I view our conscious simply as the conscious mind, pre-conscious mind, and sub-conscious mind. Like an iceberg, our conscious mind is the tip that sticks out of the water. It is our pre-conscious mind that acts as our memory storage, a database we can access anytime. Our sub-conscious, if we return to the iceberg analogy is all the memories we suppress because they are dirty, filthy, depressing, incestuous, traumatic, or just plain sick. We do a very good job at it..

Unless your a psychotic maniac who cannot suppress ones own sub-conscious (id), and acts out with conscious thought, such as a serial killer might do..

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Originally posted by atbell I'd never put the cities and trains together, this changes things significantly. I'm going to have to sleep on it. I'm also caught on the idea that blocks of the capitalisim castle are part of other castles too. This is clearly an important element of contiousness / memory that should be considered. I'm currious about you're theoretical third eye and how it gets around. Would it be like a disembodied movie camera just flying all over the place? Does it move randomly or is there some pattern in the path it chooses to take? Could it be possible that the factors defining how a persons third eye move are leared or possibly genetic?

Some clarifications...

The Castle model is limited.

It's analogical purpose was to convey the idea that whatever thinking is, that it has to involve some perspective of whatever is being thought about that is broad (i.e. can actively see all the variables involved simultaneously in order to work with them effectively). (hence Castles and 'third eyes')

And that in Contrast consciousness is not broad at all, and therefore I can not attribute thinking to it.

To combine these two distinctions in a unified field imagine being at a Grand Prix Car Race. Your consciousness is sitting in the stands, and your 'third eye' is watching the race from the Goodyear blimp. Your conscious thoughts then are akin to an announcer in the blimp giving you a summary of the race, but its just a summary, it sees where all the cars are on the track regardless of what it is telling you, 'and at the big turn Car #81 takes the lead'.



Neither of these models handle/incorporate the actual act of thinking in terms of the manipulation of the objects that it sees because the purpose of the Castle analogy was to illustrate a fundamental requirement of thinking that consciousness did not have, and *not* to be the end all model of how thinking works.

An end all model of how thinking works using 'third eyes and castles' isn't great, because an eye is a relatively passive object that one doesn't associate with the active manipulation of things. We tend towards 'hands' as being the ideal object. Such an end all model might involve a rubik's cube?



Just as an aside, if it takes 10 different analogies to represent all the dimensions of thinking reasonably well, then I have no problem reconciling that in my brain... I just invoke 10 'third eyes' to unite them Or inversely, perhaps it takes 10 analogies to describe the complexity of the workshop where thinking takes place.

I see the use of multiple analogies to explain a single thing as akin to saying that light exists simultaneously on a colour spectrum and a colour wheel, each of which denotes different yet true relationships.

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Last edited by Subey on Sep-29-2007 at 19:58

*NOTE: The following is constructed poorly... I may rework it later but I'm feeling sleepy


A clarification about consciousness...

It may seem that I am demoting it to some passive task, in saying that I don't think it thinks. I should clarify its role as I perceive it...

I think the 2 dominant raison d'etres of consciousness are first as the Avatar of the 'third eye'. The thinking it appears to do, is part of its role as the representative of our subconscious in the sense that it allows us to communicate the thoughts that the 'third eye' is having, and as Avatar to experience having those thoughts.


THe other raison d'etre is this idea of being the experiencer. That which experiences. Experience is more about emotions and feelings than it is about thinking. Feelings can dominate thought... if I am angry then my thinking is greatly affected.


While I hate to fall back on the age old model of the 'head and the heart', I see the head as the 'third eye thinking part ourselves' that resides in our subconscious, and the 'heart' as the feeling part resides in our consciousness. And that the two are unified in the term 'soul' for lack of a better word.

As a bit of 'experiencer' proof I would note that how I will 'feel' 5 minutes from now is beyond me to predict. I may be sad, or happy. Who knows. How I feel is less about a broader context (though in the same way anger can change thought, broader context can change feelings) like how I think is. Thus it is a realm that is ideally suited to the realm of my consciousness.

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quote:

Originally posted by Subey But aren't you really arguing for the third eye here? Being able to evaluate things in the 'broader context' sounds like third eye work to me

Then I would have to say that there would be a third and fourth eye. One that is automatic, autonomic, fast and parallel (subconscious processes) and one that is serial, slow, and deliberate (conscious processes). In my opinion you are over attributing things to the the third eye. I really would like to hear your take on the points I made in my last argument though, specifically on the two processes I described the conscious mind does.

