Consciousness:Pilot and Auto-pilot

[The Bearded Lady]

Has anyone divided up the concept of consciousness itself?

If not, I am going to do it for the heck of it.

This is gonna get messy!

I'm not prepared for any flaming because this idea just popped into my head not fully formulated or placed under scientific scrutiny(which I have never learned to do).

I am only going to start off with what I find are the two most easily identifiable types(for which I can give some sort of example). The Pilot category and the Auto-pilot category, which may be expanded on in the future.

My definition of the Pilot is the quintessential "absolute" awareness of one's experiences as one lives, forming and emoting itself strongly to be one clear and vivid layer of consciousness, operating at one really high/fast energy level only. For example: I make a descision to cut up some carrots and put them in a bowl. Throughout the experience, I am present, I am taking deliberate actions, with carrots being the only thought on my mind. One layer of consciousness with an accompanying high/fast energy level make for a clear and vivid experience which becomes the Pilot category. Don't ask me how I the high/fast energy level.

My definition for the Auto-pilot is the stacking of consciousness into two simultaneous experiences of awareness with one awareness being layered over the other, each of a unique but lower/slower energy level which causes both competing layers to lack in clarity and vividness. Oh, I don't know what I am trying to say, so I'll move on to the example for Auto-pilot. The example: When I drive for long distances I zone out and then arrive at my destination wondering how I got there and am still in one piece. This zoning out leaves me with two simultaeous conscious experiences, but both are devoid of clarity and vividness upon reflection. However I was not so obviously unaware for I was able to both drive and think a myriad of other thoughts. The lacking of any clear and vivid stream of thoughts/actions for both the competing layers and their lower/slower energy levels form the Auto-pilot of consciousness.

So there is a minimum of two categories of consciousness, the Pilot and the Auto-pilot consisting of one layer and two competing layers, and three energy levels(albeit two are of a lesser measure) of consciousness with the diffences between the two categories being threefold 1)clarity 2) vividness 3)measured(high vs. low-fast vs.slow)energy levels of the overall experiences.

Am I making any sense?

[James S Saint]

It makes sense to me, although I have never been able to draw a discrete line between consciousness and any part of the mind. We have cognition that we typically think of as "my thoughts". Your cognition can be taken into a dream mode wherein it ignores its surroundings and thus isn't actually conscious at that moment. Consciousness means "awareness".

Lower levels of the mind remain conscious to what they can perceive even when the cognitive mind departs into a dream world and in some cases, gets physically removed via a lobotomy.

Each portion of a mind, separated by its area in the brain, is aware of different things. Each area constitutes a separate mind with its own personality. It is from this, that what we perceive as emotions arise. Each portion sends out an urge to act, a higher level (much like a congress situation) being aware of the final result of each portion, balances out the "votes" being cast to act in this direction or that. What you finally "decide" to do is the final talley of votes.

The cognitive mind merely senses urgings that are contrary to its own volition and thus regards them as emoters urging action in a different direction that what it has "thought". By ensuring that the cognitive mind is always in agreement with the other voters (the Senate and President agree with the House), harmony is established and there are no inner complaints being registered. Harmonic bliss is realized.

[The Bearded Lady]

James,

Thank you. I appreciate your input.

[tentative]

I think what you're talking about is cognitive focus. You sensate world is taking in all sorts of information that you can selectively attend to. For instance, how warm is it? what is that odor? What is that sound? At any time you can focus on that particular question and ignore the rest. They are there, and your senses are "processing" them, but you are only focussed one or perhaps two at any given time. That's a good example for auto-pilot since most of us have experienced that very same thing. Auto pilot is probably pattern recognition so ingrained that it allows you to "multitask". When driving, as long as the patterns appear normal, you ignore thhem. You only focus on those patterns that aren't normal - like the truck that is about to run over you. What you are attending to with driving in the background can be anything.

Bottom line, it is about selective focus. One shouldn't get too carried away with the conscious-unconscious issues, it is enough to know that even our consciousness is highly selective.

[unsuper]

yeah....it's called conscious and subconscious
i call your auto-pilot, 'the machine'

but you seem to be overestimating your consciousness. you are completely more aware now, then when you were when you were 5. yet when you were 5 i bet you assumed you were fully conscious.....if you are aware of this much (and you use like 15% of your brain) just imagine what you aren't aware of


beyond that you rarely consciously do anything. do you honestly think you are consciously walking or are you just telling 'the machine' to do it? muscle memory is a subconscious thing
we assume we are controlling specifics when we are just controlling a much larger scope than we realize