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I'd go even further: our conscious minds are a lot less capable than we care to believe. The vast majority of our actions are unconscious. Think of all the unco

I'd go even further: our conscious minds are a lot less capable than we care to believe. The vast majority of our actions are unconscious. Think of all the unconscious things that we are doing moment to moment, heart beating, breathing, thinking. Have you ever found yourself using the bathroom w/out having consciously decided to do so? How much of the day is stimulus->response w/out any conscious course correction?

brookst 4y ago
Can I take it further? The line between unconscious and conscious is not black and white, it’s a gradient. “We” live way up in the narrative-making world, but there is plenty of conscious activity going on below that. Still tons of reasoning, logic, planning, just no (or less) self-reflection and story telling. That’s why practicing a sport leads to improvement — those lower-level aspects of our consciousness get to practice and then the analytical mind gives feedback and direction, but when it comes time to really perform it is always better to stop the narrator and let those (still very conscious!) aspects do their thing.
- Symmetry 4y ago
  In terms of actions I'd agree that the line between conscious volition and instinctual seems pretty blurry. But in terms of experience it seems like there's a pretty sharp line between conscious experiences and subliminal ones with stimuli just below a threshold acting very differently from stimuli crossing it. As an example, people with Blindsight lose the ability to consciously access what they see but they don't lose the ability to see. They can still reach out and grab something in front of them but they can't tell you verbally it's there. And if they close their eyes they can't remember where it was and grab it based on that like most people can, information that doesn't reach the level of consciousness fades from the brain almost immediately but information that enters your consciousness can persist over time.

brookst 4y ago

Can I take it further? The line between unconscious and conscious is not black and white, it’s a gradient. “We” live way up in the narrative-making world, but there is plenty of conscious activity going on below that. Still tons of reasoning, logic, planning, just no (or less) self-reflection and story telling. That’s why practicing a sport leads to improvement — those lower-level aspects of our consciousness get to practice and then the analytical mind gives feedback and direction, but when it comes time to really perform it is always better to stop the narrator and let those (still very conscious!) aspects do their thing.

Symmetry 4y ago
In terms of actions I'd agree that the line between conscious volition and instinctual seems pretty blurry. But in terms of experience it seems like there's a pretty sharp line between conscious experiences and subliminal ones with stimuli just below a threshold acting very differently from stimuli crossing it. As an example, people with Blindsight lose the ability to consciously access what they see but they don't lose the ability to see. They can still reach out and grab something in front of them but they can't tell you verbally it's there. And if they close their eyes they can't remember where it was and grab it based on that like most people can, information that doesn't reach the level of consciousness fades from the brain almost immediately but information that enters your consciousness can persist over time.