A wind-up teddy bear

Sergey Morgachev

"My pleasure," Valentine said. "Imagine a picnic…"

Noonan shuddered.
"What did you say?"
"A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a
meadow. A car drives off the country road into the
meadow, a group of young people get out of the
car carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor
radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents,
turn on the music. In the morning they leave…
There are rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey
wrench left behind...
"I see," Noonan said. "A roadside picnic."
"Precisely. A roadside picnic, on some road in the
cosmos."

A. and B. Strugatsky. Roadside picnic

In modern cognitive science and psychology, as well as in everyday popular perception,

it is assumed by default that consciousness is a certain space filled with objects,
images, words ... in general, things that actually form it. There can be no consciousness
outside of these objects. On the contrary, the unconscious, in the ordinary view, is an
area in which there are just no things, that is, anything formed, objectified – at least, for
the owner of this unconscious, when viewing "from within". Of course, because a person
cannot see what is there in his unconscious, and whether there is anything there at all;
and if he could see, it (the unconscious) would not be like that!

In this paper, the author is going to show that the opposite is true: it is consciousness
that is a blank slate, nothing, and the unconscious is a collection of things, objects.

At the starting point, the author will start from the language that contains the expression
"light of consciousness". So deep inside, everybody knows that consciousness is light.
This knowledge is expensive, because when man says this word – light – he
immediately understands a lot about what is called by this word. Light is transparent,
there is nothing inside it; it tends to illuminate objects and drive out the darkness.
What does it mean to illuminate objects and drive out the darkness? Let's imagine that
man is looking at an object described metaphorically by the Strugatskys in "Roadside
picnic": something about which he knows nothing, nothing at all. Neither where it has un
upper part and the lower one, nor what it is for, nor what it is called, much less how it is
arranged and what is inside it. There is something sticking out of it that may or may not
be wires, and it is made of an unknown metal. In a word, this, according to the heroes of
Strugatskys1, is a wind-up teddy bear forgotten at a picnic (of the universe?), but man
does not know that this is a teddy bear, or that this is a wind-up teddy bear. This is a
typical unconscious, moreover, it is presented in the form of an object. It is a darkness,
a certain withdrawal from the light, both in the physical sense, since its interior is
darkness, and in the psychic sense, because this object – both outside and inside – is
an unknown, a mystery for man. At the same time, once in the observer’s field of view, it
becomes part of his world, regardless of whether the observer understands what is in
front of him, or not. Moreover, those who made this object, they, together with it,
become part of the world of this observer.

But here is the happiness of the discoverer! – there are some nuts that allow him to
unscrew some part, the lid, and look inside. Man does this because he is driven by the
passion of the researcher, even though he understands that it may be dangerous. So,
man unscrews the lid and simultaneously tries to understand what is happening with the
process of knowledge (and light penetration) at this moment.

Methodological commentary. The author considers the whole process, immediately

going beyond the innate logic, one of the properties of which is that there are opposites
defined by polar states of a certain quality, for example, "cold" – "hot". According to this
logic, nature is designed in such a way that if there is a "hot", there is a "cold", and the
presence of such a description of things helps man to navigate the world very much.
However, every description and approach to reality has its own area of applicability. The
author is going to show further that the opposite of the "unconscious" is not the
"conscious", but the nonexistent, since consciousness as such is not a collection of
things, it is a blank sheet, an emptiness. If there is something in it (and this is some kind
of energy), it is in any case, not images, not words, and not any forms. This happens
because there is consciousness, but there is no conscious since consciousness
dissolves everything in itself, – just as there is light, and the fully illuminated, completely
transparent, loses its existence, at least in the form of an observable object, a thing. By
analysing the process of knowledge and deconstructing it, man restores the
phenomenological, natural logic of this process. However, let's not be too hasty.

So man is unscrewing the lid and can see … Stop, this is an important point of analysis.
The lid is thrown aside, it is removed from the cognitive situation, it is no longer there.
Light took its place. This was because the light, or force of consciousness, dispersed it,
digested it, dissolved it, dematerialised it. Or, something has happened, there was a

1
Brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are Russian writers who worked in the genre of science fiction. The peak of
creativity was in the 70s – 80s of the last century. They are extremely popular in Russian creative and academic
circles. The story "Roadside picnic", quoted in this article is the most famous and, in fact, the cult work of the
Strugatskys. Based on its motives, the film "Stalker" was directed by Andrey Tarkovsky. – Author's note.
"translucence" or awareness of this cover. The moment it was realised, it simply ceased
to exist for man.

What, on the contrary, has come into existence? Some unknown devices that were
under the lid and that this object is filled with. They are unfamiliar to man: he can only
see them, that is, he understands that they exist, but he does not know anything about
them. Therefore, they are objects of the unconscious.

What did man have before removing the lid? Light and the unknown, that is the
unconscious objects. What did man get after removing the lid? Again – light and the
unknown, that is, unconscious objects, but already other objects that "stood" behind the
previous ones (while the previous ones were successfully realised by man, or "shone
through"). It will be so, always. In these settings, the learning process unfolds.

But what, then, are the judgments that man considers as elements of knowledge, such
as "2 + 2 = 4»? In this system of categories, this is the name of the unconscious – what
is written on the next door to be opened, on the next array of the unconscious, on the
next black block of darkness. This is the appearance of a wind-up teddy bear. This
inscription means that there is something there that is relevant to this statement. Behind
the statement "2 + 2 = 4", there is an infinite number of mysteries, starting with what is a
number at all and why man thinks in numbers; and does the right side always turn out to
be four or not? After all, once everyone was sure that the mass of the body is always
equal to itself: really, what can happen to it? Until Albert Einstein showed that it
depends on the speed in a certain frame of reference. Man can operate with the names
of the unconscious in thought activity in everyday life and in science, which is what
happens.

