[lit-ideas] Re: Conscious after the fact?
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:00:31 -0230
Quoting John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>:
> We have known at least since Leibniz's New Essays on Human Understanding
> that
> there must be mental processes of which we are unconscious. How else,
> Leibniz asks, could a ringing bell wake us? We must hear it before we are
> aware of its sound.
> Now neuroscientists suggest that we make decisions up to 10 seconds before
> we are conscious of making them. See
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121450609076407973.html?mod=blogs
>
> John
Just 2 comments before the big game:
1. Whenever I hear/read someone preface their claims with "We have known at
least since ...." I go for my Cragganmore.
2. Is it that we hear something before being aware of it, or is it the case that
we are able to hear something only if we are aware of it? And is this an
empirical question or a conceptual one?
(P.S. Self-attributions of "being asleep" may not be all that accurate. Women
who claim to "sleep through" uninspired lovemaking may simply be telling tall
tales.)
3. There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can count and those
that cannot. Final comment: there ain't no such thing as "unconscious
decisionmaking." More specifically/accurately, there can't be, otherwise it's
not "decisionmaking." Accusations of begging the question at 50 paces.
Unconscious of his real motives for writing but a pillar of moral uprightness
nonetheless,
Walter O.
Sigmund Freud Professor of Deontology
Department of Psychoanalysis und Biological Morality
University of Vienna, Austria
> --
> John McCreery
> The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
> Tel. +81-45-314-9324
> http://www.wordworks.jp/
>
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
