https://www.sciencealert.com/research-finds-it-might-not-be-consciousness-that-drives-the-human-mind
From my own perspective I do not think they are really saying anything new, but I think, like almost everyone with any big idea that everything is supposed to fit within or be explained by, they take it too far. I think they are observing from their own professional paradigm what is the proper understanding of “it is all Grace” in Christianity, or the crux of Taoism, or really any religion or philosophy has its concept for it. Freud and Jung, of course called it the unconscious, and said it was almost completely in control of things.
I think what they are saying is mostly correct, but they take it too far. The best example of this is, “The personal narrative exists in parallel with our personal awareness, but the latter has no influence over the former.” At the absolute least personal awareness should be viewed as they view free will and personal responsibility later in the article, as something used by the “non-conscious” as part of a personal narrative. So at the absolute least, this personal awareness would have a function, which they deny when they compare it to a rainbow that has no function at all. When considering the possibilities of what is the least in function and meaning to ascribe to this personal awareness/consciousness they are discussing, I’d go further and say that the least is that even this personal awareness/consciousness is a tool used by the non-conscious to refine or hone the personal narrative and itself, the non-conscious. This is actually much more than the absolute least I mention above because, even while conceding it is under the dominion and thus only used by the non-conscious for its own ends, it modifies and refines that non-conscious. The personal awareness of the non-conscious ultimately being in control of even it and using it as needed and desired to bring about it’s own objectives, still changes that non-conscious and its personal narrative and thus how we feel, think, and act, or in other words relate to ourselves and the world we find ourselves. While initially introducing it as the least that can accurately be ascribed to personal awareness, I believe it to also be the accurate function and meaning to give it. And in those broad brushes I like to use, I’d say getting to that is the middle way and function of all religion and philosophy. Getting there changes everything and makes this personal awareness a great influence on the non-conscious, even as it stays under the ultimate dominion of the non-conscious.
I continue after a friend asks why we do not use our reasoning to be more rational.
I’ll start with an observation from another recent discussion. We humans are social/connected creatures. Whether we can see it and admit it or not we are connected to each other and to our surroundings, which are connected to everything else.
When we are born we cannot even distinguish that we are separate from our surroundings and caregivers. Soon we learn that things we do seem to make those around us happy, mad, sad, etc, and that our felt needs/desires are sometimes at odds with our caregiver’s. This is how we first learn that we are also in ways separate from everything else. In order to find our place in this world we develop what I’ll call unconsciously constructed frameworks (UCF) for the way the world works and how we fit into it. This primarily forms with what I call visceral beliefs guiding our emotions very early in life, well before we develop any reliable thinking or reasoning, as we figure out what leads to feeling secure or scared and otherwise good or bad in our family/preschool/etc environment. Later we are taught how to reason and view things from our family’s/groups’s/culture’s perspective. Most of the time we are taught and naturally want to use our reasoning to justify and fortify our UCF, rather than to challenge it. I’ll note here though that the elite educate their children in exclusive boarding schools that do require constant reassessment and modification of their UCFs, which is what I think we’d agree is desirable. These boarding schools also demand civility and thinking of things from a collective and big picture perspective, even while they allow/demand the students to formulate their own perspective and regularly defend and modify it. Those classes less than the elite probably never demanded this regular reassessment, defending and modifying, but they used to always demand a collective perspective – benefiting the family/group/culture. Starting with the boomers as parents we seemed to even lose a lot of that. Unknowingly this meant that our primordial felt needs, which all have to do with being a connected and valuable part of things beyond us, could not hoped to be satisfied. I do not know if the elite were wise enough to do this on purpose, but it turned us into consumers looking for anything and everything to futilely try to satisfy, suppress, deny, avoid, etc, and distract ourselves from these felt needs that cannot be met without being a connected and valuable part of something beyond us. This consumerism also includes looking for and trying to adopt new ideologies for the problem and solution, and we generally get stuck fighting over which pure ideology is best or to implement our own preferred ideology, which keeps us blinded to the only fundamental truth there is, that we are all hopelessly inseparable. This results in the elite generally being pragmatists, while everyone else is at each other’s throats and fighting over ideologies, which are not allowed to be questioned or when they are questioned a new rigid ideology is adopted. Worse yet, we rarely even try to actually apply these rigid ideologies to our own lives. Instead we seem to be operating under the false assumption we need to successfully get our ideology implemented for all and then it will be easy or we will naturally follow it. Simplified the solution seems to me to be to find/demand a community that allows/encourages this regular reassessment of our UCF by expecting its members to accept and try to rectify the natural consequences of their errant actions while celebrating doing that, and where that community also teaches and celebrates satisfying our felt needs in ways pleasing and beneficial to one another. However, I do not think this can actually be a formalized community because the rules and hierarchy of any formalized community will prevent the continual maturing of its leadership and members. I believe it will have to be an informal community of individuals maturing as they reassess their UCFs, learn how to meet their felt needs in ways beneficial for others, and then patiently and generously demand, coax, encourage, etc, those they choose to be in relationships with to do the same. If we as a human race are going to survive without a catastrophe and learn and better way, that is my guess for how it will probably have to occur. We are of course running out of time, but that is generally what it takes for an individual or a society to actual reassess at a deep enough level to create a new and better way.  |
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