Something that's always bugged me about psychology

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Votes: 2

Something that's always bugged me about psychology

Author:

pyramid termite

Topic:

Diaries

Posted:

Dec 18, 2001

Comments:

One of the basic theories in psychology is the subconsious mind. Supposedly, things lurk around in there and affect how our conscious mind works. However, I can't for the life of me comprehend this. If it's subconsious and you're not aware of it, it doesn't exist until you bring it up into your conscious mind, at which point it's not subconscious, but conscious. Therefore, it's impossible to think anything subconsciously, right?

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	What are dreams? (none / 0) (#1)
	by Nullifidian on Tue Dec 18th, 2001 at 06:08:30 PM PST

	Sorry to answer a question with a question. Have you ever had a lucid dream? Analogy Alert: Consiouness is like a big sandwich. It has many layers.

	Well, yeah, I've had a few of those (none / 0) (#2)
	by pyramid termite on Wed Dec 19th, 2001 at 04:58:15 AM PST

	... but I was conscious of having them, you know? He who hides his madman, dies voiceless - Henri Michaux

	Separate realities (none / 0) (#3)
	by Nullifidian on Wed Dec 19th, 2001 at 09:32:13 AM PST

	correct, but you were participating in a dream that was leaked from your subconsious. At that point you're in both places at the same time. Psychoactive drugs are also known to leak subconsious pictures and thoughts to the consious mind. It is true once you're aware of a subconsious incident it no longer becomes hidden and is a part of the consious mind. Yet intuition is a common "feeling" that affects our actions sometimes daily and we are barely aware that it is our subconsious mind steering our consious mind.

	Leaked from my subconscious? (none / 0) (#4)
	by pyramid termite on Wed Dec 19th, 2001 at 03:45:30 PM PST

	How would you or I possibly know that? Perhaps it came from God or the sandman. Perhaps thoughts just spontaneously generate in the conscious mind without any reason at all. Let's put it this way - I have a thought - whether it be a lucid dream or something less interesting doesn't matter. It can have come from the conscious mind itself, in which case one can say it just happened. Or we can say that the "subconscious mind" caused it to be, in which case we are saying that it came from something that cannot be directly observed, for if we could observe it, it would no longer be subconscious. Do thoughts have to come from somewhere? Where do the thoughts of the subconscious come from? "It's no good, young man, it's turtles all the way down ..." One could possibly identify n+1 subconsious minds for every thought detected coming from n subconscious minds. And with such a diffuse, ill-defined concept of an subconscious mind, one can add in such concepts as a Jungian collective consciousness, or God, or psychic aliens transmitting their thoughts to us, and no one can tell the difference between that and the plain vanilla concept of "one subconscious mind" It's a lot more slippery subject than is commonly believed. He who hides his madman, dies voiceless - Henri Michaux

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