0.3 The nature of consciousness - perceptual, representational or  (Page 3/6)

It makes sense that there are lots of degrees of consciousness - that is fairly obvious actually. What makes it more complicated is to find out what exactly is going on - i.e. how emotionally focused are you on one thing, how much of the focus is intellectual, how much of it is planned or intended vs automatic.

I mean if you are unconsciously focused on something then is it more emotional since the unconscious is more animal-like? How much does it matter if it easy to process or is high in information? Those concepts relate to system 1 and system 2 dual process theories and how those theories relate to consciousness vs. unconsciousness (which I talk about in another article m51859 ).

The unconscious mind gives largely the experience or feeling of life because when you think you can only focus on a little compared to how much you can focus on unconsciously - of course you can't really 'focus' on something unconsciously because by definition it is unconscious - so you could be doing more automated activities related to it but not really focus on it clearly like when you consciously focus on something.

So in my view theories of consciousness can be described by how conscious or unconscious various aspects of them are. This includes functions of the mind and how the mind experiences life - both are either conscious or unconscious, or some combination of both.

The mind is often described as an iceberg with only a small portion on the surface. The surface part is what people are conscious of, and beneath the water lies the unconscious. The important question then is what does an unconscious experience feel like? Dreams are entirely unconscious because you are sleeping - but what aspects of experience and functioning are unconscious when a person is awake?

All automatic mental processes are unconscious - all non-automatic ones that need conscious thought are conscious, though they may have unconscious aspects of experience. So a conscious thought can guide an unconscious experience. How do you define if a feeling is conscious or not, however? Feelings are a large part of experience, and the conscious mind can guide them, trigger them or inhibit them.

Conscious vs. unconscious "consciousness"

The function of the unconscious is regulate physical activity, and give your mind the feelings related to this physical action. People aren't ever completely using their conscious mind since there are always automatic processes occurring. Those could be considered to be being done unconsciously.

Feelings and thoughts are the primary things that are either conscious or unconscious - but all a minds processes are conscious or unconscious to different degrees.

In another article I talk about what processes are conscious or unconscious in any environment m51883 . People can be aware of the world physically or mentally, and this difference also relates to the different mental processes (which each could be considered to be conscious or unconscious, physical or mental).