Is your non-conscious mind part of YOU?

[Someone here]

Recent work in neurology, cognitive psychology (etc) indicates that our non-conscious minds play a greater role in our thinking and acting than was previously thought. the conscious mind is just a particular portion of the whole mind.

And yet, our intuitive grasp of ourselves and our minds seems to be that "I" am my Conscious Mind, and probably nothing else. We can see such attitudes, if we look, in almost every aspect of our human culture and lives. 

So I have created this topic to ask these questions:

1.Does the 'non-conscious mind' really exist?

2.Is your non-conscious mind part of YOU?

3.Is your Conscious Mind the only part of your mind that 'matters'?

4.Is there any benefit in considering the mind to have two or more parts, instead of as a whole?

 

My own thoughts are that yes, the non-conscious mind exists; it is that portion of our whole mind that is not open to conscious scrutiny or awareness, and I think it is by far the larger portion. All of my mind is part of me, so yes, of course my non-conscious mind is part of me. Our Conscious Minds matter, but they aren't the only parts of our minds, so they can't be the only parts that matter. There is no significant benefit to considering the mind in pieces. 

Your thoughts?

[Someone here]

I also want to discuss free will if anyone is interested .because my views on free will didn't change since seeing Leo's first video on free will .the unconscious mind is basically 90% of our mind .most of our decisions unfold unconsciously without our conscious permission. 

[DocWatts]

To answer what this abstraction that we call the 'Self' actually entails, it's critical to unpack the epistemic and ontological assumptions about the Self tend to be left unexamined (in the West at least).

The idea that everything in the mind must (at least in principle) be able to formalized as a collection of context free facts that can (again, at least in principle) be made explicit, is a mistaken epistemic assumption that stretches back to the beginnings of Western philosophy.

And yet somehow these assumptions still linger on despite the illusion of a disembodied and dis-worlded mind being thoroughly discredited by both cognitive science and from penetrating philosophical critique from the likes of Heidegger and Wittgenstein.

The primary mistake is the idea that the mind (which we equate to our sense of self) can be disembodied and disembedded from our physical bodies and from the world. With the reframing that comes from making this assumption explicit, the unconscious processes that make awareness possible are more properly understood as an aspect of our embodiment.

While the hard and fast decision between the conscious awareness and unconscious processes can be useful for some purposes, at the end of the day the two and interlinked and interdependent. And because the mind can't be seperated from the embodied context which makes conscious awareness possible, it makes little sense to exclude conscious processes from the construct that is the Self.

Edited July 16, 2022 by DocWatts

[Someone here]

36 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

The primary mistake is the idea that the mind (which we equate to our sense of self) can be disembodied and disembedded from our physical bodies and from the world. With the reframing that comes from making this assumption explicit, the unconscious processes that make awareness possible are more properly understood as an aspect of our embodiment.

While the hard and fast decision between the conscious awareness and unconscious processes can be useful for some purposes, at the end of the day the two and interlinked and interdependent. And because the mind can't be seperated from the embodied context which makes conscious awareness possible, it makes little sense to exclude conscious processes from the construct that is the Self.

Are you saying The answer to my questions may depend on how ' YOU' is understood, in terms of the concept of self. There are aspects of the subconscious which are extremely important. For example, many aspects of the bodily processes, such as breathing and the heartbeat are automatic to a large extent, although will may be involved on a subconscious level.

Also, the psychoanalysts and psychologists, such as Freud and Jung do point to deeper aspects of the subconscious, in spite of the dismissal of some of these aspects within the philosophy of materialism, as an understanding of causality and its relationship with consciousness.

[DocWatts]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Are you saying The answer to my questions may depend on how ' YOU' is understood, in terms of the concept of self. 

Correct. But the deeper point is that any concept of Self is going to be an abstraction built upon axiomatic metaphysical assumptions.

Now that's not at all to say that there are not ways of determining how apt a particular abstraction is, by examining how well it allows us to make sense of our experience. The map is not the territory, but that doesn't mean that map isn't extremely useful.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

There are aspects of the subconscious which are extremely important. For example, many aspects of the bodily processes, such as breathing and the heartbeat are automatic to a large extent, although will may be involved on a subconscious level.

Correct, and this is an aspect of the embodied nature of our minds that I was describing earlier. 

What I was contrasting embodiment with are mistaken Enlightenment era notions that there's a clear boundary between our minds and our bodies, and our minds and our environment.

The reason that this is important is because Enlightenment Era assumptions which about what a 'Self' is are still present in the materialist paradigm despite being shown to be untenable.

The notion that the mind is a biological version of a digital computer is a good example of a paradigm with with the underlying assumption of a disembodied mind.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Also, the psychoanalysts and psychologists, such as Freud and Jung do point to deeper aspects of the subconscious, in spite of the dismissal of some of these aspects within the philosophy of materialism, as an understanding of causality and its relationship with consciousness.

