INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM
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Stent started to speak about consciousness and unconsciousness: it's
fashionable now not to think of the unconscious in the same way that
it was understood for many years-the way Freud had defined it.
Gunther Stent:
By "unconscious" do you mean the "subconscious"?
Edith Kurzweil:
No, Freud preferred not to call it "subconscious,"
which is a much more popular notion. You talked about the subcon–
scious. But I am thinking of the fact that there now is a kind of cultural
prohibition to consider the unconscious as psychoanalysts do. I am
sorry that the psychoanalyst Yale Kramer, who was here earlier, had to
leave. But I am sort of surprised that there is no thought given to it,
since Freud was trying to resolve conflicts within the individual, and
then-whether we thought it simplistic or not-applied it to groups.
Since that's not a popular notion, I'm wondering whether this change of
focus is coming from the culture, or from now available biological
explanations and drugs, and so on? Are we confusing things just at the
point where, as Freud expected and hoped, we would learn to under–
stand the unconscious with the help of biology?
Gunther Stent:
I think that "unconscious" is not a good term to use in
the context of our discussion about consciousness. For me at least,
"unconscious" is related to anesthesia, whereas the psychoanalytical
subconscious seems more closely related to subliminal blindsight, under
which somebody can actually identify the spatial location of an object
without being aware of seeing it. The blindsighted are not unconscious.
They just can't see, but otherwise they are fully alert. I think it's con–
fusing to use the same term for the state created by general anesthesia,
which just knocks one out totally, and for the Freudian notion of
actively suppressing, i.e., refusing, to recall some specific memory of
your autobiographical self.
If
Freud appreciated the difference in mean–
ing between "unconscious" and "subconscious," he should have used a
different word .
Edith Kurzweil :
Maybe he should have, but he didn't.
Gunther Stent:
Maybe that's why he has gotten into so much post–
humous trouble lately.
Guy Burgess:
The consciousness stuff also applies to social conflict. Peo–
ple have many different images of an issue. There are different