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Orbax At that point you kind of crossed the rubicon and you might as well lay siege to Rome

quote:

Originally posted by venomX Then I would have to say that there would be a third and fourth eye. One that is automatic, autonomic, fast and parallel (subconscious processes) and one that is serial, slow, and deliberate (conscious processes). In my opinion you are over attributing things to the the third eye.

To clarify the players then with some terms that are getting less and less useful as the thread develops.

Sleeping Eye: Deals with things like breathing and heart rate
Trained Eye: Deals with things like walking, playing the drums
Third Eye: Manipulates complex concepts
Conscious Eye: Emotes and Experiences

I'll use a new analogy to clarify my weighting of the third eye. I apologize if it is seen as unnecessary repetition.

If I think, 'a forum is a useful method of exchanging information', then I have just exchanged information with you. And it has taken you no time to process that. But I've invoked a number of ideas, and relationships, that if I asked you to explain fully would take a large essay.

So using an essay analogy this is the relationship I see between the Third eye and the conscious mind. The complexity of most sentences is such that they invoke a nexus of multiple concepts and relationships between those concepts such that even a relatively simple sentence, yet alone one that involves the manipulation of complex ideas is so great that the amount of active thinking that must be done to make sense of it to me is let's say a 30 page essay.

derived from that essay an author will include 2 things. A title, and maybe a 1 page summary or abstract.

Conscious thought to me is that derived information. Except I would also mention that I doubt 'words' are likely involved in any real form in the 'thought workshop' where the third eye does its thinking. I think the 'asbtract/summary' is a translation into words after the fact. In the same way a 'wall' is composed of bricks and not the word 'brick'. Thinking only appears to involve words, because it gets translated into them when the 'third eye' creates the abstract/summary for the conscious mind of what it has been thinking.

If I were to now ask you, do you understand my new analogy? (not necessarily that you agree with it) you would probably say "Yes".

What do you feel in your conscious mind about this concept? You feel you understand it. But it isn't 'anywhere' in your conscious mind really, your conscious mind isn't holding the concept.

To explain this, the most reasonable explanation to me again, is that your third eye is now visualizing the entire 'essay analogy' castle, and it just sends your conscious mind the signal, 'valid castle', and this gets translated to your consciousness as, 'I Get it' or something to that effect.

***

quote:

Originally posted by venomX I really would like to hear your take on the points I made in my last argument though, specifically on the two processes I described the conscious mind does. The conscious mind for me has 2 types of functioning. One is the learning process, which I already argued before.

Using your drum example with the essay analogy.


So my drum teacher says, hit the rim like this. And then I try and hit the rim like that a second later. In that time consciously, I've only thought a few words, such that I would still conclude that those words were derived from some larger essay of thought the 'third eye' had.

Once my 'third eye' is finished learning the mechanics, at that point I will 'lean' towards the feeling nature of your conscious self becoming the driver and feeling out rhythms and the like.

However, I don't think there is a need for any distinction between the 'trained eye' and the 'third eye'. I think the third eye is still operating the same way it always does, it is just that your conscious is busy 'feeling' rather than relaying any information about what is happening in the 'thinking workshop'.

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Originally posted by venomX The second one is to filter, adjust and decide.

I think that is reasonable from my perspective that the consciousness is the part that 'feels'. That something can feel right or wrong, and on that basis be rejected or modified.

To use a restaurant analogy. The 'third eye' delivers to me a meal of thought. As my conscious mind experiences the thought, it feels/tastes it. I might then reject it as being too spicy, or not spicy enough. It then gets sent back to the kitchen (aka the third eye's workshop) re-spiced and sent back to the conscious mind to be experienced again.


The preceeding took me three hours to write, note how each section got shorter

P.S.
The simplest (which only retains 1 dimension but an important one) analogy yet... just for TA

'Thought text' is a mono 24kps mp3 created from the third eye's orchestra of the mind

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Last edited by Subey on Sep-30-2007 at 21:50

quote:

Originally posted by Subey Evidence to be evaluated... Bob is a Creationist. Bob is also a well respected Lawyer. We pour over one of Bob's cases, and are impressed with it. It's logical/rational and well presented. We understand why he is a respected lawyer. Now we present Bob with a Fossil. He conscious mind responds with a moronic creationist argument to dismiss the fossil. What light does this shed on the 'Third Eye' vs 'Conscious Mind' relationship? All the general evidence about Bob's 'Third Eye' suggests that it can process data in a logical way. Therefore his 'Creationism Castle' should be reduced to rubble when the fossil is introduced. *** The crux of the issue is, is it destroyed, and the conscious mind is lied to? Or when the 'third eye' evaluates a conflict between a 'cultural' conclusion and a 'logical' one, that the 'cultural' one has trump? Even if the second case is true vs the first, does it not suggest that the answer is decided upon by the 'third eye' and then *delivered* to the conscious mind? In other words, at no point does Bob consciously think, 'the fossil destroys my model of creationism, but I will go with my cultural truth', by the time the thoughts are conscious, he's spewing out his inane defense of creationism.

