rbg@cbosgd.UUCP (Richard Goldschmidt) (06/22/84)
The distinction between conscious and subconscious components of the mind is an important one. The substrate for consciousness is basically cortical, which implies that it has access to language and reasoning processes, but only some of the information about emotional states processed primarily in lower brain centers. To restate it: consciousness can monitor only a fraction of the activity of the brain, and can effectively control only a fraction of our behavior. The example of body language not being conscious is a good one (although trained observers can learn to make conscious interpretations of some of these signals). >2. Intuition is just induction based on partial data and application of a > "model" or "pattern" from a different experience. > >3. Intuition is a random-number-generator along with some "sanity checks" > against internal consistency and/or available data. > >I submit that about the only thing we KNOW about intuition is that it is >not a consciously rational process. > ech@spuxll.UUCP (Ned Horvath) There is a variety of evidence that human memory is content addressable. The results of the association process whereby different memories are compared or brought together are accessable to consciousness, and indeed may even make up a significant component of the "stream of consciousness". The "sanity checks" are the conscious, rational evaluation of the associations. A lot of intuitions and ideas get junked... The control of this association process is not rational: how many times have you known that you knew a fact, but were unable to produce it on the spot? There may well be an element of randomness to this process (Hinton at CMU has suggested a model based on statistical mechanics), but there are also constraints on the patterns to be matched against. You don't generate lots of inappropriate associations, or you would not be very successful in competing for survival. And that is the force that shaped our brain and thought capacity. --Rich Goldschmidt cbosgd!rbg a former brain hacker (now reformed?)