RE: virus: conscious/subconscious (form. level 0)

Eva-Lise Carlstrom (eva-lise@efn.org)
Mon, 9 Dec 1996 01:08:32 -0800 (PST)


On Mon, 9 Dec 1996, Schneider John wrote:

> It nonetheless remains your choice to interpret such phenomena as
> 'choices made by the subconscious', and, in particular, to say
> that the unconscious mind has some 'direction' that it might want
> to go in. As for myself, I do not think the subconscious has a
> direction. I would suggest that it is more like the operating
> system in a computer, and consciousness is some program. When we
> sleep, or don't do anything for a while, the OS runs a screen-saver
> (we dream).... if we turn off the computer (i.e. die), the OS
> doesn't really care, even though some artificially intelligent
> program (consciousness) could 'care'.

Well, that view is much in agreement with the author of one of my books on
dreams: Christopher Evans, _Landscapes of the Night_. Only he compares
dreams to a kind of self-check or cleanup system, not a screen saver. I
don't personally find his arguments compelling, but I have kept the book.
You might be interested in it.

Eva