In the Metapsychological papers where Freud (1915a) propounds his first theory of mind, he develops the topological/topographical distinction between three dimensions of Mind : Consciousness , the Preconscious , and the Unconscious which he respectively abbreviated as (1) Pcpt.-Cs.; (2) Pcs.-Cs.; and (3) Ucs. The problem of perception was central to Freudâs first theory of mind. Freud conceived of the mind as having an unlimited receptive capacity for new perceptions and at the same time as having the capacity to lay down permanent memory traces of perceptions that become a seedbed or storehouse for new and repeated experience. The storehouse determines how the world is perceived, and at the same time is open to change thanks to the first system that remains open to new experience. He divided these two functions between two and three systems.
Measured by this standard, devices to aid our memory seem particularly imperfect, since our mental apparatus accomplishes precisely what they cannot: it has an unlimited receptive capacity for new perceptions and nevertheless lays down permanentâeven though not unalterableâmemory-traces of them.As long ago as in 1900 I gave expression in The Interpretation of Dreams to a suspicion that this unusual capacity was to be divided between two different systems (or organs of the mental apparatus). According to this view, we possess a system Pcpt.Cs., which receives perceptions but retains no permanent trace of them, so that it can react like a clean sheet to every new perception; while the permanent traces of the excitations which have been received are preserved in âmnemic systemsâ lying behind the perceptual system. (Freud , 1925)
Pcpt.-Cs. (Perception consciousness ) is like a clear or empty transparent sheet/state that allows us to perceive the world in its pristine purity despite the fact that we have concepts and language to represent what we see and hear. Language and concepts (logic and numbers) are laid down in the first mnemic system known as the Pcs. or Pcs.Cs. (Preconscious conscious) since its contents are easily accessible to consciousness but are not in Pcpt.Cs. all the time.
To perceive there must be an empty layer (a clear sheet) that could receive impressions from the world without remaining saturated by the contents of the mind that already exist. There is an empty dimension of the mind that receives impressions but does not retain them and does not retain a representation even of itself, thus the metaphor of a transparent sheet that functions as a glass or membrane, more than a mirror. Writing , or memory functions on a layer or page beneath the covering sheet and it is where representations remain unless they are repressed, of course, in which case they disappear once again into the psyche in neurosis, and outside the psyche in psychoses.
What Freud calls a clean sheet is a metaphor for a psychical capacity, for a clear mind state or awareness that is the basis for listening and attention without interfering thoughts or memories or loud environmental stimuli. When we listen, we listen to the words and sounds, and the rest of our mind remains in the dark, in the background, as it were. We say this is the unconscious in a descriptive sense, all the words we know, or the memories and knowledge that we have that are capable of consciousness but that thanks to the clear state do not appear or interfere with conscious attention. The dynamic Freudian unconscious constitutes what within the Pcs.Ucs. (Preconscious Unconscious) has been repressed and cannot be brought back to consciousness by an effort of will.
The clear sheet, celluloid, or awareness that represents Pcpt.Cs. is a protective shield against excitation that is also a definition that Freud gave of the ego . However, Freud âs notion of the ego as a protective shield against stimuli or excitation highlights the defensive rather than the transparent function of the clear sheet. In the Metapsychology Freud first spoke of the perception-consciousness system (Pcpt.Cs.) and associated this clear sheet that does not retain impressions to consciousness and the state of being aware. This system or awareness as a clear state in the present moment without memory allows for the influx of new perceptions .
The Pcpt.Cs. and the Pcs.Cs. systems contain the awareness of new perceptions thanks to the clear transparent state of the mind, the acquisition of new impressions as a form of writing , and the protection provided by a shield against traumatic environmental stimuli (external world). The shield is also used against the disruption produced by perceptions and memories already laid down in the psyche that may threaten the clear sheet from within.
It remains unclear whether it is the transparent sheet that provides protection (the Pcpt.Cs. system), or the Pcs.Cs. system that tells us how and where to focus attention: âAttention!â A shield is not a celluloid sheet or a clear state although the latter can also inoculate us against external or internal perceptions by not retaining or holding on to them. In the Ego and the Id, Freud (1923) says that the Pcs.Cs. constitutes the nucleus of the ego. The ego is the protective shield (like the hardening surface of cheese) but secondary preconscious processes rule the ego more than the other way around as in the second formulation.
