I don’t think it’s the brain but rather our consciousness that is limited.
Our sensory inputs are always on and processed by the brain, but our consciousness is very picky and also slow.
People can sometimes recall true memories that they weren’t aware of, or react to things they didn’t think of and such.
Consciousness is also somehow lagging behind the actual decision making, but always presents itself as the cause of action.
Sort of like Windows telling you that you removed a USB stick 2 seconds after you did it and was well aware of it happening. Consciousness is like that, except it takes responsibility for it too…
When it encounters something that it didn’t predict, it’ll tell you that “yeah this happened and this is why you did that”. Quite often the explanation for doing something is made up after it happened.
This is a good thing mostly, because it allows you to react faster than having to consider your options consciousnessly. You do not need to or have time to make a conscious decision to dodge a dodgeball, but you’ll still think you did.
NAILED IT! Yeah, our subconscious is driving and only sends an executive summary up top. And we think, “I did this!” Nah. You didn’t. You are just along for the ride.
People hate this notion because it negates free will. Well, yeah, it kinda does.
Everybody reading these comments and considering the implications needs to go read Blindsight by Peter Watts. It’s a first contact story set in the near-ish future, and really goes into consciousness and intelligence. Very thought provoking if you thought this comment chain was interesting.
You can train your subconscious! Well, at least influence it’s decisions. Videogames are a great example. Trained reaction/response. Repeated response to similar stimulus can create a trained subconscious response.
However, I have difficulty, especially now that I’m older, where subconscious and conscious will compete and I will lose acuity of what I actually did.
I don’t think it’s the brain but rather our consciousness that is limited. Our sensory inputs are always on and processed by the brain, but our consciousness is very picky and also slow.
People can sometimes recall true memories that they weren’t aware of, or react to things they didn’t think of and such.
Consciousness is also somehow lagging behind the actual decision making, but always presents itself as the cause of action.
Sort of like Windows telling you that you removed a USB stick 2 seconds after you did it and was well aware of it happening. Consciousness is like that, except it takes responsibility for it too…
When it encounters something that it didn’t predict, it’ll tell you that “yeah this happened and this is why you did that”. Quite often the explanation for doing something is made up after it happened.
This is a good thing mostly, because it allows you to react faster than having to consider your options consciousnessly. You do not need to or have time to make a conscious decision to dodge a dodgeball, but you’ll still think you did.
NAILED IT! Yeah, our subconscious is driving and only sends an executive summary up top. And we think, “I did this!” Nah. You didn’t. You are just along for the ride.
People hate this notion because it negates free will. Well, yeah, it kinda does.
Everybody reading these comments and considering the implications needs to go read Blindsight by Peter Watts. It’s a first contact story set in the near-ish future, and really goes into consciousness and intelligence. Very thought provoking if you thought this comment chain was interesting.
You can train your subconscious! Well, at least influence it’s decisions. Videogames are a great example. Trained reaction/response. Repeated response to similar stimulus can create a trained subconscious response.
However, I have difficulty, especially now that I’m older, where subconscious and conscious will compete and I will lose acuity of what I actually did.
That and my memory is getting worse. :/