Our Subconscious - Real or Woo?

Strider1974 said:
I recently saw a interesting doco that put forth the theory that people with Autism lack the ability to "tune out" unnessary information. They believe that autisic people are forced by their minds to focus on everything they sense and so suffer sensory overload very easily. This also explains why autisic people can be a "idiot savant" because they see and process ebverything they can perform mental feats that are impossible for the rest of us.

When I tried to look this up on the net it appeared that autism is a much more complex subject and that the theory above appears too simple to explain all the observed behaviours. Has anyone else heard of this theory and what do you think?
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I've read a few different theories about autism, and as you said, it's a pretty complex subject. There are lots of different forms and degrees of autism, but most have difficulty "reading" other people -- the inablilty to connect facial expressions to emotions, for example, which is something we take for granted.

One study I read about monitored what people watch as they watch movies -- that is, what specific part of the screen a person is focusing on at any given point. Non-autistics spend an overwhelming portion of the movie focusing on people's faces, and even more speicifically, their eyes and lips. Autistics, however, don't show this preference for faces; they spend as much time focusing on a lamp or a table or the actor's shoulder. Other studies have shown that certain groups of neurons fire when non-autistics look at faces compared to other objects, whereas autistics' brains, again, don't react to them any differently than they would to any other object.

The theory you outline might be one explanation; they're trying to process the whole picture instead of what non-autistic brains filter out as unimportant (in these cases, non-human elements). But other theories might also explain it -- damage to the specific region of the brain specific to face recognition, or perhaps something amiss in the process that allows neurons to make connections.

Again, I'm more of an armchair neuroscience fan; I don't know how to post links to these studies as I've seen other members post links to scientific studies, but I can tell you where I read about these studies if anyone cares about this enough to demand clarification or varification.
 
strathmeyer said:
You're making up examples when they don't mean anything. You're assuming something specific is going to happen after these examples, and you're pretending that we all "know" what is going to happen is some sort of psychic revolation. What if I made up endings to each example that were the opposite if what you'd predict, what would that mean? What is coming up with examples supposed to mean?
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Again, if you would like specific examples of what This Guy seems to be talking about, check out Blink. It lists several examples of these quick judgements and gut feelings, both those that turned out to be correct (art forgeries, etc.), and those that turned out to be false (some tragically, as in the case of some police officers who mistook a cell phone for a gun).

Nowhere in This Guy's post did he say he actually believed this to be "some sort of psychic revelation." In fact, he said, "I don't consider it anything magic, just a function of the way our brains, and thoughts work, " and asked someone more informed to offer information. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
 
Still, when they talk about the subconscious as a seperate personnality with feelings and fears and all, that influences you without your knowledge or understanding, until a psi looks at you through hypnosis, I think we can reasonably call woo.
 
Wow, y'all been busy while I was at work!

I'll try to touch on some of the comments. Before I do though, THANKS to all for some feedback!

First and foremost, I can't spell worth crap. I was using a spell checker, and think I may have picked the wrong option a time or three. If my spelling causes problems, ya might want to abandon this thread ;-)

Second, our brains run our bodies. I can breath, walk, talk, and look around to make sure I don't get hit by a car, or walk off a cliff, all at the same time. Might could even chew some gum while doing all that. Not to mention that my heart will keep beating, and I'll blink, and even swallow a few times along the way. The only things I'm thinking about is where I'm walking (and maybe not even that if it's a path I walk a lot), what might I step on, or in, what to say, if I'm talking to someone besides myself, and maybe a couple others. My heartbeat, breathing, blinking, chewing, and for the most part my walking are taking place with little to no thought on my part (not a doctor, so not sure what part the brain plays with the heart). Even though I can hold my breath, and change my direction along the walk, swallow the gum, by choice, those things are basically running on auto pilot. I'm not actually thinking about them, they just happen, once started. That level or section, or whatever you want to call it of the brain, that does all that for us is what I'm talking about. I view that as our subconscious. Thoughts, or activity of the brain that isn't being driven by an active or conscious thought on our part. I've seen a couple differant terms used above, and I don't disagree with any of them. Feel free to replace my use of subconscious with the word/phrase of your choice :-)

Third, the examples I gave were intended to describe a couple of random events that could happen to anyone, that might result in your making a choice, or decision, without really being aware of why you made that choice. A choice made because of a gut feeling that your choice was the right one, even though it seemed to go aginst the facts that you were aware of at the time. But on closer or later examination, you figure out that you actually had other facts that made your choice the propper one. It's just that those other facts did not enter into your decision making, at a conscious level.

