Reference: Hubbard 1950: Dianetics TMSMH
These are some comments on Book Two, Chapter 1, “The Analytical Mind and the Standard Memory Banks” from DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH.
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Comments on
The Analytical Mind and the Standard Memory Banks
KEY WORDS: Monitor, Memory, Thinking, Training pattern
The mind computes in a wide range—from analytically computing with full differentiation to simply reacting to a stimuli. The resulting signals then influence the activity within the body. Hubbard presents this spectrum of mental activity as the analytical mind, the reactive mind, and the somatic mind respectively.
The “monitor,” or the “person,” is actually the consciousness of the body-mind system operating as a single unit. It refers to itself as the “I”. Later, in Scientology, Hubbard assigned to it the symbol “thetan.”
The “I” is the consciousness of the body-mind system operating as a single unit.
The mind computes by freely associating all relevant data in the desired direction. When there are gaps in data it uses assumptions and projections to maintain consistency, continuity and harmony.
The mind is as analytical as the data is finely differentiated and complete.
Hubbard’s ideas of different “memory banks” can be replaced more logically by a mental matrix of data elements. The data elements are produced when the incoming perceptions are finely differentiated. These data elements are then assimilated in the mental matrix such that all duplications are purged, and all possible associations among data elements are established. The mind appears to have an infinite capacity for differentiating and assimilating perceptions.
The mental matrix provides the most efficient system of data storage in real time.
The body perceives, and the mind differentiates and assimilates the perceptions. Perceptions are still received when the “I” is unconscious, but they are recorded instead of being differentiated and assimilated. The capture of data is thus perfect. It is limited only when the sense organs are defective as with blindness or deafness.
It is rare that the data is missing in the mental matrix, but not all it is necessarily assimilated.
The mind produces memories, visualizations and computations by establishing association among the data elements. The primary source of error in “rational” computation comes under the headings of insufficient differentiation and incorrect associations.
We have rationality when the associations among data elements are continuous, consistent and harmonious. Irrationality enters with incorrect associations due to insufficient differentiation.
At a deeper level, the mind is wired into the body to regulate the mechanical functions of living, such as, the heart beat, the endocrines, selective blood flow, muscles, urine, excreta, etc. These functions may, therefore, be influenced through the mind, or modified through training patterns. Such training patterns may be annulled or updated consciously.
Training patterns are considered rational because they are consciously set up even when they are very close to being stimulus-response.
Rationality depends on free association among data elements as determined by the dynamics of a situation. When there are fixations (fixed ideas, bias, prejudice, etc.) the free associations are limited, and the ability to differentiate suffers.
Rationality depends on the ability of the mind to associate data freely. Any fixations lead to “conditioning,” that can interfere with rationality.
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