Awareness, un/consciousness, and control

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
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It amazes me that we are so much more than we are aware of. My unconscious, or subconscious, is a great deal bigger than my conscious self (Freud believed that our mind is like an iceberg, the tip above the surface being our conscious self and the greater portion below being the unconscious self). Just at a simple level, the group of muscles and arteries that is my heart operates incessantly, sending information to the brain and adjusting to my activities, distributing to the rest of the body what it needs, all without my awareness. The only connections I have with my heart are the indirect effects its operation has on my physiology and the never-ending, fluctuating thump-thump I can physically feel. My heart is always working for me, and I am not ever able to feel it in an intimate way; my heart is a part of me, but it is not included in my repertoire of awareness. I can never have direct control over my heart, but it is always a part of my being.

My body is partitioned into those pieces that need to be in my conscious control, those that need to be out of my control, and those that can go either way. Of course, my brain is still the control center for the entire body; I am simply unaware of many of its controlling functions. My awareness is limited so as to create an efficient consciousness: not bogged down by details, except those that are important to the preservation of my life. Another reason, other than the sake of efficiency, for certain functions to be out of conscious, direct control is that it preserves life. If we had complete control of our heart, we could decide to stop it, which would quickly kill the body (similar but significantly different from our ability to stop breathing, of which the body regains control if we do not breathe for too long). Many times people will feel like they want to die, but the fact that they do not have direct control over their heart makes it virtually impossible for them to kill themselves by overriding its functionality.

My unknown self is present in my mind as well as my physical body. As I mentioned before, the unconscious self is greater than the conscious self, possibly to as great an extent as Freud believed. A large sum of details are taken into the mind through the senses of the body, from the body and the outside world, many of which are forgotten quickly; but a great number leave imprints on the mind, undetected by our awareness. This mass of processed and unprocessed information holds powerful sway over the conscious mind, our thoughts and actions. While the conscious mind is a sailboat with a rudder, the unconscious mind is the wind behind that pushes it in one direction or another. It is the uncontrollable piece of our mind, same as the uncontrollable pieces of our body. If our unconscious mind is clear, processed, true, or in other words functional, then it will push our conscious selves towards the right thoughts and actions. The same is true for the body – if all the uncontrollable pieces are properly functional, then they push the body towards being healthy and able.

Some believe that everyone has a philosophy, whether or not they know it. These fundamental views of the world, or beliefs, are based on the accumulation of processed and unprocessed information that comes to the senses. They argue that if we process all the information objectively, we should have a belief system that accurately reflects the truths of our world. Perhaps, to gain proper control of my life, I must understand my unconscious self, both in body and mind. I must be mindful of everything that drives my thoughts and actions if I am to truly know my Self. Maybe then, it will be possible to have maximum control of my life.

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Well said.

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well thought-out post. most people have little idea how much their low awareness directly impacts their daily lives. if there is one single aspect of the human mind that influences our thoughts, actions, destiny, etc, it is our awareness.

awareness is just “that which experiences”. when we are consciously experiencing something, we are aware of it. when we turn this awareness on ourselves and focus it into our thoughts/beliefs/concepts, it is called introspection. introspection is a powerful way to get information about ourselves, as well as an important method of refining, checking and changing our beliefs to be more in-line with true reality. one primary reason why most people are so influences by forces outside their control (such as political propoganda, media manipulation, advertizing, public opinion, etc etc) is because they do not have a correct epistemology (set of beliefs/concepts about truth, knowledge, and the processes by which knowledge is gained). this dysfunction in their conceptual thinking mind results directly from their low awareness; because they are unaware of the nature of forces which act on them, they are powerless to change them.

a person who has worked on his awareness gains the increased sight to look around and within himself; he literally sees more than others. and because he sees more, he understands more, and is able to take his destiny into his own hands, gaining the willpower to affect real change for his life. self-actualization and transcendent happiness are direct results of a high-functioning awareness… we all should always be striving to expand our awareness to newer, deeper and more fundamental levels. this is the essence of meditation, real philosophic thinking, etc.

any real spiritual journey (substitute “mind” for spirit if you are not religious, its the same thing) begins with the “I”, the I AM; the mental self that is alive in the moment, the thing that experiences. that is you. the real you, which is not your thoughts, not your emotions, not your instincts or unconscious memories or reactions or socially-conditoned responses; the real you is the singular, indivisible I at the center of your being, the deep core of awareness. so when you work on expanding your awareness, you really expand your spiritual power. you become more than you were before. whether they call this enlightenment, transcendence, wisdom, or salvation, they all point to the same thing: you, as your singular awareness, overcoming the limitations and barriers of the human unconsciousness.

