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Some people think that, perhaps 3,000 or more years ago, people could not even tell, "where", in a clear way, from "here" or "I" experience. They may only vague that their ability to make such a distinction. They do not have the "I" of consciousness. Julian Jaynes provided speculative activities on the development of the "I" in the sense of his book, and place of origin and the sense of the breakdown of the bicameral system.           Three Thousand Years Ago, the Awakening     It is not difficult to travel back in time to the earliest human attempts at observation. Simply observe a newborn baby. As you watch an infant's attempts to grasp a finger held before its eyes — and indeed grasp understanding — you are witnessing the early human observer. The child is becoming aware of the subtle division between itself and the outside world.   A process of thinking is going on. It is wordless. Einstein often said that he got his best ideas in pictures rather than words. In fact, Einstein did not speak at all until he was four years old.   Perhaps there is a process of synthesis or analysis going on in any infant's mind. The child may be attaching the sounds its mother makes to the things it observes. In any case, a distinction must be occurring in the child's mind. That distinction — the separation of the "out there" from the "in here" — is called the subject-object distinction.   When the first hypothetical observer was first learning this distinction, he was becoming conscious. Consciousness means awareness, and that first awareness had to be the concept of "I am." In sensing this "I," our first observer was learning that he was not his thumb nor his foot. The "in here" experience was "I." The "out there" experience was "it."   Today we make the distinction with no trouble at all. Consider a simple example. Become aware of your thumb. You can feel your thumb or, better, you can sense the presence of your thumb. Next, become aware of your left heel. Again with just a thought, you can feel your heel. In fact, you can sense any part of your body this way. You need not reach over physically and feel your body parts with your hands. You are able to sense them all with your mind.   Once you have done this you realize that you are not the thing you feel. We could regard this experience as the movement of your consciousness or awareness from your mind to your body part. A certain division takes place. A distinction separates your "in here" from your thumb or your heel. That "in here" experience is necessary before any real observation can take place. Observation deals entirely with the "out there" experience.   It is thought that perhaps three thousand or more years ago, people were not able to distinguish the "out there" in a clear way from the "in here" or "I am" experience. They may have been only dimly aware of their capacity to make such a distinction. They had no "I" consciousness. Julian Jaynes offers a speculation on the development of the "I" consciousness in his book, The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.   Jaynes claims that, about three thousand years ago, our foreparents suffered their first "nervous breakdown." They then became aware of themselves as "I" people and ceased to be unaware automatons following the voices of "gods" in their heads. According to Jaynes, the two halves of the bicameral brain were functioning more or less separately. But when the breakdown occurred, the voices stopped and human beings became aware of themselves as independent entities.   From this rather rude awakening humans learned a new awareness of their surroundings. The period of the early Greeks started only about five hundred years after the general breakdown proposed by Jaynes. Internal "godlike voices" are no longer ruling human consciousness, but there are probably still some remnants of the early rumblings in Greek heads. The Greeks began to observe everything in sight with a passion. However, being afraid of the "out there" and not too sure of themselves, they remained passive but quite accurate observers. And their first question was: "Is all one, or is all change?"   The first observations of the early Greeks had to do with God, the spirit, and matter.           — Fred A. Wolf, Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists               Indexes/12