Razer is right that the idea of a subconscious is off topic in the "Reversed Memories"
thread. Yet this idea persists and permeates many threads.

It would seem that this is a vitally important discussion since peoples' actions are al-
ways predicated on their beliefs and untold millions of people since the early 20th cen-
tury believe they have a subconscious to which they aren't answerable and guides
their actions and beliefs. They explain themselves in terms of internal mechanisms
invented by Freud or others.

So what say ye? Is there a coherant self or selves of some sort at the root of your per-
sonality or driving your actions or emotions? Can you become familiar with them (it)?

Freud theorized 3 layers to human consciousness: the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious.

The unconscious is what people mix up with the sub concious. It most definitely does exist, as has been proven by things like hypnosis, subliminal advertising, and repressed memories. I personally believe there are even more than 3 layers, each layer affecting the others. There is no doubt we regularly think thoughts that we conscously don't realize we are thinking.

I'd partially agree that there are thoughts of which we aren't conscious but I'd disagree that
they are in any way determined by a coherant or discreet process.

Hypnosis proves nothing since even simple life forms can hypnotize or be hypnotized. Sub-
liminal advertising simply works sometimes because it is possible to put ideas in people's
heads without them being aware of it.

There's no doubt that the brain and its working are extremely complicated in man and all an-
imals. There is great doubt that Freud's non-scientific ranting has anything to do with anything.
Yet, this idea of a separate subconscious seems to have originated with him.

People remember alot of mental subconscious events after they wake up from a coma. They could be planting things in their own head. Memory loss?

think of the counsciousness as: the top counsciousness-the part of the mind that "you" are in and communicate to the outside world with. its counsciouss of things at the physical level we are used to and can see with the naked eye. then theres the middle counsciousness. this is what i think is what people commonly refer to as the subcounsciouss, unconsciouss or whatever. it controls stuff like your dreams, the little voice that tells you right from wrong based on your views that youve collected over the years, its where your memories are, its where the true you with your true beleifs resides and can even sometimes get lost as we develop our top counsciouss. but then theres the lower counsciouss which i think might be able to be separated into two groups or one thats not limited to the brain. this is the counsciousness of the things that make you up, its aware on the molecular and atom sized stuff level and controls your cells and your dna. i think of it as our dnas counsciousness as a whole, or our whole species counsciousness as if our whole species is just one organism with us being like the equvelent of cells or the inner workings of the inside of the cell. these are the 3 counsciousness you have that reside on the inside of what you remember as you. the lower is where we start our life in our mothers woumb. we arent used to thinking like this and cant remember this time because this is when we're living as a clump of cells, a clump of individuals aware as individuals. this is before we're aware of ourselfs as a whole single thing but as a group of different things. then our middle counsciousness develops and we start being aware of ourselfs as a whole and start having thoughts about our existence. with the creation of the middle counsciousness we start losing direct contact with our lower selfs and only aware of them by them sending us signals to keep them sustained. we recive these signals as wants and needs and feelings and stuff. things we just need. but since we are still in our moms woumb and not in contact with the outside world and aware oof other organisms,we wont start developing our top counsciousness yet. we dont need to know how to communicate with others or know how to fit in with others yet. so our middle counscious is sort of the bridge from our lower physicalselfs to our higher physical selfs and the outside. these are the 3 basic inner counsciousnessess that are necesary to acknowledge, some of the other counsciousnessess that we are connected to are on the outside of us and are made from us infinitly in the steps upward and infinetly in the steps downward. thats how i break down the counsciousness's anyway.

I had my say on the subconscious in the original thread. I just wanted to express some concern with the thought expressed in the OP, that people believe they are not responsible/answerable for their subconscious. With very few exceptions, our actions can only be driven by our conscious mind. Thus it does not really matter what our subconscious "thinks". Perhaps if conscious thought is almost completely repressed by drugs and/or alcohol you might approach subconscious decision making, but again your body would no longer have the motor control( which comes from conscious thought), to act on your subconscious desires. Thus it is true that we should not feel guilt, or be held responsible for our dreams, which are a product of our sub conscious mental processing, but our dreams cannot harm ourselves or others unless they are consciously acted upon. We are responsible for all actions consciously acted upon. A better argument is that some actions are programmed genetically such as the adrenaline rush wich accompanies the fight or flight syndrome. Again, while some allowance can be made for this in evaluating peoples' actions, I personally believe that we still must be held accountable for the conscious decisions we make even in such situations.
The law does make some allowance for such situations in certain jurisdictions. For example, if you encounter an intruder in South Australia, and are in genuine fear for you safety, you may act to protect yourself. The law does not say the fear has to be reasonable , or your actions what a reasonable person may take. If you can show that you were in fear, this is accepted as grounds for protective actions you may take. For once the law reflects science and common sense.

