The Man-Machine Again
Young Man. You really think man is a mere machine?
Old Man. I do.
Y.M. And that his mind works automatically and is independent of his
control--carries on thought on its own hook?
O.M. Yes. It is diligently at work, unceasingly at work, during every
waking moment. Have you never tossed about all night, imploring,
beseeching, commanding your mind to stop work and let you go to
sleep?--you who perhaps imagine that your mind is your servant and must
obey your orders, think what you tell it to think, and stop when you tell
it to stop. When it chooses to work, there is no way to keep it still
for an instant. The brightest man would not be able to supply it with
subjects if he had to hunt them up. If it needed the man's help it would
wait for him to give it work when he wakes in the morning.
Y.M. Maybe it does.
O.M. No, it begins right away, before the man gets wide enough awake to
give it a suggestion. He may go to sleep saying, "The moment I wake I
will think upon such and such a subject," but he will fail. His mind
will be too quick for him; by the time he has become nearly enough awake
to be half conscious, he will find that it is already at work upon
another subject. Make the experiment and see.
Y.M. At any rate, he can make it stick to a subject if he wants to.
O.M. Not if it find another that suits it better.
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