DrmDoc

Leave the eyebrows, pluck the nose hairs. I find them distracting--definitely pluck!

The FBI doesn't investigate without some observation or accusation that raises reasonable suspicion as Swansont suggests. I'm suggesting that the "something there" is the preponderance of observations and the accusations the FBI has likely received.

Are you trolling? If not, how is it that you know more than the FBI? There's got to be something there or they wouldn't be looking.

What an unfortunate development. Please, post a link to your source.

Yes and did you notice, just across the street, there is the Natural History Museum, which I've visited several times. Both marvelous places.

Although I relied on fact based reasoning, I think a lot of us made decisions this past elections based on our gut feelings. Perhaps in doing so, one positive outcome might be the wisdom of knowing those feelings don't always serve us well during election season. I appreciate your candor. Yeah, I liked our last guy too.

Although I didn't view your comment particularly as support for Trump, it invoked my curiosity as to whether you felt at some point that Donald had more integrity that Hillary. There was never an occasion that I questioned Hillary's integrity more than Donald's, but that's because of my familiarity with the details of both their histories. Some of us relied on media coverage this past election rather than their own investigation of their histories. I was wondering whether your opinion of Hillary's integrity was lower than Donald's and, if so, why?

So, are you saying you felt Donald showed more integrity than Hillary during this past election season?

Should I one day find myself in Austin, I will most certainly make a visit there a priority.

In my city, the closest thing we have to a science theme park is the Franklin Institute. From my youth, I recall multiple hands-on science exhibits, a planetarium, a walk-thru heart, and even a ride through our digestive system. It was always and continues to be a thrilling visit for both children and adults.

Today I learned about A Modest Proposal.

It's the illusion of a separate identity that is much like talking to oneself in a mirror--that person in the mirror is still us, still the sum of our life experience and the wisdom we've acquired through that experience.

Although it may be an appealing notion to some, that higher moral voice doesn't originate from a separate mind even when we seem to hear an actual voice. What we call our conscience is a product of the social examples and moral experiences we've amassed in memory as mental guides. We rely upon these mental guides not as separate minds but as resources of memory much like the skills we learn and later rely upon for gainful employment. Listening to our inner voices is listening to our own experience rather than the counsel of assimilated or separate identity.

That and increasing military spending like it really needs more $600 toilet seats.

Today I learned the history of tea and that it's consumption around the world is only second to water. I also learned that the tea trade was once responsible for the spread of opium addiction in China when instead of silver, English merchants began to offered opium in trade for tea.

"Trumponomics" budget cuts will affect the most vulnerable Americans, including his base, which would serve them right for their continued support for a president who doesn't really care about any interests other than his own. The sum of this president's concerns for the poor and vulnerable seems to be if they're going to die, "they better had do it, and decrease the surplus population." (Charles Dickens)

Fascinating discovery, interesting article, thumbs-up!

In response to the OP, unless a person is mentally or socially compromised, no choice is an illusion because all choices arise from the collective experiences of a single mind. The belief that choice could be an illusion is predicated on an idea that the choices an individual makes are all directed by some separate yet conjoined mental element. The reality is that those choices all originate from the mind of that individual and no entity other than that individual. Our unconscious is not a separate and distinct individual from the persons we consciously believe ourselves to be. Our unconscious is who we are on a level of perception and experience that facilitates our ability to focus on only our most immediate conscious concerns. Unconsciously is how we manage certain non-essential perceptual experiences that distract our focus from concerns more demanding of our conscious attention--it's our autopilot for behavioral responses where conscious consideration is not convenient or necessary.

Subconscious primarily describes a type of influence and a way influence can be delivered. Rather than an intermediary or conduit, subconscious describes how information is packaged and exchanged. Information exchanged overtly is information that isn't concealed or surreptitiously delivered. That overt information is delivered in a way that arouses conscious awareness and is, therefore, conscious information. Information exchanged covertly, which is indeed delivered surreptitiously, is subconscious information in that its effects are delivered or received in a way that eludes conscious detection or awareness. Although conscious ​is a homogeneous reference for mind and influence, subconscious merely references influence while unconscious references mind.

Empirically, unconscious is that state of brain function that is diametrically opposite our brain's conscious state of function, waking-state activity, and awareness. Unconscious is descriptive of a functional brain state capable of generating thoughts and behaviors below our threshold of conscious awareness. Subconscious​, conversely, references those influences we experience and exert that enter below the threshold of conscious awareness. As I have described elsewhere ad nauseam, the distinction between unconscious and subconscious is analogous to a person and a package; whereas, unconscious describes the person, while subconscious describes the package that person either receives or delivers. Dreams are subconscious influences (i.e., perceptual responses) that emerge from our brain's unconscious activity. As a finale note, subconscious is not a state generated by brain function; therefore, subconscious is neither a mind nor a state of mentation. There's precedence in brain function for seeing things that aren't there; unfortunately, it's associated with schizophrenia. Now I'm not suggesting that you experienced schizophrenia or that your experience wasn't real; however, I am suggesting that our brain is fully capable of producing mental experiences that appear to us as real physical/material perceptions. Those experiences can either emerge from memory or as misinterpretations of real perceptual experiences.