Good read, even without the punctuation and run-on sentenses. I'm assuming you didn't make all that up yourself, what is(are) the basis of you theory? I'd like to read more on it. I've heard several "collective conscience" theories, which would be the "lower conscience" you described. All animals seem to have this. It's like somehow animals are born knowing basically how they fit in nature. Ever see March of the Penguins? They all do the exact same thing every year almost as a society, as if they are directed by someone or something...a collective conscience perhaps.

I know there are a lot of reasons people have theorized a collective conscience for mankind, and they correlate with the same reasons one could theorize a collective conscience among any species, such as the penguin. Definitely something I'd like to learn more about.

well i did make all that up myself and the basis of my theory was actually just a different way of explaining a part of a somewhat braoder theory i have about what i think the universe is.

edit: and your almost seeing things right in that you see theres a collective counsciousness for penguins too. but you gotta remember that the next major step downwards would be the DNA counsciousness, the counsciousness that is at the bottom of all animals who reproduce through DNA. this (DNA) is the thing that whatever true counscious thought uses to make itself appear in the physical, and, for some reason, to stay in the physical for as long as possible it seems. to do this it creates itself in a form that enables it to keep repeating life in as many different ways possible until it finds the form that bests survives the physicalness around it. and it seems that it already knew how physical things are, forever changing and constantly moving, because the form it created itself in is a form that allows itself to change and move constantly too.

Doesn't seem like this thread is getting much use. Care to post some of your theory of the universe?

It was probably ill considered. People believe in this just about without question.

If I believed it were an unimportant point then I'd ignore it but I doubt it is unim-
portant. Ideas have a nasty habit of undepinning all of our actions and this is a
very fundamental concept to individuals.

Most people try to do what's right and always have tried to do what's right but this
belief can affect us and our decisions very directly. It tends to elevate the stray
thoughts which go through our heads to a sort of verdict from on high or from the
deepest recesses of our minds even when they are no more than stray thoughts. It
can provide a handy excuse for any sort of behavior before or after the fact. It can
be used to deflect blame for bad outcomes in ourselves and in others.

The 20th century was a hedonistic period of irresponsibility. It was marked by reg-
ular genocide and murder on mass scale. We've had more Caligulas ruling more
countries. Mind control, propoganda, and advertising have come to take the place
of right, reason, and quality. Many institutions worldwide have come to be hollow,
without substance. People are more concerned with their hair or talking on their cell
phone than driving carefully or interacting with the people around them.

So was this hedonism caused by a belief in the subconscious? The ties may appear
tenuous to most but it wouldn't be surprising that a theory developed by a man rack-
ed with guilt might become a crutch for others if it's widely accepted.

My half hearted defense of the premise is much of the reason the thread is so weak.
The defense is half hearted because it was probably the wrong tack. People rarely
take this point seriously so it's doesn't seem to get a lot of input.

Perhaps I'll try it from another angle later.

Much of what people do and are is not conscious.

It's not only that most of the sensory input from inside and outside remains
outside of consciousness but our motivation is not really conscious either.
Just as a sparrow gathers twigs to build a nest and doesn't know what direc-
tion it will go on its next journey, we are constantly making decisions about
our actions and don't have the time to analyze every little detail before or
afterward. Even larger decisions are often performed as a sort of mental
flip of the coin. Our morals, judgements, and knowledge come to play even
when we don't think about them. As proof consider that you can't get a nor-
mal person to commit murder even under hypnosis. People don't review all
the advertising in their heads before choosing between Del Monte and Heinz.
They might consider taste, price, or the desires of other users of the product
first and foremost or they might weigh all the factors. Most shoppers seem to
tend to just grab the closest or flashiest.

An animal trapped between two equally unpleasant choices will tend to end up
midway between them. People aren't really any different except that most of
us in the last hundred years accept the belief that our being is made up of more
than one discreet consciousness and that we have limited access to all but one.

In point of fact most of what people do is mere habit. Even thought tends to
be no more than habit. Watch an extremely intelligent person lose his brain
to alzheimers disease. They can still carry on an intelligent conversation even
in the later stages. We don't usually decide to drive a route home from work
each night we simply drive the route we've always taken. (at least so long as
it's possible). Speech is a habit, just a complicated habit much as is thought
and all the things we do frequently. Remember the difficulty you had learning
to tie your shoelaces? Imagine if every decision had to be made with no habits
of thought or actions. Muscle memory, plastic memory, and habit are what de-
fines all life more than intelligence or even consciousness.