While Freud and Jung do emphasize that there are important aspects of mind that exist outside of conscious awareness, the subconscious is still something that can in principle be accessed through conscious awareness (for example through the use psychoanalysis or the examination of dreams).

This is a far cry from the unconscious (rather than subconscious) processes posited by cognitive science, where there's no way that much of what goes on in our minds could ever in principle be made available to conscious awareness (for example the complex mental activity that goes on when you move your arm to catch a ball).

 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

 

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by DocWatts

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

Correct. But the deeper point is that any concept of Self is going to be an abstraction built upon axiomatic metaphysical assumptions.

Now that's not at all to say that there are not ways of determining how apt a particular abstraction is, by examining how well it allows us to make sense of our experience. The map is not the territory, but that doesn't mean that map isn't extremely useful.

Correct, and this is an aspect of the embodied nature of our minds that I was describing earlier. 

What I was contrasting embodiment with are mistaken Enlightenment era notions that there's a clear boundary between our minds and our bodies, and our minds and our environment.

The reason that this is important is because Enlightenment Era assumptions which about what a 'Self' is are still present in the materialist paradigm despite being shown to be untenable.

The notion that the mind is a biological version of a digital computer is a good example of a paradigm with with the underlying assumption of a disembodied mind.

While Freud and Jung do emphasize that there are important aspects of mind that exist outside of conscious awareness, the subconscious is still something that can in principle be accessed through conscious awareness (for example through the use psychoanalysis or the examination of dreams).

This is a far cry from the unconscious (rather than subconscious) processes posited by cognitive science, where there's no way that much of what goes on in our minds could ever in principle be made available to conscious awareness (for example the complex mental activity that goes on when you move your arm to catch a ball).

 

 

I'm not sure if I'm addressing what you wrote. I think it's better to divide the mind into three parts, conscious, subconscious and unconscious. It's the default state for most things to be "below the surface".

The unconscious is just imperceptible from the conscious mind, all I can say is that I think it does local parallel processings, while the conscious mind does global (brain-wide) linear processing. It doesn't matter what our habits are, how our conscious mind is structured, the unconscious always remains imperceptible for everyone. 

Then there's the subconscious floating between the two, we normally don't percieve this one either but it's always lingering just below the threshold of conscious awareness. But with things like paying attention, doing cognitive-restructuring techniques with pen and paper, doing meditation, these can be brought to the surface. The personality can be greatly changed this way.

I think the human self-awareness, from which the "I" is born, which dominates the conscious mind in many people, also has its roots in the unconscious mind, but it's present in all three. It's only a matter of definition what we consider part of ouselves and what we don't. I found it best to equate the "I" with the self-aware parts of my being, but one can also identifiy with just the conscious "I", or the whole mind, or the whole human, etc.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Someone here

[DocWatts]

35 minutes ago, Someone here said:

It's only a matter of definition what we consider part of ouselves and what we don't. I found it best to equate the "I" with the self-aware parts of my being, but one can also identifiy with just the conscious "I", or the whole mind, or the whole human, etc.

Well the most common version of the Self that the majority of people subscribe to in the West is that of the Transcendental-Ego Self. Namely that a seperate 'Self' exists apart from the context you inhabit and apart from the continuity of your experiences.

While this is most easily encapsulated in the idea of a Soul, this has become such a central part of our culture that a completely secularized version of this is accepted by many people. And not just in the West, the transcendental ego self is also central to metaphysical systems that believe in reincarnation (such as Hinduism).

A good litmus test to see if you subscribe to this notion of a Transcendental Ego is to try and imagine being born in a completely time and place. And then contemplate if that person would be 'you', or a completely different person.

The other well trod perspective is that instead of an enduring transcendental ego self, the Self has no independent ground apart from it's embodied context and the continuity of experience. This is the perspective of 'no-self' Buddhism, but has also popped up at times in the writings of certain Western philosophers (such as David Hume).

For myself, the latter perspective seems more coherent.

Edited July 16, 2022 by DocWatts

[Someone here]

11 hours ago, DocWatts said:

Well the most common version of the Self that the majority of people subscribe to in the West is that of the Transcendental-Ego Self. Namely that a seperate 'Self' exists apart from the context you inhabit and apart from the continuity of your experiences.

While this is most easily encapsulated in the idea of a Soul, this has become such a central part of our culture that a completely secularized version of this is accepted by many people. And not just in the West, the transcendental ego self is also central to metaphysical systems that believe in reincarnation (such as Hinduism).

A good litmus test to see if you subscribe to this notion of a Transcendental Ego is to try and imagine being born in a completely time and place. And then contemplate if that person would be 'you', or a completely different person.

