Today I have been thinking about what warrants conscious or subconscious thought.
Everyone knows what conscious thought is; if you didn't, you probably wouldn't be conscious. On the contrary, the term "subconscious" is vaguely defined at best, and the definitions are vast.
“Existing or operating in the mind beneath or beyond consciousness” Dictionary
“Psychic activity just below the level of awareness” Dictionary
As you can see, the definitions in the dictionary don't give much detail themselves to what the subconscious is, or what it does. So what is the subconscious all about? I'll give the views of some others then give my own view on what the subconscious most likely does for us.
Some don't believe in the subconscious at all as such. They just believe that we have a kind of selective conscious mind, and that all involuntary actions are controlled by a certain part of the brain known as the cerebellum. This includes heartbeat, breathing, digestion, pupil dilation etc. This is all well and good, but the cerebellum doesn't just control nerve impulses. It also regulates our balance and sensory perception, and controls our motor nerve activity when we make a conscious decision to move. Basically, it is a control center for the nervous system, translating the movement signals from the brain into electrical signals that run through our motor nerves and cause our voluntary muscles to contract. The cerebellum has a large part in both voluntary and involuntary actions, and so I don't think it can be called a “subconscious”.
The other extreme is that all of the 90 - 95% of your brain you don't use is your subconscious, or in some cases “full of untapped potential and undiscovered abilities” (Uri Geller, Mind Power, Introduction). It's a common belief that humans only use between 5 and 10% of their brain for conscious thought. This doesn't mean that the rest is kept from us by our subconscious minds! The common misconception about this statement is that humans use 5 - 10% of their brain. The truth is that humans use 100% of their brain. Different parts of the brain may be consciously active at different times, while others may be hanging dormant, but we will use all of it at some point. If the brain takes on a particularly stressful task then brain activity will increase phenomenally. This large "unused" area of the brain isn't unused because we have lost our ability to use it, it isn't even unused! So, if we have conscious control over the entire brain, there can't be any subconscious there. There's no room for it.
I have an analogy on how the brain works. I've had it for a while, but never applied the idea of a subconscious to it. Here is the analogy as it stands:
A computer has ROM and RAM. So does the brain. All the information you have ever learnt, all the skills you have built, all the sensations you've felt, everything is stored in the ROM of your brain. All this information can be instantly recalled into the RAM of your brain in the form of memories. We also have a list of braintop programs to our disposal - Microsoft has paint, Brainsoft has Imagination. Microsoft has its office suite - Brainsoft has logic and common sense (built for perfect integration!). If you understand how computers work, it can give you a pretty amusing analogy of how your brain works too. All the empty space on your hard drive? More room for data. All in "empty space" in your brain? More room for memories. But where could the subconscious fit into this?
I'm no believer in psychic abilities, untapped power or superhuman abilities that let you shoot bouncy balls out of your ears… or something. I really can't see where a subconscious would fit into a system like this, but that may be because my analogy is off. Any suggestions?
