Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!gatech!purdue!haven!mimsy!drinkme.cs.umd.edu!kohout From: kohout@drinkme.cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Intuition and intelligence (was emergent properties) Message-ID: <27294@mimsy.umd.edu> Date: 30 Oct 90 17:39:03 GMT References: <1990Oct24.174143.20918@riacs.edu> <10097@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <10106@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu Reply-To: kohout@drinkme.cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout) Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 56 In article burley@world.std.com (James C Burley) writes: >In article <10106@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Larry E. Carroll writes: > > >I wouldn't agree that your sample set of thoughts is done "unconsciously", > >based on the fact that you are so able to elucidate them. > > James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@world.std.com > > The rest of your post makes sense to me, but I disagree with this comment. > I believe it was Whitehead who said (something like): We advance, not by > becoming more aware of the elements of our thinking, but by automating & then > ceasing to be aware of them. Thus allowing us to think at successively > higher levels of abstraction. > >Ok, let me try to elaborate: I consider "consciousness" to be a relative term, >in that one being may be more conscious that another, but "unconsciousness" >to be fairly absolute in that it connotes no amount of "consciousness". >(Kind of like the terms "interesting" and "uninteresting".) So what I meant >is that because you can think consciously about your thought processes, I >don't consider them unconscious even though I certainly agree they are less >conscious than your thoughts about those processes. This dialog has motivated a few possibly overdue comments. 1) We are not using the term "concious" consistently. In the main, people seem to be using it as a synonym for "sentience", but is also "that which is not unconcious". 2) When used in this second sense, there seems to be a strong link between what we consider "conscious" awareness and that awareness which is available to our speech centers. If we want to determine whether a subject was conscious of some event, we ask him if he was. If a person clearly observes some phenonmenon, and alters his activities as a result, but cannot say that he has done so, we consider the underlying mental process unconcious (see "Subnliminal Messaging"). One can debate whether or not a person who "knows" a word, but cannot think of it, is at that time actually conscious of the word he is searching for. Many people would say he is not. 3) In my opinion, psychological research has clearly established that people are generally NOT capable of elucidating their thought processes. Rather, we have models of what might plausibly be happening in our minds, and our elucidations are projections based upon this model. It is difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to understand his true motives, for it involves among other things a good deal of behavioral conditioning which has occurred unconciously. Even if one considers the thoughts that flash through one's mind during a decision making process as accurate reflections of the actual alternatives being weighed (which they generally are NOT), they are by their very nature incomplete. Just my 2 cents. Bob Kohout