Consciousness and the illusion of choice

[Gees]

Ten oz;

You asked me to look at this thread, so I did. (Sorry it took so long -- it is eight pages.) It was my impression that you were not satisfied with the answers you received here and thought my input might add to the information. Although there were some good answers, there are some things that I think were not well addressed, so I will try to give you at least some additional information to help in understanding this thing we call consciousness.

The first thing that must be recognized is that consciousness can not be seen or heard, it can not be weighed or measured, so finding the wholeness or truth of it is very difficult. Science has found consciousness associated with the brain; religion has found consciousness in "God"; the psychic phenomenon people have found it in things like ESP; a solipsist finds it in illusion. The problem is that they are all correct. Many will say that is not possible, it must be one thing or the other -- someone is wrong. But these people are not recognizing that consciousness is a vast and complex topic. It might be better to use an analogy, consider: 

What defines baseball? Some would say baseball is about the pitcher, others argue that it is the batter that identifies what is baseball, others, the umpire or the out fielders; then someone says, "It is obviously the ball.", no it is the bat, or the mitt, or the bases. It is actually all of these things and more. But we can witness a baseball game, so we can identify and recognize the parameters of the game. Consciousness is not so obvious. 

So how does one study the wholeness of consciousness? I look to psychology for my understanding of mind, not brain, mind, and then compare how the mind works to all of the other disciplines, theories, and religions. I find that crossing over to other ideas and theories garners a great deal more information, rather than limiting myself to one idea, as theories often intersect on an idea. If anyone reading this needs to have some type of direction regarding my position, I would say that my understanding of consciousness is probably closest to Spinoza's.

So to address some of  your questions, I copied the following from different parts of this thread. Please note that the following conclusions are my opinions based on my studies, and note that the answers are simplified and very general.

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If I am fully self aware and consciousnessly control my own mind than I should be able to choose to desire healthy food, choose not to fear spiders, and etc. Instead I have the ability to ignore my desires and fears. I cannot control what those fears and desires are. Which means I actually have limited influence over what things I will be making choices between. I do not consciousnessly determine what captures my attention, what pops into my mind. Instead my unconscious interprets the world and presents me with actions and ideas which I consciously reason through. My consciousness is led by unconscious thought I do not control and prehaps have no influence over.

You ask a lot of questions, Ten. The answers are not going to be easy. This is going to take some time.

I know that many people see "self aware" as some great accomplishment of the human race. I doubt it. To be self aware, you must first be able to distinguish your self from other -- this means you need senses, like eyes and ears. Although plants have a sense of "self", they have no senses to distinguish plant from surrounding matter, so I doubt they can be self aware. Species that navigate the planet have senses to help them navigate through other matter, so they have the possibility of being self aware. They also have a brain for those senses to feed information into, and this brain helps them to make choices in their navigating. So what we have is the beginnings of the conscious rational mind, which makes science right; it takes a brain in order for us to be consciously self aware, or aware of our consciousness, and aware of our physical self as opposed to other. This rational aspect of mind is linear, understands physical reality, logic, and cause and effect, because it's purpose is to choose paths as the physical self navigates reality. As time and evolution pass, this aspect of mind finally develops into what we have today.

But one can not make choices if there is too much information. We must move out the clutter so that we can see our choices clearly, and we routinely dump information into the unconscious. So the unconscious knows our memories, our experiences, and everything we sense; it seems a little awkward to think that the unconscious aspect of mind is not us, or that we do not influence it. It is just too full of information to work the same way that the rational aspect works.

For example: The first time you got out of your bed or crib, it was not easy to balance and maneuver so that you did not fall on your head. Now you do it automatically and are often not even aware of doing it. Most of what we do is on autopilot because as we learned it, we also transferred that learning to the unconscious aspect of mind. But the unconscious does not work the same way the conscious aspect works; the unconscious understands the activity as a wholeness, rather than as a put this hand here, that foot there, and be careful to not overbalance. This is why we sometimes have to relearn something, like walking. An accident shatters the connections to the unconscious and/or within the conscious , so we no longer have this activity on autopilot and have to go back to the rational aspect and relearn, "put this hand here, that foot there, and be careful to not overbalance". Although we can remember walking as a whole experience, probably from the unconscious, we can not do the walking until we relearn it. A neurologist could no doubt explain why this works this way, probably something about "pathways".

