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15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind

[workings of mind hidden from consciousness]

18 ideas
The movement of Soul is continuous, but we are only aware of the parts of it that are sensed [Plotinus]
     Full Idea: The Soul maintains its unfailing movement; for not all that passes in the soul is, by that fact, perceptible; we know just as much as impinges on the faculty of the sense.
     From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.12)
     A reaction: This is a straightforward argument in favour of an unconscious aspect to the mind - and a rather good argument too. No one thinks that our minds ever stop working, even in sleep.
I can't be unaware of anything which is in me [Descartes]
     Full Idea: Nothing can be in me of which I am entirely unaware.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to First Objections [1641]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.4
     A reaction: This I take to be a place where Descartes is utterly and catastrophically wrong. Until you grasp the utter falseness of this thought, the possibility of you (dear reader) understanding human beings is zero. Here 'I' obviously means his mind.
La Rochefoucauld's idea of disguised self-love implies an unconscious mind [Rochefoucauld, by Sartre]
     Full Idea: La Rochefoucauld is one of the first to have made use of the unconscious without naming it: for him, amour-propre conceals itself in the most diverse disguises.
     From: report of La Rochefoucauld (Maxims [1663]) by Jean-Paul Sartre - Transcendence of the Ego I (C)
     A reaction: It seems odd that no one before that ever thought that someone might have hidden motives of which even they themselves were unaware. How about Iago, or Macbeth, or Hamlet? It is a profound change in our view of human nature.
If we aren't aware that an idea is innate, the concept of innate is meaningless; if we do, all ideas seem innate [Locke]
     Full Idea: To say a notion is imprinted on the mind, but the mind is ignorant of it, is to make this impression nothing. ….But if the capacity of knowing be the test of innateness, all the truths a man ever comes to know will be every one of them innate.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1.02.05)
     A reaction: The problem is, I think, that Locke is relying wholly on introspection to decide on what is innate. If you turn to Chomsky's evidence, of children learning more language than they could possibly taught, there seems to be lots of evidence.
It is a serious mistake to think that we are aware of all of our perceptions [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Many errors can flow from the belief that the only perceptions in the soul are the ones of which it is aware.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01)
     A reaction: What a perceptive remark, for its time! I took it that it was only modern neuroscience and psychology which had woken us up to how much non-conscious activity is central to the mind.
The soul doesn't understand many of its own actions, if perceptions are confused and desires buried [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The soul does many things without knowing how it does them - when it does them by means of confused perceptions and unconscious inclinations or appetites.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Note L to Bayle's 'Rorarius' [1705], [L])
     A reaction: This increasingly strikes me as a wonderful and important insight for its time. He's really paid attention to his own mind, and given up the simplistic view that derives from Descartes. Are birds conscious? Yes or no! Silly.
Half our thinking is unconscious, and we reach conclusions while unaware of premises [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: One might almost believe that half our thinking takes place unconsciously.. Usually we arrive at a conclusion without having clearly thought about the premises which lead to it.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:40)
     A reaction: Schopenhauer was a major pioneer of this crucial idea. I'm beginning to think it is much greater than a half.
We have hidden and unadmitted desires and fears, suppressed because of vanity [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: We often do not know what we desire or fear. For years we can have a desire without admitting it to ourselves ....because the intellect is not to know anything about it, since the good opinion we have of ourselves would inevitably suffer thereby.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 210), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 5 'Will'
     A reaction: The idea of unconscious thought crept up well before Freud. It is in La Rochefoucauld, and important in Nietzsche. Neuroscience seems to give it a strong priority over the conscious mind, which is a revolutionary idea.
Most of our lives, even the important parts, take place outside of consciousness [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: By far the greatest proportion of our life takes place without this mirroring effect [of consciousness]; and this is true even of our thinking, feeling and willing life, however offensive this may sound to older philosophers.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354)
     A reaction: Nietzsche didn't just hint at the possibility of a (Freudian) sub-conscious - he was whole-heartedly committed to it, and Freud gave him credit for it. I think philosophers are only just beginning to digest this crucial idea.
Whatever moves into consciousness becomes thereby much more superficial [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Whatever becomes conscious becomes by the same token shallow, thin, relatively stupid, general, sign, herd signal; all becoming conscious involves a great and thorough corruption, falsification, reduction to superficialities, and generalisation.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354)
     A reaction: Nietzsche would have made a great speech writer for someone. This vision is increasingly how I see people. It is a view reinforced by modern neuroscience, which suggests that we greatly overestimate the conscious part of ourselves.
Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle]
     Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious.
     From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V
     A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can.
Since we are a consciousness, Sartre entirely rejected the unconscious mind [Sartre, by Daigle]
     Full Idea: Sartre refused, denied and fought against the unconscious. Since we are consciousness, there cannot be such a thing as unconsciousness.
     From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.1
     A reaction: The modern view is increasingly opposed to this, as neuroscience and psychology uncover hidden motives etc. Sartre's view is still legitimate, though. An unconscious motive is not more my motive than a law of the land is part of me?
Unconscious thoughts are those capable of causing conscious ones [Searle]
     Full Idea: The ontology of the unconscious consists in objective features of the brain capable of causing subjective conscious thoughts.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 7.II.7)
     A reaction: As it stands, this definition would fit a brain tumour. I think Searle is wrong. There is no sharp line between conscious and non-conscious brain events. Research has surely made it clear that dim brain events directly intrude into my conscious states.
Consciousness results directly from brain processes, not from some intermediary like information [Searle]
     Full Idea: There are brain processes and consciousness, but nothing in between; no rule following, information processing, unconscious inferences, mental models, language of thought or universal grammar.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.II)
     A reaction: The core of Searle's view. He likes to call consciousness a 'property' of brains. Edelman says consciousness IS a brain process. Essentially I agree with Searle. An unusual physical object can produce consciousness, but mere 'rules' etc. cannot.
If all mental life were conscious, we would be unable to see things, or to process speech [McGinn]
     Full Idea: If there were nothing more to our mind than our conscious awareness, then we would be unable to see anything or to process speech.
     From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 6)
     A reaction: A vital point. Traditional dualism has left us a simplistic exaggeration of the role of consciousness, and the misapprehension that most of what we do is conscious - which it clearly isn't, once you think about it.
How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood]
     Full Idea: Anyone who thinks phenomenal qualities are inseparable from our awareness of them, must think subconscious mental states are totally devoid of phenomenal qualities! So how can these states cause behaviour in the way conscious states do?
     From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.166)
     A reaction: I agree with this thought, though it is beautifully unprovable. We would need to respond to a red traffic light, without having consciously registered its presence. It is is just increasingly clear that we register information pre-consciously.
Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood]
     Full Idea: I cannot make intuitive sense of there existing a being who possessed genuine beliefs and desires, but who, or which, lacked the capacity for consciousness altogether.
     From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.44)
     A reaction: This is part of the recent move (which strikes me as correct) to see qualia and intentionality as inseparable. We might well, though, need to adopt the 'intentional stance' to a sophisticated robot. But am I aware of all of my beliefs?
Research suggest that we overrate conscious experience [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: The emerging consensus is that we probably overrate the power of conscious experience in our lives. Freud, of course, said the same thing for different reasons.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Ontology')
     A reaction: [He cites Pockett, Banks and Gallagher 2006]. Freud was concerned with big deep secrets, but the modern view concerns ordinary decisions and perceptions. An important idea, which should incline us all to become Nietzscheans.