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What if consciousness doesn't drive the mind?


Still Waters

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Everyone knows what it feels like to have consciousness: it’s that self-evident sense of personal awareness, which gives us a feeling of ownership and control over the thoughts, emotions and experiences that we have every day.

Most experts think that consciousness can be divided into two parts: the experience of consciousness (or personal awareness), and the contents of consciousness, which include things such as thoughts, beliefs, sensations, perceptions, intentions, memories and emotions.

It’s easy to assume that these contents of consciousness are somehow chosen, caused or controlled by our personal awareness – after all, thoughts don’t exist until until we think them. But in a new research paper in Frontiers of Psychology, we argue that this is a mistake.

https://theconversation.com/what-if-consciousness-is-not-what-drives-the-human-mind-86785

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“we don’t consciously choose our thoughts or our feelings – we become aware of them.”   Quote taken from the article.

As someone who has experienced phobic anxiety, I have often been in a situation where I have got panicky without being aware I was thinking negative thoughts, so the above makes a lot of sense in that respect.  Apparently the reptilian part of the brain reacts to stimuli in a shorter time than we take to formulate the thoughts that result.  Interesting article.

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This may be true to a certain degree, yet I am skeptical of the absolutist aspect of this.

I'd say the majority of our experiences are habitual, and habits don't require conscious direction. Yet not everything is habitual, and therefore again, I'm skeptical that conscious direction plays absolutely no role in our decision making.

This is basically just a perpetuation of the same materialist assumption that consciousness is generated by the brain.

 

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So, hypnotic suggestion can be seen as a means of communicating an idea or belief that, when accepted, has the power to alter a person’s perceptions or behaviour.

So this is just my thinking is that we're subconscious beings living consciously.....

Because the basis of occult practice is to reprogram the mind. Thus changing ourselves in the process. Perhaps the conscious is just the subconscious's way of experience the world, not the other way around. :hmm:

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"we don’t think that the phenomena of personal awareness has a purpose, in much the same way that rainbows do not."

I like it. Fits well with my dedicated nihilism. 

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"If the experience of consciousness does not confer any particular advantage, it’s not clear what it’s purpose is. But as a passive accompaniment to non-conscious processes, we don’t think that the phenomena of personal awareness has a purpose, in much the same way that rainbows do not. Rainbows simply result from the reflection, refraction and dispersion of sunlight through water droplets – none of which serves any particular purpose."  a little expansion of Podo's quote above I see.

This was a great article to generate thoughts and questions.   Aquila King seems correct that this is a purely materialistic approach and puts consciousness in the passenger seat instead of driving.   We are the ghost in the machine.  I wonder what implications this has for the development of AI.  Build the right sort of brain and consciousness will come?

Thanks Still Waters.

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“We suggest that our personal awareness does not create, cause or choose our beliefs, feelings or perceptions. Instead, the contents of consciousness are generated “behind the scenes” by fast, efficient, non-conscious systems in our brains. All this happens without any interference from our personal awareness, which sits passively in the passenger seat while these processes occur.”

My perception is about 180 degrees from theirs. It’s not a passive relationship; we’re responsible for the type of fuel we inject into our non-conscious systems, which in turn guide our conscious thoughts, and ultimately our behavior. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The concept of personality responsibility for our thought-life has been known for thousands of years.

Three books I recommend that, when taken together, give a healthier view of the control we have over non-conscious systems:

‘Inside the Criminal Mind’   by Stanton Samenow

‘The Gift of Fear’   by Gavin deBecker 

‘Blink’   by Malcolm Gladwell

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I see this as a 10% / 90% thing. The 10% is our conscious awareness. The system we use to explore the world/life. The 90% is our subconscious, where all the high powered processes occur. The automatic functions and conditioned responses.

Do not take this as a literal thing. Mostly its a guess.

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