unconscious

The idea that there's both a conscious mind and an unconscious mind is a misconception brought about by language. There is what we call the conscious mind that generally emerges from the social practice of inner dialog: internal speech and signing that we metaphorically attribute to thinking. And there is also the vast spectrum of sentience that stretches from the depths of what we call autonomic systems up through the variety of physical sensations and into the awareness of emotion and feelings that all beings probably share to some degree. Conscious awareness is certainly most of this, but especially the latter, while the former is more like an activity masquerading as awareness. The huge iceberg of nonverbal awareness below the water is definitely real, it's just not semiotic. This doesn't make it unconscious (ask yourself: is fear conscious? The answer blurs. Conversely, can involuntary body systems be considered mind?) To imagine that there's an unconscious 'thinking mind', a secret activity parallel to our inner dialog going on behind the scenes, is a fairy tale akin to representationalism.

 

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