How Does One Tell The Sub-Conscience To Sleep?

[pljames]

It is said the brain/mind/sub-conscious never sleeps. Can one tell the sub-conscious to sleep? Is thinking meditation? What is gained by clearing the mind (when awake) if not having a emotional episode? pljames

[Aethelwulf]

Well the sub-conscious is basically the motor functions which we are not directly responsible for through the act of consciously thinking about it. The brain never entirely shuts down, if it did, your heart would stop beating and you wouldn't experience dreams at night.

[pljames]

Well the sub-conscious is basically the motor functions which we are not directly responsible for through the act of consciously thinking about it. The brain never entirely shuts down, if it did, your heart would stop beating and you wouldn't experience dreams at night.

 

'Aethelwulf'

What if the sub-conscious brain was asleep and the conscious brain was awake and vice versa? pljames

[CraigD]

What if the sub-conscious brain was asleep and the conscious brain was awake and vice versa?

I think this question is analogous to “what if you removed all the blocks from a wall and the wall was still there or vice versa?” The answer to both is “you can’t!”

 

Most neuropsychologists and conscious theorists, though little agreed in details, agree that the conscious mind is not distinct from the unconscious one, nor either a “single piece”, but rather that the conscious mind is built out of multiple systems that are, independently, unconscious. You might call this consensus paradigm “the Society of Mind model”, after the 1988 book of this title by Marvin Minsky.

 

I find it helpful when thinking about consciousness to first understand that there is not a clear consensus about what the term means, precisely, other than in the sense that we say a person is “conscious” when they are awake and speaking, and “unconscious” when sleeping or knocked out. Despite this, there’s reasonable consensus among “mind scientists” that the absence or presence of one of the common meanings of the term “consciousness”, the more specific term “self-awareness”, AKA “sentience”, can be objectively measured, especially via the mirror test.

 

Next, consider an animal that fails the mirror test, such as housecat, a rhesus monkey, or, surprisingly, a human less than 1 year old. These animals have brain anatomy and physiology similar to animals that pass the mirror test, such as adult humans and the other great apes. fMRI shows that they have similar neurological processes, which we can equate with the “unconscious mind”, yet lack altogether, in the sense described above, a “conscious mind”. They have unconscious pieces of needed for a conscious mind, but not quite the right kind, enough, or them put together correctly to produce a conscious mind.

 

A third idea I find useful is one made by Minsky in SoM, and many other consciousness theorists: when things are working well in our internal environment (our minds) and our external environment, we tend to be less “conscious” than when they are not. Minsky notes that we are not conscious of thinking about walking – we want to get from one point to another, and without much awareness, brain systems of which we’re not consciously aware make it happen, balancing us, moving our legs, etc. If something goes wrong, however – slippery surfaces or obstacles are between us and our goal, or an injury has made our legs difficult to use, our conscious mind is required to think about balancing and taking each step. Another, fringier scientist, John Lilly, gave another example in his 1973 The Center of the Cyclone, noting that when performing activities like skiing or driving, it’s actually possible to “fall out of the grove” by thinking consciously about what you’re doing, temporarily losing the ability to do it, falling or crashing during a difficult maneuver.

[Aethelwulf]

I think this question is analogous to “what if you removed all the blocks from a wall and the wall was still there or vice versa?” The answer to both is “you can’t!”

 

Most neuropsychologists and conscious theorists, though little agreed in details, agree that the conscious mind is not distinct from the unconscious one, nor either a “single piece”, but rather that the conscious mind is built out of multiple systems that are, independently, unconscious.

 

Exactly.

[pljames]

Exactly.

 

Aethelwulf,

What if the brain is multidimensional, meaning it can communicate with the mind and vice versa? Consciousness is life or could be esoteric in nature? The brain cannot leave the skull therefore it is one dimensional, yet it can communicate with the mind and that is another dimension. Could also consciousness be another dimension as well? And all three of these dimensions can communicate with each other leading to esoteric possibilities? pljames

[Aethelwulf]

Aethelwulf,

What if the brain is multidimensional, meaning it can communicate with the mind and vice versa? Consciousness is life or could be esoteric in nature? The brain cannot leave the skull therefore it is one dimensional, yet it can communicate with the mind and that is another dimension. Could also consciousness be another dimension as well? And all three of these dimensions can communicate with each other leading to esoteric possibilities? pljames

 

As I have explained, the brain being called multidimensional is not the same kind of thing we attribute to the outside world. The brain ''see's'' reality as a three dimensional construct, the reality we see however is not the world at large directly. It's simply our brain recreating the three dimensional world in our heads.

 

However, we can explain the brain communicating with itself, like a type of back-reaction. Schizophrenia is a possible explanation of the brain communicating with itself (here I might use brain and mind interchangeably). So consciousness as we know it may not actually be focused to what we might call the ''self.'' A radical solution to this is that consciousness is built up on many potential conscious bodies, some of which may overpower the mind and may overlap with our ordinary worlds.

Edited November 24, 2012 by Aethelwulf

[Aethelwulf]

It might even be called a ''collective of consciousness.''

[Aethelwulf]

Is the mind a dimension of it's own? Quantum physicist Fred Wolf seems to believe so.

[Aethelwulf]

However with that said, it is not a material dimension. Also, my explanation of the ''self'' being a collective of consciousnesses may not wash well with some quantum physicists. A good example is that three independent physicists came to the conclusion that there is only one consciousness. Ludvic Bass was the first to show using quantum physics that there can only be one consciousness. I can find the paper for you if you want.

 

My explanation would also have a quantum mechanical explanation using the wave function. There cannot be one consciousness if the mind is within the realm of quantum mechanics. If the mind is not outside of quantum theory, then it will be subject to the same laws. Those being that any consciousness is possible, but not all likely probable. Perhaps this is why our consciousness, the ''self'', is what we call ourselves and no one else. We do after-all still feel a sense of independence to the next human being. Maybe then, other consciousnesses may lurk in the depths of the mind, the only difference is they are not very likely. When one of these potential consciousnesses peak towards a statistical significance to our own, then they begin to express a superpositioning of states ie. Schizophrenia.