Freud also links the process of becoming aware or gaining consciousness to the awareness of feelings and thoughts that emerge within the subject. This corresponds to the Preconscious-Conscious (Pcs.Cs.) as distinguished from the Pcpt.Cs. system. Sometimes he also speaks of these as one and the same system. Memories or mnemic traces are contained both within the Pcs.Cs. and the unconscious (Ucs.). In addition, the Pcs. can also be considered Ucs. in a descriptive sense (the unrepressed Pcs.Ucs. system).
The defense involved in not retaining traces can be distinguished from the defense afforded by the Pcs.Cs. in the form of a stable receptacle of perceptions , memories, and modified thoughts that can also be used as a shield against the Ucs. and the surplus influx of stimuli and tension from without.
Lacan also uses the metaphor of a protective screen or more precisely the Symbolic order itself as a protective screen against the disruptive force of the Real as he initially conceived it. However, the Real is not the reality of the external world. The Real also refers to the Real of the drive and impulses emerging within the subject or subjectivity. Stimuli arise both from without and from within the subject. Finally, the Real is something empty of definition or that cannot be pinned down to a single definition.
In the case of the perceptual/conceptual system that is determined by the Pcs.Cs. more than the Pcp.Cs., it is difficult to distinguish between the external world and the external world as structured by language and perception . There is an aspect of the external world as das Ding or as things-in-themselves that remains outside the categories of perception . The âno-thing â is a form of non-perception or perception beyond the categories of perception . One could argue that this aspect of the Real also functions, as it were, as an empty movie screen on which we project our perceptions.
The screen of the Real in this sense facilitates the projective perception of a world and at the same time provides for a screening of the projection so that a constructive gap or hole can remain between perception as a construction of the social subject (or the Pcs.Ucs. system) and the Real of the things-in-themselves (the thing/no-thing ). In the same way that the clear state of the transparent sheet does not hold on to impressions, the screen of the Real cannot be reduced to the Symbolic and Imaginary lenses through which it is seen or perceived. The screen of the Real represents the enigmatic dimension of truth and jouissance that never ceases from not being written.
Bristow (2017, p. 39), in his book on Joyce and Lacan , points out that Joyce said, when discussing his masterpiece Ulysses, that a transparent sheet separated his work from madness. The transparent sheet allows Joyce to recognize the madness and call it madness but not fall into it. In the example of James Joyce, since the Symbolic Pcs.Cs. protective shield, otherwise known as traditional character, did not function to protect Joyce against the internal or external worlds, Joyce had to rely on the transparent sheet or the Pcpt.Cs. and the screen of the Real against the madness of the world and his own personal demons/delusions. He could not trust Christian education or Irish society to come to his aid.
What passes through the transparent sheet is both a sense object/word and not an object/word since there is no code or cipher there in the same way that there are words that do not stick to the screen of the Real because the screen of the Real remains empty despite serving as a basis for projections. The word that is not a word, or the concept that is not a concept, or the number that is not a number, become hollowed out words that represent the hallowed screen of the Real or the clear state.
The Energetics /Dynamics of Thought and the Signifier
Now what is the difference between Pcs. and Ucs. representations, between structures in high or low rates of change? Are they the same representations that go through a transformation of their energetic state (economic or functional hypothesis) where the representations are experienced in a different light or is it rather that there are two different inscriptions that co-exist (topical hypothesis)? In addition, does the passage from the Pcs. system to the Ucs. system abolish the presence of the representation in the first system?
To address these questions, I must first begin with the current relevance of the concept of energy in Freud âs work. Nowadays many see it as a dated physical concept of his time that reflected his attempt to conceive of psychoanalysis as a natural science. The concept of energy derived from thermodynamics is related to the psychodynamic and economic points of view within Freudâs theory. Economics, for example, refers to the amounts (quanta/quota/sum) of energy in circ...