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There are plenty of times in the day or night where we may be "thinking" about things but not attending to our thoughts very much or at all, such as while dream

There are plenty of times in the day or night where we may be "thinking" about things but not attending to our thoughts very much or at all, such as while dreaming or zoning out while driving. Actually, driving itself is a great example of a complex activity that requires very little conscious oversight. While driving, you can suddenly realize you have no recollection of the last ten minutes. If your brain can drive "unconsciously," surely it can work on a problem unconsciously; after all, you've been thinking longer than you've been driving. Moreover, you can be driving home from work after a hard day, and your brain can switch back and forth between emotional processing of your day and keeping an eye on the road, and you can still have that feeling where you can't remember the last ten minutes. None of this contradicts the idea that your brain can only work on one problem at a time, but the overall thesis of the essay only works by blurring different concepts together under the terms "thought" and "consciousness." Let's distinguish between these different brain/mind functions: 1) Parallel, perceptual work (like recognizing an image) 2) Serial, conceptual work (problem-solving, "thought") 3) Verbal, narrative mental occurrences ("thoughts") 4) Conscious awareness Cognitive behavioral therapy demonstrates that (3) doesn't imply (4) as much as you'd think; you can have a verbal thought very rapidly that you are at most dimly aware of and immediately forget. Rather than implicating consciousness awareness in a wide range of mental activities extending all the way to problem-solving (2), I would say that most things the brain can do with awareness it can also do without awareness. Those of us familiar with non-verbal "thinking" as we solve a problem know that (2) doesn't imply (3), either. Meanwhile, the thesis of the essay seems to require that (2) implies (4), which is quite a stretch.

crazygringo 8y ago
> If your brain can drive "unconsciously," surely it can work on a problem unconsciously; after all, you've been thinking longer than you've been driving. I don't think that follows -- driving is a habitually developed skill which we know can be done unconsciously, while "working on a problem" has nothing to do with habits or skills, and it's hard to argue that kind of symbolic manipulation can be done unconsciously. In your framework of 1-4, I agree that (3) doesn't always imply (4) because we can produce language out of habit/instinct rather than thought (yelling a curse word involuntarily). But I find it hard to believe how (2) wouldn't always imply (4). But perhaps this is semantics -- from my understanding, (2) and (4) are merely different terms for the same thing, each implies the other. We're almost always solving some problem at each point during the day and therefore consciously aware -- and when occasionally we're not, that's when we daydream or space out and lose conscious awareness.
- dgreensp 8y ago
  Brains don’t solve problems by manipulating symbols. None of these layers are intended to be synonymous. Meditation is basically 4 and 1, with 2 and 3 coming and going. Driving is intended to be an example of just 1 and 2. Saying that driving is a “skill” and “we know it can be done unconsciously” suggests to me that other skills can be done unconsciously, too. A lot happens in ten minutes of driving; options are weighed and decisions made. Music composition and doing mathematics (stopping short of the actual symbols) are also habitually developed skills over years of regular practice. Edit: I just remembered that Jonathan Blow reports programming “unconsciously” in the same manner as the driving example. Also, on a good day my consciousness is not devoted to “problem-solving” every second of the day; that would be miserable. I don’t see why conscious awareness is seen as so necessary for thought, the only explanation for me being that many people experience themselves as being their thoughts and not their awareness. It is a journey many of us are on.
  - red75prime 8y ago
    Without the symbols you have a big somewhat structured blob of experiences. It's apparently enough for hunting, mating and the like. It is apparently not enough for being the most technologically advanced species. [0] is of interest here. Ildefonso didn't like to talk about his life without language and called it dark. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words

crazygringo 8y ago

> If your brain can drive "unconsciously," surely it can work on a problem unconsciously; after all, you've been thinking longer than you've been driving. I don't think that follows -- driving is a habitually developed skill which we know can be done unconsciously, while "working on a problem" has nothing to do with habits or skills, and it's hard to argue that kind of symbolic manipulation can be done unconsciously. In your framework of 1-4, I agree that (3) doesn't always imply (4) because we can produce language out of habit/instinct rather than thought (yelling a curse word involuntarily). But I find it hard to believe how (2) wouldn't always imply (4). But perhaps this is semantics -- from my understanding, (2) and (4) are merely different terms for the same thing, each implies the other. We're almost always solving some problem at each point during the day and therefore consciously aware -- and when occasionally we're not, that's when we daydream or space out and lose conscious awareness.

dgreensp 8y ago
Brains don’t solve problems by manipulating symbols. None of these layers are intended to be synonymous. Meditation is basically 4 and 1, with 2 and 3 coming and going. Driving is intended to be an example of just 1 and 2. Saying that driving is a “skill” and “we know it can be done unconsciously” suggests to me that other skills can be done unconsciously, too. A lot happens in ten minutes of driving; options are weighed and decisions made. Music composition and doing mathematics (stopping short of the actual symbols) are also habitually developed skills over years of regular practice. Edit: I just remembered that Jonathan Blow reports programming “unconsciously” in the same manner as the driving example. Also, on a good day my consciousness is not devoted to “problem-solving” every second of the day; that would be miserable. I don’t see why conscious awareness is seen as so necessary for thought, the only explanation for me being that many people experience themselves as being their thoughts and not their awareness. It is a journey many of us are on.
- red75prime 8y ago
  Without the symbols you have a big somewhat structured blob of experiences. It's apparently enough for hunting, mating and the like. It is apparently not enough for being the most technologically advanced species. [0] is of interest here. Ildefonso didn't like to talk about his life without language and called it dark. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words