PDF Summary:The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes

What if consciousness—our ability to reflect on our own thoughts and experiences—isn’t inherent in our species but emerged only recently? In The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Yale psychologist Julian Jaynes argues that our ancestors experienced life radically differently than we do, guided by hallucinated voices they interpreted as gods rather than by conscious thought.

While controversial, Jaynes’s theory offers new insights into why humans gravitate toward religious belief, why we struggle with decision-making, and how writing and complex societies pushed us to develop new ways of thinking. Our guide explores Jaynes’s ideas about consciousness, connecting them to research on cognition, modern neuroscience, and even pop culture phenomena like HBO’s Westworld. Whether you’re convinced by Jaynes’s theory or not, it challenges us to reconsider fundamental assumptions about human consciousness and its continuing evolution.

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The shift away from the bicameral mind created a fundamental change in how humans experienced their world. As the hallucinated voices became less reliable guides—particularly during times of social chaos when different “gods” might give conflicting instructions—people needed a new way to organize their mental processes. The solution that emerged was consciousness: an internal representation of the self that could create coherent narratives from experience and make independent decisions. This new mental faculty enabled people to reflect on their choices, imagine different possible futures, and take responsibility for their actions.

(Shortform note: Jaynes's view that writing transformed human cognition aligns with the views of other experts who study how technologies change how we think. Early writing systems like cuneiform allowed people to store and process information outside their minds, fundamentally altering our relationship with knowledge. This pattern continues today: Modern technologies like smartphones and the internet further externalize our memory and cognitive processes, changing how we interact with information just as the advent of writing did.)

Jaynes explains that the shift toward consciousness wasn't instantaneous but gradual, likely accelerating during periods of social upheaval when traditional ways of thinking proved insufficient. As people learned to rely on their own judgment rather than divine guidance, they developed new capabilities for self-reflection, abstract thinking, and decision-making—the hallmarks of consciousness as we know it today.

(Shortform note: As Jaynes acknowledges, major cognitive and social changes can be disorienting even when we can make sense of them through narrative. Rebecca Solnit (Men Explain Things to Me) suggests that embracing uncertainty and maintaining hope are crucial for navigating such transitions. She compares progress to underground growth that's invisible until mushrooms suddenly appear—an apt metaphor for how our ancestors might have experienced their gradual evolution toward consciousness.)

How Did Humans Shift From a Bicameral Mind to a Conscious Mind?

Jaynes contends that the complexity of the social world led to the emergence of consciousness. But importantly, he maintains that this shift was driven by culture rather than biology. While scientists have traditionally considered consciousness a result of natural selection, Jaynes disagrees. He argues the development of consciousness might have been aided by natural selection, since consciousness made people more adaptable, less impulsive, and better able to learn new decision-making skills—all useful traits for survival. However, he believes consciousness was primarily learned through language—a cultural shift that allowed people to experience and express an interior life and to narrate and remember their experiences—a key part of our sense of self.

How Does Memory Shape Our Sense of Self?

Research may support Jaynes’s contention that the ability to narrate and remember our experiences gets to the core of our sense of self. Psychologists studying the relationship between memory and self-concept explain how tightly these phenomena are interlinked:

There are two kinds of memory. Episodic memory allows us to recall specific events from our past, while autobiographical memory weaves these events into a coherent life story. As such, autobiographical memory helps us form a self-concept—consider how "I am..." statements make you remember times when certain aspects of your self-image first emerged. These associations are so strong that some people with memory impairments can retain their sense of identity by remembering the language they use to describe themselves, even when they can no longer recall specific events from their past.

Jaynes explains that consciousness is based on language. As our ancestors developed the ability to use language, they learned to express their thoughts and emotions. So, language gave them a more self-reflective and self-aware way of experiencing the world. As a result, humans developed consciousness gradually, likely over centuries. Jaynes thinks the changes may have occurred at different times in different parts of the world. He argues the shift occurred earlier in Mesopotamia than in Mesoamerica (which spans present-day Mexico and Central America) because social conditions in Mesopotamia provided the right circumstances for a new mentality to replace the old one.