spread consciousness throughout your being; force the light of consciousness deep into your unconscious structures, into your forgotten memories, into your conditioned beliefs and responses, into the fundamental premises which construct your thoughts and concepts. consciousness is the light of the “divine” (the human divine, having nothing supernatural or mystical about it) – it is a completely natural, real and practical process. when you learn the true meaning of raising the awareness by living the effects of travelling the road to enlightenment, you will begin to see the true knowledge, happiness and freedom that follows from a powerful and aware self. :sunglasses:

4

I think the level of awareness in us varies, depending on the day and each moment, and depending on the individual, as well.

Changes of how we see, hear, feel, etc may give us the indication that the awareness has shifted.

I think our awareness would attain certain critical level at so-called “surface” and leave large part “subconscious” because the surface is where we direct our attention most often and the back side of it remain unknown.

In other words, we can learn about our subconscious area by examining our focus of attention and inspecting what is behind.

But awareness doesn’t have to be directed all the time.
And it’s interesting to pull back and stay in the middle of “front end” and “back end”. :slight_smile:

As our awareness isn’t focused, we can’t think in this state (if well done).
Depending on the degree of occasional focus noise, it may give us really quiet impression and we may hear different sound such as the sound of blood running around.

Also, there is a way to “de-phase” the awareness wave.
It may lead us to a kind of blackout.

Non-focused states of awareness are rather important in resting and readjusting our human emotion/thought/body.

Usually, we can train ourselves to concentrate our attention, first.
And then bring that attention back to have non-focused awareness.

Some people are natural in these things and can shift state of awareness (and shape), more or less easily.
I guess some (or lots) of religious practices were the effort of awareness manipulation/control.

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Who cares about Freud!? Yes he had good ideas, yes he was part of a train which helped focus a new direction in research however massive amounts of his claims are poor science and wrong.

Now yes, most of what makes up self is unconscious the iceberg analogy is apt however researches like westermack deserves just as much (no a lot more than freud)for his explanation of in/out unconscious cognitive mechanism and what circumstances it sets up or doesn’t.

Anyway people studying the mind from an evolutionary perspective for decades have uncovered mass amounts of unconscious stuff, for example the recent cognitive neuroscientific support for Triver’s theory about self deception. (people unconsciously decieve themselves to hide the subtle signs of self knowledge to better decieve others.)

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certainly, there are numerous mechanisms of self-deception that have evolved to facilitate social interaction. empathy and sympathy ar obvious ones (we feel sorry for others who are hurt because we want THEM to feel sorry for US when we are hurt, and our sympathy ensures that the response will occur in others when we are in need of help ourselves). our behavior has been molded for millions of years, and our consciousness and emotions are no exception.

freuds weakness was that back when he was researching, there were no standards of proof or repeatibility; he didnt have to develop his theory based on repeatable verifiable results. this isnt freuds fault, as these standards did not exist back then. but if you study freud’s theories on consciousness, memory and sociological forces, his ideas are very interesting, and make a great deal of sense, even in light of current new theories and knowledge. of course, his theories are only pieces of the puzzle, but they are still important to getting a deep understanding of the nature of consciousness and unconsciousness. freud was in fact as much of a philosophical thinker as he was psychologist, and his theories in eros, thanatos, social repression and domination were revolutionary, and remain as convincing and dialectically-explanatory today as ever.

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The problem is those standards did exist back then and Freud ignored that while others didn’t. It at least was common practice. My problem is today people endlessly talk Freud when most his theories are wrong or nonsense today. (always even.) Okay so he’s popular/had good ideas THOSE aren’t what he’s known for AND other researchers had that PLUS theories accepted as TRUE today, really brilliant work and their unknowns.

Freud’s popularity is directly attributable to the public’s acceptance of outdated ideas about mind. Unconscious desire to sleep with family, psychoanalysis, Freud is rembered/respected for his overwhelming failures. He didn’t come up with the unconscious mind, he didn’t do great scientific research on the unconscious mind, but he’s massively famous in relation to it. While evolutionary scientists confirm the existance of unconscious adaptations/behaviors whether they universally exist, the in/out cognitive neuroscience etc.
Darwin suggested mass amounts about human psycholgy most right.

