Page 7 - Ruminations

5. Cerebral software

Our linguistic output may well pass through three “programs”
running in the brain. The computers we are building to handle natural
language processing may not ultimately follow this functional
separation, but their efficacy will be judged against human ability.
First is the subconscious association linking sensory data to
symbols, and those symbols to other symbols. This does not always
follow direct chaining paths; it is subject to repression and diversion
created by one’s life history. As the fount of both wisdom and folly, it
has a double-edged value in human creativity and survival. Traditional
cultures may enforce conformity to social norms intuitively by limiting
and channeling this basic interpretation of stored and received
information.
The second program operates at the border of consciousness, and
cannot be observed (that is, by taking itself as another source of input)
without interfering with it. Psychologists attempt to monitor this
“stream of consciousness” with varying success. It functions as a last-
defense censor for unconsciously-generated raw data (even to the
point of blocking its flow) and as a first-line editor of that flow into
language permissible and comprehensible to oneself and others. This
might be what C. Wright Mills was describing in his analysis of
socially-acceptable explanations of motivation.
The third processor takes the output of the second and turns it into
vocal or subvocal speech. This is a consciously monitored operation,
at least of its output. It is the last opportunity to restate or completely
inhibit the expression of subconscious contents. It works imperfectly
in an individual, affected by age, conditioning and situation. Any lag
between the last two stages is interpreted by others as indicative of
mental illness, incapacity or an attempt to equivocate or prevaricate;
neurolinguistics and various psychological testing protocols expose
some of this interference.
Drugs affect the transmission of normally mediated synaptic
connections through these programs to comprehensible language. The
wide use of stimulants confirms the personal and social value of
having one’s brain working at a rapid and uninterrupted rate. And the
inability of the demented or comatose to express anything at all raises
the question of at which level they are blocked; and, therefore, of what
they are aware. Science may provide the answers—and the means of
debugging the software or replacing components of the hardware.