Bill W. writes
Let me pass on to you my philosophy regarding
consciousness.
Consciousness is divided in two - the conscious
and the subconscious. The conscious is what
we KNOW and the subconscious is what we ARE
(feeling). Man is constantly expressing that
which he knows and feels to be true about himself
- nothing more and nothing less. When I say
'I am happy or sad,' or 'I am a doctor or a
factory worker," I am expressing what I know
and feel myself to be. Everything starts from
within and works its way into the physical world.
Happiness, joy, fear, insecurity etc are inner
qualities that determine our place in the world.
A fear of spiders might not be a quality that
would cause one to be an entomologist while
the love of airplanes might lead one to become
a pilot.
Change can only be made when we change what
we know and feel to be true about ourselves.
To know and feel 'I am happy' is to alter our
perception of ourselves and thus happiness must
be expressed. To know and feel 'I am healthy'
must therefore express health. The law of expression
is that which we know and feel to be true of
ourselves must be expressed.
If one should win the lottery, the response
from within would be joy, happiness etc at the
sudden realization that one no longer is limited
by money and can buy anything or go anywhere.
My point here is that if physical wealth can
lead to a mental reaction, then according to
the law of expression, a mental action can lead
to physical wealth. To assume the consciousness
of the knowing and the feeling of wealth must
express wealth.
Of course, knowing and feeling are at the very
core of what we are, therefore simply thinking
a thought does not mean it will take root in
our knowing and feeling. Perhaps this can be
discussed at a later date.
Jim Replies:
Bill's interesting conjecture is that, "The
conscious is what we KNOW and the subconscious
is what we ARE (feeling)."
Forgive me, but let me see if I can throw this
idea into turmoil. Let's take the first half
of your statement:
"
The conscious is what we KNOW"
Take a type of blindness called "blind-sight".
Blind-sight is a well documented and truly bizarre
affliction. People who suffer from blind-sight
possess fully operational eyes and optical cortex
of the brain. So why are they blind? Because
they are not conscious of seeing! In blind-sight
people brain damage has somehow broken the wires
that connect the optical cortex and the consciousness
areas of the brain. In scientific experiments
blind-sight people are shown arrows and asked
to indicate which why the arrows point. These
blind-sight subjects are able guess correctly
significantly more often than average, even
though those people report that they cannot
see anything (they really are blind people).
Indeed the blind-sight people think the question
of which way the arrow is pointing is absurd,
they cannot see it! Yet such patients consistently
"guess" the correct answer more often than can
be explained by chance alone.
The explanation is that the subconscious mind
can see and the subconscious somehow communicates
this knowledge to the experimenter without the
blind-sight patient being aware of it.
In other words the blind-sight person KNOWS
things without being conscious of them.
Another example: a rare form of brain damage,
caused for example in a car accident, which
means that people can't identify faces of people,
not only famous people, but even pictures of
their own family. Experiments have shown that
their subconscious IS recognising the faces,
it is just that they are not conscious of the
identities. Hence they are genuinely confused
and cannot describe the identities because they
are genuinely ignorant of them at the conscious
level.
Such brain damage patients teach us much about
how consciousness works. Based on this type
of evidence, your conjecture "The conscious
is what we KNOW" would appear to be mistaken.
My version of that statement would be, "Conscious
is concerned with what we are aware of KNOWING,
not what we ACTUALLY know"!
Maybe that is what Bill meant.
Now on to the second half of Bill's conjecture.
Permit me challenge that too.
To quote Bill, "
the subconscious is what
we ARE (feeling)."
My own idea (feeling?) about this is that if
we feel it then we are conscious of it. Feeling
is a conscious experience. The subconscious
might be no more feeling than a computer program.
Feeling is a conscious manifestation of information
the subconscious decides to convey to us. For
example, the subconscious mind wishes us to
survive so that we may live to reproduce. We
(generally) fear large predatory animals, poisonous
creatures, heights and death in general.
A chief aim of the subconscious mind is to induce
us to reproduce, another instinct necessarily
common to all surviving species of life. The
conscious mind "feels" love for a mate. Kids
are often the result.
Kids are expensive (!) Wealth is very useful
when it comes to raising kids, for it provides
food and shelter. The subconscious mind tells
the conscious mind to seek resources (eg. money)
by rewarding the conscious mind with feelings
of happiness on obtainment of wealth.
An unfeeling subconscious mind uses feelings
to communicate to the conscious mind what it
is doing. Everything we do is decided by the
subconscious. The conscious mind becomes aware
of them via the conscious experiences of perceptions
and feelings.
In conclusion, I might totally reverse Bill's
original conjecture like this: "
The SUBCONSCIOUS
is what we KNOW and the CONSCIOUS is what we
ARE (feeling)."
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