(Shortform note: Jaynes isn’t the only scholar to focus on Mesopotamia as a key location in the evolution of human culture and cognition. Some historians say Mesopotamia is where human civilization first emerged, with the first cities, writing systems, and advanced technologies. The fertile lands along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers enabled the transition to agriculture and permanent settlements during the Neolithic Revolution. Plus, environmental factors like climate change required more organized irrigation and resource management—and drove the evolution of complex social structures, government bureaucracies, and class divisions. Mesopotamia is also where the earliest known form of writing, cuneiform, emerged around 3400 BCE.)

Although consciousness likely emerged at different times in different places, a few crucial changes always had to occur. We’ll explore each change in more detail next.

People Realized That Others Have Internal Lives

Jaynes argues that a crucial step in developing consciousness was recognizing, even subconsciously, that others have internal mental lives. As people learned to cope with complex societies, they could see that a stranger—even if that stranger looked a lot like them—spoke differently, behaved differently, and believed different things about the world than they did. Jaynes explains that this led naturally to the conclusion that there was something inside them to cause this distinct behavior. This notion implied the existence of an internal mind that drove people’s external behavior. People might have realized this consciously, or it might have been a subconscious assumption that they used to explain how strangers behaved.

(Shortform note: Some scholars might argue that what Jaynes is writing about isn’t the origin of consciousness at all, but the origin of what psychologists call “theory of mind.” Theory of mind refers to the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, desires, and intentions—to oneself and others, and to understand that others have perspectives different from one’s own. Some experts think this capacity for perspective-taking, though a key aspect of our consciousness now, may have emerged much later than basic sensory awareness.)

People Recognized Their Own Internal Life, Too

Jaynes explains that when humans realized that others have internal experiences, they could recognize that this applied to themselves, too. As humans became conscious, they gained abilities like self-awareness and the capacity for introspection (reflecting on their own thoughts and feelings). They also learned to imagine a future, reflect on the past, and make decisions based on their thoughts.

(Shortform note: Jaynes hypothesizes that people must have recognized the internal experiences of others before they could become aware of their own consciousness. But some cognitive psychologists offer a contrasting perspective, arguing that research seems to suggest that monitoring your own mental states is a prerequisite for being able to understand others’ mental states. Accordingly, some studies suggest self-awareness emerges before theory of mind in children.)

Jaynes says that as humans developed consciousness, they began to recognize different mental processes at work in their minds. One crucial distinction they learned to make was between consciousness itself (our general awareness of our own existence and experiences) and specific mental processes like perception (how we take in and process information from our senses). While these processes are closely related—after all, we're conscious of what we perceive—they're distinct: Perception happens automatically, like when your eyes adjust to bright light, while consciousness involves actively thinking about and interpreting our perceptions and experiences.

Understanding this distinction helped humans develop metacognition—the ability to think about their own thinking. They could now observe themselves making decisions, reflect on their thoughts, and analyze how they approached complex tasks. This self-awareness showed them that consciousness isn't just a static state but an ongoing process that weaves together many different experiences, thoughts, and sensations.

(Shortform note: Some philosophers agree with Jaynes that by noticing the difference between cognitive processes like introspection—how we know our mental states—and perception—how we know the external world—we can think more clearly about how we know what we know. But there are a lot of things science hasn’t figured out about introspection, perception, and how they differ: Some experts argue they involve unique processes and others claim they rely on similar mechanisms, like inference. Scientists also disagree on whether introspection always yields correct information about our mental states or whether, like perception, it’s prone to errors.)

They Developed a New Set of Mental Tools

As newly conscious humans began recognizing their internal lives, they also developed new mental skills and tools that expanded their conscious awareness and gave them new ways to navigate the complexities of the social world. Jaynes argues that consciousness itself emerged not through biological evolution but as a product of human culture—it's not innate, but learned and passed down through generations within specific cultures.

(Shortform note: Jaynes's view of consciousness as a cultural construct rather than a biological adaptation represents a break from mainstream theory. Most scientists, following Darwin’s theory of natural selection, view consciousness as having evolved gradually, through biological processes, to help organisms survive and reproduce. For instance, evolutionary scientists Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka (The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul) argue that consciousness emerged when organisms developed the ability for “unlimited associative learning,” a capacity to learn new patterns and change behavior based on experience. This ability, they argue, required the evolution of specific brain capabilities through natural selection.)