Are you sure it's habit? There is a type of memory called procedural memory - eg you don't need to think about how to ride a bicycle (once you've learnt to ride), whereas habit would be eg always pushing off with the left foot (you could push off with either foot and still ride the bike). However, if you wanted to you could still run through the process of riding a bike in your head (ie it is consciously accessible).

Maybe I should sleep on this before giving an opinion.

Most of what goes on in your head is consciously available but much of it
is not easily accessed as are consciousness and most memory. Hard won
concepts and abilities act as though they are coalesced into "pockets" which
are available for linear thinking. A simple thought like "I am hungry, I'll eat cereal"
is a series of processes which is pure habit. It starts with a sensation from the
lower brain that a condition of emptiness exists in the stomach. It is immediately
recognized that the person "I" is in this state "hungry" and that there is "cereal"
available and is the desired solution. Each of these constitutes a nearly discrete
idea which the brain doesn't need to recreate each time your stomach sends a
hunger pang. These "attention pockets" are the complex ideas or behaviors
which are processed as thought. We not only have access to them but they virtually
determine our consciousness. If we buy a Dodge truck then suddenly we start no-
ticing almost every Dodge truck on the road. If we study engineering then much
of what we see are the technical aspects of engineering. Even everyday events
will often be looked at from an engineering perspective. Gamers will see Tetris
blocks falling even in their sleep.

We have to be able to access these attention pockets to tweek them or compare
them to other peoples'. It is usually necessary to be fully or mostly conscious of
them to teach them to others. Frequently those parts which aren't accessable con-
sciously are simple "muscle memory"; you don't know quite how you do something
but you can show someone. With practice, they can learn it as well. We'll find that
with many of these activities that thinking about them will actually disrupt the ability.

The concept of a subconscious is just another attention pocket. There's no need for
it to physically exist any more than a Tetris block but if we believe in it then we can
process our thoughts through it or use it as a step in our thinking.

One should always be careful what one believes because it does constitute our
thinking and our very nature.

who you talkin to, me?

indeed i was

This is a very interesting topic.

I believe that we are all born with free will; however, I heard it said that we are multidimensional beings --being the sum of all of the aspects of our past lives. So I believe that sometimes there is what is called a "bleedthrough" of one of these past aspects, and that is what I believe could drive or "motivate" our actions or emotions.

I believe we do have a subconscious mind, and that is what connects us to the Superconscious. According to himalayan.com, The superconscious mind is "the mind of light," of omniscient knowing, omnipresent awareness, pure consciousness, truth and love. Within the individual, it is one of the five states of mind: conscious, subconscious, sub-subconscious, sub-superconscious and superconscious.

Candace Pert, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and one of the interviewees in the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" has a CD titled: "Your Body Is Your Subconscious Mind".

The mind is not a simple thing.

It is logical to believe that to a large extent it is determined largely by
the structure of the brain. It's also true the the mind is exceedingly flex-
inble. Almost anything can come to be seen as normal.

What we think and believe is a complex interplay between structure, our
desires, and our experiences. We can not escape the results of the struc-
ture of the brain and individuals will experience this very similarly. Our de-
sires are critical since they determine what we experience and are part of
the nature of the individual. We can no more choose to believe in something
which we don't want to than to choose a product we don't want or select food
we don't like. Experience is critical because this is one of the greatest teach-
ers. Experience also drives us to avoid or be attracted to things.

There is, apparently, something in the very structure of the brain which leads
us to believe in something greater than ourselves. Religious people will say
this is a god and others might say it is truth or beauty. At the heart it doesn't
matter if we are created in the image of a god or He is created in our image.

Most people when asked where their consciousness is will point at about the
same spot in their head as others. Obviously there is no single location for
consciousness. The little guy watching the cameras is in the back of the head
in the visual cortex but we don't experience ourselves in this location. The fact
is that even the most basic forms of life have a consciousness so why should
we assume that the complex limbs and organs of the body don't have some
low level consciousness? We can't consciously communicate with our spleen
and we have very different goals and levels of consciousness and intelligence.
There are some very complicated nervous structures for our limbs. Muscle
memory is most probably far more than mere plastic memory.

I'm not suggesting that the body is the subconscious, I'm just suggesting that
parts of the bodies do impact our mind and thinking albeit indirectly. There are
components of being which are beneath consciousness and these are among them.

But there is still no discreet consciousness with which we have real communication.