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"..since the unconscious understands language perfectly well or it would not understand the problem in the first place, why doesnt it simply answer Kekulé’s que

"..since the unconscious understands language perfectly well or it would not understand the problem in the first place, why doesnt it simply answer Kekulé’s question with something like: “Kekulé, it’s a bloody ring.” Perhaps because the unconscious doesn't understand language? Perhaps it just accesses data structures compiled down from language?

DiggyJohnson 5y ago
My thoughts precisely: Humans are animals. Humans minds that operate on the conscious and unconscious levels. Both are involved in reasoning and thinking in the human mind. Language is clearly used at the conscious level; it is not so clearly used by the unconscious component of the mind. Non-human animals (animals) have minds similar to humans. These minds have the ability to at least work unconsciously. We do not see human-like language (I’m well read on all cases of talking apes and birds) in the animal kingdom. We do see at least unconscious reasoning in the animals, more and more often surpassing our expectations on the complexity of animal behavior. I hypothesize that the conscious mind is the instantiation of language, and our experience of being conscious is somehow an emergent property of this instantiation of language, and our ability to project information into the future. Something like our mind’s realization in the value of reasoning about information, rather than acting on filtered sense input alone. “I think, therefor I am.” Think=think consciously. This assumes the possibility of a gradient of consciousness. And I don’t claim that this is an explanation for consciousness, but rather narrowing the story for where it might exist or emerge. ”Edmund Leach once suggested that what unites all human beings is not that they are in possession of an immortal soul, but they are capable of imagining that they are. Perhaps (aside from the part about ‘immortality’) these are not such altogether different things.“

DiggyJohnson 5y ago

My thoughts precisely: Humans are animals. Humans minds that operate on the conscious and unconscious levels. Both are involved in reasoning and thinking in the human mind. Language is clearly used at the conscious level; it is not so clearly used by the unconscious component of the mind. Non-human animals (animals) have minds similar to humans. These minds have the ability to at least work unconsciously. We do not see human-like language (I’m well read on all cases of talking apes and birds) in the animal kingdom. We do see at least unconscious reasoning in the animals, more and more often surpassing our expectations on the complexity of animal behavior. I hypothesize that the conscious mind is the instantiation of language, and our experience of being conscious is somehow an emergent property of this instantiation of language, and our ability to project information into the future. Something like our mind’s realization in the value of reasoning about information, rather than acting on filtered sense input alone. “I think, therefor I am.” Think=think consciously. This assumes the possibility of a gradient of consciousness. And I don’t claim that this is an explanation for consciousness, but rather narrowing the story for where it might exist or emerge. ”Edmund Leach once suggested that what unites all human beings is not that they are in possession of an immortal soul, but they are capable of imagining that they are. Perhaps (aside from the part about ‘immortality’) these are not such altogether different things.“