(Antonio Damasio, “The Feeling of What Happens”, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1999, and A.G. Cairns-smith, “Secrets of the Mind”, Springer Verlag, New York, 1999.) The two authors use different terms for what seem to be the same entities. This is set out in the diagram below.
| Damasio | Cairns-Smith |
|---|---|
| Proto-self (body-based) | Greater Self (unconscious) |
| Core (Self) Consciousness | Evanescent Self |
| Extended (Self) Consciousness |
The difference between the two schemes (besides the greater elaboration of the Damasio scheme) is a difference in emphasis and evaluation. For Damasio, the body-based proto-self is more primitive than what follows consciously; for Cairn-Smith, the unconscious Greater Self does most of the work of perception and volition, and is more skilled, faster, and more intelligent~than the conscious mind. (This latter view is also similar to Steven Pinker’s view in “How the Mind Works.”
In any case, since we do not have access to our own unconscious, introspection will not work as a method for exploring the mind. It will be difficult to build the fifth branch of knowledge as I outlined in my windmill model of the sciences. And yet, while we do not have access to direct observation of the interior of the Earth, we can infer a lot from observations on top of the crust where we sit.
Direct experience in deep meditation? That gives us insight into another “plug” in the “mind as a three-way plug” (an earlier essay), but not into the body-based unconscious.