The other well trod perspective is that instead of an enduring transcendental ego self, the Self has no independent ground apart from it's embodied context and the continuity of experience. This is the perspective of 'no-self' Buddhism, but has also popped up at times in the writings of certain Western philosophers (such as David Hume).

For myself, the latter perspective seems more coherent.

At the moment I'm not able to formulate a good objection to this. It's late for me. But I will say this, if you think this is so, then you must accept that everything is reducible to mind. (We really can't say that all things are reducible to physical .. as it leaves out the mental. So, the only way is to say you believe that everything is mind). I hope you see the consequence of believing so.

 I have stated my opinion, that body and mind are, in practice, indivisible and inseparable. If I were to make a statement similar to your own, it would have to be that everything is reducible to mind/body. Not just 'mind'; not just 'body'. The two are one, in effect

[DocWatts]

On 7/17/2022 at 4:05 AM, Someone here said:

But I will say this, if you think this is so, then you must accept that everything is reducible to mind. (We really can't say that all things are reducible to physical .. as it leaves out the mental. So, the only way is to say you believe that everything is mind). I hope you see the consequence of believing so.

 I have stated my opinion, that body and mind are, in practice, indivisible and inseparable. If I were to make a statement similar to your own, it would have to be that everything is reducible to mind/body. Not just 'mind'; not just 'body'. The two are one, in effect

I think it's safe to assume that we're in agreement about the problems with the physicalist paradigm; namely that that the mental isn't reducible to the physical.

That said, while forms of objective Idealism that use consciousness as its reduction base are one alternative, a form of dual-aspect monism which treats mind and matter as dual aspects of something more fundamental is another (for example Whiteheads's process-relational ontology).

For my part I fall squarely in the camp of agnosticism between the latter two options. Moving away from a flawed and outdated paradigm (physicalism) is of more importance than which of these more promising alternatives is more correct, imho.

Edited July 18, 2022 by DocWatts

[A Fellow Lighter]

On 16/07/2022 at 4:30 PM, Someone here said:

Does the 'non-conscious mind' really exist?

To answer this question: No, I don't really believe something like the “non-conscious mind”.

Of course, I do use the word “unconscious” accordingly, but only to describe certain conditions or the quality of my or other people's behaviours. I might tell you that “John is currently unconscious”, for the sake of describing his present condition. Or I might tell you that “Last night, at that party, I was behaving rather unconsciously”, all in an effort to have my behaviour be excused as that is not how I usually am.

However, all in all, the idea that the mind is inherently divided into three or any number of parts does not resonate with me. In fact, to me, finding certain activities happening rather unconsciously within yourself would be the equivalent of you simply walking down the road with your eyes closed. That's it. You're unconscious for as long as you keep your eyes closed, but inherently speaking you are a full blown Conscious-Mind and nothing less. 

Now, you can probably deduce for yourself that nor do I believe in the “subconscious” either. 

[Thanks]

Study Carl Gustav Jung. He explains this in brutal clarity and extent. I recommend "man and his symbols"

[Mulky]

So there is all this stuff happening including the non conscious mind.  Amidst all these countless overlapping systems one thing that is happening is "youing"  .Youing or let's say selfing, Is it's own process, but it uses whatever it can to consider it to be part of itself.  If selfing existed alone without anything else, it could only self itself, the selfing process itself.  But even the process of selfing isn't a real self, it's a structure built out of thoughts, all those thoughts just being movement and not really existing as a real self.  Something can be called a self, but neither the thought of it as a self nor the thing itself are a self.  Everything is really just whatever it is, and the selfing process that is associated with it is just whatever it is, but it to is not a real self.

You see selfing is saying "i am that", and pointing at what you are claiming to be.  It can be said that the body is the body, but whatever system of thoughts is claiming to be the body is lieing  because really each thought, whatever a thought is, truly only exists as that thought.  So what are the thoughts thinking about that is claiming to be a body or something else? The being that is being created in the mind and wondering what it is itself is a web of thoughts.  

So if selfing is just a thought, that that can only be, a thought.  Any other thing it uses, a body, whatever, is not synonymous with the thought movement claiming it.  So all elements of experience are whatever they are, but they are all just what they are, not something else.  Selfing is only real as selfing, just as a lie is real as a lie.  Even every tiny thing making up the process of selfing, is just whatever it is.  It being shaped into  part of the act of selfing does not suddenly make it the act of selfing.  So each thought selfing uses is still not a self or part of a self.  Your entire identity is made up of countless things that themselves have nothing to do with selfhood.  If you removed each of these things one by one, eventually nothing would be left, so where is the self?

So the way you are talking about "you" there isn't really one to take ownership of anything including the non conscious mind.  All elements of the mind are what they are with no real you that they pertain to.

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Mulky