Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard Read Free Book Online Page A

Man enriched, can be envisioned as a special function, independent in operation and in no way dependent for its existence upon an aberrated condition in the individual, since the examination of its activity in and use by a clear possessing adequately demonstrates its inherent character. It is rarely absent in any individual.
    Finally, there is the last but most important activity of the mind. Man is to be regarded as a sentient being. His sentience depends upon his ability to resolve problems by perceiving or creating and understanding situations. This rationality is the primary, high echelon function of that part of the mind which makes him a Man, not just another animal. Remembering, perceiving, imagining, he has the signal ability of resolving conclusions and of using conclusions resolved to resolve further conclusions. This is rational Man.
    Rationality, as divorced from aberration, can be studied in a cleared person only. The aberrations of the aberree give him the appearance of irrationality. Though such irrationality may be given the gentler names of “eccentricity” or “human error” or even “personal idiosyncrasy,” it is, nevertheless, irrationality. The personality does not depend upon how irrationally a man may act. It is not a personality trait, for instance, to drive while drunk and kill a child on a crosswalk -- or even to risk killing a child by driving while drunk. Irrationality is simply that -- the inability to get right answers from data.
    Now it is a curious thing that although “everybody knows” (and what a horrible amount of misinformation that statement lets circulate) it is “human to err,” the sentient portion of the mind which computes the answers to problems and which makes man Man is utterly incapable of error.
    This was a startling discovery when it was made, but it need not have been. It could have been deduced some time before. For it is quite simple and easy to understand. The actual computing ability of Man is never in error even in a very severely aberrated person. Observing the activity of such an aberrated person, one might thoughtlessly suppose that that person’s computations were wrong. But that would be an observer error. Any person, aberrated or clear, computes perfectly on the data stored and perceived.
    Take any common calculating machine (and the mind is an exceptionally magnificent instrument far, far superior to any machine it will invent for ages to come) and put a problem on it for solution. Multiply seven times one. It will answer, properly, seven. Now multiply six times one but continue to hold down the seven. Six times one is six but the answer you will get is forty-two. Continue to hold down seven and put other problems on the machine. They are wrong, not as problems, but as answers. Now fix seven so that it stays down no matter what keys are touched and try to give the machine away. Nobody will want it because, obviously, the machine is crazy. It says ten times ten is seven hundred. But is the calculating portion of the machine really wrong or is it merely being fed the wrong data?
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    In the same way the human mind, being called upon to resolve problems of a magnitude and with enough variables to confound any mere calculating machine a thousand times an hour, is prey to incorrect data. Incorrect data gets into the machine. The machine gives wrong answers. Incorrect data enters the human memory banks, the person reacts in an
    “abnormal manner.” Essentially, then, the problem of resolving aberration is the problem of finding a “held-down seven.” But of that much, much more, later. Right now we have accomplished our immediate ends.
    These are the various abilities and activities of the human mind in its constant task of resolving and putting into solution a multitude of problems. It perceives, it recalls or returns, it imagines, it conceives and then resolves. Served by its extensions -- the perceptics and the memory banks and the imaginations -- the