CYCLE 36

1. SUBDIVISIONS OF THE BRAIN/MIND. I used to think that the fourfold physiological subdivisions of the brain to which my philosophy was especially partial, viz. backbrain, right midbrain, left midbrain, and forebrain, should be exactly correlated with psychological subdivisions of the mind, viz. subconscious, unconscious, conscious, and superconscious, so that one would have a physiological/psychological pairing as follows: backbrain/subconscious, right midbrain/unconscious, left midbrain/conscious, and forebrain/superconscious. These days, however, I would consider such pairings too facile, even though I am still very much partial to subdivisions in both physiological and psychological contexts. For it seems to me that, in light of my recent contentions relating to the different kinds or stages of idealism and naturalism, not to mention realism and materialism (about which more in a moment), one should allow for the notion of, say, superconscious mind in all four subdivisions of the brain, so that the progression or, rather, devolutionary regression of idealism from visions to photos via sculptures/stained-glass windows and drawings/paintings ... follows a superconscious course, necessarily negative vis-à-vis the alpha-stemming constitution of idealism, through all four physiological subdivisions of the overall brain.

2. NEGATIVE SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND. Thus visions (both monochromatic and polychromatic) as germane to negative superconscious mind in the backbrain; sculptures/stained-glass windows as germane to negative superconscious mind in the right midbrain; drawings/paintings as germane to negative superconscious mind in the left midbrain; and photos as germane to negative superconscious mind in the forebrain. Consequently, it could be argued that not only does negative superconsciousness stretch through all four subdivisions of the brain, but that, as we pass from one to another such subdivision, largely though not exclusively on the basis of a devolutionary regression, the cultural manifestations of superconscious mind change accordingly, as outlined above.

3. NEGATIVE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND. Having briefly dealt with the negative, or alpha-stemming, superconscious, let us now concentrate on its subconscious counterpart, the mode of mind most correlative, so I shall contend, with naturalism, and thus advance the theory that the negative subconscious likewise stretches through all four subdivisions of the brain, beginning with dreams and ending, as before, with films. Thus dreams (both monochromatic and polychromatic) as germane to negative subconscious mind in the backbrain; carnivals/pageants as germane to negative subconscious mind in the right midbrain; parades/festivals as germane to negative subconscious mind in the left midbrain; and films as germane to negative subconscious mind in the forebrain. As before, I shall argue that negative subconsciousness in the forebrain is the most devolved form of the subconscious, a form antithetical to its backbrain counterpart, wherein subconsciousness is most (rather than least) subconscious.

4. NEGATIVE UNCONSCIOUS MIND. Likewise, I shall argue that wet dreams are germane to negative unconscious mind in the backbrain; that royalist drama (tragic) is germane to negative unconscious mind in the right midbrain; that republican drama (comic) is germane to negative unconscious mind in the left midbrain; and that television drama is germane to negative unconscious mind in the forebrain, this latter the most devolved, and therefore least unconscious, form of dramatic unconsciousness.

5. NEGATIVE CONSCIOUS MIND. Before I proceed from realism, as above, to materialism, I should point out that the principal cultural manifestations of this spectrum of mind (conscious) are literary, and that literature can be subdivided, no less than theatre, along lines correlating with our fourfold physiological subdivisions of the brain. Such subdivisions would, I believe, be as follows: poetry, short stories, novels, and philosophy, and I shall argue for a correlation between poetry and the backbrain, short stories and the right midbrain, novels and the left midbrain, and philosophy and the forebrain. Thus poetry as germane to negative conscious mind in the backbrain; short stories as germane to negative conscious mind in the right midbrain; novels as germane to negative conscious mind in the left midbrain; and philosophy as germane to negative conscious mind in the forebrain. A devolutionary regression, as before, would therefore place poetry in the alpha-most subdivision of the brain as the least devolved form of negative consciousness, and philosophy in the alpha-least subdivision of the brain as the most devolved form of negative consciousness, a form which was no less noumenally beyond short stories/novels ... than poetry is noumenally behind them, so to speak. For, of course, the backbrain/forebrain subdivisions of the overall brain are here, with regard to negative conscious mind, no less elemental than the right-midbrain/left-midbrain subdivisions of it molecular. And what applies to the conscious in its alpha-stemming manifestations applies no less to the superconscious, the subconscious, and the unconscious, as already discussed.