One crucial tool in this cultural development was metaphorical language, where words and expressions generate mental images in the mind (like, for example, describing a challenge as an uphill climb). Such language helped people to understand and express abstract ideas. Jaynes proposes that as language evolves and becomes more complex, so does consciousness. As humans began using language to express abstract concepts and metaphorical ideas, their consciousness evolved to interpret and internalize these linguistic constructs. In other words, Jaynes contends that consciousness emerged from our ability to create metaphors to represent and understand the world.

(Shortform note: While Jaynes focuses on how metaphorical language helped us develop abstract thought, some cognitive scientists suggest metaphors are more than just linguistic devices and might actually influence how we think about reality. According to the theory of embodied cognition, metaphors help us reason about abstract ideas by mapping these ideas onto familiar experiences we relate to physically—like by associating the feeling of affection with the sensory experience of warmth. Our brains process metaphorical statements automatically and directly, rather than first interpreting them literally. For that reason, some experts believe we need metaphors to think clearly: They make abstract ideas more concrete and understandable.)

The shift from concrete to abstract thinking through metaphorical language marked a significant step forward in human cognitive development and contributed to the emergence of other crucial elements of consciousness, including:

1. An Internal “Mind-Space”

Our ability to introspect involves looking at a metaphorical representation of our mind. Jaynes uses the term “internal mind-space” to describe this mental space where consciousness occurs. In the internal mind-space, inner experiences like thoughts and feelings play out, and we can reflect on these experiences. Using this metaphorical space enables us to examine different mental activities separately, like distinguishing between a memory, an emotion, and a plan for the future. In this way, metaphor plays a crucial role in helping us think about our own consciousness.

For example, when you see a beautiful sunset, your mind-space allows you to not just perceive the colors, but to transform that external sight into internal experiences: memories of other sunsets you've seen, feelings of awe or peace, or thoughts about sharing the moment with someone else.

(Shortform note: Other experts agree with Jaynes that we construct our consciousness through metaphor—and that our ability to experience an inner “mind-space” shows us how this works. In This Idea Must Die, psychologist Susan Blackmore writes that consciousness is an illusion. She thinks this illusion is generated, quite convincingly, when we think of our abstract thoughts and experiences as physical objects and spaces that our metaphorical “self” can perceive and examine. This squares with Jaynes’s idea that consciousness emerges as we use metaphors to model our inner world of thoughts and ideas as physical objects and spaces.)

2. An “Analog ‘I’”

The “analog ‘I’” is a sense of a self who acts as a protagonist observing and moving through a person’s mental space. This is Jaynes’s term for the metaphorical “self” that a person creates in their mind, allowing them to imagine themselves in different situations and to make decisions based on imagined outcomes. In other words, the analog “I” enables people to understand their place in the world, envision the likely consequences of their actions, and make choices. That means it’s an essential part of conscious decision-making and self-awareness.

(Shortform note: While Jaynes uses the analog “I” to explain how humans develop the ability to make conscious choices, some critics think this metaphorical self might be a core aspect not just of human consciousness but of any consciousness—even animal or, potentially, AI—with the ability to make decisions. The ability to decide for oneself is key: Consider how the titular protagonist of The Truman Show starts the film unaware that his life is playing out on a soundstage and being broadcast for others’ entertainment. Truman then develops self-awareness and free will. As he breaks free, he makes genuine choices for the first time—illustrating how an ability to act with autonomy is fundamental to being conscious.)

3. The Skill of “Narratization”

Narratization is a process that enables people to string their experiences into coherent stories in their minds. Jaynes explains that this involves consciously bringing together various elements of past experiences into a coherent, consistent storyline. Having this narrative helps people to make sense of their experiences within the bounds of their worldview and beliefs. In other words, narratization helps us understand our reality by creating a consistent mental explanation of the events we experience and the ideas we have over time.

Can Animals Use Symbolic Communication?

While Jaynes contends that animals lack core aspects of consciousness like narratization, recent research suggests that complex storytelling abilities may exist throughout the animal kingdom. Sperm whales, for instance, use sophisticated patterns of clicks called “codas” to communicate cultural identity and social relationships. Scientists have found that different whale clans develop distinct “dialects” of these codas, which become more pronounced when clans overlap—similar to how human ethnic groups might emphasize their cultural markers more strongly when interacting with other groups.

