Has consciousness emerged as the immune system for the mind?

[SoLeftIAmRight]

I will not elaborate on the parallels. I only point out that the mind often gets hijacked by behaviors and beliefs in much the same way as our biology gets taken control of by viruses, parasites, and disease. Also, I point out my belief that “recovery” from things like addiction and fanaticism are made possible by conscious redirection.

Do the teachings of the Buddha, Jesus, and many others point out ways to direct the consciousness to mold the mind in ways that keep the unconscious directed away from unhealthy modes of being?

[DetlefK]

1. The psychological term "unconsciousness" was coined around 1900.

It was first explored by Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. Before them, the concept of the human mind being split into two components simply didn't exist. (I don't count the ancient Egyptians' belief that each person consists of 3 kinds of souls and 3 kinds of bodies.) So how are millenia-old religions supposed to refer to that in their teachings?

[SoLeftIAmRight]

2. At some point consciousness "emerged"

Roger Penrose in his book The emperor's New Mind and Tor Norretranders in The User Illusion both point to speculation that this emergence is relatively recent (3000 years).

I fell that that dating is much too recent. In either case wise men have looked at the idea of "mind".

Do you have any thoughts on my question about consciousness?

[DetlefK]

5. Meditation, visions, trance...

You need to empty your mind from "active" thinking.

Sometimes I have dreams that reveal my subconscious thoughts to me. (I know the circumstances that cause those dreams, but I never tried to enter this state intentionally. It seems wrong to me.)
In those dreams, symbolism is everything. Nothing is what it looks like, but is actually a metaphor for a thought, a concept, a fear.

For example: I recently had a dream that I realized was a mirror for my subconscious fear to never see a particular person again. Even though the dream had no components that refer to any kind of "leaving". The dream would actually have been quite nice, if not for the feeling of unfiltered terror that totally didn't match the situation.



I think, facing your subconsciousness is not that tricky. The difficulty is finding the hints of meaning buried in the midst of the chaos inside your head.

[Lordquinton]

8. You're making the mistake of isolating us from the rest of the animals

We don't know if consciousness is unique to humans, other animals display some self aware traits, so why wouldn't it be possible that they have some form of it themselves?

[SoLeftIAmRight]

10. Only here - but not in my mind

Roger Penrose in his book The emperor's New Mind suggest the same thing.

[Fumesucker]

3. Consciousness doesn't work very well at solving complex problems...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8732-sleeping-on-it-best-for-complex-decisions.html

In one of the tests, half of the participants were asked to ponder on the information they were given and then decide which among similar products to buy. The other half were shown the information but then made to perform a series of puzzles including anagrams and simple arithmetic. At the end of the puzzle session, the participants were asked to make a snap decision about the products.

"We found that when the choice was for something simple, such as purchasing oven gloves or shampoo, people made better decisions - ones that they remained happy with - if they consciously deliberated over the information," says Dijksterhuis.

"But once the decision was more complex such as for a house, too much thinking about it led people to make the wrong choice. Whereas, if their conscious mind was fully occupied on solving puzzles, their unconscious could freely consider all the information and they reached better decisions."

"At some point in our evolution, we started to make decisions consciously, and we're not very good at it. We should learn to let our unconscious handle the complicated things," Dijksterhuis says.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

4. Einstein would agree.

But this does not address my question.

Here is some info - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

I lean toward the 9.5 idea -

[Fumesucker]

6. As far as I understand his ideas I think Metzinger may on the right track..

http://www.amazon.com/Being-No-One-Self-Model-Subjectivity/dp/0262633086

I'm trying to get a copy of the book through interlibrary loan at the moment, I have read a number of articles that reference Metzinger's ideas and I think I understand where he's coming from but creating a pithy summary is beyond my skills.

According to Thomas Metzinger, no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. The phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model." In Being No One, Metzinger, a German philosopher, draws strongly on neuroscientific research to present a representationalist and functional analysis of what a consciously experienced first-person perspective actually is. Building a bridge between the humanities and the empirical sciences of the mind, he develops new conceptual toolkits and metaphors; uses case studies of unusual states of mind such as agnosia, neglect, blindsight, and hallucinations; and offers new sets of multilevel constraints for the concept of consciousness. Metzinger's central question is: How exactly does strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerge out of objective events in the natural world? His epistemic goal is to determine whether conscious experience, in particular the experience of being someone that results from the emergence of a phenomenal self, can be analyzed on subpersonal levels of description. He also asks if and how our Cartesian intuitions that subjective experiences as such can never be reductively explained are themselves ultimately rooted in the deeper representational structure of our conscious minds.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

7. Many thanks - will take a look

be well

[AlbertCat]

9. What do you mean by "consciousness"

'Cause it can be as simple as being aware of aspects of the surroundings, or a many concurrently running different leveled thing.

I read in Steven Pinker, or was it Susan Blackmore.... anyway it was a bit about that inner life we all seem to have is a result of being social animals.... something that requires paying attention to those around you. Apparently we can do this "I think he is thinking that I am thinking that he is thinking that I am...." up to 6 or 7 layers. And of course we send numerous subtle signals to others to let them know our state of mind. All this deducing feels like an inner conversation and inner life. THAT's what I think consciousness....beyond just being aware of our surroundings.... evolves and comes from.

There was an interesting bit in the book about how when we sees a corpse of a person, it is upsetting in a way that is unique because the dead body is NOT sending you any signals or clues as to what the person is thinking. No one is there. Therefore when you start the "what is he thinking/ going to do" mental cycle....it is not getting any clues and is confused and alarmed.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

11. Try - Tor Norretranders in The User Illusion

He puts forth the idea that consciousness is the very narrow bandwidth that we juggle above the rest of the mind.


I really like Pinker