Everything we perceive is filtered through the grid of our worldview. From the moment our consciousness awakens, our worldview is built, brick-upon-brick through every activity and interaction that we experience. How we receive and manage those experiences is key.
Do I take in and reorganize?
or
Do I take in and reinforce?
Am I a grower, an expander?
or
Am I a hoarder, an entrencher?
Am I a hierarchical/structuralist in nature?
or
Am I
Those personality traits are rudimentary to how we will face this world. Our species, culture, society, neighborhood, and family may well be determined, but our response to those stimuli comes from deep within, from who we are as a unique individual.
That being is who we must foster and set free, for better or worse. We must fight every day to perceive our biases, throwing them off, widening our worldview.
How long is a baby tabula rasa? it may have instincts and a personality, but its knowledge and understanding of itself and its world are built up as the slate is written on by thoughts, memories, experiences, and relationships.
The newborn human brain can be likened to a “half baked” CPU with hard drives. Human gestation isn’t complete at birth. The earliest conscious memories start somewhere between 18 to 36 months and they are mere flashes. The brain doesn’t fully mature for ~24 years.
The brain has many functions, many of which we know nothing about. But it seems to have three primary functions:
- Knowledge ACQUISITION
- Knowledge STORAGE
- Its top function appears to be experiential in nature. I.e., the brain interacts with its surroundings seeking out security, cause & effect, energy sources, companionship, and beauty.
The brain is unique on earth. It creates sentience.
It occurs to me that many people associate their brain with who they are – their essence.
However, the brain is an organ like the liver, heart, or kidneys. It has primary, secondary, and tertiary functions. The human brain enables consciousness. We do not yet understand how, but that day is coming.
Many see consciousness as a mystery. They see it as equivalent to a soul or spirit that has no attachment to the physical body. For these folks our essence seems to be something altogether different than our body and organs. They have questions about their essence. Will I go on after the body dies? Will I be me in my next life? This is the problem of consciousness.
Recently, a friend asked the question, “How are you determining the the difference between a subconscious and just having a deep seated memory – how are these two things different things?”
In order to approach that subject, one needs to expose the reader to solid definitions. Even though I strongly disagree with Freud and find his teachings quite distasteful, most people still think in terms of his three-tier consciousness model. Sadly, generally speaking, those people do not have a scientific definition of conscious, unconscious, and subconscious. To avoid confusion I provide the following definitions according to Merriam Webster:
Subconscious
adjective: existing in the mind but not immediately available to consciousness
noun: the mental activities just below the threshold of consciousness
Many might call this instinct but it is far more complex than instinct.
We subconsciously repress things involuntarily to avoid trauma, to defend ourselves. But “the subconscious” also actively seeks out security and purpose.
“The subconscious” drives responses, dreams, even emotional reactions. It affects feelings and behaviors. Deep unknown or repressed thoughts may be revealed in dreams and artistic expression.
Anxiety may spring from an irrational underlying, unrecognized belief.
Muscle-memory and second-nature behavior are tied to “the subconscious”.
Unconscious is a bit trickier.
adjective: not conscious (not in a waking state, but not asleep, unable to consciously act)
noun: the part of the mind which is inaccessible to the conscious mind but undergirds and supports it.
The unconscious mind consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically, i.e., they’re not available to introspection but they are foundational to the mind’s conscious life. This basement level is where we exist when we are not dead but not conscious.
The unconscious neither represses nor seeks. It supports the our total consciousness.
Now we come to the crux of existence.
Conscious(ness)
noun: the state of being aware of and responding to one’s surroundings, that is, who we are.
We consciously suppress things, actions, impulses or thoughts. But we also actively seek out security and purpose.
Consciousness encompasses many things such as memories. Memories result from consciousness but they are not consciousness. Consciousness is the awareness of the world AND the ability to interact with that world.
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Personally, I choose to see only two levels of consciousness – conscious and unconscious. But to keep us all aligned I will continue with the Freudian model of three.
As can be seen through the definitions above, the subconscious and the conscious cross-over in two main aspects: in what they avoid and in what they seek.
Let’s use real world experience to illustrate.
Our consciousness takes in the raw essence of every experience – qualia. It does so through the mechanism of our unconscious mind’s undergirding, support and infrastructure. We see a tomato is bright red. Another person may see that same tomato in the same place and moment as a slightly different shade. That is, their raw essence of the same tomato in the same instant in the same lighting is unique to each.
The unconscious mind is enabling both people’s experience through the same mechanism. The differences come from our evolved adaptability. That is, physiologically both individuals are identical, but humans evolved ability to adapt allows them to experience raw inputs somewhat differently.
Now let’s change the experience. It’s not a tomato. It’s an angry, violent fight between the two people who meet my every need in this world. I am three or four years old. My conscious mind must reconcile this trauma. I must defend my helpless self. The subconscious kicks in, utilizing the unconscious infrastructure, the subconscious begins to explore various means of protection.
As I am so young and have limited experience, the subconscious uses non-waking time to reconcile the threats to my security – dreams. With limited resources (experiences) even in dream state the subconscious has only one choice – flee the trauma. Night terrors, nightmares may ensue.
Now let’s say I have an identical twin who was in the room and went through the experience with me. His conscious mind can and will react differently than mine. This nuanced experience is created by adaptability.
You see where we have arrived. To abstract the three states of consciousness from one another blurs the fact that we are all the same physiologically yet individually unique. There is a yet to be explained complexity at work in consciousness but there is no mystery. Our conscious essence exists somehow tied to our physical body. There is no proof that it continues beyond the death of our physical body. h’s unique function and therefore loses sight of the complexity of how our essence operates in this world. All sentient creatures have some level of this same functionality. We live we die our essence winks out our bodies breakdown.
My whole point is this.
The unconscious is the engine of everything. It is inaccessible. We cannot introspect on it. Our upper-level consciousness drives off of that engine with one goal – reconcile all experiences in order to keep me as close to a state of security and contentment as possible.
This is the existential state of every sentient creature.
Now back to my friend’s question, “How are you determining the the difference between a subconscious and just having a deep seated memory – how are these two things different things?”
Our consciousness and unconsciousness constitute no mystery. As our scientific knowledge grows our understanding of the brain grows. Our brain is merely an organ which through biochemical processes generates consciousness. We have yet to completely understand how the brain fires and creates “us”, but our knowledge continues to grow.
Bottomline: Foster who you are as a unique individual.
There is no problem with consciousness. There is only a problem of resisting the truth that we are a highly evolved predatory species.
For a great slice of the implications of all this check out: https://youtu.be/vR2P5vW-nVc.
The video postulates that every behavior that we do, we do to reduce uncertainty. The brain reduces uncertainty through assumptions about what we can/cannot “trust”. The ground will support me. If I jump, I will fall and be injured. But the human brain also evolved to evolve; it has adapted to adapt. In keeping with my postulation that the brain’s top function appears to be experiential in nature, Beau Lotto says the brain evolved to take the meaningless and make it meaningful. “If you aren’t sure that is a predator, it is too late.” Absolutely everything we do is grounded in assumptions that our brain makes. Accepting this concept frees us to see differently. In the video, Lotto, a neuroscientist, states that the brain does not make giant leaps but rather always takes small steps. What others perceive as me being creative, making fantastic connections of disparate things is for me just the next logical small step. This belief system heightens the beauty of relational/experiential art. It’ a cool short video.