Filtering the concious, or, I’m 6’5” and an Olymipic swimmer
The concept of placing a filter between the conscious and unconscious mind struck me as interesting today. It is widely believed that we as humans have two distinct layers of thought, the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. It’s believed that the conscious mind does little or no actual ‘thinking’ and simply acts like the monitor to the unconscious computer. Our unconscious is the engine. What does that say about who we are?
This essay describes the state of consciousness and centres on the concept of lying and deception. It suggests that lying is built in to our nature, we lie frequently and we deceive each other as part of our instinctive survival. The essay states that our unconscious brain filters the truth from us so we can also lie to ourselves. Between the layers of our mind can be placed a filter that blurs reality from advantageous deceit, which allows us to effectively lie better. Semantically this can’t be lying to ‘ourselves’, ‘our self’ is apparently fundamentally the unconscious. The conscious simply relays what the unconscious thinks is best and the unconscious knows full well what they are up to.
Therefore, is awareness the awareness of what the engine is doing, by that I mean understanding that we lie and our conscious is unaware of the lie, or is awareness the dissolving of the filters that protect our conscious mind. I think awareness in terms of Zen Buddhism is the marriage of the unconscious knowing and the conscious unknowing parts of our mind.
I guess what I’m thinking is that surely awareness is detrimental to our existence, or at least it would seem that way. Our minds have evolved to filter reality, to deceive ourselves presumably for our benefit, to fundamentally block out the real until the unconscious has processed it and decided what it should be. Or on the other hand, is the filtering a step too far, a truly exceptional person is someone who sees reality as it is, who removes the filters, opens the blinds and frees the mind. Essentially to allow the conscious to be more of a part of the process.
…ok I’ve gone mad, more reading I think, anyway enjoy this essay, there are monkeys in it. Excellent:
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