II

The process of cognition, awareness, is the process of collision of the power of

consciousness (non-objective) with the
power of the unconscious (objectified), or, in esoteric
terms, light with darkness, as a result of which the area
of light gradually increases, and the darkness
surrounding it gradually expands. This is true
both in the private psychic world and in the civilisational
aspect. This process can rightly be called the
expansion of consciousness.

This will become clearer if man admits visual spatial

representations of the psyche. This is quite possible since this approach is based on
some basic mental constructs that are reflected in language, which often describes
mental reality in terms of space and matter.

There are two poles in the

Figure 1. Quartz geode: metaphorical image of the human psychic
human psychic world: the
world.
region of psychic objects
forming the periphery – the
inner surface of a certain body, like a curved ball, which man looks at with his observing
Self from the centre of this ball, and the region of the centre of the ball – empty, since
there is nothing in it but the looking inner Self, and it is in no sense objective. Man
simply looks at the world – his psychic world – from a certain point, and he can see
objects of this world around him, some closer, others further away. The psychic world
represented in such a way resembles a geode – a geological formation that has the
form of a closed cavity filled with a crystalline mineral substance along the periphery
(Figure 1).

What are psychic objects, psychic things? These are cognitive-affective entities, images
of everything in the world – people, ideas, circumstances. In the above-mentioned
geode, psychic things correspond to the crystals that fill its periphery; larger crystals can
reach (with their tips) the inner region of the geode, and in this case, they are close to
the centre and "penetrate deeply into the soul". Smaller crystals (less significant psychic
objects) are adjacent to the solid sphere surrounding the geode cavity and are distant
from the centre.

So, one of the poles of the inner world is Psychic forms (objects)
connected with the centre, the other – with the
sphere formed around this centre. In the
region of the periphery, there are objects –
psychic forms – but in the world of the
centre, they are absent.

On the periphery of the inner world, there are

psychic masses, because everything that
matters has psychic weight (man can say "he
was a force in society", "his word weighed a lot
in professional circles", "weighty
Space of emptiness
arguments", "love for him outweighed the
sense of duty" or "some considerations Figure 2. Psychic space.
outweighed others"). Note: more significant objects are shown as larger,
darker, and closer to the centre.
There is an attraction on the periphery
of the "geode", for everything that has meaning and psychic mass attracts ("he was
drawn to her with irresistible force", "the North attracted him from a young age", etc.).

The concept of distance makes sense here because what matters more is perceived by
the psyche as being closer ("close people", "these ideas were close to him", "to take
something to heart").

In the region of the centre, there is only emptiness, which, however, is not emptiness in
the elementary sense, in the sense of the absence of anything, but, on the contrary,
represents some specific energy – and this is one of the key properties of this bipolar
world (Figure 2).

Objects located on the periphery of psychic space and limiting it, form a body, which
can be designated as the body of psychic forms, or the psychic body. From the point of
 view of the dichotomy "consciousness – unconscious", it is precisely the body of the
unconscious, because it is something dark or in any case darkened, limiting man’s view.
In fact, man cannot see through anything – either the people who make up his private
world, or human communities, or physical objects, or objects of scientific interest. This is
always something that presents a cognitive problem; man’s view rests on them but does
not penetrate them. It is only in time that it can go deeper into them, partially dispelling
their darkness, for man’s view is also a hypostasis of the inner light, the light of
consciousness.

If the shell of the body of the unconscious is very tight it becomes difficult for a person to
breathe, including in the physical sense; when it is possible to expand the space of
consciousness, the person experiences relief. Even euphoria, if this expansion is
significant.

III

The unconscious is not to be searched for, it is all around. Contrary to the high opinion of
our technogenic civilisation about the great knowledge it possesses, the area illuminated
by our consciousness is very small. Yes, it is known how a nuclear reaction works, so
what? The basic ontological questions that Ecclesiastes asked unsuccessfully are
insoluble. Who we are, what happens to us personally, in us and around us in reality –
we do not know, we can only see the facade of phenomena and how it changes from
time to time.

The border of this space illuminated by consciousness passes in front of the nose, and
what is beyond this border? The things of this world are visible to the concrete individual
because they are illuminated by the light of his consciousness; but the fact that they are
illuminated from some side does not change the fact that they are themselves darkness,
that is, the unconscious. In this sense, every cat man meets on the way to the
supermarket is a door to the unconscious.

The unconscious of a person is the whole world, visible to him from his private position in
this world. We can answer the question "Where is the unconscious located?": There it is,
in front of our eyes. It is unique, because a person’s place in the world is unique, and at
the same time a person shares it (both the place and the unconscious) with other people.
The unconscious is hidden behind the facade of numerous objects – people, their
communities, physical devices, cosmic bodies, ideologies – living their own, unknown to
us life. It affects us through these objects, through our contact with them, both visible and
invisible, unconscious. In its power potential, this unconscious immeasurably exceeds
the potential of our will, our active Self.

"Now that I can understand!" Noonan said. "At least that explains the mysterious activity
in the ruins of the factory. By the way, your picnic doesn’t explain it."
"Why doesn’t it?" Valentine objected. "One of the girls could have forgotten her favorite
wind-up teddy bear on the meadow…"
"Just skip it," Noonan said decisively. "That’s some teddy bear. The earth around it is
shaking! On the other hand, maybe it is somebody’s teddy. How about a beer?"