Hidden Minds by Frank Tallis

Author:Frank Tallis [Tallis, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-61145-505-2
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

A new model, A new ethos. A new unconscious.

Yet, if you compare this excerpt with Freud’s famous ‘third-blow’ lecture, it is difficult not to conclude that, fundamentally, they are both saying the same thing: the unconscious has been very much underrated.

When Freud first arrived in London in 1938 he was accommodated very briefly in Little Venice. Although he had no way of knowing it at the time, the house he was staying in would one day display a commemorative plaque bearing his name and the name of a man who had been born in the same house twenty-six years earlier. Eventually, it was decided that Freud’s short sojourn in Little Venice was too insignificant to merit commemoration, and another plaque was mounted exclusively devoted to the birth and short life of Alan Turing.

The old plaque was a rare (and perhaps the only) instance of Freud and Turing being honoured together in a public place. This is hardly surprising as at first sight – they seem to occupy entirely different universes. The name Freud conjures images of nineteenth-century Vienna, hysteria, and the landscape of dreams, whereas Turing conjures images of Bletchley Park, mathematics, and the bright new world of information technology. However, in their very different ways, these two men did much the same thing. They both provided the twentieth century with a model of mind. Both of these models in one way or another – dominated psychology for the entire century.

Ostensibly, the psychoanalytic model and the computer-inspired cognitive model are poles apart. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1980s, with respect to the unconscious, the traditions of psychoanalysis and cognitive psychology had demonstrated a curious convergence. Although they had started from very different positions, their destinations were the same. On the big issues concerning the nature of mental life, they agreed. Yes, the importance of consciousness was overrated, and yes, the unconscious was far from stupid.

The hidden intelligence was alive and well, but now simply residing under a different name.

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