Algorithms of the Heart: A Fugue about Consciousness

In cybernetic psychology, consciousness is a network of complex systems. This chapter examines how we can understand the functioning and algorithms of consciousness, and how this understanding can be translated into a psychotherapeutic practice. The chapter is composed as a fugue with seven themes, each expressing an aspect – an algorithm – of consciousness. The first algorithm, wholeness, depicts consciousness as a phenomenon that includes both the so-called conscious and unconscious aspects of consciousness. The second algorithm, relations, describes the body, mind and matter as one entity, with consciousness as the ‘relating’ aspect of this entity. The third algorithm, integration, explores the ability of consciousness to integrate. Through integration, new systems emerge that incorporate the properties of prior systems. According to the fourth algorithm, organisation, consciousness is arranged in networks in which more complex levels have more information capacity and therefore the ability to regulate less complex levels. By communicating with these higher, more complex levels of organisation, using the language of consciousness, the power to learn and create can be activated. These are the fifth and sixth algorithms. The chapter concludes with the seventh algorithm, healing, which illustrates how cybernetic psychotherapy, by following the algorithms of the heart, can promote not only learning and creativity but also the healing powers of consciousness.