Secret Thoughts by David Lodge

Author:David Lodge
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446467602
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

RALPH

Not self-conscious. Unlike us, it doesn’t know it’s having a good time.

HELEN

I thought there was no such thing as the self.

RALPH

No such ‘thing’, no. There’s no ghost in the machine.

HELEN

That’s such a loaded phrase. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I believe in selves.

RALPH

Of course there are selves – we invent them all the time. It’s something we humans do with our spare brain capacity.

HELEN

What d’you mean, ‘spare’?

RALPH

The cognitive power of the human brain is much, much greater than that of any other animal on the planet, for reasons we don’t yet understand – it’s not just a matter of size. This gave our primitive ancestors a huge evolutionary advantage over other species. Men gradually dominated the rest of Nature. They learned to make tools and weapons, to communicate through language, to solve problems by running various options through their mental software, instead of just reacting instinctively. They got beyond the four Fs.

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