DMSH 1950 Appendix III B

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Analyzer Schematic

This schematic diagram is a device which enables us to resolve the Analyzer into components with an arrangement capable of explaining analogically its observed behavior as the conscious computing, counselling and control agency of the Organism. The schematic does this by placing the various elements conveniently and interconnecting them with circuit pathways to show the flow of signals and messages.

The key to understanding the Analyzer is the idea of multiple attention. It possesses a considerable number of units of attention, perhaps a score, and can devote them to a large or a small area of activity. Each of these units may be considered to be a separate computer circuit capable of compare-choose-combine or compare-select-act calculations. The input, or attention, end of each of these computers may then be considered to be one of the lines of an attention switchboard. The incoming trunks from any area of activity to which attention is paid will carry in all perceptions, data from the Standard Memory and, when necessary, output data from the computers themselves.

Complementary to the attention switchboard we must postulate an action switchboard which can direct the results of thought to the Organism as action orders, to other computers for further thought, or to the Standard Memory for filing or for delayed action.

The diagram shows these two switchboards with the computers between them, the incoming and outgoing trunk lines, and a group of interconnecting trunk lines which handle information being routed back from output to input fur further use. It also shows separately a control center and a consciousness monitor, which must be described carefully in order to avoid errors in using such words as “awareness” and “consciousness.”

The control center monitors all circuits and orders attention and action by acting as switchboard operator. It is thus another and more elaborate compare-select-act computer, exercising the function of personality. The diagram shows the connections for monitoring and control, and also the Life Force connection through which the whole Analyzer is animated. It is important to note that the control center operates continuously (but in varying degree of alertness), whether the individual is awake or asleep, going entirely out of operation only during complete unconsciousness.

The consciousness monitor is that element which defines our conscious awareness, our continuity of past, present and future, our ability to look out of our eyes and say, “This is I, looking out of here.” While the control center is aware as a normal part of its operation cycle of perceive, judge and act, the consciousness monitor is more than aware; it is aware of being aware. It integrates the pattern of perception, not on a calculator basis, but on a display basis, producing a unified outlook. It is partly like the display panel in the control room of a large machine, which, when a button is pressed, shows in moving light the inner working of the machine, whose processes go on whether the button is pressed or not.

The consciousness monitor, however, goes out of operation when the curtain of sleep is drawn. And with it there go out of operation the first group of computers, all of which it monitors. The second group of computers, which it also monitors, do not necessarily cease operation at this time. In a light sleep the individual retains these attention units alert. As sleep deepens, however, they go out of operation one by one until in deepest sleep only the lowest group of computers, which are unmonitored, remain in operation.

These unmonitored computers provide the attention for a watchman function, to waken us when peril looms. They also provide creative imagination for the solving of problems while we sleep, and for the fabrication of airy structures in dreams. Less spectacular but equally important is their day-labor of scanning the Standard Memory for relevant data for every daily computation in the moment-by-moment recalculation of the Organism’s position with respect to survival and its next move to further that end. (Survival is here considered a spectrum, from self at one end to all life at the other.)

One trunk is shown entering the attention switchboard which existed but was unknown and unused save as a dream channel before dianetics. It is that from the Reactive Mind, and the Analyzer is unable to connect to it in its normal operation. With outside help, during therapy, however, a large number of units of attention may be directed along this trunk for the recovery of engrams from the Reactive Mind.

D. H. Rogers