Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 15:48:04 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Read me...

Interesting essay.  Got a couple points to respond
to - but first this "form becomes formality" bit.
It seems that the author is suggesting that other
writers are best served by letting themselves work
unconsciously or subconsciously rather than trying
to control the writing all consciously.  It is an
interesting argument, (which applies to all artists,
I think) but I'm not sure why it should have to
be that way.

Why is it that one's feel for one's art is a better
guide than one's conscious thought?  And what do we
mean by "feel."

From my own limited experience, and my eavesdropping
into the writing process of other writers, I would
argue that what we speak of when we talk about writing
by "feel" or "intuition" is letting one's subconscious
be one's guide.  That is, one judges what and how to
write not by an explicit and conscious process, but
by a subconscious process which - one presumes - acts
in some explicable manner, even though that process is
not consciously accessible.  And trying to write by
making all decisions *consciously* often, as the essay
suggests, diminishes the art.  This, presumably, because
one cannot consciously manage the full process which
the subconscious uses.  And that is a very interesting
idea.

What does the subconscious know that the consciousness
doesn't?  And we are so comfortable talking about the
conscious self vs. the unconscious self - but what
exactly do we mean?  If you think about it too hard,
you end up feeling like a visitor in your own mind.
No wonder mind-body dualism is so compelling a notion.

Anyhow, I spoke of an unconscious "process," but perhaps
I am wrong.  Perhaps the subconscious evaluation is not
one which is can be detailed or reduced.  Frankly, I find
that a rather difficult assertion to accept.

Philosophers...some philosophers...when discussing "certainty"
distinguish between different kinds of knowledge and different
levels of certainty.  The most obvious example that comes to
mind is that of quantity.  When the average person sees one dot,
they recognize it as one dot without any sort of conscious
counting.  When they see two dots, they recognize, without
counting or pattern matching, two dots.  Most folks are only
good to four dots, after which they begin counting (sometimes
in groups of 3 or 2) or using some other conscious mechanism
for determining the number - a pattern like that on a die is
recognized as being 5 dots by knowing the pattern - and not
by directly recognizing the number.  The difference between
knowing one dot or two dots and between knowing 10 dots is a
difference in certainty and a difference in the kind of knowledge.
The latter involves a conscious process which is subject to
error in evaluation.  The first is known without any conscious
process and is subject only to errors in perception.  Some
"idiot savants," however, seem to be capable of recognizing
the number of spilled toothpicks on the floor - without a
conscious evaluation.  "Knowing" 4 toothpicks seems reasonable.
"Knowing" (without counting) that there are 237 (not one more,
not one less) almost defies plausibility.

I would suggest that this is a similar sort of process to
that of artistry - the knowing what is "right" without a
conscious procedure of evaluation.

The real question, however, is - are the processes merely
internalized to the "sub-conscious" and operating (somehow)
faster - or is the process a very different sort - different
other than in that it isn't conscious.

Does the idiot savant count and pattern match with lightning
speed?  Or does he *know* through some other means.  Do
we recognize three by pattern matching or counting - or
do we recognize three by some fundamentally different means?
And thus, is a good artist (the one who relies on his
sub-conscious) better than the conscious writer because his
sub-conscious can hold more of the same sorts of rules and
process them faster, or, is there a different mechanism at
work?

I guess that for those of us who are good scientists and
steadfast reductionists, the difference is most easily explained
as interpreted and compiled code.  The compiled code
isn't any different in algorithm, it just runs faster.

Invoking "something else" seems to lead to odd conclusions.
Forget the ghost in the machine, we now have ghosts in our
ghosts.  A second order haunting.

If the conscious part of my mind were smart enough and fast
enough to process the hypothesized rules run by the subconscious,
would that lead to better writing or worse?  Would running
the rules consciously only introduce mistakes, or would it
introduce a level of control which could improve writing?
Or would it be exactly the same thing?

Some stream of consciousness musing, word choice and structure
thanks largely to the subconscious, with a cameo appearance
by the ego and id.  (Hope I'm not making a freudulent argument. ;-)
(Think about this too hard and you'll end up feeling jung-over.)
(One of this summer's books referred to puns as the most elitist
form of humor.  Hmmm.)

                          -Tim
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