McCarthy, C. (2017). The Kekulé Problem. https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-236574/
Summary
Using the story of August Kekule’s discovery of the benzene molecule as a starting point, writer Cormac McCarthy explores the role of the unconscious as a primal, pre-linguistic evolved system. Further, the uniquely human capacity for language—that is, using sounds to describe things in reality—suggests that language is not inherited but a technology of “our own devising.”
Quote
I call it the Kekulé Problem because among the myriad instances of scientific problems solved in the sleep of the inquirer Kekulé’s is probably the best known. He was trying to arrive at the configuration of the benzene molecule and not making much progress when he fell asleep in front of the fire and had his famous dream of a snake coiled in a hoop with its tail in its mouth—the ouroboros of mythology—and woke exclaiming to himself: “It’s a ring. The molecule is in the form of a ring.” […]
Why the snake? That is, why is the unconscious so loathe to speak to us? Why the images, metaphors, pictures? Why the dreams, for that matter.
Aside from content, the essay holds some interest as a dramatic narrative and insight into McCarthy’s worldview.
Atomic notes
- Problem-solving in the unconscious, connect with Poincare#wip
- “One thing can be another thing,” c.f. Lakoff
Selected concepts and passages
- Biology, not psychology, defines the unconscious: “The unconscious is a biological system before it is anything else. To put it as pithily as possibly—and as accurately—the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal.”
- Thinking is pre-linguistic: “Problems in general are often well posed in terms of language and language remains a handy tool for explaining them. But the actual process of thinking—in any discipline—is largely an unconscious affair. Language can be used to sum up some point at which one has arrived—a sort of milepost—so as to gain a fresh starting point.”
- Language is not an evolutionary process, but invented: “It may be that the influential persons imagine all animals are waiting for language to appear. … There are a number of examples of signaling in the animal world that might be taken for a proto-language. … But what is missing here is the central idea of language—that one thing can be another thing.”
- Language developed like a parasitic invasion: “The difference between the history of a virus and that of language is that the virus has arrived by way of Darwinian selection and language has not. … There is no selection at work in the evolution of language because language is not a biological system and there is only one of them. The ur-language of linguistic origin out of which all languages have evolved.”
- Language explains uniquely human capabilities: “What we do know—pretty much without question—is that once you have language everything else follows pretty quickly. The simple understanding that one thing can be another thing is at the root of all things of our doing.”
- Memory is largely non-linguistic: “The log of knowledge of information contained in the brain of the average citizen is enormous. But the form in which it resides is largely unknown. You may have read a thousand books and be able to discuss any one of them without remembering a word of the text.”
Quote
The unconscious is a biological operative and language is not. Or not yet.