ABSTRACT
The mathematical genius Henri Poincare described how his attempts to understand obscure entities called Fuchsian functions had ground to a halt until, engaged on unrelated business. The fact that we are sometimes surprised, even unnerved, to find a little tune in our mouths, is precisely because we are more accustomed to finding things that have arrived there courtesy of our deliberate efforts, either immediately or at some earlier time. Accident favours the prepared mind; the free gifts of subliminal consciousness, if relevant and useful, have to be earned by the conscious self. According to Daniel Dennett the entire mind is made of memes, which replicate themselves without regard to the welfare of the persons whose minds they occupy, seeking, like the selfish gene, only their own advantage. This will not worry materialists, the causal processes that shape the material world also operate on that bit of the material world that is the brain and therein finds its microcosmic replica.
