h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We have a conscious mind, this is our thinking mind that I’m going to call the “normal” mind because I can’t find out what it’s supposed to be called.
We also have our subconscious, that mind that sits below our normal thinking and, in a way, controls what we do and how we think. It does, we may think that we make decisions, but these are more often than not based on things we think we know, and things we think we believe. Things that we’re taught from an early age, ways to behave and act, and to interact.

So we have a subconscious and it does influence how we act, and we have a normal consciousness that is our awake, or aware thoughts, and that influences how we act.
So, where am I going with this? Well, I’m considering that we have a third state of consciousness, the super, or hyperconscious. This is a state of consciousness that is a combination, or rather a synchronisation of the sub and normal conscious. This has been documented a bit apparently, there’s quite a few different accounts of different theories about it. But, leaving science aside, because science isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, there are other ways where the sub and normal consciousness are aligned. Several ancient societies had rituals, and the more modern ways are things like meditation, things like yoga, and chanting/rhythmic methods. If you start searching around the internet you can find lots of theories about this, lots of ways of trying align these two states of consciousness, of which, one is alcohol. Unsurprisingly.

The next question that then comes to mind, is why do we have two minds? Did we used to have one, that then split, or has it always been two?

I think we used to have one, before we became civilised. If we look at animals, who aren’t civilised, they seem to spend most of their time messing about and doing tricks. Once you take the dangers of nature out of the way. But these animals don’t have the subconscious if we’re to believe what we’re told. They have the one consciousness, what we refer to as the animal consciousness, or animal/primitive instinct. So, as we became more and more civilised, we became less and less animal/primitive. And this is where I think our mind started to split into two. And I’m not sure that, after a point, this is good for us.

When we spend any length of time in cities or large towns, we start to feel ill for it. And I think our subconscious, the more primitive side of us, knows this. Which is why we talk about “getting away from it all” and “taking a break.” We also seem to feel healthier when we’ve had a holiday, when we’ve relaxed and been able to “unwind.” Which makes us wonder why we do it? Why do we live in large cities?

I suppose in a way it was our way of beating nature. We’re not a strong species, most things out there can overpower us. We’re not a fast species, we can be outrun by pretty much everything out there. But what we had were our brains. So we relied on civilisation, and technology to get us ahead. And, I think, as a consequence we had the split of the sub and the normal consciousness. After all, as they say: two minds are better than one.

But our two minds aren’t in synchronisation with each other. I don’t know if they used to be, but I think they were. I think some of the more “primitive” races that we’ve seen are still in tune with themselves, still have their two minds in synch. But the further we’ve moved into civilisation, the further apart the two halves of our consciousness have moved. But, there may also be a mid-point, a point where the sub and standard consciousness balance, I wonder perhaps if Buddhists have reached this balance, the point where the sub and standard conscious minds are realigned in a modern civilisation. It’s certainly possible in a way, for people to learn how to resynchronise their minds, to get their sub and standard consciousness in tune with each other. As mentioned, yoga, meditation, alcohol (and other drugs), through the use of these we look to enhance our consciousness, when in fact perhaps we are just realigning it?


Now, seeing as we’re almost believing this, let’s look at something a step further. As well as the two minds, we’ve got the body, the chemical, our actual bodies themselves. So, we can look at what’s known as the placebo effect. Our standard consciousness is tricked, and works in line with our subconscious to make our body think that something is happen, so our bodies starts to produce the results required. Give someone a sugar coated pill and tell them it’ll cure their headache, and it possibly will. Because they believe it will. The two minds, and the chemical body work together and produce the required result.

Can this be possible though? Is the placebo effect the gateway to something else? I think so, I think it’s similar to the way that homeopathy might work too, the standard conscious is told it’s working, the subconscious believes it’s working, and the chemical body gets a gentle push in the right direction. It’s also possible that this might go one step further. Some primitive animals, without the benefit of civilisation, and the modern medicine that comes with it are able to regenerate and regrow. Salamanders for example can regrow limbs, other animals can regrow tails.

