Thread: The sub conscious

Investing too much belief in a concept (the subconscious, or spirit, for instance), taking them to have some inherent existence beyond their utility, can lead to error, but that possibility of error does not negate the concepts' utility, nor is the concept of 'true self' immune to this same error. Yes, considering conscious thought synonymous with "self" or "I" leaves out the majority of what one is, but by extension, considering oneself anything separate from the world, the totality of being, is also in error. Yet, experiencing oneself as something separate from the total field of thing-happenings is the foundation of our whole mode of being. Even as we speak of the subconscious as something other than ourselves, we are reminded that the running commentary in our heads is not the whole of what we are.

I am almost completely aware of what goes on inside me on a subconscious level. But I've trained myself to do so ever since I was a child. I don't understand (I have a hard time relating to) people who remain a mystery to themselves.
I play a lot of word association games with myself. When I find myself depressed or acting out in anger or frustration I ask myself "WHY".
I've been thoroughly aware of my dreams since I was 4 years old and they often reveal deep truths about myself as well.

I am a contradiction. I am both deeply spiritual and deeply carnal. I am completely aware of myself yet undisciplined and too lazy to change what must be changed to progress in life- and I understand WHY I am that way... mostly
As for Heaven and Hell... my religious beliefs are quite different from other people's beliefs (Jehovah's Witness ideology).

Very interesting thread...

Originally Posted by Taosaur

.Yet, experiencing oneself as something separate from the total field of thing-happenings is the foundation of our whole mode of being. .

But that is just what I deny, even the possibility of experiencing the self. Concept means to see with, i.e. the memory is of reality. As the ear does not hear itself, as the eye does not see itself, nor the lungs breathe themselves, so too, one might say that there is no environmental acquisition system which abstracts from itself in order to produce that which maintains and promotes the life of the body.

But I will agree, that false reasoning is of utility--especially when no other mode is possible.

There is, however, a great deal more utility in truth. When you realize that you cannot know yourself, on any level, by any means--can you say that you are spirit? Can you say that you are ego. Are you the victem of emotion?

We build human behavior with emotion and reason, however, we are neither. Ultimately when we confuse ourselves with what we are not, to that we are slave.

Perhaps, when, in the Scripture, God was asked who he was, there was just plain truth in the reply, "I am, that I am." Nothing more, really can be said.

The way I see it, the 'subconscious' (or whatever you want to call it) is a multitude of unique process occurring outside conscious awareness. Anything one isn't conscious of at any given moment is still going on in the crevasses of the mind somewhere. It seems to me that the only way we can come close to understanding it is by defining consciousness and then changing the focus to everything that occurs outside of it.

Consciousness as I've come to know it has everything to do with language. A quote by Aldous Huxley I return to very often describes it best:

'Language permits its users to pay attention to things, persons and events, even when the things and persons are not present and the events are not taking place. Language gives definition to our memories and, by translating experiences into symbols, converts the immediacy of craving or abhorrence, of hatred or love, into fixed principles of feeling and conduct.
In some way of which we are totally unconscious, the reticular system of the brain selects from a countless host of stimuli those few experiences which are of practical importance to us. From these unconsciously selected experiences we more or less consciously select and abstract a smaller number, which we label with words from our vocabulary and then classify within a system at once metaphysical, scientific and ethical, made up of other words on a higher level of abstraction.
In cases where the selecting and abstracting have been dictated by a system that is not too erroneous as a view of the nature of things, and where the verbal labels have been intelligently chosen and their symbolic nature clearly understood, our behaviour is apt to be realistic and tolerably decent.
But under the influence of badly chosen words, applied, without any understanding of their merely symbolic character, to experiences that have been selected and abstracted in the light of a system of erroneous ideas, we are apt to behave with a fiendishness and an organized stupidity, of which dumb animals (precisely because they are dumb and cannot speak) are blessedly incapable.'

Everything we conceive at any given moment is because of language. It is the cause of the conscious mind, the ego. Without it there wouldn't be words, and thus symbols/concepts, for pretty much everything we know. There would be no good or evil, just events as they are. There would be no past or future, just now, the immediacy of felt experience. All of these dualities responsible for everything humanity is is a result of language, concept, and communication.

There is a sense of intuition/spontaneity/creativity that we are all given as humans, but that we seem to have lost consciousness of. Those abstract concepts that Freud and Jung were getting at with dream analysis, word association, etc. Try closing your eyes and asking what your favorite color is, or a similar easy question. If you pay attention there will be a distinct response instantaneously. Before your conscious mind even has time to really process the words. It'll be a symbol (usually visual) that you need to translate into words in order to comprehend. Dreams themselves are a physical manifestation of these symbols, the 99.9% stuff that goes on throughout your day to day life that you miss out on.

Humanity has searched for centuries for this untapped potential in itself, for there surely is vast potential to be found outside our current scope of consciousness. I think it involves a different way of using language. I'm not bashing language at all, I just think that a lot of the negative aspects of the human condition are kind of like bad side-effects of language. The compulsive thinking mind, addictions to concepts and ideas, finding "reality" and "truth" (which are again just linguistic concepts dominated by cultural ideals), any sort of intolerance/bigotry, cannot exist outside the world of language. Even this post is part of the problem in essence. My own goal is to abandon this addiction to linguistic "intellect" and "knowledge" and see just how far this brain can take me.

I agree with your basic point that "subconscious" is not a noun. There is in fact lots of good evidence by now that we have incomplete self-awareness and that a lot of our mental work lies outside of our conscious awareness, but that's a far cry from the idea that there is this secretive little homunculus pulling strings from behind a curtain in our minds. Freud's writings are absurd if you take them at all seriously, but he nevertheless was an important thinker because he introduced the general idea of unconscious processes to mainstream psychology. He was just wrong in all the details.