This column takes a look at the work the unconscious mind does to manage information. As these things will, the idea showed up as an army quartermaster. In this scenario a new camp is being set up, but without secure supply lines. The quartermaster’s task is to not only source the necessities for the new camp, but to store, maintain and develop those necessities. This is not a real army, but the story has some illustrative qualities. The quartermaster’s pronouns are he/him, which is not necessarily the case in the real world, but when I started writing, that is who arrived.
In the substack, Front of the House, I wrote about the mind as a restaurant. The conscious mind was the front of the house, with white tablecloths and candlelight. The unconscious mind was the kitchen, where the work is done out of sight. In the next substack, Cake, Not Carrots, I went into more detail about that back of the house work, and specifically how the unconscious mind produces a prediction, or virtual reality, as backdrop to the daily conscious experience. Prediction is a type of support mechanism that allows conscious mental activity to focus attention elsewhere.
The big picture is that the mind is an information system. It devotes huge amounts of mental capacity to acquiring, organizing, storing and using information. To do so it operates multiple specific functions, in conscious and unconscious modes, that are dedicated to information. There is a hierarchy of control, a division of labour and unique skill sets, all bound by a common endpoint of useful information.
From this point of view, having an army sergeant in charge of unconscious information operations seems like a reasonable fit, especially if you have ever felt driven to achieve something.
So I invite you to think of the unconscious mind as a quartermaster, a senior soldier in a land army. He has been there since the beginning and he effectively runs the camp. He manages the stores that the army relies on: food, blankets, boots, guns, maps, all of it. His job is to stock the shelves and hand out what is necessary. He has priorities, and chief among them is acquiring things that are needed for the camp’s survival. If those goods are to go on the shelves the quartermaster wants them properly and clearly labelled, with lots of detail. The more detail, the more likely he’ll accept it. A box is nice, saves him time so he likes it prepackaged. A neat, tidy box, it’s easier to shelve. There will be a place for it. He’ll catalogue it and store it. Even if there is no immediate call for it, it might someday be useful so in the door it comes.
This is the analogy of the cognitive operations of learning and memory. The more encoding or labelling there is for information, the stronger the memory.
In this case, the camp is new, far from base and without secure supply lines. The quartermaster has to first source food, water, shelter, tools, everything that did not arrive on a private’s back. The job of the grunt privates is to find the stuff to stock the camp. A platoon of privates, with a lieutenant, is on constant mission to acquire a wide range of supplies. By necessity, their job is to be inquisitive and exploratory. They nose around the surroundings, ask the locals questions. They find things to bring to the quartermaster. If they do their job right, the stuff is accepted into stores. If not, in the worst case there is not enough food and they go hungry. Get back out there, the quartermaster growls.
The lieutenant and his band of privates have, for example, brought the quartermaster a box of ripe apples. The lieutenant examined one. He found it was a type of food, round, firm, crunchy to the bite, sweet and wet. The lieutenant writes up a detailed label for the box, slaps it on and gives it to the quartermaster, who has a look. This stuff is in a box, check, labelled, check, it will fit on the shelves. The quartermaster will cross reference the box as food, red, round, etc. Later, if he searches for all red things in storage, he’ll come up with this box. If he narrows his search to red food, he’ll find it faster.
The primary task of conscious mental facilities is to absorb and analyze sensory data. This is underlies the cognitive activities of attentional focus and encoding new information.
Back to the quartermaster. He’s got a job to do. He doesn’t provide much direction. In fact, he doesn’t talk much at all. Mostly he grunts if something is brought to him that he can use. Some grumbles, some yelling, much of the time he just points at the door with his chewed up cigar and sends the hapless privates back. Keep trying. You guys eat everything in sight. I need more.
The unconscious mind does not speak English. It drives, nudges, yells. It is a force, not a conversation.
Which brings us to another attribute of the quartermaster. He wants to build up a surplus. He has to have a lot of stuff, and many different things, in case some general requests a jeep. Or a steak. Or whiskey. Or a pontoon boat. Some damn thing, you never know with generals.
These are the elements of drive and curiosity.
On a regular basis, the quartermaster is handing out everything this encampment needs to function and survive. Tents, blankets, boots, food, maps, clean water, every single day.
This is an analogy for prediction, and being able to recall information from memory.
The quartermaster had some early intelligence about the suitability of this location. Not a lot of predators, good water, some foodstuffs, a place for latrines, a defensible placement. Okay, should be a softer time than others. The early reconnoiter might also have turned up poor resources, roving predators, uncertain landscape, initial miserable experiences of hunger, cold and thirst. Worse, the general has a little drinking problem, he might not be able to keep the camp and platoon safe when it hits the fan. All indications are that indeed, it will hit the fan. Be ready to dig that foxhole, mates. Have we got shovels yet? Those first indicators will set the tone for the duration.
This is an analogy of the challenges of childhood.
There are times when the away team comes back with a plea. We could not find meat, clean water, the general. The quartermaster tries to solve problems, because keeping the whole enterprise going is another one of his jobs. Perhaps he says, there’s a map here and it suggests water in those hills, go search for it. Perhaps his response is, you did a piss poor job on the hunt, it’s biscuits today for the lot of you. Perhaps he says, here’s some random stuff, go trade it in the local village and bring back what you can. Perhaps, after they’ve been there a while, he says, ah, you’re in luck, the shelves are full and I’ve got just what you need.
This is an analogy for ideas and the problem solving skills of the unconscious.
