0.5 A discussion about the mind and consciousness  (Page 2/3)

Concepts and experiential qualities

How might someone know when a concept is being thought about? Humans probably think about a lot of advanced concepts all the time. They might only know about their thoughts or concepts some of the time however, and certainly not the full implications or experiential aspects of them (much of this must be unconscious).

Some questions about the mind

• One question is about perception - is its aim to provide accurate perceptions? When you consider how the unconscious mind thinks versus how the conscious mind thinks then the answer is no because many things you simply want a feel for and therefor couldn't possible have an accurate perception of.
• What is the relationship between attention to action and awareness of mind? Clearly being aware of ones physical actions gives a sense of self or agency - and that that therefore is a part of 'being present' or getting a feel for yourself and the people around you.
• How subjective is pain introspection and emotional introspection? Are pain and emotion second hand representations that come from thoughts of the original pain or are they direct feelings? Is a model of pain or emotion needed in mind in order for these feelings to be processed?
• Are there different levels to representations? Is a meta-representation a representation of another representation or is it the same representation just thought about more? What happens when someone thinks more about a representation or compares it with other representations? Can the mind be divided up that way - based on individual representations or do representations 'merge' into each other (i.e. the feeling or thought of one representation influencing the feeling or thought of another).

Some questions about concept and image associations

• When a concept is thought about more than its initial abstraction, is it thought about verbally or non-verbally - or some combination of both?
• When a concept is compared with other concepts that are related or similar - or not related and dissimilar - is it compared by using words or by using comparative images?
• I would think that when a concept is thought about 'more' it is automatically compared to similar concepts because similar things in life are naturally associated with each other.
• Is visual processing (processing of visual images or visual thinking) unconscious or conscious? That is, when the mind uses images to think does it do so unconsciously or consciously?
• Images naturally accompany thought all of the time, both consciously and unconsciously. It is hard to figure out or explain how exactly this occurs, however.
• For instance, there could be fast, more unconscious images or slow, deliberate and conscious images that accompany thoughts.
• Would the unconscious images be as useful or informative as conscious images? How is it even possible to 'partially' visualize an event or idea or experience?