mind over matter

«It is by means of reflexiveness—the turning back of the experience of
the individual upon himself—that the whole social process is thus
brought into the experience of the individuals involved in it; it is by
such means, which enable the individual to take the attitude of the
other toward himself, that the individual is able consciously to adjust
himself to that process, and to modify the resultant of that process in
any given social act in terms of his adjustment to it. Reflexiveness,
then, is the essential condition, within the social process, for the
development of mind.» - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mead/

By "mind" here, Mead means something very particular --

«Mentality on our approach simply comes in when the organism is able to
point out meanings to others and to himself.»

What we could understand is that there is a reality of social
programming -- and another parallel reality of non-signifying
experience. Surely, we have an awareness of non-meaningful experience.
For example, I am sitting on a chair, but this is not a meaning, it is
an act; it is only made "social" by me writing about it.

Students and followers could get confused by this. It's interesting
that Jung takes a similar view of language and the mind, whereas
Burroughs, for example, takes a rather different view:

«The soft machine is the human body under constant siege from a vast
hungry host of parasites with many names but one nature being hungry and
one intention to eat. If I may borrow the lingo of Herr Doctor Freud
while continuing to deplore the spread of his couch no one does more
harm than folks feel bad about doing it 'Sad Poison Nice Guy' more
poison than nice -- what Freud calls the 'id' is a parasitic invasion of
the hypothalamus and since the function of the hypothalamus is to
regulate metabolism... 'Only work here me.' 'Under new management.'
What Freud calls the 'super ego' is probably a parasitic occupation of
the mid brain where the 'rightness' centers may be located and by
'rightness' I mean where 'you' and 'I' used to live before this 'super
ego' moved in room on the top floor if my memory serves. Since the
parasites occupy brain areas they are in a position to deflect research
from 'dangerous channels'. Apomorphine acts on the hypothalamus to
regulate metabolism and its dangers to the parasitic inhabitants of
these brain areas can be readily appreciated. You see junk is death,
the oldest 'visitor' in the Industry.»

Junk... heh