tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13617569.post2703248432794978331..comments2024-03-06T05:17:31.852-07:00Comments on Integral Options Cafe: Leonard Mlodinow - Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behaviorwilliam harrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06981478282688361274noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13617569.post-45773714882317631662012-07-05T16:50:23.904-07:002012-07-05T16:50:23.904-07:00Mlodinaw seems to be conflating several kinds of u...Mlodinaw seems to be conflating several kinds of unconscious processes. The classical example is language. We have no access to most of the rules that we use in speech formation and comprehension. Likewise, we have no access to the processes that construct our view of the sensory world from raw data impinging on the retina.<br /><br />But unconscious social processes are a little different. We are capable of becoming aware of how certain looks in a photograph sway our opinion of the person, and we are also capable of being aware of how being touched makes us inclined to be friendlier to another person. After all, we can if asked judge photographs according to how confident they appear, and we can, if so instructed, remember if someone touched us. We are also capable of making a connection between a confident appearing demeanor and a favorable opinion, and between being touched and having a warm feeling. So in these cases, the problem is lack of awareness of something we are capable of being aware of, rather than lack of awareness of something we are incapable of being aware of.<br /><br />Being unaware of things we are capable of being aware of is just another way of describing sleep, the ordinary state of consciousness. Higher consciousness brings processes like these into awareness, but it does not bring, e.g., language processing or sensory construction of the world into awareness. The latter are truly subconscious, below the level of ordinary awareness. They remain as refractory to higher consciousness as they are to ordinary consciousness. Social processes might better be described as superconscious, above the level of ordinary awareness. It’s not so much that they are buried deep in the individual brain as that they are out there in relationships we have with others. They are processes critical to maintaining social organizations, and as individuals we are only imperfectly aware of them. But higher consciousness transcends social organizations, and in so doing brings these processes into awareness. <br /><br />Or better still, every process has a sub- and super- component. The workings of language rules are subconscious processes. But the effects that certain words have on us—another topic discussed by Mlodinaw—are superconscious. While we can’t access why we feel the way we do about particular words (including the most rudimentary feeling, that a word is grammatical or not), we are capable of becoming aware that we do have these feelings. Likewise, we can’t access why touch generates positive emotions, but we are capable of being aware that there is a connection.Andynoreply@blogger.com