On Inspiration

I am asked a rather difficult question. It is not difficult because it is unclear, but, rather, it is difficult because so many modern assumptions about the nature of mind and body are unexamined, and, upon examination, are unsound.

A reader with the addictive yet intellectual name of Concept Junkie asks:

Are you suggesting the mechanisms of unconscious mental processes are not, or cannot be the source of these inspirations? Must such an inspiration (and yes, I suppose that term needs to be defined if we are going down this route) necessarily come from the action of an outside entity (such as an angel, or the Lord Himself)?

I’m just trying to understand what you have against the idea that we don’t have a perfect understanding or control of our thoughts and memories and that they can behave in a way in which they seem to have a life of their own, or that they somehow work without our direct and explicit supervision. It seems to me that such a flawed mastery and understanding of one’s own mental processes is wholly consistent with a fallen nature.

When I eat something, I have only a vague idea of how the food is digested, broken down, absorbed, and utilized by my body, but that doesn’t mean there is there is a “secret mind” in my gut turning Slim Jims and milkshakes into bone and muscle (and fat, lots of fat).

Similarly, there are some human minds that can perform feats of memory or skill that are far beyond the norm, and these symptoms often correlate with some form of dysfunction or even injury. If you read the story of the guy who had a brain injury and suddenly manifested an impressive level of musical ability that he had heretofore never displayed (and I’m afraid I don’t recall the details of the story), does that mean the man is now possessed of some foreign intelligence that is giving him this talent, or that whatever trauma caused the neural networks and other structures in the brain to reorganize allowed processes of which he is not consciously aware to work, or work better to allow him to perform these feats?

I’m just trying to understand how you see this kind of inspiration, the inspiration that allows someone to solve a problem when he “stops” thinking about it, or allows him wake up with a unique melody or story idea in his head or any of the other ways that our minds surprise us.

My remarks:

I am not suggesting the mechanisms of unconscious mental processes are not, or cannot be the source of these inspirations?

I am stating as a conclusion of a line of reasoning at the mechanism of unconscious mental processes, assuming such a thing exists at all, are not and cannot be the source of these inspirations.

This is for the same reason that I do not think a bunny or a dog could write a sonnet.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.