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Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

bbc.com

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Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#21

Post by c0n5pir4cy »

anigbrowl wrote: post #4
moo wrote: post #3

Why not link directly to PNAS article? http://www.pnas.org/content/109/48/19614.abstract Personally I don't like the BBC, if HN is going to censor RT it should censor rag BBC.

Seconded, BBC science articles are dreadful. I am sick of their 1-2 sentence 'paragraphs' and dumbing down of concepts. There is better science writing in the Daily Mail , which is a depressingly low standard to be beaten by.

Agreed, BBC news in general has gotten pretty bad in general lately. It has gotten much more link bait articles, pointless 2 line pieces and biased articles that I can't treat it seriously anymore.

Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#22

Post by elros »

mehwoot wrote: post #7
EarthLaunch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> driven by (or driving, depending on what you believe) Belief requires free will, making "driven by" contradictory. There may be a mixture or a degree removed, but the idea that free will doesn't exist is always self-contradictory.

Belief requires free will Why?

I haven't read parent's point, but I guess one could argue that belief requires the hability to ponder opposing views and choose one. The choice part is where free will comes in.

Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#23

Post by Stoo »

electromagnetic wrote: post #18
tannerc wrote: post #2

Researching creative thinking processes over the last decade, this is a no-brainer (pun not intended). There is so much complexity to the brain that it's hard to imagine a time when we, as human beings, will ever really understand how much of it works. It's no surprise there's a lot going on "behind the veil" of consciousness, and I'm glad researchers continue to show this is the case. Similar studies have shown that…

I'm a writer. As much as I work on my craft, when I sit down and put my fingers on the keys I'm not doing any of it. 95% of what I write I have no conscious decision in making. I remember completely scrapping a 1500 word piece, rewriting the whole piece and resubmitting it to my editor. He was amazed I did it so quickly, I was quite disturbed I'd written the whole thing with barely an iota of conscious thought going…

Also a writer. The first time I was given a writing prompt as a timed exercise I was surprised by what I came up with. If I'd sat and thought of what to write I never would have written what I wrote in a five minute unthinking flurry.

Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#24

Post by threatofrain »

You guys may also be interested in reading Daniel Kahneman's Bounded Rationality, or Dual Process of Cognition. It talks about the relationship between two systems, one of which correlates to what we're talking about.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory#System_1

Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#25

Post by RyanMcGreal »

tannerc wrote: post #2

Researching creative thinking processes over the last decade, this is a no-brainer (pun not intended). There is so much complexity to the brain that it's hard to imagine a time when we, as human beings, will ever really understand how much of it works. It's no surprise there's a lot going on "behind the veil" of consciousness, and I'm glad researchers continue to show this is the case. Similar studies have shown that…

when it comes to problem-solving in software development, I tend to regard my subconscious as a black-box object with a fuzzy help me! method I can call. If I have a coding problem I'm not sure how to solve, I go for a brisk walk and let my mind wander. By the time I'm done, I've got the answer. If it's a tougher problem, I might need to go home and get a good night's sleep. Then I usually wake up with the answer fully-formed in my head. I give a silent moment of thanks for "the boys downstairs" and go about my day.

Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#26

Post by Diederich »

madaxe_again wrote: post #19
tannerc wrote: post #2

Researching creative thinking processes over the last decade, this is a no-brainer (pun not intended). There is so much complexity to the brain that it's hard to imagine a time when we, as human beings, will ever really understand how much of it works. It's no surprise there's a lot going on "behind the veil" of consciousness, and I'm glad researchers continue to show this is the case. Similar studies have shown that…

Agreed. I often get asked by people things like "how did you think of that?" - and the honest answer is - I didn't. I "think" by largely shutting off higher rational thought, and just let a problem freewheel through my mind. Either an answer comes pretty much instantaneously, or it doesn't at all. I don't logically think things through - I find the answer, then it justifies itself. This was always infuriating for my…

> I "think" by largely shutting off higher rational thought, and just let a problem freewheel through my mind. Either an answer comes pretty much instantaneously, or it doesn't at all.

I have gone out of my way to find ways to 'step out of the way' of my subconscious for many years. For me, big, non-trivial answers don't come quickly or in full. As ideas, thoughts and proto-answers surface, I let them 'float' for a minute, and then let them sink back below the surface for a while longer.

In the end, I have 'in hand' a nice tidy pile of possible answers/directions, which I can then apply rational thought to in order to select one or more as the concrete course/courses of action.

Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#27

Post by pixl97 »

visakanv wrote: post #9

I really liked this idea– I think by Robin Sharma [1], but by many thinkers, really– that your subconscious is way smarter than you (where you = your conscious, thinking self. The spotlight of your mind). It has more bandwidth than you. It processes a lot more information than you. Many, many great athletes, musicians, thinkers, etc– (there's a quote by Plato in Plato's Republic where he talks about how while you can…

>(there's a quote by Plato in Plato's Republic where he talks about how while you can create conditions for people to learn, the actual learning is a sort of madness) describe how their performance is something almost out of their control. They control the practice schedules, they do the hard training. The actual performance is something they surrender to.

The conscious mind is like writing code, it's not easy to do, and takes a lot of thinking to get anything done.

The subconscious mind is like the execution of compiled code.

Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#28

Post by clavalle »

Eye_of_Mordor wrote: post #20

Is there such a thing as consciousness at all? Maybe we're just more or less conscious of different interactions and these tests are really only showing what we find the most difficult? Bruce Lee said, "You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can…

I think it is more important to use the consciously rational mind to filter the water before it fills the vessel. That way you know what you will be getting when you drink from it later.

Re: Your subconscious is smarter than you might think

#30

Post by leppr »

elros wrote: post #22
mehwoot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Belief requires free will Why?

I haven't read parent's point, but I guess one could argue that belief requires the hability to ponder opposing views and choose one. The choice part is where free will comes in.

The word "believing" doesn't imply choice anymore, for example you can say an earthworm believes all big animals are the same just because that's how it thinks, not because it made a choice to think that way.

Well now we're just talking about words though.

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