Unconscious Decision

[CNA]

Hi, tnd.

I'm glad you think my posts are "utterly charming." I thought it was cute. I'm "assuming" that the question you asked is in relation to prior choices events, then the actual event, and then what follows those choices or events. Yes, I'm well aware. This was from an email to a friend that I've known for many years and is not associated with OL or message boards but decided to post my thoughts from this email. I do not often talk about my personal life on public forums, mostly in private only. But I have posted bits and pieces here on OL. I have also included another quote from another post I made here at this site which was from the Passing Judgment thread I started. It coincides with the story of my father and a little of my past and what I've been through. But of course, names, etc., have been taken out of the first quote from the email. And then the following quotes are from the thread where I posted about my father. I'm assuming this should answer your question in what you are referencing.

I know the guilt and the pity that you feel.  This is the most destructive emotion...guilt.  Make a man feel guilty and you can pretty much do whatever you want with him.  I had much empathy for my father and the feelings of guilt and pity were horrendous....god, it was so bad.  Even though it killed me and tore my heart out to leave him in that alley and made the decision to stop helping him because it truly wasn't helping anything, myself or him, it truly was the best thing I could have ever done for MYSELF as well as for my father.  He went through a lot but those very hard times made him realize it was not up to others to help him.  It was up to himself.  He was the one that had to stop running, was the one who had to come to grips with his choices he had made and those choices brought him to that alley. Reality is very harsh....so f**king harsh and reality is not an easy thing to deal with.

A good example is my father, I have forgiven him because he owned up to his mistakes, realized what he did was wrong, took responsibility for his actions, learned and grew from it, and apologized. He took the blame that was rightfully his and admitted it. He then turned around and chose to make it work for him rather than against him. Rather than being a man dependent on his daughter (me) to help him survive and refused to take responsibility for his own life and expected me to give up my future for the sake of his, dropped out of highschool 3 times because of it, then my making the decision to leave knowing he would go homeless which he did and was brutal on me, but it was cold hard reality rearing its ugly head directly at him, he was given a choice, a very hard choice at that, his ultimate choice was to get his shit together and to not let it destroy him.  

He has now become very successful because of that decision he made, owns 2 businesses and he is my father that I admire greatly because of it. I support him in his decisions and willing to help him with it because I know he will make good on his part. This is the type of man I will forgive. This is the man I judge in the present rather than judging him on his past. This is the man who made the choice to accept responsibility for his life. This is the man that realized that no one else can be responsible for his actions and his choices but himself. This is the man that is now my father and I have forgiven him for his past actions. The man that he was in the past is not the man he is now in the present.

His past explains: Why he is and who he is and what he is in the present. His choices he has made up to this point of his life in the present determines what he values in the present and how his life has ultimately turned out. My dad was a good example and also points to the choices he made then was indicative of what he valued. Then he valued destruction, pain, and death. He knew full well what he was doing and why he was doing it; ie, "trying" to make me believe he was truly incapable of sustaining his own life and that I should pity and feel guilt for him and it worked at that time. Make a man feel guilty and he can get you to do whatever he wants with you. Until one day, I saw it for what it truly was and what his true intentions were of playing that game.  

His present explains: The road he has traveled to get to where he is in the present and is indicative of the quality of choices he has ultimately made and what he truly values now. In the present, he values life, happiness, success, productivity, money, and independence, etc.  

His future: Since I know what he values in the present, his future choices will be more aligned with what he values now. Rather than destroying himself as he once did in the past and knowing that difficult road he travelled and saw, his choices he makes will be choices in order to sustain his life, stay productive, keep moving, independence, etc. After travelling that hard road, who wants to go back to it. I travelled that extremely hard road once and I definitely don't want to go back to it again. My choices I make now will be more aligned with what I value which is life, independence, happiness, productivity, etc.  But as I know very well and some others know, we can still make choices that will not align with what we truly value.

[tndbay]

the aggressive tenacity to what you've found and identified as good, and your wholehearted application in the act of defining yourself with full deliberation- that's heroic. the act of self ownership is heroic. to watch a person as she does this act is a thing of beauty and can't fail to bring a tear of joy to the observer.

i bet you'd enjoy the movie V a lot.

[gary williams]

Intergration eh?

I'm going to have to look into that. Hmmm?

In a conscious decision, there is a bit of cause and effect.

I think, I decide, I do.

The 'do' is the kicker for me.

Can someone give me an example of 'doing' something after an unconscious decision. I mean it is a decision to 'do' something after all!

After all we are not talking about sleepwalking here, are we? We are talking about everyday stuff, correct?

I do not see how I can make a decision to do and not be conscious of it.

Quit yer bitch'n! I'm just askin'!

gw

[tndbay]

i put a spoonful of coffee in the sugar bowl the other day cuz i was distracted and the habits were not properly cued.

i did not consciously put the coffee in the sugar bowl.

most of my driving is done without verbal validation. sometimes i have taken a wrong turn by habit.

habit is a good word for these unconscious decisions, perhaps?

(i guess i must be sure to specify that i use the term unconscious to mean subverbal- not sleepwalking)

all our behaviours prior to acquiring language skills, then, would also qualify as unconscious in the way.

any behaviour that is done without deliberation might be called subconsious, too. or unconscious. or maybe we should discriminate between unconscious and subconscious?

pete

[gary williams]

Hey pete,

You said,

i put a spoonful of coffee in the sugar bowl the other day cuz i was distracted and the habits were not properly cued.  

i did not consciously put the coffee in the sugar bowl.

