Conscious / Unconscious

[Tha-Flash]

Physically, is there a part of the brain which processes the CONSCIOUS and/or UNSCONSCIOUS?

Seems a silly question but everyone talks about the "unconscious mind" and when your unconscious it just means that you're not aware, doesn't it?

Obviously there must be a part of the brain which processes conscious things but unconscious...?

Also, if there is a specific part of the "conscious mind", what's it called?

[Calvesy]

The part of the brain that is more developed in mammals, especially humans is the cortex. This is the outer convoluted layer, which as you suspect has specialisations in different regions. The left hemisphere of the brain is more logical and the right side more creative. At the back is the visual cortex, the front does language. All the stuff that animals have to do too is closer to the centre, somtimes called the 'reptilian brain' which processes instincts, emotions, smells, and memory. Control of muscles is at the top above the ears. Spatial awareness and coordination is calculated in the cerebellum, and the very back, and involuntary output like heartbeat, digestion, hormones is controlled the the brain stem at the top of the spine.

We know most of this from unfortunate people who have survived brain injury, but maintain their self awareness. No one part of the brain can be located as the throne of consciousness, but some processes we know from experience do not hassle us with their minutiae.

[boobesque]

conscious/unconscious proccesses are relatively new. until freud coined these terms there was no such thing as repressed thoughts and what was just was. the idea is very abstract and is not quite as simple as an unconscious proccess or an unconscious region of the brain.

[mibn2cweus]

The subconscious mind is not unconscious. The subconscious mind has awareness of things of which we may never become aware of in our conscious mind. The mind is much like a computer. Input data is processed and is then output to a monitor in a format we can hopefully understand. The subconscious mind is responsible for organizing and making sense of data acquired through perception.

Beyond perception, it is the conscious mind that allows us to analyze, draw conclusions and make decisions based on what we have learned through experience. Much of this conscious decision-making reprograms the subconscious mind to act accordingly, thereby freeing us to selectively focus on that which interests us at the time. Without the work done for us by our subconscious mind, we would never be able to coordinate all the muscles we use in as �simple� a task as throwing a ball.

[Tha-Flash]

I understand where you're coming from but there's no actual specific part of the brain called the "unconscious mind" or "subconscious" right?

[mibn2cweus]

The brain does not appear to have a central processing unit. It is an organism within a larger support organism for which the survival and well being of both are mutually inter-dependent.

Consciousness is a sum product of mental processes. Mental processes remain elusive to efforts to pin them down to specific physical constructs. As mentioned above this is a relatively new field since we are only beginning to possess the technical requirements necessary to investigate and explore this unique and challenging area of understanding what we are, what makes us possible and how this most fascinating, complex and vital feature of existence works.

Your curiosity about this is, to say the least, understandable. You show wisdom is questioning any answers given because it is your own understanding that will satisfy and further feed your curiosity. Enjoy the dawn, for a grand new day of understanding is on the horizon. What could be more crucial to understanding (have you noticed how much I like to use that word) ourselves and the world we live in than understanding consciousness itself. It is like stripping off the veneer of �God� itself and seeing how it works.

Sorry about this �answer�, if you are sleeping now I hope you enjoy your nap.

[mibn2cweus]

Regarding your forth question, �Also, if there is a specific part of the "conscious mind", what's it called?�

I have never considered sub-dividing the conscious mind but it does have various aspects. One is volition. The act of focusing our mind for a specific purpose, or just a focused awareness, is a primary choice we make regarding consciousness and is therefore largely volitional. Consciousness is selective in that we can not deal logically with a large number of different things at once without first organizing them and grouping them conceptually. Conceptualization is an important part of the process of consciousness for this reason.

If you had something else in mind pertaining to this question, an example might be helpful.

Just a thought about the �Sub/un-conscious� mind. Because it is so vaguely understood by most if not all people, it is a playground that people of questionable character and intentions find useful for promoting unfounded and rationally unsupportable ideas upon unsuspecting and naive people. This is no less true of the conscious mind so be wary of what you accept as real. This goes for what I say as well because if you do not understand it, can not relate it logically to your own knowledge and experience, it is of little or negative value to you.

[Barquentine]

Try reading Bright Air, Brilliant Fire; On The Matter of The Mind by Gerald Edelman, the Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist. He describes consciousness as 'the remembered present'. Consciousness is based on the 'massive re-entrant looping' of brain connections.

I interpret him to be saying something like the brain is a gigantic comparison machine. It is making huge numbers of constant comparisons between all its stored previous experiences and the current inputs from the senses. It makes sense of these inputs by comparing them with value-selected previous experience storage.

This is illustrated by the discovery that we even have to 'learn' to see - the example of the guy who was blind all his life whose sight was restored and when taken to the zoo could not see the gorilla in its pen, until he could feel the gorilla statue he had touched on previous visits. Only then could he start to distinguish the real gorilla from its background.

I could not understand Edelman's descriptions of the mechanisms at work in the brain that do this however. My own brain wasn't up to the task on first reading! He's also written 'Consciousness' which updates the earlier book.

We'll understand it one day; they are making progress!