Unconscious thought forms 95% of all thought

My ultimate goal is to reach an understanding of a matter. Understanding is the creation of meaning. Meaning is not a matter of truth as is knowing. Meaning is a subjective matter and goes beyond knowing. Understanding is a goal that is seldom reached; I consider it to be the confluence of emotion and intellection.

Coberst, I tend to think of "an understanding" rather than understanding- as-objective-knowing. When you and I share an understanding it seems to be knowledge (as opposed to mere subjective opinion), but it is still shared subjectivity (inter-subjectivity), and the degree of sharing is problematical--anthropologists generally see cultural systems as internally heterogenous, i.e., sharing is problematical. I see all knowledge as interpretation-from-a-perspective. Even our human knowledge of physics is still interpretation from a human perspective--unavailable to birds, ants, dogs and perhaps even intelligent beings of other worlds. But I'm not an absolute idealist; I DO believe in something like a world beyond my consciousness, a world that includes me and my consciousness, indeed IS me, but is larger than the "me" I identify with much of the time.
That is MY understand, MY truth.

JLNobody

I consider understanding to be a subjective model of a matter in which I have invested a great deal of effort to organize in a way that is very meaningful to me. It is like a painting that an artist makes of a landscape. It is part objective and a great deal of subjective imagination. The goal of understanding is not exactly truth but is a combination of truth and value.

I like your landscape painting simile.

A painting is a re-rendering of a percieved object. I remember a particular painting by a norwegian artist who's name I cannot recall. It was called "childhood memory", and in the picture was a woman among other things. But some details were blurred; a face was unintelligible, an object in a hand was merely color, no distinct shape.
My point is that that is often the way with old memories. You remember some things clearly and others just barely. Some things never were more than impressions to begin with, and they can be faint.

I think this goes to show that art can be a non-dualistic form of communication. Hence the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words".

A picture is worth more than any number of words, just as salt is worth more than all the sugar in the world--when your dish consists of fried eggs.

Was the Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch, by any chance?

No, it was a contemporary artist. A shame I don't remember. But I think I know who does..

But Munch was a real character. There should definitely be a movie about him...

Yes, indeed. He was a very dramatic character, more worthy of a biographical movie than even G.Mahler.

Could it have been one of the COBRA group of artists? (e.g., Karel Appel, Jorn Asger, Corneille, or Pierre Alechlinsky).

Re: Unconscious thought forms 95% of all thought


How do you determine 'percentages' of thought?

Good point Ros. I can't imagine how we would establish such a ratio. I even suspect that the two "levels" of thought/feeling are not completely separate (and thus measureable as "spatiallly" distinct areas of mind). When I dream my "awareness" of dream content is a form of consciousness, and when I'm awake my conscious thoughts are "driven" by out-of-awareness processes. The two "levels" work together.
This probably applies as well to the hemispheric right and left sides of the mind.

Re: Unconscious thought forms 95% of all thought


I got this figure of 95% from "Philosophy in the Flesh"--Lakoff and Johnson. This book is about cognitive science.

Undoubtedly, they were using "95%" figuratively.

rosborne asks the right question. I'm not so sure there is any way for anyone to determine "percentage of thought." I'd like to see their methodology, and how they were able to associate brain waves with thought whether unconscious or conscious, feelings or even reaction to our environment such as hot, cold, serene, beautiful, ugly, like, dislike, love, hate, and everything else in between and beyond.

I have seen studies of right side, left side capacity, but even then, there have also been studies that damage on one side of the brain can be learned on the other side.

I also believe most humans do not use our brains potential, and there are many variations of idiot savants and the developmentally disabled.

How does one measure all of that? How many samples makes it a good study?

There are more questions than answers IMHO.

JLN, Even "figuratively" is too deterministic at 95%. Maybe 51% or 49% seems more reasonable to me, and leave the number open to interpretation.

Yes, C.I., both "95%" and "51%" are interpretations--for lack of methodological means.

Re: Unconscious thought forms 95% of all thought

Did they explain how they derived that number? Or exactly how they defined 'unconscious' thought?

Consider the things that must take place when we are talking with some one.

While we are talking we are also perceiving and we may be walking or driving a car. I suspect if we were to study the matter in detail, as does a cognitive scientist, we would see how easy it might be to to make an educated guess as to the quantity of thought activities that must take place for us to carry on the mundane happenings in our daily life.

Just try to total up the number of cognitive actions required to do these things and then subtract the ones that require conscious attention and I think you will find your self agreeing with the cognitive scientists.

The unconscious is a major topic of study by the sciences of psychology and cognitive science. Two very good books about such matters are "Philosophy in the Flesh"--Lakoff and Johnson and "The Death and Rebirth of Psychology"--Ira Progoff.

The 95% is a qualitative not a quantative statement.

Right, Coberst. My use of "figurative" and "interpretive" pointed to this qualitative value.

coberst: The 95% is a qualitative not a quantative statement.

What's the difference?

Interesting article called "Mind Games" in June issue of "Wired" magazine that bears on this. It's about some athletes' "field sense". Great athletes know what's going to happen on the field before it happens. Wayne Gretshy would pass to teammates without ever looking to see where they were, and they'd be there. Great tennis players start moving toward the proper place to be to return serve before the ball is hit. It was thought to be something innate, and couldn't be taught or learned. a not-very-good athelte-turned-researcher started studying it, and found some of the variables that went into the process, like arm angle and racket angle in tennis in the server (other variables in play as well). He found he could consciously figure out where the ball was going to go. But by the time he'd figured it out, it had already been hit and gone past him. You can't do it consciously, the process is just too slow. Great players do it below conscious thought, much faster. When you think about it, you can't do it anymore. Much like bike riding. I still remember when I was about 14, starting to think about what I was doing when I was riding my bike and having a horrendous crash when I suddenly couldn't do it quickly enough.