So a lot of our automatic behavior is something that we taught our unconscious; it is not really a matter of our not being in charge of it; it is more a case of input/output, as you mentioned before. This is why it is so difficult to decide what is instinctual and what is learned. Both behaviors are controlled by the unconscious and present themselves as whole activities without a clue as to their source. For myself, I suspect that instincts are regulated by hormones, proclivities are more related to genes, mood is controlled by chemistry, and a great deal is learned.

The unconscious aspect of mind is not linear; it is more holistic. It does not think logically and cares nothing for cause and effect, because it has a total disregard for time. Logic and cause and effect require time in order to function; "this and then that" or "this and so that" relies upon time. So if the unconscious does not actually "think" like the rational mind does, then how does it work? It organizes information in groups related to bonds; relationships; same and difference; self and other; and in symbolism, among other things. If you consider the vast amount of information that the unconscious holds, it makes sense that it would organize information in this way. Consider the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Words and language are rather cumbersome when you get to a massive volume of information; and so, would be of little use.

So the unconscious "thinks" in terms of symbols, pictures, concepts, experiences, and activities that have a wholeness to them. They are not broken down, so when the unconscious becomes aware of something it tries to add it to the "whole" concept that it belongs to. If you think you smell French fries, your unconscious will bring up the experience of eating, tasting, smelling, and enjoying French fries -- maybe even your favorite restaurant or an experience with a friend at that restaurant. A lot of the thoughts that just pop into your awareness are simply the unconscious mind trying to clean house and put things away. The unconscious reacts to the more fluid aspects of consciousness, awareness, feeling, and emotion, so most anything can pull up a thought or memory even if you are not consciously aware of that awareness, feeling, or emotion. There is a great deal more on this idea of how the unconscious works, but this is enough for now. If you would like to understand the unconscious on your own,  I would recommend looking up Matte Blanco in Wiki. He is one of the first to give us some actual understanding of the unconscious.

 

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Some will agrue that a person can tap into or learn to control their fears, desires, and etc. I am very skeptical of this. There are millions of depressed people who would strongly prefer not to be depressed. Millions of people who suffer form one of a thousand personality disorders who would prefer to just make them go away. It isn't simple. Is self awareness simply a mechanism our minds use to make choices?

 

I would not be so skeptical. Consider that many persons might work, train, and practice to be able to lift weights and compete for championships. Few succeed. There are monks, who train and discipline themselves for a lifetime in order to try to achieve Nirvana -- control over consciousness -- few succeed. But it is interesting to note that part of this training is to deny the “self” and to remove bonds and emotional attachments. It almost seems like they are trying to disconnect from the unconscious aspect in order to move into a consciousness that is Nirvana. This implies that the unconscious aspect is the real “self”. Maybe I’ll look into that idea. Hmmmm.

 

There are a few more of your questions that I planned to answer, but it will take longer.

Gee

[Ten oz]

11 hours ago, Gees said:

I know that many people see "self aware" as some great accomplishment of the human race. I doubt it. To be self aware, you must first be able to distinguish your self from other -- this means you need senses, like eyes and ears. Although plants have a sense of "self", they have no senses to distinguish plant from surrounding matter, so I doubt they can be self aware. Species that navigate the planet have senses to help them navigate through other matter, so they have the possibility of being self aware. They also have a brain for those senses to feed information into, and this brain helps them to make choices in their navigating. So what we have is the beginnings of the conscious rational mind, which makes science right; it takes a brain in order for us to be consciously self aware, or aware of our consciousness, and aware of our physical self as opposed to other. This rational aspect of mind is linear, understands physical reality, logic, and cause and effect, because it's purpose is to choose paths as the physical self navigates reality. As time and evolution pass, this aspect of mind finally develops into what we have today.

First let me start by thanking you for a carefully though out post. I know this thread is already long and a lot of ideas have already been explored. I agree that in order to been self aware there must be a self and some ability to know thyself and senses provide that knowledge to a large degree. Only bit I disagree with is "this rational aspect of mind is linear" because what's rational is totally relative.