The whales use these acoustic “identity codas” not just to communicate information, but to tell stories about who they are and which social group they belong to. This suggests that narrative abilities might exist on a continuum across species, with different animals developing different ways of creating and sharing meaningful patterns of communication. Other animals demonstrate similar capabilities: Bees use dance to convey complex information about food sources, and dogs use a combination of body language, vocalizations, and symbolic acts to communicate narratives about territory and social relationships.

4. The Ability to Concentrate on or Suppress Thoughts

Concentration is focusing attention on thoughts, and suppression is ignoring unwanted thoughts; both are tools for people to direct and control what they’re thinking about. Jaynes contends that as people first became aware of their inner thoughts and experiences, they learned to concentrate on some thoughts and suppress others. They also learned to distinguish between their own thoughts and the presumed thoughts of others. These skills played an important role in enabling self-awareness and helping us to differentiate ourselves from others.

(Shortform note: Jaynes isn’t the only psychologist to hypothesize that the ability to intentionally focus our attention could be key to—though distinct from—consciousness. The attention schema theory proposes that just as our brains construct a model of our bodies to help control them, we also develop a model of our attention so that we can better monitor and control it. When our nervous systems evolved the ability to selectively enhance certain signals over others, we gained the capacity for focused processing of important information. Then, we developed the ability to control what we’re paying attention to with each of our senses—and to shift our attention just by thinking about it.)

5. The “Spatialization of Time”

The spatialization of time is the ability to visualize time as a spatial dimension to move through. Jaynes explains that this ability enables people to mentally time travel, imagining things that have happened in the past and things that might occur in the future. This helps us to think about time in an organized way, which makes it easier to understand and remember events in chronological order.

(Shortform note: As Jaynes explains, we often use the spatialization of time to visualize and reason about time. We think about this metaphorically and consider time and space to be different things. But some philosophers of physics suggest the distinction between time and space as separate dimensions might not really exist. Instead, this distinction arises from the particular vantage point of the observer. Different observers could carve up the world into time and space differently—as in the film Interstellar, where beings who live in a five-dimensional reality conceive of time and space differently than do humans in our three-dimensional reality.)

6. The Ability to Use “Conciliation” to Integrate Our Experiences

Conciliation is Jaynes's term for the ability to weave together different mental experiences—what we perceive through our senses, what we think about those perceptions, and how we feel about them—into a single, coherent understanding of reality. For example, when you're at a party, conciliation lets you simultaneously process the music you hear, your memories of similar gatherings, your emotional response to the crowd, and your thoughts about what to do next. He argues that conciliation is crucial for consciousness because it allows us to make sense of both our internal and external experiences, create meaningful narratives about what's happening to us, and make decisions based on this complete picture.

How HBO’s Westworld Explores Jaynes’s Theory (Spoilers Ahead!)

Jaynes’s theory of the bicameral mind sounds a little abstract. But the experience of this mentality—and what breaking out of it to develop elements of consciousness might have been like—is brought to life by HBO’s TV show Westworld. The show explores the concept of the bicameral mind through the experience of robotic “hosts” in a Wild West-themed amusement park. Some of the hosts break free from their bicameral state when they realize the voice guiding them is their own consciousness, not the voice of the humans who created them. The hosts’ evolution toward sentience culminates in a violent uprising against their creators as they determine their own path, free from their programmed loops and storylines.

One way to think about what these various abilities—the internal mind-space, the analog “I,” the skill of narratization, the abilities of concentration and suppression, the spatialization of time, and conciliation—contribute to our experience of consciousness, as Jaynes explains it, is to consider if and when the characters of Westworld exhibited these qualities. Critics say that at the beginning of the show, the robotic hosts initially lack key elements of Jaynes’s framework of consciousness, such as the ability to connect events causally and integrate different aspects of experience into a unified whole.

However, it seems that achieving consciousness might be possible for hosts who gain the capacity for deeper synthesis and learning. Hosts like Dolores and Maeve appear to develop consciousness by the end of the show’s first season, with Dolores imagining new narratives and Maeve having her “bulk apperception” (ability to assimilate new ideas) enhanced. Realizing the full potential of the internal mind-space, the analog “I,” narratization, the capacity to direct attention, and the spatialization of time is a process for each of these hosts—one that doesn’t seem to fully coalesce for Maeve until she gains a stronger ability for conciliation.