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Freud’s theories almost all don’t even apply, let alone being important notes in understanding human consciousness. What family sex? repressed sexual urges? dream interpretation ? psychosexual development? ID EGO and superego? sublimination? Oedipus complex? the death drive? lol

you guys go on about how freud was such an important thinker, yet he and his work set psycholgy back 100years. All those theories I mentioned are BULLSHIT but loads of people still take it seriously over modern science. (i only mentioned a few)
Does anyone else see that? he ass raped science and everyone should admit it. Other researchers went on about the unconscious mind, Darwin ranted about it, most of what he said was correct.

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i agree that freud was not always correct, and that his theories were constructed from logical/historical inference, rather than empirical deduction. however, and especially in an evolutionary sense, concepts such as sexual sublimation, the evolution of the ego to restrain basic animal urges/instincts for long-term gain, the evolution of superego to manage the balance between id and ego as best as possible to facilitate social interaction, concepts such as social domination via suppression of id-instincts and sexual energy, and the redirection of said energy into socially-helpful “work”… these theories are very convincing, and each of these concepts can be defended very well by reference to modern knowledge of the psyche, history, social forces, and behavioral evolution.

btw, id, ego and superego are just words used to designate the totality of related mechanisms and unconscious drives… freud never meant that there was actually an “id” “spot” in the brain somewhere, like a little organ or something in the brain. he just used these terms as referents to describe a set of tendencies and unconscious forces which acted to facilitate certain common goals.

its ok that you dont like freud, but he is not looked upon as setting psychology back 100 years… i have a degree in psychology and i know for a fact that mainstream psychology considers freud one of the founders of psychology as a science (not in the modern empirical sense, but with regard to its differentiation from existing religious or non-rational, non-systematic understandings of the mind). freud helped fuel thought and insight into the mind and consciousness. of course he was not all correct; no one is.

i know one of the “later” scientists that you refer to as being better than freud: his student jung. jung actually has far more influence in modern theory than freud does. his work alone with archetypal knowledge and collective unconsciousness are hugely insightful. but i am curious, you say that there are many other newer, better psychologists with better theories and more proof? i certainly believe you, but i dont know of too many. could you list a few people’s names, so i can go get some info on them?

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The problem is that mainstream psychology is horseshit. Theres meta analysis attesting that all therapies work the same, studies that show minimally trained lay people can treat as well as predict future behavior just as well as psychiatrists etc. Many of the central tenets of psycholgy (MS) have been long blown out of the water. Most studies on unconscious human behavior and the cognitive neuromachinery envolved has nothing to do with his ideas/theories but are based on evolutionary TESTABLE PREDICTIONS like westermack (sp).

You don’t think freud held science back but the people who discover the most about unconscious human nature DO. Daly/Wilson, Tooby/Cosmides.

As to some modern researchers: Thornhill, Garver, Gangestad, Brown, Moore, Geary, Sherman, Buss, Bellis, Baker, Penton voak, Bronstad. the list is near endless, its based on evolutionary prediction like westermack or darwin. People who discover the unconscious mind are rarely ever students of freud but of Darwin.

Burch and Gallop, PLATEK etc

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The science of unconscious behaviors and what makes them up is evolutionary, the focus allows for huge sweeping discovery, Why don’t freud’s theories provide testable predictions about the unconscious mind? why aren’t there attempts to study these mechanisms like we do for other theories. 1. They’re not there. 2. We can’t test because its not science.

Problem is you have a degree in psycholgy and you’re full of freud and NOT the researchers discovering massive* amounts that either contradicts freud or fits into another framework. You shouldn’t know a thing about Freud before learning all the research of those I mentioned+hundreds of others that find facts in human behaviors not mystifying over how old dead nontestable theories apply to humans. Which is what large factions of MS psycholgy have become.

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Theres nothing wrong learning about freud AS history, about his timeframe AS a historical curiosity but to teach people about application to interpret human behavior LET ALONE treat people, its crazy. The fact that they can’t treat patients better than laypeople (double blind trials) is verging on massively irresponsible. Applying freudian theory to human behavior is insane, using it to treat/predict which IS common is mind numbing.

