The mind is often compared to a computer, especially its subliminal subconscious functions. Many subliminal functions of the mind can fairly be compared to 'programmed' materials. Examples are various habitual ways of seeing, hearing or sensing things or of relating images and 'associating ideas'. When such patterns are learned thoroughly or at an early age, they may become largely 'pre-set', being habitual so that the mind can rely on such programs 'unreflectingly', i.e. without re-analysing or reflecting over them. The person concerned may no longer be fully aware of such pre-set behavioural responses and they may be so ingrained that they cannot be altered or reconfigured without considerable difficulties.

It has been said that the mind does not work 'digitally', in the laborious and strictly step-by-step logical manner of a computer, but 'analogically'. This is mainly because the mind can consciously organise itself, 'file' and find its memories and perceptions and evaluate them in any relationship, by manifold symbolic comparisons (eg. such as in analogies, parables, so-called 'lateral thinking' etc.). Further, the mind can make both subliminal-impulsive and consciously-intended decisions that are effected through bodily activity. No computer so far constructed or planned can approach a duplication of these aspects of mind. Therefore, the computer analogy applies more to the brain than the conscious mind.

The brain can certainly be trained to react at the subliminal level, or of what we here denote as the subconscious mind. Subliminal responses are those activated without our reflecting over them. Examples of subliminal reaction patterns (even flexible or 'self-adjusting' patterns) are the movements of the fingers - unperceived by the absorbed player - in playing on an instrument what one 'hears within', a completely new improvisation. Similarly, the flash reaction of a table-tennis player who 'unthinkingly' reaches a shot never before attempted, and so forth.

A computer can reproduce and employ any operation for which it is sufficiently programmed, but cannot itself make its own judgements, nor therefore 'evaluate'. The brain, representing the mind in its subliminal functioning, has been equated with a computer. If the mind is fed the appropriate picture (say, of oneself reaching for a ping-pong ball to return it) it will strive to produce what is envisaged for it. If, on the contrary, one thinks, 'I'm going to miss this ball', the subliminal 'mind' will tend to make one miss. The brain seems to tend towards producing any envisaged result of an action. Therefore, by feeding it what for us are 'positive' ideas or signals', it will tend to produce those desired results. It will equally tend to produce the imagined (feared) result of 'negative input'. This has been shown to be a very effective insight in improving many types of performance or skill, including the alleviation of psychic problems of negative self-images.

Limits to the Mind-Computer analogy
The foregoing model of the subconscious mind as a computer-like 'brain' that cannot distinguish of itself between 'positive' and 'negative' or, for that matter between desired/unwanted','good/bad', 'virtue/'vice' etc. - is highly misleading for the conscious mind. Not only does the mind, unlike the computer, distinguish physical pleasure from pain, but also supra-physical qualities such as positive and negative 'values'. The capacity of moral discrimination is a function of the human mind, which itself consists in interwoven desires and their many emotional and mental extensions. The mind evaluates, which means that it judges according to deep-seated values that are not systematically codifiable, for in understanding them we depend upon the higher faculty of conscience or 'moral intellect'. The essentially supra-mental character of human awareness here becomes apparent. In a lucid waking state, consciousness directs the mind and not vice-versa. Consciousness is itself formless, hence unidentifiable in itself... it is essentially rather 'for-itself'... an undifferentiated continuum which is ontologically and existentially prior to amy of its 'mental contents'.

The cardinal difference between the human mind and computers evidently lies in motivation and/or volition. Computers are non-self motivated, whereas human consciousness is self-motivating, relating to the mind and the expression of its desires. The subconscious as described here does not itself motivate, but has to be motivated by some stimulus, as also computers have to be. By contrast to the subconscious, the conscious mind, however, is 'self-monitoring' and 'self-programming'. The phenomena of awareness and will are scientifically indescribable, for they are sui generis > going to make up the unreflected, transcendent background of all that figures on it, like the 'unseen' blank screen on which a visible film is projected.
The above material is the copyright of Robert Priddy, Oslo 1999
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