Forth, I was not stating that this actually happens. I did state that I tend to believe it does, but I'm not really sure. In either event, I don't consider it magic or voodoo. I think if it does happen it's a product of normal brain function. My OP was to get others feelings/input on the possibility/reality/BS of such a brain function or action.

I appriciate all the feedback, and hope this clears up any confusion on what I'm asking.

I haven't read anything on brain function/psychology in many years, and learned very little of what I have read. I'm sure there are better ways to describe what I'm asking, but danged if I know em :-)
 
Time to link these videos again. For those who want a look at the actual science going on behind non-conscious and conscious brain activity. It's a lot to slog through, but well worth it. (or better, ask IchneumonWasp if they are any good--he just got done watching them).

My .02 Euros...There is all sorts of non-conscious processing going on, even in situations where we think we are consciously processing. As for "unconscious" processing...there is far too much baggage associated with that word for it to be useful.
 
This Guy said:
Second, our brains run our bodies.
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Tremendous oversimplification. Our brains are part of our bodies, are informed by our bodies, would not be useful without our bodies.

This may seem like either a trivial truth or an irrelevant point, but bear with me a bit.

Any time we are looking at the behavior of some part of us, rather than at the whole organism, we are necessarily looking artificially. Neurologists, psychobiologists, etc., have a reason for doing this. Their level of explanation is at the level of neurons, neural pathways, neurotransmitters, etc. But when we talk about "consciousness" of a whole person, when what we are examining is the whole person, we must not give in to the temptation to simply infer different functions of different parts of consciousness or sub, un, pre, or collective consciousness. We need evidence that these different structures exist--not circular evidence (we know the Language Acquisition Device exists because we acquire language so quickly--how could we do that if we didn't have a LAD?), but actual evidence (this is why the Neurologists, etc., are allowed to work on just parts of us...).

And I think it reasonable to start at the level of our language when we say things like "the brain controls the body". It artificially splits an organism into two parts (brain and body) with the causation going one way only...and that is quite simply wrong. No brain has ever controlled a body without the sensory input from that body, and the feedback from that body, and the chemical signals from that body (both neurotransmitter and hormonal)... The splits of "conscious" and "un, non, pre, sub, whatever consciousness" are likewise fairly arbitrary and artificial. There is real research going on that challenges and sometimes supports our ideas of conscious experience; armchair speculation based on loaded vocabulary is not a helpful approach.
 
In the small subsection of psychology that I work in, we tend to refer to "automatic" and "controlled" processing, rather that conscious and sub/unconscious. Helps us to avoid a lot of the baggage that comes with those words, but then we are working almost entirely within the cognitive-behavioural theoretical framework.
 
Control is a social construct; we don't control our bodies. The mental state that is the illusion of control is simply a supervening part of the behaviour itself. Yeesh, people! :D :duck:
 
Mercutio said:
Any time we are looking at the behavior of some part of us, rather than at the whole organism, we are necessarily looking artificially.
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How does this ontological problem not also apply to the distinction between organism and environment? You might make a similar argument to the one that you made on behalf of neurologists, that behaviorists have a reason for making this distinction. But then you don't seem to have a justification for promoting the importance of environment acting on organism to the laity (which I think behaviorists do, don't they?) while dissuading people from thinking of the brain as a discrete organ with a particular set of functions.

We need evidence that these different structures exist--not circular evidence (we know the Language Acquisition Device exists because we acquire language so quickly--how could we do that if we didn't have a LAD?), but actual evidence (this is why the Neurologists, etc., are allowed to work on just parts of us...).
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If anyone presented such an argument in support of an innate capacity to learn language, it would certainly be fallacious. Of course, they don't; they provide an inductive argument from the body of empirical evidence about human language in support of a nativist framework, from which hypotheses can be generated that are either disconfirmed or not, diminishing support for the model that generated them or lending justification to belief in the model. We can speak in terms of how the mind functions before we speak in terms of the structure of the brain, even as we recognize that mind is as brain does.

None of this is to say that I disagree about the problematic history of terms like subconscious.
 
Strider1974 said:
Good call. Because our minds are unaware of the underlying processes that actually run it we assume that the two are seperate. Conscious and sub-conscious (or body and mind) are not seperate it only appears that way.
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Thank you, we as modern humans are so influenced by Victorian Hellenism that there is this focus solely on rational thought as the only form of brain activity.
There is a vast arrray of associations in the brain and the way memory works is very reconstructive association network.

We use intuition and other non-verbal processes all the time to make decisions and influence our behaviors, emotions are also a brain product. Wierd fact, the body response is the same for panic, terror, anger and sexual arousal, it is only the context that we place upon the physical response that determines the 'feeling'.
 