It seems that the coordination of the mind and the body is capable of some things that we’re only starting to understand. Even recently scientists have discovered that the reason our nails continue to regenerate is because of messages sent from our minds to the stem cells that exist under our nails, and this also means that if you cut off the end of your finger or toe, it will regrow. But we only have the ability to send messages to those end points of our bodies. Cut off too much, and it won’t be able to regenerate. But it’s our subconscious that’s doing this. What might be possible if we were able to realign our sub and standard consciousness into the hyperconscious that scientists (and admittedly a fair few whackos) believe exist? Would we then be able to start taking further control of our bodies? Would we too be able to regrow limbs, or never endings?

I think it’s possible, but I think that while we focus on civilisation, and modern medicine (read: chemicals) we won’t truly believe that it’s possible, and we won’t be able to align our consciousness.

Of course, this could all be the alcohol talking from an altered state of consciousness, but each aspect of this is actually true and verifiable with even brief research on the interwebs.

Has anyone yet proved the mind really exists? I thought it was just a figment of your imagination.

Prove to whom?

A small note, we humans are actually excellent runners. While we're not the fastest, we have great running endurance which is how primitive humans hunted, by chasing and exhausting our prey. Also, humans are very good at throwing, better than any other species.

Not that this germane to your point.

We may be able to run, but other animals, especially the big cats, can run much better.
Same with the strength, we're not weak, but we're not the strongest.

maybe like in evolutionary biology creatures adapt to better fit there kneach to improve there chance of survival we adapted to have more minds... to fit in where we are which i suppose rather unfortunately meant that we then made it our duty to take over every other creatures area too...

That's partly it Doc, I'm wondering if splitting our consciousness was part of evolution. But that maybe by doing so we've lost some things that animals that haven't developed this way have retained.
Things like mind over matter, regeneration, general happiness.

And is it possible to get these back by trying to realign our minds? Can we get a balance of civilisation/technology and wellbeing/regeneration?

perhaps that's one of the reasons that humans seem to have so many more problems than other animals, of course part of that is the difference in levels of study and understanding but even considering that I think our lack of connection with nature or our natural selves can't be a good thing

You might be interested in Julian Jaynes' 'The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind':

http://www.julianjaynes.org/bicameralmind.php

That's what I have been talking about (re: original post) - it's much better to believe in a sky fairy & get on with it ... otherwise there is a tendency to over think which can lead to the brain overloading with chemicals and exploding. Personally I will stick to my Hive Mind even if I am in two minds about it.

The idea of a hive mind is something else that I've been thinking about. It's a much bigger area of theory and one I'm still looking at, but it's things like "The Common Good" and communal living, and to a degree Communism itself when done right, along with true anarchy. When we're able to live without rules telling us how to behave, because we *know* how to behave. When we're not just in tune with ourselves, but with each other too.

>> You might be interested in Julian Jaynes' 'The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind': <<

Just downloaded from the interweb (469 pages) and placed in a very large folder: Books from interweb to read. .

Interestingly the book that was scanned was categorised under Psychology/Self Help.


From Wiki:
Richard Dawkins wrote of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind that, "It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between! Probably the former... "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind#Critical_responses

I find Freud's breakdown of the mind into id (animalistic drives & urges), ego (arbitrator & decision maker) & superego (social mind & aspirations) useful.

Freud's breakdown is useful, I agree. But I've been deliberately trying to keep away from his work because I was force fed it when I studied psychology, and it put me off psychology for a long time.

Sounds like a classic phobia, now what did Freud say about that ... rebellion against fatherly figures (symbols of authority).

ITIWBS might have something to say on this ... I remember him saying that the mind / perceptual systems tend to work in paired oppositions to help identify and contrast objects etc.

i.e. there is a tendency to think in terms of opposites (good & evil, beautiful & ugly, hot & cold) ... i.e. think in terms of paired poles.

That's also what I'm trying to avoid while thinking about this. That there is poles. I think what we're potentially after is a mid-range.

There was someone on H2G2 who was doing research on the brain - dogster I think. Haven't seen him on H2G2 for some time.

You might like this book -- Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, by David Eagleman. Note the plural. The book is a sort of crossover from neuroscience to psychology. In fact, it's a new field, neuropsychology. He has some very startling things to say about how consciousness works, and what the implications are for criminal prosecution.