What is in our minds directing us without our knowing or being aware of the direction is handily labeled the "unconscious mind" or the "subconscious mind". Of course, the more we consider being under the influence of mental and emotional "thoughts" or pressures, the more we may get curious about what they are, where they are, and perhaps how to live comfortably with them.
Prof. Timothy Wilson of the U of Virginia spends a good part of his book, "Strangers to Ourselves", reviewing the history of modern awareness of unconscious minds. Of course, if we think of tendencies we can observe, we may prefer the label "habits". Under that label, they may not seem so mysterious. They are not all habits in the usual sense of the word, though. We probably don't have a habit of buying more French wine while French music is playing. I wonder how good I am at even correctly identifying music as French and I certainly don't buy that much wine, French or other.
I was thinking of the fact that looking at a table like this
| 1 | 17 |
| 5 | 9 |
| 10 | 4 |
| 20 | 2 |
where the left column is denominations of bills and the right the number of bills stresses my little mind. In the second row, I see 9 five dollar bills. The 9 is a count while the 5, this time, stands for a name or type. Working with tables like that means I have to keep checking that I am thinking of the symbols correctly.
Similarly, with time, 2:56 1/5/13 is complex, since the 2 stands for units of 60 minutes while the 56 means units of 60 seconds, the 1 stands for which month of the day, etc. Adding and subtracting such information is as tough as trying to calculate in Roman numerals. I could re-build my mind but using it as it is, I have a tough time handling two different times and figuring out how much time is between them.
Perhaps the most famous example of our habits at work is the Stroop test. That is the test that shows it is usually much easier to quickly read the top set of words than the bottom set shown on the linked Wikipedia page.
I have made this web page that relates to some books and blog posts on the subject of our unconscious minds, which may peek out a bit during speech, writing, dreaming, hypnosis and careful observation of our everyday selves.
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