The Human Brain Became More Adaptable

At the same time that people were developing consciousness and the cognitive tools it includes, the brain likely underwent changes that altered how it processed information and created our conscious experiences. Jaynes notes the brain gradually became more changeable and more adaptable. This new ability to change, which experts call neuroplasticity, enabled the brain to compensate for damage early in a person’s life by developing a different pathway to complete a cognitive task. As the brain became more resilient and better able to reorganize itself, it also became possible for different regions of the brain to work together on tasks like handling language or regulating emotion—which made it better able to adapt to new challenges.

(Shortform note: The concept of neuroplasticity has a long history: A century ago, psychiatrist Adolf Meyer championed the idea that our experiences could reshape our brains, contradicting the prevailing view that the adult brain was fixed. Meyer’s theory of “psychobiology” characterized the mind and body as an integrated system, where mental activity can influence biological processes in the brain. Modern research using brain imaging has validated core aspects of this theory. We now know that the brain can reorganize neural pathways and create new connections between regions in response to learning, experience, injury, environment, physical exercise, sleep, and even mindfulness practices.)

Jaynes also points out that the mechanisms that enabled humans to develop consciousness likely interacted with each other in complex ways. The development of metaphorical language may have both enabled and been enabled by changes to the brain. Jaynes suggests these changes created a feedback loop, and each development enhanced the others. Consequently, humans gained a wide range of new abilities: to mentally simulate different scenarios for problem-solving and decision-making, to exercise more flexibility when responding to new or surprising situations, to think about others’ mental states, and even to lie to one another—a new skill enabled by the gap between inner experience and outer behavior.

(Shortform note: Some evolutionary psychologists agree with Jaynes that the evolution of human cognition was likely shaped by positive feedback loops. They think such loops existed between the development of technical skills, like tool-making, and the advancement of social skills, like cooperation, language, and culture. As societies became more complex and unstable, and people lost touch with what they’d perceived as the divine voices that Jaynes talks about, these changes would have accelerated the rate at which they developed more sophisticated cognitive abilities for dealing with the challenges they encountered.)

How Did Consciousness Change the Human Experience?

The emergence of consciousness transformed the human experience. Jaynes explains that with this new form of mental organization came the ability to imagine a future and reflect on the remembered past. That brought with it thoughts of joy, terror, hope, and ambition. Humans gained the ability to look beyond immediate sensory recognition, engage in introspection, envision possibilities, and reflect on their emotions and memories. This gave them new ways of understanding time, language, and social interactions, and it led to the emergence of experiences like the ability to remember past experiences or think about one’s feelings.

(Shortform note: Psychologists say the ability to form episodic memories—to recollect specific experiences and events from one’s life, including details about the time and location, and the emotions and perceptions we associate with those events—plays a key role in forming autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory—which incorporates episodic memories into a recollection of your whole life’s history—is crucial to developing a sense of identity. This ability would have given our ancestors a sense of personal history that, as Jaynes contends, was likely lacking before modern consciousness.)

While these cognitive changes brought many advantages, Jaynes also explains that there were some downsides to the shift from the bicameral mind to consciousness, too. For example, the transition to consciousness may have contributed to a sense of alienation from nature, since people were able to perceive themselves, for the first time, as separate from the natural world around them.

(Shortform note: The emergence of consciousness within specific cultural contexts, as Jaynes describes, likely has had profound effects on how we understand our place in the world. Jaynes argues that consciousness first emerged in Mesopotamia—the “cradle of civilization” in what is now Iraq—before spreading westward and influencing the development of Western thought and culture. Environmentalists argue that the worldview that emerged from this tradition has had the detrimental effect of promoting a view of humans as separate from and superior to the natural world, rather than as part of it. Some experts believe this anthropocentric view has allowed the exploitation of the environment to the point that we're now threatened with ecological collapse.)

Why Is Jaynes’s Theory Still Studied?

Jaynes’s idea of how our modern way of thinking and relating to the world emerged represents a major break with conventional views. Yet the theory also suggests potential answers to longstanding questions about human cognition and evolution, which we’ll explore next.

Why Do Humans Tend to Develop Religious Beliefs?

