The usual phrase in a will is "being of sound mind", meaning I know who and where I am, I am in full possession of my faculties. "Being of two minds" usually expresses indecision: I should go and I should not go. The picture of what a mind is has been changing for decades. I'm sure that the ancients knew that not everything going on in them was part of their conscious mind but it is usually the fairly recent latecomer, Sigmund Freud, who is credited with getting more attention for the subconscious mind.
I have read several books on the subconscious and mentioned them in this blog. I attend a short discussion group weekly with several other retired professors, most of them philosophers, and we have been discussing various aspects of research and thought concerning the human mind. The first book related to the topic was "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran MD PhD and Sandra Blakeslee, who is a well-known science writer and journalist. Ramachandran is discussed in "The Brain that Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge MD, too. That book is a good survey of many aspects of the enlarged knowledge that the brain controls our actions but our actions, habits and environment steadily modify the brain at the same time.
Ramachandran was interested in the odd but bothersome experience of people who have lost an arm or leg but still feel pain, sometimes excruciating pain, in the not-there limb. Many reports of such a situation have accumulated, at least back to the 1600's. Ramachandran concentrated on the idea that the sensation of pain had to come from the sufferer's brain and devised a simple box of mirrors that can convince the unused area of the brain that the limb is gone and to stop sending pain signals about it.
The most helpful shorthand for the conscious-subconscious parts of our brain that I have found is that of Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking: Fast and Slow". Our reflexes and our subconscious are fast, just what mammals subject to gravity and predators and enemies need. The fast system works quickly and is governed by our subconscious but it isn't critical of ideas. We can communicate with that system through various means. Technically, every time we speak or write, we are dredging ideas and impulses from that system. Repetition and practice as well as meditation and hypnosis help to move ideas into our subconscious.
Life is not much fun if we can't be spontaneous but instead require ourselves to ponder every decision. Still, it may help to run things past the slower thinking, more rational and critical mind whenever there is a question about an action.
I have read several books on the subconscious and mentioned them in this blog. I attend a short discussion group weekly with several other retired professors, most of them philosophers, and we have been discussing various aspects of research and thought concerning the human mind. The first book related to the topic was "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran MD PhD and Sandra Blakeslee, who is a well-known science writer and journalist. Ramachandran is discussed in "The Brain that Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge MD, too. That book is a good survey of many aspects of the enlarged knowledge that the brain controls our actions but our actions, habits and environment steadily modify the brain at the same time.
Ramachandran was interested in the odd but bothersome experience of people who have lost an arm or leg but still feel pain, sometimes excruciating pain, in the not-there limb. Many reports of such a situation have accumulated, at least back to the 1600's. Ramachandran concentrated on the idea that the sensation of pain had to come from the sufferer's brain and devised a simple box of mirrors that can convince the unused area of the brain that the limb is gone and to stop sending pain signals about it.
The most helpful shorthand for the conscious-subconscious parts of our brain that I have found is that of Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking: Fast and Slow". Our reflexes and our subconscious are fast, just what mammals subject to gravity and predators and enemies need. The fast system works quickly and is governed by our subconscious but it isn't critical of ideas. We can communicate with that system through various means. Technically, every time we speak or write, we are dredging ideas and impulses from that system. Repetition and practice as well as meditation and hypnosis help to move ideas into our subconscious.
Life is not much fun if we can't be spontaneous but instead require ourselves to ponder every decision. Still, it may help to run things past the slower thinking, more rational and critical mind whenever there is a question about an action.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