Mercutio said:
Time to link these videos again. For those who want a look at the actual science going on behind non-conscious and conscious brain activity. It's a lot to slog through, but well worth it. (or better, ask IchneumonWasp if they are any good--he just got done watching them).

My .02 Euros...There is all sorts of non-conscious processing going on, even in situations where we think we are consciously processing. As for "unconscious" processing...there is far too much baggage associated with that word for it to be useful.
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Thanks for the links!

Haven't had time to view the videos yet, but looking forward to doing so.
 
Mercutio said:
Tremendous oversimplification. Our brains are part of our bodies, are informed by our bodies, would not be useful without our bodies.
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While I don't know all that goes on in the process, I do understand that my statement was oversimplified.

I think I can safely say that most of you folks to post on this thread are way above my knowledge level on the subject.

That's what I assumed, and was hoping for :-)
 
Subconscious is a loaded term, dating back to the days of Freudian and Jungian psychology.

There is no clear boundary between what is conscious and what is not, although some processing is clearly not conscious and some experience clearly is.

My favorite book on this subject is (the admittedly inaptly titled) Consciousness Explained by Dan Dennett.

One of my favorite themes in this book is the apparent choice between Orwellian and Stalinistic theories of false memory. Suppose you witness an event and remember that a person involved was wearing glasses, but security tapes of the event show that this person was not wearing glasses. What happened?

Has your brain provided you with an accurate representation of an inaccurate perception (Stalinistic perspective -- you correctly remember what you incorrectly perceived) or an inaccurate representation of an accurate perception (Orwellian perspective -- you incorrectly remember what you accurately perceived)?

Dennett does an admirable job of explaining why the dilemma itself is largely an artifact of how we tend to think about the brain, rather than a question of how the brain itself works.

Loosely stated, Dennett describes a feedback model of consciousness in which a 2-part brain (the outer cortex, and the inner cortex and brain stem) creates the experience of consciousness. Build Brain A, then build Brain B to live inside Brain A.

Our conscious experience is never an experience of what our sensory organs perceive. Rather, our conscious experience depends upon highly processed information which has been filtered, correlated, and much more before it ever reaches Brain B.

This is a much richer model than the 19th century model invoving the subconscience. I recommend it highly.
 
I think subconscious mental activity exists and you can discover it or make them conscious if you are introspective enough and are able to devote critical thought at your own mind (personal experience). I am not aware of how much is known scientifically about subconscious mental activity.
 
Another good book is Phantoms in the Brain . The author (who has a very long name) goes into the processes in our brains that we have no idea of what is going on.

He tells of interesting case studies of where stroke victims insist they can use their paralyzed limps, where amputees can still feel their missing limbs, and those who insist the arm attached to their shoulder is NOT theirs. It is a very readable book... with good splashes of humor (including several jabs at the expense of Francis Crick).

I remember seeing him on a NOVA program several years ago, here is the webpage I found on it: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mind/notebook.html

Edit to add: The author participated in the conference that the videos Mercutio linked to. I have not finished linking to them myself (loading, loading, loading), but I'm sure he is in them.
 
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Subconscious is not a term used by psychologists, or even psychiatrists. If they use any term close to that, it's "unconscious".
I checked psych texts and none had "subconscious" in the glossary. The "unconscious" is attributed to Freud (but was mentioned by others before him). It has been criticized by Popper and others as not being falsifiable. In the opinion of psychiatrist L.T.Fuller, it is UFO of psychiatry.
Google for "subconscious mind" and you will discover that you can improve your memory, increase your brain power and tap into your hidden telepathic powers by energizing your subconscious.
Good night and good luck.
 
Forty-Two said:
Hydrogen Cyanide: I've read another book by the same author, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness. I liked it, since I have synesthesia, but it was mostly speculative. An interesting read, though.
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I read that too. Actually most of what he wrote in his prior book is also speculative. It seems that the brain is too complicated to explain simply, and that they are still figuring things out.

It also does not help that no two patients will experience the same thing even if they have similar injuries and/or treatments.

I had a neurologist's physician assistant give me the definition for "static encelophaly" (spelling?) --- as "something is wrong, we don't know what exactly, but it is not changing". When I here this as a diagnosis (often given as a diagnosis for kids on the listserv I was on for my son's disabiliy) I imagine the neurologist sitting there shrugging his shoulders going "I don't know!".
 
epepke,

What name do you give to the process of sitting down, looking at a post on the forum, then constructing a post of your own? Are you conscious that you're doing it?
 
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