Thread: Conscious & Subconscious - An oversimplification?

I have conceptual problems with the idea that we can be "less conscious" of something. Granted, discussions of consciousness are plagued by definition problems, and--particularly in light of the recent thread on this issue--we should be mindful of that in this discussion. So with that in mind, I would advance the view that consciousness really is most fruitfully thought of as a binary quality: I either am or am not conscious of stimulus X at time T. Consciousness, on this view, is a function of mental attention, not a "part" of the mind at all. X may be near the periphery of my vision and hence harder to visually focus on, but on my view it doesn't follow from this that I am "less conscious" of X. If I am mentally attending to that X in my peripheral vision, then I am 100% conscious of X. If I am mentally attending to something else, then I am 0% conscious of X. Importantly, I can be conscious of things which are not perceptually before me at all, and unconscious of things which are perceptually before me.

Let me elaborate further. Consciousness, as I have said, comes down to mental attention, and attention is strictly all-or-nothing. When we speak, for example, of one paying "poor attention" to X, we do not mean that over a given course of time one allocated a constant 30% attention to X, a constant 50% attention to another thing, and a constant 10% attention to two other things. Rather, when we speak of one paying "poor attention" to X, we mean that over that given course of time we were allocating our full attention to X relatively infrequently (i.e., a total of 30% of the time), and allocating our full attention to things other than X relatively frequently (i.e., 70% of the time). The important difference between this view and my reading of your view is that whatever you are attending to--and hence conscious of--at any given time occupies 100% of your attention at that moment. Attending to, or being conscious of, multiple things is a result of frequently shifting our full attention from one thing to another thing. So in this sense, consciousness is a discrete and binary quality, and it doesn't make sense to say that you are "less conscious" of something at any given moment of time.

To speak just briefly to your final question about common viewpoints/common knowledge: the view that I've just articulated above is essentially the standard definition of consciousness within academic psychology.

(This might be a bit incomprehensible. I was formulating ideas while writing this, and I don't know if I explained my thoughts very well, so if something doesn't make sense at first, don't try too hard to make it.)

I think our definitions of consciousness are pretty much the same. I can become aware/conscious of something I'm not directly looking at it if I choose to. I take your point, and am not sure what stance to take on the matter now.

In a way I want to agree with you. In most cases, consciously focusing my awareness on something feels like a distinct state from any other points on the 'spectrum', and it seems there cannot be different levels of it. Right now, for example, my focus is on these ideas, on thinking about that focus itself and on formulating (I hope) coherent sentences.

I suppose the definition might actually be a problem. I'm having trouble coming up with a proper definition, and have restarted writing this paragraph about 15 times because the two ideas of consciousness keep seeming to contradict one another. First, there is the awareness that seems binary - either there or not - with which you focus your attention. Then, there is another definition of awareness/consciousness which is very similar. Perhaps it can be described by referring to choice - whether or not you are conscious of choosing to do something. I hesitate to bring up this example, but sometimes I find myself speaking aloud, only while alone, usually when I'm stressed or tired. I wouldn't say the choice to do it is made subconsciously, since I do somewhat decide with my awareness to speak. But I wouldn't call the choice consciously made either, since on another level, I often don't even comprehend what I've said until I hear myself talk. It's difficult to describe, but it seems a duality exists.

As said, I'm thinking about the ideas involved in writing this. But am I consciously paying attention to more mundane things involved like following the rules of grammar? It seems that on some level I am. While typing, every few words I read to myself the last few words I've typed to make sure they make grammatical sense. My awareness which you described, in some sense, seems definitely to be the one doing this, not the subconscious. But I honestly didn't even realize I did this until I started paying attention to it just now. I do it very quickly, out of habit, and the act seems to be performed with a combination of conscious and subconscious intent.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Then, there is another definition of awareness/consciousness which is very similar. Perhaps it can be described by referring to choice - whether or not you are conscious of choosing to do something. I hesitate to bring up this example, but sometimes I find myself speaking aloud, only while alone, usually when I'm stressed or tired. I wouldn't say the choice to do it is made subconsciously, since I do somewhat decide with my awareness to speak. But I wouldn't call the choice consciously made either, since on another level, I often don't even comprehend what I've said until I hear myself talk. It's difficult to describe, but it seems a duality exists.

