quote · Legacy record
The heart is a muscle. You 'know' in your limbic system. The seat of instinct. The mammalian brain. Deeper, wider, beyond logic. That is where advertising works, not in the upstart cortex. What we think of as 'mind' is only a sort of jumped-up gland, piggybacking on the reptilian brainstem and the older, mammalian mind, but our culture tricks us into recognizing it as all of consciousness. The mammalian spreads continent-wide beneath it, mute and muscular, attending its ancient agenda. And makes it buy things.
The heart is a muscle. You 'know' in your limbic system. The seat of instinct. The mammalian brain. Deeper, wider, beyond logic. That is where advertising works, not in the upstart cortex. What we think of as 'mind' is only a sort of jumped-up gland, piggybacking on the reptilian brainstem and the older, mammalian mind, but our culture tricks us into recognizing it as all of consciousness. The mammalian spreads continent-wide beneath it, mute and muscular, attending its ancient agenda. And makes it buy things.
Approximate author period: c. 1948 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- William Gibson
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
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- Approximate author period: c. 1948 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1948; activity date not established; Wikidata Q188987, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q188987 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 120462; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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