Re: Unconscious Processes Vs. Unconscious Mind

From: HARNAD Stevan (harnad@cogsci.soton.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Jun 04 1996 - 22:28:34 BST


> From: "Capon, Sam" <SMC694@psy.soton.ac.uk>
> Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 16:54:01 GMT
>
> Unconscious processing consists of all the things going on in your
> head that you cannot introspect about because you are not aware of
> the processes themselves . It leads to automatic reactions that
> cannot be directly perceived . Everything that you do or feel is
> controlled by these unconscious processes . For example seeing and
> understanding .

So far this is fine...

> The conscious mind is all the things that it is possible to
> introspect on . This includes all the 'feelings' that you experience.
> For example the feeling of being unwell , of being tired or of
> wanting to perform an activity .

Fine.

> However the unconscios mind implies
> that you are not aware of these feelings .Thus it contradicts itself
> by implying that you are experiencing 'feelingless feelings ' .

Here it gets garbled. See the other skywriting on this topic.

> This introduces the homunculus problem . That is , in order for the
> unconscious mind to be of any use there must be another mind
> [conscious or not ]feeling the feelings for you .

Maybe, but this lacks kid-sib clarity.

> However the homunculus does not explain 'HOW' it is done . it just
> presents you with another mind which also has to be explained . In
> order to avoid this problem , it is possible to say that unconsious
> processes act as the homunculus for the unconscious mind .
> Unconsious processes are experiencing and analysing the images or
> feelings felt in the unconsious mind . And the way unconscious
> processing does this , is the 'how ' question that reverse engineering
> tries to answer , and what cognitive science is devoted to .

Here it has all become rather garbled, I am afraid. See the other
replies on these topics.



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