Cormac McCarthy Asks Why the Unconscious Speaks in Dreams Instead of Words
The Kekulé Problem – Cormac McCarthy
Novelist Cormac McCarthy, a research colleague at the Santa Fe Institute, argues that the unconscious is a biological machine for operating an animal, one that understands language perfectly yet refuses to answer in it. Why did Kekulé dream of a snake biting its tail rather than simply being told the benzene molecule was a ring? McCarthy traces language's parasitic arrival in a brain that never planned for it, and wonders at the unconscious's stubborn insistence on images, metaphor, and repetition.
To put it as pithily as possibly—and as accurately—the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal. All animals have an unconscious. If they didnt they would be plants.
- smath
Absolutely fascinating and very important topic. My 2c is that there is a very low bit rate link between the conscious and subconscious mind that can be made a bit faster by the practice of meditation. Re why snake and not ring my theory is that the subconscious thinks in primal terms.
- MassPikeMike
(2017)
- OgsyedIE
If you'll pardon the pun, language was always here. Even before man was, language waited for him.