Most days the quartermaster is barking at the lieutenants, get your team and find me this, find me that. Go and get me stuff, lots of it. Not just supplies, local intelligence and gossip; newer maps; get it all and bring it back in a form I can read, store and use again. The quartermaster above all wants to build up stores. You never know what the damn generals will want. Get me stuff. More.
And there’s the analogy of the interplay between unconscious drive and conscious behavior. The unconscious generates curiosity and a drive to learn. The conscious mind carries out the tasks of exploration, data analysis and skill acquisition.
A period of time has passed in the new camp. The quartermaster does not pay attention to time, except as a way to date the stuff on the shelves. He had a look around in the early stages, but he is almost always inside now. One day the lieutenant comes back with a map he has drawn. It includes the local geography, but also where the resources like water, fruit trees, a herd of goats, are to be found. He has helpfully written in cautions such as, “Here be dragons”. The quartermaster pins it on the wall for all to see. This is background information all the sortie parties will need. It is the best current source of information available of the territory in which they find themselves. It will be updated frequently.
In addition to sourcing and storing necessities like food, the quartermaster collects the developing intelligence about the area around the camp. It all adds up and needs proper storage. Like the apples, everything will have to be labelled, cross referenced and shelved. To improve efficiency he decides to prioritize items that he considers most likely to be used. The stuff the general tells him, don’t ignore that. The things that the sorties bring back every day, day in day out, that’s reliable. He places the important stuff on shelves near the front, right where he’ll need it. Whenever he can, he builds go bags and ready made boxes of tools for special jobs. Saves a few steps. He’s not getting any younger and this job is getting more complicated.
This is the analogy of information organization and consolidation of memory into long term storage.
One of the brighter lieutenants takes accumulated information, organizes it, adds commentary, develops some conclusions and produces something really useful. It gets pinned up on the wall, up front for all to see. The other lieutenants, seeing this, turn into a bunch of intelligence analysts. Pretty soon they too are bringing in intelligence reports. The quartermaster does not grumble. These reports could come in handy, but even if that is not the case, the general really likes it. The quartermaster starts building file cabinets.
This is the transition where the conscious mind is responding less to the environment and beginning to think for itself.
The quartermaster holds the keys to his storage facility. He is the only one with access into the back rooms. The lieutenants may present him with packaged, labelled goods or an intelligence report, but they do not wander around shelving and filing these things themselves. The quartermaster has a system and no one else gets into the back room. It’s possible that something got mislabelled before he shelved it. It’s not his fault if it gets filed and cross referenced incorrectly. If someone shows up at his door and pleads that they might have made a mistake on the label last week, he’ll pull it out for them. His position is, you fix your own mistakes.
The other major task for the quartermaster is to collect and organize the intelligence reports. Shelves become repurposed as file cabinets, where everything is documented, cross referenced and stored. Someone brings in a major report and analysis on any topic, say the community resources of a nearby town, and it must be carefully saved. Sooner or later it will be useful, perhaps even crucial. The accuracy of the initial analysis and the labelling is also crucial. The quartermaster knows that if it is wrong or mislabelled, things could go very wrong. Still, it is not his responsibility to fix it, only store it.
This is the analogy for the barrier preventing conscious access to unconscious processes. While information can be recalled for inspection, there is no conscious entry into the unconscious. You do not get into the storeroom, nor can you easily alter the contents.
The quartermaster has a primary role, which is to provision the troops every day with necessities such as food and water. He also has to be prepared to support the goals of the encampment: accumulate intelligence reports, resource supplies, support the building of infrastructure, and identify gaps. He needs everything ready, organized by task, labelled, cross referenced and stored; he will equip rapid deployment and response to unforeseen circumstances. He needs to be able to provide a lot of different supplies, quickly and efficiently. He does not need to talk a lot.
His discourse is limited. Mostly it is a growling, “go and get the job done”, “you’ll get it when you get it” and “shaddup, leave me alone, I’m busy”. The real discourse lies in his actions: he provides. Once in every 24 hours or so he simply locks the door so he can get the real work done. He sets up kits and packages, cross references and gets it all sorted.
This is the analogy for sleep and memory consolidation.
It is also the case that, behind closed doors, the quartermaster has been operating his own bakery. His job is to provision the troops, they consume bread every day and so he starts to bake bread. An army travels on its stomach. The quartermaster has had to teach himself how to bake, but he’s a quick study. He works with what he has, in terms of heat sources, baking ovens, and simple ingredients of flour, water and salt. Each morning there is the aroma of fresh bread coming out of the oven that is tantalizing, but fleeting. Some of his work comes out half baked, but most is nourishing and wholesome.
The quartermaster bakes after hours, when the place is quiet and there’s no one about but sentries. He tries a lot of things, because the ingredients change whenever a team comes back. Sometimes, if the advance teams have sourced spices, sugar or butter, the result is especially good. Since he is no fool, the quartermaster sends the best stuff directly to the officer’s mess. The general tends to take the credit for this great thing, but that’s a general for you.
In the still of the night, aromas waft out of doors. The sentries smell it. The aromas might be strong enough to wake a few soldiers. Baking bread smells wonderful, but by the time somebody has noticed it, the aroma has drifted by. Did I smell something? Oh, that was good. Just a dream. Back to sleep.
This is dreams and ideas popping into mind.
The quartermaster’s night time work can be just right, but sometimes the bread burns. That inspires a different dream. When all goes really well, the camp wakes up to cinnamon buns.
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