11 hours ago, Gees said:

For example: The first time you got out of your bed or crib, it was not easy to balance and maneuver so that you did not fall on your head. Now you do it automatically and are often not even aware of doing it. Most of what we do is on autopilot because as we learned it, we also transferred that learning to the unconscious aspect of mind. But the unconscious does not work the same way the conscious aspect works; the unconscious understands the activity as a wholeness, rather than as a put this hand here, that foot there, and be careful to not overbalance. This is why we sometimes have to relearn something, like walking. An accident shatters the connections to the unconscious and/or within the conscious , so we no longer have this activity on autopilot and have to go back to the rational aspect and relearn, "put this hand here, that foot there, and be careful to not overbalance". Although we can remember walking as a whole experience, probably from the unconscious, we can not do the walking until we relearn it. A neurologist could no doubt explain why this works this way, probably something about "pathways".

Matters relating to coordination and motory skills have a lot to do with the pathways you mentioned. Neurological the mind must develop the ability to do certian things. Developing an ability is not the same things accumulating knowledge or being self aware of something. If I do pushups everyday my ability to do push ups will increase but my knowledge and awareness of push upsand why doing them increases ability won't change. To change my conscious understanding about those things I would need to read a sports science book or something. Simply increasing my ability will not consciously expand my awareness.

11 hours ago, Gees said:

The unconscious aspect of mind is not linear; it is more holistic. It does not think logically and cares nothing for cause and effect, because it has a total disregard for time. Logic and cause and effect require time in order to function; "this and then that" or "this and so that" relies upon time. So if the unconscious does not actually "think" like the rational mind does, then how does it work? It organizes information in groups related to bonds; relationships; same and difference; self and other; and in symbolism, among other things. If you consider the vast amount of information that the unconscious holds, it makes sense that it would organize information in this way. Consider the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Words and language are rather cumbersome when you get to a massive volume of information; and so, would be of little use.

So the unconscious "thinks" in terms of symbols, pictures, concepts, experiences, and activities that have a wholeness to them. They are not broken down, so when the unconscious becomes aware of something it tries to add it to the "whole" concept that it belongs to. If you think you smell French fries, your unconscious will bring up the experience of eating, tasting, smelling, and enjoying French fries -- maybe even your favorite restaurant or an experience with a friend at that restaurant. A lot of the thoughts that just pop into your awareness are simply the unconscious mind trying to clean house and put things away. The unconscious reacts to the more fluid aspects of consciousness, awareness, feeling, and emotion, so most anything can pull up a thought or memory even if you are not consciously aware of that awareness, feeling, or emotion. There is a great deal more on this idea of how the unconscious works, but this is enough for now. If you would like to understand the unconscious on your own,  I would recommend looking up Matte Blanco in Wiki. He is one of the first to give us some actual understanding of the unconscious.

This is the crux of the matter; what does ones unconscious mind do? I don't think memories are stored there. It doesn't have its own separate storage on areas of the brain it controls. Memories are stored and depending on what the memory is with respects to which parts of the brain that memory triggers and which hormones those triggers producedthose memories can influence us consciously or unconsciously.Additionally memories are not real, accurate recordings. We remeber things based on what we interpolate and not based on what is happening. As a result memories can betray us and be burdensome things. 

 

I do not think the unconscious thinks in pictures, symbols, etc. The more I think about it the more I suspect it is probably different for everyone. That is one of the reason people are so different despite all humans having the same basic genes and senses to experience the world everyones has different passions. Intrinsically everyones needs are basically identical yet everyones pursuits are wildly different. Of course the health of ones brain matters greatly too. As we are learning more about the impact of concussions, drug use, and etc we are learning that is can change who a person is.

 

Ultimately I still think consciousness, our hyper sense of moment by moment awareness, is a reproductive trait more so than an intellectual one. While our intelligence has been critical to our evolution genration to generation we don't seem to select for it less something catastrophic happens. Rather we select for personality. A good sense of humor goes further towards finding a mate than does an acute understanding of physics. Only a minimum standard of knowledge and intelligence seems to be needed to successfully reproduce and having larger amounts provides no additional advantage. Meanwhile intangables like humor can multiply ones ability to reproduce greatly. As a result we are selecting for personality more so than intelligence and I think personality is purely manifestated by of ones conscious. Intelligences and problem solves requires a combination of unconsciousness, memories, built up abilities, and etc. The result is that we have evolved to be hyper consciously aware and view our conscious minds are the center of being because being more centered in our consciousness allows for more personality. This is most expressed in young adults. The self centered hyper focus on what is cool, in style, hip, and etc is never more powerful than when one enters their reproductive window. I would be able to speak 10 languages right now if I could have consciously invested even 5% of the energy into it I invested in my image and how it impacted the way the opposite sex viewed me when I was 16yrs old. My biology didn't drive me to obtain knowledge and greatly levels of intellect as a means to improve my reproductive chances but rather it drove me be trendy, narcissistic, and hyper focused on being cool. Ironically being cool often involves a dismissive view towards education, organization, and structure. It is also one of the things which most separates of from other animals. While other animals show signs of self awareness and the ability to problem solve none exhibit vanity and narcissism. Some animals appear to exhibit pride and ego and both seem to be useful for reproduction. 