It sounds as if you 'thought' you were putting sugar into your coffee. Putting sugar in you coffee was a conscious decision, as I see it. Yet, as you said, you were distracted. Conscious thought can be distracted quite easily. An error in hand-eye execution does not eliminate the original conscious thought.

most of my driving is done without verbal validation.

Boy! Mine is! Especially when a dumb-ass drives 45 in a 60 mph zone with his frigg'n blinker on! @#*&%#@#@#!!!!!!!!

Sorry, I know that's not what you meant!

Anyway, I do not agree that all conscious thought is verbal. I can think consciously without words. I can drive my vehicle with out talking to myself. (though I do cuss a lot) I do not need an internal dialog in order to make conscious decisions.

Is that your distinction between conscious and unconscious. Verbal being conscious and subverbal being unconscious? I think you did say that, I just want to be sure.

I also see language skills as a result of conscious thinking, not vice versa. But thats just me!

I see the unconscious state as - 'No thinking'

All thinking states are varing states of consciousness.

That's a my opinion and I'ma stick'n a to it!

You can have the last word on this as I got much to do at home and just can't promise a lively debate.

Thanks though!

gw

[tndbay]

i find no fault with your logic using your definitions.

i do find a distinction between thought that can be logically validated and habit that is something any chordate is capable of learning.

i talk to myself constantly. that's how i validate my reasoning.

so the distinction i draw is between reasoned deliberate behaviour and other behaviour of which the performer may be unaware.

this is the way i am able to make sense of the topic on which a vast library of literature has been written: the 'subconscious'

this is also how i interpret the literary references which abound that call ppl 'unconscious'.

see why we need precise cognitive tools (words with mutually consistent definitions)? maybe someday i write a complete dictionary...lol

through verbal means i arrive at the understanding of your meaning. it would never happen if i didn't do it as that's the only means available to me. otherwise i'd be responding, 'unconsciously', at the expense of abstracting the truth of what you say.

pete

[Dragonfly]

What about the situation where you have driven a car thinking intensely about something and suddenly realizing that you haven't thought about driving at all? Yet you've made a lot of important decisions (steering, stopping, switching gears etc.) without being conscious of it and not remembering what you've done (did I stop at the last traffic light?). Those decisions were nevertheless quite important, as any wrong decision might have caused a car crash. I've often had such "blackouts", yet they never caused any accident. In fact just walking implies a lot of decisions without that you're conscious of them.

[gary williams]

Real quick -

Yes, I do make my own definitions. Why not? In all the volumes in all the librarys in all the world, there is a lot of crap. What makes someone elses definition more viable than mine? Oh, that's right! It is written in a book! My bad!

A human can not be conscious and unconscious at the same time.

That is a contradiction.

Ain't gonna happen!

That is it for me on this. Nice talking to you, really!

Peace, Love, Out!

gw

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Gary,

That's an interesting comment you just made:

A human can not be conscious and unconscious at the same time.

Maybe that's true, but he can get awfully close. Dragonfly's "blackout" comment prompted a thought. When I was active as an alcoholic, more than once I woke up the next morning with no memory at all about how I arrived - and sometimes that included driving. I had blackouts. They are very discomfiting, too.

People tell me I must have been conscious while I was acting and the problem is just with my memory. Maybe, but tell my memory that. It thinks I was unconscious.

Michael

[JennaW]

It depends on what context -- what level-- you're looking at. For me, a sleeping person hovers between-- s/he can hear and respond to external events (earthquake, alarm clock) and do math, carpenting, cashiering, etc. (ever dreamt of work?) but cannot actually talk with you (sleeptalkers can talk to you and respond, but it's not in an awake, aware context).

And it depends on how you're using unconscious or conscious. There are a lot of subtleties of context that we need to take into account before discussing.

[Roger Bissell]

Gary wrote:

A human can not be conscious and unconscious at the same time. That is a contradiction.

Not exactly. You forgot "in the same respect." I recommend an Aristotle refresher course. There are still openings for the fall semester. :-)

You can be conscious of one thing that is going on and unconscious of another thing that is going on, as Dragonfly notes. You can be perceptually conscious but not recall your experiences later, if something (like booze) has temporarily disabled your memory, as Michael has noted. These observations are facts, not contradictions.

REB

[JennaW]

I hardly ever do this, but Roger beat me to it: So, what Roger said.

[gary williams]

I simply disagree.

But I still luv ya'll anyway!!! hee, hee!

gw

[Roger Bissell]

Sorry, Gary, but I don't accept love from casual strangers -- or from those who misquote Aristotle's Law of Contradiction in order to win arguments.

And I mean that at the same time and in the same respect...

reb

[CNA]

Pete, you wrote:

the aggressive tenacity to what you've found and identified as good, and your wholehearted application in the act of defining yourself with full deliberation- that's heroic. the act of self ownership is heroic. to watch a person as she does this act is a thing of beauty and can't fail to bring a tear of joy to the observer.  

i bet you'd enjoy the movie V a lot.

I just want to say thank you very very much !! Obviously hasn't been easy and there's so much more unfortunately and a very difficult road to walk. But IT was well worth the fight !! I'm happy, I'm at peace, and I'm most EMPHATICALLY in LOVE with MY LIFE and I wouldn't give up what I've found and Identified for anything in this world !! It DOESN'T get any better than THAT !!

Angie