As said, I'm thinking about the ideas involved in writing this. But am I consciously paying attention to more mundane things involved like following the rules of grammar? It seems that on some level I am. While typing, every few words I read to myself the last few words I've typed to make sure they make grammatical sense. My awareness which you described, in some sense, seems definitely to be the one doing this, not the subconscious. But I honestly didn't even realize I did this until I started paying attention to it just now. I do it very quickly, out of habit, and the act seems to be performed with a combination of conscious and subconscious intent.

The example about talking to yourself seems a little odd to me, but in general I think I know what you mean. I would not treat these phenomena in the same way that I treat consciousness/awareness; rather I would say that some acts or processes are "automatic" and some are "intentional." One of the reasons I think this distinction is worth making is because while consciousness seems to be a binary quality, as I elaborated previously, the difference between control and automaticity seems to be more of a gradient. That is, while I don't think it makes sense to say that I am "less conscious" of something, I do think it makes sense to say that some act or cognitive process is "less controlled" or "more automatic." Perhaps the defining difference between the two is that while consciousness refers to awareness, automaticity refers to whether a process can begin independent of my intention and to what extent I am able to inhibit that process once it has started.

Consciousness and intention seem to be conceptually orthogonal to one another. So I can be aware of a process, or the result of a process, which began outside of my intention, as when I have an automatic disgust reaction to a pile of feces. Clearly I don't have any intention to feel disgust, but I am nevertheless very conscious of the emotion. And I can be unaware of a process that began intentionally, as when I attempt to attempt to solve a difficult puzzle, give up, and then the solution spontaneously occurs to me some hours later while I am doing something else.

I'd go even further than the spectrum. You have ONE mind. Well... you have one, extremely complicated brain.

The whole "conscious vs unconscious" business is nothing more than a model of what's there. A useful model for a lot of applications. But yes, always remember that it IS just a model, and it's not like you really have two "parts"

@DuB I agree to your definitions, they seem reasonable, and under them we're in agreement. The 2 'versions' of consciousness seem reconciled now, thanks for the input.

@Replicon yes, good point.

DuB, I largely agree with your assessment that something either is the focus of your attention or is not, but isn't it worth noting that some items are 'closer to the surface' at a given time than others? For instance, the half dozen-odd items held in memory are ready to be brought to consciousness at a moment's notice, and anything recently referenced or associatively linked to present circumstances, likewise. Of all the active processes in the brain at any given moment, while only a few may be conscious, some are much closer to consciousness than others. A binary model of consciousness is surely useful to some ends, but it also tends to reinforce the widespread assumption that only the conscious is 'you,' whereas the rest is a kind of force you're subject to, like the weather.

Yes, I think it's definitely worth noting. I think there's a good way to take this into account.

A continuum of consciousness doesn't seem right because that doesn't seem to be how attention/awareness works. But as you point out, a binary model seems to leave out important information because it doesn't acknowledge that certain things are more likely to surface into consciousness than others. I think the way to handle this is to introduce an additional parameter: let's call it "accessibility." Accessibility in my view refers not simply to the ease with which a concept can enter consciousness, but more generally to how readily available for use the concept is in various cognitive operations, conscious or unconscious.

Adding this "accessibility" term makes the model of cognition that we're building a little more complex, so by the principle of parsimony, it will need some justification if we're to keep it. There are at least two advantages that I can see to adding this term and to defining it in this way. First, it allows us to preserve a definition of consciousness which seems in line with how attention/awareness really works, while also acknowledging that certain currently unconscious concepts are easier to bring into consciousness than others. So it seems to fit the data better. Second, defining accessibility in this general way allows for the possibility that highly accessible concepts can color or influence other cognitive processes even if the concept never surfaces into full awareness, which is important because this almost certainly happens all the time. For example, if I come home from work and the living room window overlooking the front lawn of my suburban house is broken, I may jump to the tentative conclusion that the neighbor's kids threw a ball through it. But If I'm coming home from a bank heist movie to the same broken window in the same house, I may jump to the very different tentative conclusion that someone has broken in. In this case, the heist movie made the concepts of "crime" and "stealing" temporarily more accessible, which changed the way that I automatically appraised the broken window situation--and probably I will not have been aware that the movie had anything to do with affecting my intuitive appraisal of the situation.

I've had a problem with the dichotomy of conscious and subconscious (not unconscious). I came to this belief because of dream experiences that defied my understanding of the subconscious.