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yes i can certainly attest to a high level of incompetence within the discipline itself. in fact, i did research for one of my profs, research which was actually accepted for publication (of course he never put my name on it), and all he cared about was following some rigid format, making minimal extrapolations and conclusions based on corrolations as low as 0.1 (p < .05). seriously… and to make matters worse, the research was not original, nor were the survey questionnaires verified as actually indicative of what they claimed to show. and yet, the research was granted publication status, merely because he is a well-known prof in the i/o field.

that aside, i can say with complete confidence that i had about 2 profs in psych which i respected… and mainly that was by comparison to the rest. so you are correct that a lot of mainstream psych is bs. though ive never heard the studies that you refer to claiming that laypeople can diagnose/etc as good or better than psych profs; im sure it is accurate, i would sure believe it, but id still be interested to read about it.

ill check out some of those names you posted; as far as understanding behavioral mechanisms, taking an evolutionary approach is certainly one of the best (if not the best) approaches to understanding why we behave the ways that we do. i dont put all the credit in evol. psych, however; i believe that there is a great deal to learn from historical/sociological/anthropological analyses of a collective nature: when we examine behavior of individuals from the perspective of groups, patters become very clear. but youre right, in order to explain much of this behavior, we need to understand the causal foundations of why they evolved in the first place.

points well taken about freud… i agree with you 98%; i love examining freuds works, mainly his philosophical critical theory as opposed to his psych, but yeah as far as how much he has probably benefited the field of knowledge… im sure its pretty limited.

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In Nietzsche’s words:

‘Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body.’
-Zarathustra, Of th Despisers of the Body

and

The whole surface of consciousness — consciousness is a surface — must be kept clear of any of the great imperatives. Beware even of every great word, every great pose! All of them represent a danger that the instinct will ‘understand itself’ too early ——. Meanwhile the organizing ‘idea’ that is destined to rule keeps growing deep down — it begins to command; slowly it leads us back from side roads and wrong turnings; it prepares individual qualities and abilities that will one day prove to be indispensable as means toward a whole — one by one, it brings into being these acillary capacities before giving any hint of the dominanting task, of the ‘goal’, ‘objective’, ‘meaning’. — Regarded from this side my life is simply wonderful.
…
-Ecce Homo, Why I am So Clever, 9

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3 times, do you think about 0.23 when p values < 0.01? strong correlation?

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I found this very odd. What family sex? Well, there are all sorts of undercurrent sexual/romantic dynamics in families, let alone the obvious examples of incest and sexual abuse that only in the last 30 years or so have been allowed to be noticed. Freud’s certainty around his dream interpretation was excessive. But that one can learn things by looking at dream images and characters as symbols and that dreams have meaning that can be uncovered works rather effectively for a lot of people. ID EGO and Superego is also an effective representation, at least phenomenologically. You have the I that I identify with - ego - the often ego dystonic phenomena of self - urges, emotions, thoughts - that one tries to control (iow ID) and you have the conscience, often experience as a voice or thoughts that judge both the self as a whole and certainly the ID, and often the ego for not keeping a lid on the ID. To look at one’s self using these terms can be quite effective in seeing where, as one example amongst many, an overly severe Superego, can be adding stress and sucking the pleasure out of life. Cognitive therapists work with very similar ideas - albeit generally with different therapeutic techiniques than Freud - and quite effectively and even manage to track results using rigorous scientific studies. Repressed sexual urges? Hello. Are you saying this is not a part of society? Are you saying this was not something that had effects in the middle European milieu in which Freud developed his ideas? Sublimation is also generally accepted as possible. Think cars and men. Freud was overoptimistic about his ideas and the death instinct is a silly one, but his ideas are still working out there.

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Read some Deleuze and Guattari. Seriously.

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well, of course it depends on what we are studying, but in general that correlation would probably not be considered strong, but certainly would be meaningful, particularly at p < .01 as compared to p < .05. do you perhaps mean p < .001? if so, then an r value of 0.23 would certainly denote a meaningful causal relationship between the underlying variables.

i dont know what the “official” cutoffs are for r values as it pertains to causal meaningfulness; i dont even know if there are such general cutoffs. i think that each result needs to be viewed through the specific experimentation, along with a full understanding of why the variables are related in theory ; this can shed more light onto just how likely it is that any particular r value denotes a real causal relationship.

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simply amazing…

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3times, do you think thats meaningful? Its in relation to certain acts/tactics of males correlated positively towards violence. For example women who report direct guarding tactics from mate report a positive correlation. r (471) = 0.45 (all p values < 0.014)