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9:40

(In »The syntheist agent and her desires and drives«)

The subconscious thus not only includes the unconscious in Sigmund Freud’s classical sense, but also the information that consciousness half-consciously, half-unconsciously uses in its intuitive speculation. Neither the externally observed brain, nor the internally experienced mind uses any red or green lights in order to direct incoming information flows. The brain is not a computer. The information is not transported around within the brain in tiny, fixed, compact packages. The brain is namely analogue rather than digital, it is influenced and changes continuously. The human mind is very much a relationalist phenomenon, and the really remarkable aspect of this lies not in its unique position in existence, but rather in its typical materiality in fact. It is matter that is much more complex, active and, if one so wishes, spiritual than we have previously believed. The brain and its by-product the mind should therefore be regarded as typical rather than special material phenomena, even if this insight disturbs our internarcissism.