around and others that are maybe too weak will reach out and up as if to touch those that gone before them. So I was wondering, how would I hold the memory of a parent without language. Would it be through an internal hallucination of them as Jaynes’s explains. Then if I were from a small community 3000 years ago at the crash of the Bronze Age the Chiefton would most likely be related to all within it and how language would help facilitate the memories and the memories would be best if they dictated a comprehensive set of rules to govern their lives. This is how I related these experiences to some of Jaynes’s theories of early consciousness in humans lately. For my parents gave me a set of rules to dictate my life and they are more than just a set of words inside of me. Driving my point home. “May we lift our glass of spirits high as if to touch those that have gone before us.” I wrote this as a reaction/hallucination to the passing of our sweet 19 year old Melissa on this day 23 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 9:29am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/15 "2026-10-31T09:29:08Z")
> [@Friend0fDiotima](#): > > my parents gave me a set of rules to dictate my life and they are more than just a set of words inside of me. That’s the key. They’re not verbal commands but the consequence of observing their behaviour, towards you and towards others. They model that behaviour or that disposition, rather than, or as well as, talking to you about it. I’ve always felt there was a core of truth in Jaynes’ ideas even without having gone that deeply into them. He’s saying that what appeared to the ancients as divine commands actually originated in their own consciousness. But they also had a very different sense of self than do we moderns. They were not nearly so egoistically self-aware as we are. We live with a huge sense of myself, my plans, my identity, my life — me, myself and I. So much so we interpret everything through that perspective without being aware of that we’re doing it, as everyone around us is the same way. Those of other times and other cultures have a completely different sense of self — and therefore of reality. ---
**Author:** ![mee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@mee](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/mee)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 11:09am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/16 "2026-10-31T11:09:56Z")
Honestly, this feels like a massive stretch. Even before people had complex spoken language, they communicated using signs, gestures, and drawings. To show a sign for something, you have to have an internal thought of what you want first. You can’t make a deliberate sign out of nowhere. Thinking and speaking are two different things, so saying humans weren’t self-aware until 3,000 years ago just because of old poems doesn’t really make sense. ---
**Author:** ![cynical1](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/cynical1/32/1654_2.png) [@cynical1](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/cynical1)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 11:25am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/17 "2026-10-31T11:25:58Z")
> [@mee](#): > > Thinking and speaking are two different things, so saying humans weren’t self-aware until 3,000 years ago just because of old poems doesn’t really make sense. Especially if you’re cherry picking the poems… Jaynes strikes me as just another academic wrapping the non-secular into the secular, then selling their subjective interpretation as objective science. Another example of the “publish or perish” paradigm of academia… ---
**Author:** ![Hanover](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/hanover/32/38_2.png) [@Hanover](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Hanover)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 11:57am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/18 "2026-10-31T11:57:02Z")
> [@Ecurb](#): > > Maybe not. But it’s still fun. Do we need to be so serious? Did someone just accuse me of not joking around enough? I must up my game. I mean some guy reads some old books and notes they don’t talk about inner motivations or some such and assumes he’s uncovered our ancient p-zombie past. I’d be asking for my money back had I been a student in his class, but, alas, Princeton wouldn’t have me, which probably had to do with my lack seriousness. ---
**Author:** ![Hanover](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/hanover/32/38_2.png) [@Hanover](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Hanover)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 12:02pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/19 "2026-10-31T12:02:58Z")
> [@Wayfarer](#): > > I certainly don’t think that Julian Jaynes is ‘a crackpot’. I’ve had his book on my shelf for years but must confess to not having read it. Before duscussing, some read the book. Some see the movie. You saw the book. Just playing. It struck me as funny. ---
**Author:** ![Friend0fDiotima](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/friend0fdiotima/32/1690_2.png) [@Friend0fDiotima](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Friend0fDiotima)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 12:21pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852/20 "2026-10-31T12:21:14Z")
It is easy at first misinterpret the meaning of the term consciousness in his theory at first. Jaynes thought that consciousness is _not_ the same thing as perception, learning, thinking, or problem-solving. **Ancient humans and animals could talk, learn, navigate, and build civilizations without it.** He defined consciousness as an analog where we simulate the world and possess an “analog-I” that can introspect, look back on our own thoughts, and plan. (I think therefore I am.) Our journey from Bicameralism to Introspection and he pointed out that before this self-awareness existed and proposed that humans had a **bicameral mind**. In this earlier state, the right hemisphere of the brain generated speech and commands that the left hemisphere experienced as external auditory hallucinations (interpreted as the voices of gods, kings, or ancestors). The growth of complex trade and writing forced humans to abandon this voice-guided state and people learned to turn their inner dialogue inward, giving birth to the modern sense of a private self. [Next page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/when-did-we-start-thinking-in-first-person/3852.md?page=2)