The Cerebral Code

by William H. Calvin · first published 1996

The Cerebral Code proposes a bold new theory for how Darwin's evolutionary processes could operate in the brain, improving ideas on the time scale of thought and action. Jung said that dreaming goes on continuously but you can't see it when you're awake, just as you can't see the stars in the daylight because it is too bright. Calvin's is a theory for what goes on, hidden from view by the glare of waking mental operations, that produces our peculiarly human consciousness and versatile intelligence. Shuffled memories, no better than the jumble of our nighttime dreams, can evolve subconsciously