I've been told that the scientific world views the subconscious as
1. a storehouse of our memories
2. a storehouse for our emotions
3. concerned with creating habits to live out day to day, such as driving a car, or even turning a door knob
4. habits also include emotional responses, social interactions, and perception - therefore influencing all of our activities
5. that the subconscious has like, a 360 degree experience of reality, absorbing every detail equally. While the conscious is a single point projecting itself in this 360 degree field, passing judgment.

Its important to understand, in this understanding, the subconscious does not pass judgment of any kind. When creating habits, such as punching people when you're pissed, the subconscious doesn't decide whether such a habit is good or bad. It doesn't decide whether the habit of overeating when you're upset is good or bad. Our habits can ruin our lives. But according to this understanding of the subconscious, the habitual creator, the subconscious simply doesn't care if its ruining your life.

This understanding of the subconscious, as a non-judgmental mind simply reacting to the environment, is important to understanding violence. And why people become violent.

But this very valid and important understanding of our own psyche, as at odds with another aspect of our subconscious that we interact with every night in our dreams. Pure creativity. This creative and intelligent aspect of our subconscious is god-like. From creating every detail in the dream, even entire new environments that don't exist anywhere else, to controlling and speaking through a host of DCs. (dream omnipresence!)

Most of us have been there. That dream that blows our mind away when realize that our mind created this. We stare at the tree in the dream and know, we could never consciously recreate all of its detail. But here it is right in front of us.

The subconscious doesn't just create habits as a response, it is the source of our creativity!

What is creativity? What does it involve? Well it involves a high level of intelligence far greater than simply reacting to the environment. Creativity creates new solutions. Creativity destroys mental habits, and sees outside its own mental box. Art for example is always finding new relationships between its subject matter.

The next mysterious part of the subconscious, and maybe the most misunderstood, is its intelligence and how it communicates (intuition). Imagine the dreamscape you're in (RIGHT NOW! RC) is a message from your subconscious. So what does the burned tree on top of a building mean? Its because the subconscious can and does send messages to our waking conscious via imagery that we can interpret dreams.

When the intelligent subconscious communicates to us in our waking experience without words, what we then experience is intuition.

Many people testify that they feel an intense physical urge to leave a place, or else, but they have no idea why they feel this way. Only later is it revealed that had they stayed in that place, they would have been in real danger. Many people destined to take that flight on 911 suddenly felt sick as they were being checked in, so much they had to leave the check in line. They lived.

How?

The subconscious is like a sponge. It's taking in thousands of times more information a second than our single pointed consciousness. While were oblivious to our environment, the subconscious is not, the signs of danger can sometimes be overwhelmingly obvious. Especially when the danger is another human being, because the subconscious is very good at reading body language.

Now take a deep look at this subconscious process of looking out for your own benefit. This aspect of our subconscious is deeply concerned for own safety, well being and happiness. In dreams, it forces us to face our nightmares to expose the hurts in our psyche. (no your subconscious does not create nightmares to torture you, FACE THEM!) Or in dreams, this intuitive side of our subconscious may inspire us to achieve a greater happiness.

In what way, shape or form, does this intuitive subconscious process relate to the first subconscious process I talked about? Creating mindless habits based on environmental stimuli regardless of whether it damages us?

How can the subconscious not care and then care? How can it be the same "mind"?

How can we give these two very distinct functions of our mind the same name, the subconscious, When they scarcely relate?

Last I checked, the human brain consists of three distinct parts. So I believe we have, at least, three parts to our total consciousness. Sub-Primal conscious, Self-Identity Conscious, and Super Conscious.

The Super Conscious in dreams is like an omnipresent God. Its capable of being aware of every minute detail in the dream simultaneously. Because every dream detail requires awareness to exist. So if you've ever had a mind blowing dream that was absolutely life like *raises hand* then you understand why I call the Super Conscious, Super!!

Thanks for sharing the information. I hadn't heard the scientific explanation of the subconscious before.

Maybe the subconscious seems to be making decisions and trying to make us face our fears, etc. because it's reacting to the wants of our conscious mind. We consciously feel emotions and become afraid of certain things, and know we don't want to be afraid of them. The subconscious takes that information, that we don't want to be afraid, and responds by creating a dream scenario in which we can face our fears. In that case, the subconscious wouldn't really be deciding things on its own. This was just a thought in response to your post, the first thing that comes to mind.

I'm sure there are many different types of subconsciousnesses (is that a word?). That's obvious while looking at the brain. There are many subconscious processes, and you're probably right that there's one responsible for subconscious creativity, if you define subconscious as anything going on in your brain that isn't at your conscious attention.