I must agree, also, that it cannot be that the unconscious mind is simply throwing up ideas at random. There must be a powerfully impressive selection process that allows the conscious mind to be disturbed only by ideas that ‘have a chance’. I would suggest that these criteria for selection – largely ‘aesthetic’ ones, of some sort – have been already strongly influenced by conscious desiderata (like the feeling of ugliness that would accompany mathematical thoughts that are inconsistent with already established general principles).
