Is the Brain a Calculating Machine? 149 



exclaimed that she heard voices late at night and that she saw the 'big 

 wagons they used to haul the animals (of a circus) in\ 



Eleven minutes later, the original point 1 1 was sthnulated again. 

 She no longer heard the mother calling her little boy. Instead she 

 heard 'the voices of people calling from building to building*. 



Later still, when a coated electrode was inserted at 17 so as to 

 stimulate the first temporal convolution deep down in the fissure of 

 Sylvius, she said, 'I had ... a familiar memory, in an oflBice somewhere. 

 I could see the desks. I was there, and someone was calling to me, a 

 man leaning on a desk with a pencil in his hand'. 



Dr Penfield concludes that there is in the brain a permanent record 

 of the stream of consciousness, which is preserved in amazing detail. 

 The detail cannot be recalled to the memory by voluntary effort. All 

 that can be recalled as a rule are rather vague generalizations and 

 summaries of the previous experiences. Yet these are sufficient for 

 recognition, for example, of persons or scenes one has seen before. 



