14 Facts About Julian Jaynes

Julian Jaynes had an older sister, Helen, and a younger brother, Robert.

The family had a summer home in Keppoch, Prince Edward Island, which was a place Julian Jaynes loved, and which gave him a Canadian connection for his entire life.

Julian Jaynes's studies were interrupted during the Second World War: because of his Unitarian principles, he applied for and received official recognition as a conscientious objector, but refused to comply with the US government's law for pacifists; Jaynes spent three years in the penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, working in the prison hospital.

Julian Jaynes received his master's degree in 1948, and then refused to accept his doctorate, again on a dispute of "principle" regarding educational credentials.

Julian Jaynes returned to Yale in 1954, working as an Instructor and Lecturer until 1960, making significant contributions in the fields of experimental psychology, learning, and ethology, and co-publishing some papers with Frank A Beach.

Julian Jaynes had begun to turn his focus to comparative psychology and the history of psychology, and in 1964 he became a research associate at Princeton University.

Julian Jaynes had dedicated years of research in psychology to the problem of consciousness and he had sought the roots of consciousness in the processes of learning and cognition that animals and humans shared in common, in accord with prevailing evolutionary assumptions that dominated mid-20th century thinking.

Julian Jaynes had established his reputation in the study of animal learning and natural animal behaviour, and in 1968 he lectured on the history of comparative psychology at the National Science Foundation Summer Institute.

Julian Jaynes differed with those who ignored it, for example Stuart Sutherland, who simply defined consciousness as 'awareness'.

Julian Jaynes gave six major lectures in 1985 and nine in 1986.

Julian Jaynes was awarded an honorary PhD by Rhode Island College in 1979 and another from Elizabethtown College in 1985.

Julian Jaynes died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on November 21,1997.

The Julian Jaynes Society was founded by Marcel Kuijsten in 1997, shortly after Jaynes's death.

The society has published a number of books on Julian Jaynes's theory including foreign-language editions of Julian Jaynes's theory in French, German, and Spanish.