0.21 Mental representation and cognitive determinants of emotion  (Page 3/3)

What is the difference between an unconscious goal and an unconscious intention? It is clear what the difference between those two terms when referring to there conscious function is - a goal is a large objective, an intention however is something that you want or intend where you are thinking that you are trying to do something right then. You are trying to accomplish something - that what an intention is. You have the intent to do something. You are striving to do that thing.

A goal, however, you aren't necessarily trying to achieve in the present time. You can put a goal aside or lower its priority. An intention you usually wouldn't do that with. When someone forms an intention, they try to do it right away. So a goal is basically a more important intention. If you intend to do something, and it is important for you, then it becomes a goal because goals are longer term or just more important.

This distinction is important because goals and intentions can be unconscious. People make goals and intentions about things in their lives all of the time, consciously and unconsciously. However, there are two types of unconscious goals/intentions - one type is very subtle, and the other type is a larger more obvious type of goal or intention.

A subtle unconscious goal or intention might be something very insignificant emotionally. For instance you might not want someone to come closer to you, so emotionally you might freeze up. This is so subtle you probably wouldn't notice that it is occurring consciously. However what happened unconsciously was that you recognized that you didn't want this person to come near you, and you unconsciously regulated your emotions so you would be feeling less. You could say that the other person made you afraid and that caused the emotional freezing, or it could be that it was an unconscious intention of yours to block out the other person because you didn't like them or want them coming near you.

That is just one example of a subtle, unconscious emotional event. There are constantly emotional things going on beneath one's notice. All of those emotional processes are regulated unconsciously. People are much more capable of manipulating their emotions unconsciously than the are consciously because there is much more going on unconsciously than consciously.

Some other examples of unconscious goals or intentions are seeking pleasure, trying to feel any single or set of emotions, trying to increase, decrease, or maintain any single or set of feelings, or trying to achieve some thought you had at some other point - such as a conscious goal of some sort of success in your life or something like that.

Mental representation

A symbol represents an idea, a process, or a physical entity. People can think with symbols just like they can think with thoughts. For instance, they can think of a symbol and the symbol would represent the larger more significant idea(s) that the symbol means. That is also how thoughts work as well. A thought might mean something simple, however it might represent or stand for something much more complex that your unconscious mind might understand better in some way (because the unconscious is also capable of understanding concepts differently from the conscious mind).

The important questions to consider are:

1. Why does the conscious mind understand things differently from the unconscious mind, and in what way is this understanding different?
2. A symbol can represent something more significant or complex than the symbol itself, however do you always know everything a symbol in your mind stands for?
3. If your unconscious understanding is different from your conscious understanding, then how can someone know exactly what their unconscious understanding is (since by nature and definition it is not as capable of being understood consciously)?
4. If humans have an unconscious understanding that is different from their conscious understanding, then what is the significance of that? Why does it matter that people can understanding something in more than one way?
5. The unconscious mind must understand the truth better of the significance of the world for you. For instance if you are insulted it might make you feel bad because unconsciously you understand that there was truth to the insult, however consciously you might think that the insult was insignificant.
6. This is why emotional processing occurs unconsciously - because you couldn't possibly understand the full implications of everything that occurs consciously.
7. So is the unconscious then simply 'the truth' of what is going on in your mind? Consciously you might understand anything, or have any type of interpretation of what is actually happening to you, however unconsciously you know what is going on because that is how you feel - your unconscious is going to make you feel a certain way and that is how your mind is responding to the situation (unconsciously not consciously)
8. This is a simple idea - feelings are processed unconsciously because if you tried to process them consciously you would just make up the result instead of responding in a natural way that shows the full significance of what is going on.
9. Unconsciously the world means something different to you then what your conscious interpretation of the world (or a stimulus) might be.
10. When someone thinks of a symbol, thought or an idea it might mean something much more significant unconsciously because your unconscious 'understands' the full implications.
11. The unconscious also understands the full implications of everything that occurs in your life, this is why emotional processes occur unconsciously. Your conscious mind is simply not complex enough to comprehend the full implications of everything that is going on.
12. Therefore 'mental representation' really means 'things are represented to your unconscious mind differently from your conscious one'. You understand one simple thing (such as a thought, idea or symbol), and unconsciously it means something else or something more significant.
13. Also, the entire world and all of your emotional processing is represented differently to your unconscious mind, not just one single item (a thought, idea, etc.)