YOU know what it’s like to be you—to be aware of yourself as an
individual with your own thoughts and feelings. You know how it feels to have
consciousness. More than likely you also feel responsible for your thoughts and
actions, that you decide what to think and say and do. But you are
mistaken—your experience of consciousness is an elaborate
self-deception.
Neuropsychologists and researchers studying certain types of brain damage
have come to the conclusion that many of our actions and perceptions are carried
out by unconscious parts of our brains
(Â鶹´«Ă˝, 5 September 1998, p 30).
For example, if you want to reach out and pick up an object, you
don’t need to be conscious of the exact size and shape of it, or what each of
your muscles needs to do.
But surely it’s not like that for higher level mental activities, such as our
thoughts and feelings? Most people—and many researchers—consider
that these originate within the realms of consciousness. We don’t agree.
We suggest that all the thoughts, ideas, feelings, attitudes and beliefs
traditionally considered to be the contents of consciousness are produced by
unconscious processes—just like actions and perceptions. It’s only later
that we become aware of them as outputs when they enter our consciousness. As
pointed out by Jeffrey Grey of the Institute of Psychiatry in
London—consciousness occurs too late to affect the outcomes of the mental
processes that it is apparently linked to.
You may prefer the notion that you are in charge of your own mind. But where
did that idea come from? If…