People lie to themselves in order to defend this notion: routine.

It is not usually conscious: it is a subconscious action. The lying, that is. It is not to be confused with the inability to piece together two pieces of information.

By creating routine in a universe of unknowns, we give ourselves a safety net of sorts against chaos.

As for me, I'm a big fan of organized chaos.

PS: Nice thread.

All great things teeter on the border of ridiculousness and awesomeness.

R&A baby, R&A. lol

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Shibby People lie to themselves in order to defend this notion: routine. It is not usually conscious: it is a subconscious action. The lying, that is. It is not to be confused with the inability to piece together two pieces of information. By creating routine in a universe of unknowns, we give ourselves a safety net of sorts against chaos. As for me, I'm a big fan of organized chaos.

I'll disagree fervently in the morning

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Just something I was thinking while in bed as more circumstantial evidence.


It's commonly accepted that a giant run-on sentence is more difficult to understand than 3 shorter sentences that convey the same idea.

If thinking was located in consciousness, then I think a giant run-on sentence would be easier to understand since that is more akin to the experience of consciousness.

In contrast. A sentence, with its period at the end implies a break. The conscious mind is now on consuming a new sentence, the previous one has left the stream. Therefore 3 Separate sentences that form a single idea should be more difficult then for the conscious mind to cement together.

But a 'third eye' model, that builds structures, receiving 3 separate parts would be easier to assemble. Like receiving 3 separate pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. With its perspective that can see all 3 pieces simultaneously, figuring out how they go together is a snap.


***

Here's a related question re-energizing my piston/axle evidence.

Three parts of a car. The Piston... the Drive Shaft and the Axle.
I can consciously only hold the Drive Shaft in my mind's eye. And I understand it. But in order to understand it, can I without also simultaneously seeing the context of the piston and the axle? Doesn't it seem that like reading 3 separate sentences that only a 'third eye' model can understand it, because sees all three parts as three parts of a jigsaw puzzle that fit together as a single thing? That understanding just 'the driveshaft' is logically impossible.

Therefore when I consciously think "I understand just the driveshaft" because that's all that I can hold in my consciousness that I'm really *borrowing* or *echoing* an understanding that the third eye has?



P.S. Using my 'restaurant' model, I do note that the meals my 'third eye' sends to my table are often undercooked . If this post is undercooked, send your complaints to the management

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Last edited by Subey on Oct-01-2007 at 07:47

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Shibby People lie to themselves in order to defend this notion: routine. It is not usually conscious: it is a subconscious action. The lying, that is. It is not to be confused with the inability to piece together two pieces of information. By creating routine in a universe of unknowns, we give ourselves a safety net of sorts against chaos. As for me, I'm a big fan of organized chaos.

While I understand what you are saying, and I think it applies to certain situations, I do not believe this is one, so I'll make a mistake here by giving this answer in response...


Fossil is to someone who believes in Creationism
as
Irreducible complexity is to someone who believes in Evolution

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quote:

Originally posted by Subey While I understand what you are saying, and I think it applies to certain situations, I do not believe this is one, so I'll make a mistake here by giving this answer in response... Fossil is to someone who believes in Creationism as Irreducible complexity is to someone who believes in Evolution

I was breaking down the idea of why people solidify certain bits of information in their minds which do not correspond properly to other information they inherit.

That is to say, a creationist believes what he believes because (besides the natural survival element of fear) he learned it at a young age through repetition and follows the routine in order to achieve a sense of comfort regarding the unknown. Scientists do this as well, filling in the bits of reality that simply do not make sense with placeholders of sorts, which over time become less than placeholders and more of "obvious" fact.

It occupies the lower fields of one's consciousness, spawning near the survival sectors of one's vital requirements.

Now, I'm not sure exactly what you think I was saying or referring to, or if you're even being 100% serious, but that's what communication is, so elucidate for me if necessary as I've done here. I don't think a person can ever truly understand someone else's thoughts and mental images exactly, but we can come close through precise descriptions. It's a natural limitation of language.