It's not an internalized world as I understand the terms. Our unconscious mind doesn't creating something from nothing. Creativity requires input and even our unconscious mind requires sensory experiences to conceptualize dreams. Again, as evidence, the dreams of congenitally blind individuals do not contain visual content because they cannot conceptualize visual dream imagery without ever having had real visual experiences. Even our imagined trip to Time Square would not be possible without the prior perceptual experiences enabling our conception of such a trip. Subconscious is an influence and not the mental matrix that unconscious describes. Where I use the word subconscious, I'm referencing a type of influence ​and its path to and from brain function. Where I use unconscious, I'm referencing a state of brain function that generate mentation or thought. The distinction between the two terms is quite clear from my perspective. From that perspective, there's ever only one mind at work at any time. What we perceive as solutions emerging from an unconscious process is merely a product of how we consciously perceive and reevaluate problems. It's akin to viewing a painting in a single glance, turning away, then seeing something different when you look again at that painting.

If I now understand, your perspective here regards our unconscious capacity to conceptualize or create mental images and scenarios in the absence of direct or real sensory stimuli. If true, then you must agree that we can't conceptualize anything without acquiring the conceptual building blocks to do so. For example, our ancient ancestors likely required several thousand years of real perceptual experiences to conceive the wheel, which doesn't appear in human history until well after our ancestors exited Africa. Unconscious conceptualization requires an accumulation of real conscious experiences and, as I have stated, real conscious experience is also the vacuum of that experience. We have evolved as a perceptual species; wherein, the absence of real perceptual experiences drives our unconscious conceptualizations. All of this can be traced back to the evolved metabolic needs of the brain and its primary physiological mechanisms for supplying those needs. Our brain's nutrient requirements are supplied by way of blood-flow into brain structure and blood-flow increases to the brain whenever it engages thought. This is the mechanism behind dreaming, which is the most empirical evidence of unconscious thought.

Your sitting in a chair and relaxing wasn't a purposeful effort? As I understood, that effort had a purposeful intent which you described as an "experiment." If there was intent to your actions, then they were definitively purposeful. Further, I do not deny feedback as an internal aspect of brain function and reasoning; however, that feedback loop must have a beginning and that beginning emerges from some initial input. I agree that the nature of thought does indeed involve feedback between separate neural groups before a thought outwardly emerges as some behavioral expression. Our brain's various structures and levels are connected by reciprocate neural relays that allow back-and-forth, send-and-receive exchanges between distinct neural groups. Even these relays, however, operate as input and output. Reciprocal exchanges do not occur spontaneously in isolation without some input initiating those exchanges. It's likely that a conscious intent to enter a clear minded and immobile state of relaxation is more than sufficient input to initiate such reciprocal exchanges. I, again, disagree; sexual distinctions as an affect upon thought occur by experience rather than innately. The clearest examples are the perceptions of toddlers who seemingly remain unawareness of their male/female distinction from other children without the experiences from which they learn that distinction. There's no denial that our hormonal differences influence our thoughts but there's no evidence that we are born with thoughts or knowledge emerging from those differences.

Agreed; physical reality and perception does have a role but only as a source of input, sensory, or stimuli for the mental matrix that comprises and originates thought. Thought is merely a reaction to stimuli emerging from our perceptual interactions with the physical, whether that be the body physical or physical/material reality If I understand, you described an experiment involving a conscious or purposeful effort to suppress all forms of mental and physical activity and behaviors. In doing so, you discovered that certain activities invariably emerged regardless of your deliberate efforts otherwise. You perceive this emergence as evidence of the spontaneity of unconscious responses without benefit of conscious input or direction. If true, then I disagree; they were most certainty responses generated by conscious input, perception, and direction. The perceptual void created by preventing yourself from thinking and moving is itself conscious input and stimuli. Essentially, your unconscious actions were a response to the vacuum of activity that, in fact, you were aware of consciously. I say "in fact" because your suppressed mental and physical state was a deliberate conscious effort. The deliberate conscious effort to maintain that state of suppressed activity generated the unconscious responses you observed. The behaviors we engage unknowingly are indeed all responses to stimuli we consciously perceive but may not connect with those unconscious behaviors because of nuanced conscious perceptions. Our unconscious is responsive and its responses only emerge as a consequence of stimuli.

Perhaps you misunderstand; the distinctions I'm trying to make regards the processes of conscious and unconscious thought and decisions. As support, I've discussed those processes relative to my perspective of brain function, which is how those conscious and unconscious attributes of consciousness emerge according to the science. The empirical science suggests our thoughts and decisions are products of the environment of cognitive activity within the brain that arises from brain function. I consider that suggestion the most definitive definition of mind. As suggested to me by the likely path of our brain's evolution, mind ​is quantified in the brain by a capacity to integrate diverse sensory information is such a way as to produces behaviors independent of instinct. Instinct, relative to mind, regards those preprogrammed, innate behaviors and responses we engage without benefit or direction of conscious thoughts. However, thought requires a language and language cannot be acquired without experience. Conversely, some might suggests that newborns are able to communicate with their parents without benefit of language; however, what newborns communicate nonverbally are feelings rather than thoughts. The complexity of though and its conveyance requires the assimilation of a shared language, which newborns acquire with experience. Relative to reality, there's reality rooted in real physical/material experiences and reality rooted in imagination. One is definitively physical, while the other is definitively mental. Indeed, there are distinctions between the two that I think are quite clear and evident. Although our perception of those realities emerge from the same place--i.e., the mind--their perceptual sources are indeed distinct.