So my theory is that knowing how emotional something is can help classify if it is intellectually intense or not. For example - which would use more thought, a math test or a history test? In history you use emotional information to help remember the facts. What happened in history is emotional and social. Math is logical, it is clear how to get the result if you understand how things work in a concrete, straightforward way. (I am not saying that calculus is straightforward, I am just saying that it makes sense why it works that way because math makes sense). History is a social subject, however, so ones understanding of emotion and human interaction is going to influence your ability to do well in that field.
So which subject uses more unconscious processes? History or math? I would say that history does since it is emotional, and math doesn't necessarily engage any emotions. I mean, you are just doing numbers, it could cause someone to become emotional if it brings up something indirectly, but that would not relate directly to the math problem like how historical fact relates to social interaction.
Emotional material is unconscious and factual thinking is conscious
So therefore emotional material is unconscious and factual thinking is conscious. This is so because when you think about something you are thinking consciously, and that is a single point of information that you think as a 'thought'. If it is emotional or important it is unconscious because you can't think about your emotions, when emotions occur, they are physical processes that cause feeling. Thoughts can cause feeling, but only because they trigger emotions. So math is very logical, you can have a lot of thoughts about it but none of those thoughts necessarily have to trigger emotions because they aren't directly related. Historical fact is social, so it is probably going to be more emotional because it is more directly related to social interaction.
So a process like memory retrieval can be unconscious. When you are helped by your mind to remember a song, that is unconscious memory retrieval. When you try to remember something, that is more conscious. What is the line between unconscious and conscious then? Historical fact relates to a lot of things in your unconscious mind. If it relates to a lot of unconscious things, like emotional things or other things in your life you don't think about immediately, then it is more of an unconscious process. If it relates to things you easily remember then it is more of a conscious process.
Representation in the mind
Since different objects represent different things to different people, and there are different types of emotional speculation (like deliberative decisions vs. instinctual ones), and various degrees of cognitive load (how intellectual or how emotional something is) then it isn't clear to me how these would function in the mind - which images, objects or experiences in life would do what to someone emotionally and intellectually?
Points made in this essay
- Mental images are possibly more simple in the mind than the full experience of them in reality. They are sometimes dulled down and made less intellectually intense like how dreams are more simple (and there are often simple images in them) than real life experiences.
- There are obvious and less obvious life factors that influence your emotions. This relates to having to do work to attain consciousness of something. If something is obvious or more significant, it is probably going to be more accessible to consciousness (how 'clear' something is).
- Someones memory and decision making ability is going to be influenced by their emotional reactions and their personality type.
- A persons perception of the visual world is going to influence those mental processes (decision making and memory) because vision is a large factor in how emotion is generated, though not necessarily that significant.
- People are sensitive to different types of emotional information and absorb some things better consciously vs. unconsciously. Some things are also more or less emotionally complex, in addition to being unconscious or conscious.
- Unconsciously people can get a feel for things - that is what the unconscious is - more automatic - you could have a more conscious feeling for something but it is easier to respond instinctively. This relates to understanding information consciously or unconsciously, if feelings are involved it could be considered to be an unconscious understanding, like how dogs understand if someone is being nice. If it is conscious then you aren't necessarily correct, you are using intellect to guess at something. You could be using your unconscious feelings as well, however.
- Information that is emotional (such as historical fact) isn't necessarily conscious thinking. One can think objectively about emotional information, and therefore it would be non-emotional to them. However, it makes sense that someone would use emotional information to help remember historical fact, since history is related to life and social interaction information (which are both emotional phenomena).