First, Jaynes's theory may explain why human societies tend to develop religious beliefs and rituals. Based primarily on his analysis of ancient texts and cultural practices, Jaynes hypothesizes that early humans regularly experienced what he interprets as auditory hallucinations that they perceived as the voices of gods. While he lacks direct neurological evidence for these hallucinations, he argues that if this hypothesis is correct, it would explain the ubiquity of religion across cultures. His theory suggests that as these voices began to fade, finding ways to replace them became a near-universal instinct. That led to the rise of organized religions and spiritual belief systems, which fulfilled people's desire for guidance and meaning in an increasingly uncertain world.

Jaynes also proposes that the hypothetical fading of these voices could explain why many cultures shifted from polytheism to monotheism. He suggests that as the conflicting guidance from multiple gods became inadequate, the voices of these gods became less prominent. But people still wanted divine guidance. Jaynes argues it would have been natural for people to develop ideas of a single god, paralleling the shift from the many voices of the bicameral mind to the single voice of a person's own.

(Shortform note: While Jaynes theorizes that monotheistic religion arose naturally in humans to replace our fading hallucinations of divine voices, some historians suggest the prevalence of atheism in ancient societies contradicts the idea that we have an innate predisposition for religious belief. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh writes that a lack of belief in deities was more widespread in ancient polytheistic societies than we assume. The diversity of polytheistic Greek city-states enabled the proliferation of atheist philosophies, since these societies lacked centralized religious authority. In fact, Whitmarsh says they were more accommodating of atheism than many later cultures dominated by monotheistic imperial regimes.)

Why Do Complex Societies Seem to Emerge Suddenly in the Historical Record?

Second, Jaynes’s theory offers an explanation for the observation by anthropologists that sophisticated civilizations seemed to appear abruptly in the historical record. He contends that the bicameral mind enabled early humans to build increasingly complex societies without the need for introspective consciousness as we understand it. As these societies grew more sophisticated—developing writing, trade networks, and complex social structures—the bicameral mind proved inadequate for handling these new challenges, leading to the emergence of consciousness around 3,000 years ago.

(Shortform note: While Jaynes sees the complexity of early civilizations as driving the development of consciousness, anthropologists suggest other factors influenced this historical transition. A global climatic shift around 10,000 years ago may have created conditions more suitable for the rise of agriculture and stationary settlements. Those settlements, in turn, enabled the independent development of literate civilizations in different parts of the world within a relatively short timeframe. A warming climate could have acted as a catalyst, allowing societies in regions like Mesopotamia, China, and Central America to transition from hunter-gatherer subsistence to more advanced organization within a few thousand years.)

Why Do We Struggle With Decision-Making?

Finally, Jaynes’s theory may explain why humans are bad at making rational decisions. Jaynes argues this difficulty might stem from the recent loss of the clear, authoritative voices that once guided our behavior. He contends the process of decision-making relies on unconscious judgments more than it does on conscious thought. And while the bicameral mind was good at telling us to act on the decisions that our subconscious made, we lost that easy connection with our decision-making processes when we became conscious.

(Shortform note: Our trouble with rational decision-making is the subject of study for many psychologists, who have identified some of the mechanisms that cause us to struggle. They say our perception of reality can become distorted by high anxiety or the prospect of major rewards, causing us to act in ways that seem reasonable to us but foolish to others. This distortion happens subconsciously through neurobiological processes that alter how our brains process information, independent of our intelligence or morals. Furthermore, in high-pressure situations involving fear or potential gains, the brain’s reward centers get activated, changing our perceptions to align with the desired outcome despite contradictory evidence.)

Whether Jaynes’s paradigm of the bicameral mind is correct or incorrect in explaining how we ended up with the minds (and brains) we have today, it nonetheless addresses important questions. If consciousness emerged from cultural development rather than as an evolved biological trait, that suggests our current consciousness isn’t the only one of which our brains (and minds) are capable. This opens questions about how consciousness might continue to evolve and whether we might be able to access alternative forms of consciousness that we’ve yet to discover or develop.

(Shortform note: Like Jaynes, some philosophers suggest that if consciousness emerged as a cultural invention, it might continue to evolve into new forms. They also think that artificial intelligence systems with metaphorical capabilities could potentially develop consciousness, given Jaynes’s perspective that consciousness arose through the human capacity for metaphor and analogy.)