[Gees]

On ‎8‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 5:53 AM, Ten oz said:

First let me start by thanking you for a carefully though out post. I know this thread is already long and a lot of ideas have already been explored. I agree that in order to been self aware there must be a self and some ability to know thyself and senses provide that knowledge to a large degree. Only bit I disagree with is "this rational aspect of mind is linear" because what's rational is totally relative.

We are talking past one another and misunderstanding. When I talked about the rational aspect of mind being linear, I was not thinking in terms of it being "relative". I was thinking of the process of rationalizing; how it is done. In order to rationalize, one must take the facts or information and line it up in sequential steps that lead to a conclusion -- the same is true for logic. Therefore, logic and rationalization are directional, linear processes, as opposed to creative thinking or puzzling out an answer, which are not linear processes. 

The point being that the rational aspect of mind sees everything as having a beginning, an ending, and time in between. The unconscious aspect ignores time, does not acknowledge beginnings and endings, and sees everything as "now". It is not rational in its workings.

Quote

Matters relating to coordination and motory skills have a lot to do with the pathways you mentioned. Neurological the mind must develop the ability to do certian things. Developing an ability is not the same things accumulating knowledge or being self aware of something. If I do pushups everyday my ability to do push ups will increase but my knowledge and awareness of push upsand why doing them increases ability won't change. To change my conscious understanding about those things I would need to read a sports science book or something. Simply increasing my ability will not consciously expand my awareness.

Thank you, thank you. This is brilliant! Plus vote for you.

As soon as I read this paragraph, I realized that I had information that I was not using in my studies. What you are describing above is what I used to call "practice skills". When my children would complain about doing their homework, I used to tell them that even though they knew the answers, it was still necessary to write them out because writing is a "practice skill". There are many skills that the body must learn even after the mind is made aware of them, like walking, doing pushups, writing, and typing. I remember someone asking me how to spell a word, and I could not think of it, so I "air typed" the word and found the spelling. It was like my fingers knew the spelling better than my mind did.

This is another of those simple little truths that will help me to determine what is BS and what is real when looking at the unusual phenomenon associated with consciousness.

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This is the crux of the matter; what does ones unconscious mind do? I don't think memories are stored there. It doesn't have its own separate storage on areas of the brain it controls. Memories are stored and depending on what the memory is with respects to which parts of the brain that memory triggers and which hormones those triggers producedthose memories can influence us consciously or unconsciously.Additionally memories are not real, accurate recordings. We remeber things based on what we interpolate and not based on what is happening. As a result memories can betray us and be burdensome things. 

It is easy to start thinking about the unconscious and conscious aspects of mind as different things because they are so different, but this would be a mistake. It is all one mind; all one set of memories. This is why I like the term, aspects, because aspects can be different parts of something, but is more often used to refer to different views or understandings of something.

As an analogy, imagine that you are to write a story about a deceased man that you do not know, so you go to his mother and ask questions, then to his wife and ask questions, then to his oldest best buddy, who tells you all about their misspent youth. After going home and reviewing your notes, it might well look like you have descriptions of three different men, but they are all the same man, just different understandings and perspectives of him. Different aspects.

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I do not think the unconscious thinks in pictures, symbols, etc. The more I think about it the more I suspect it is probably different for everyone. That is one of the reason people are so different despite all humans having the same basic genes and senses to experience the world everyones has different passions. Intrinsically everyones needs are basically identical yet everyones pursuits are wildly different. Of course the health of ones brain matters greatly too. As we are learning more about the impact of concussions, drug use, and etc we are learning that is can change who a person is.

To get a better understanding about the unconscious, look at what Blanco has to say: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Matte_Blanco

Gee