Is there a choice ?

[dicey_lord]

A strange, probably naive thought: Do we start thinking only after some point in life ? What does an infant feel like or think, if at all

Comments

[ex_perepel]

John Locke came up with the idea of "tabula rasa"(blank board) about the infants, to show that they have no thoughts. But! We do know that they know how to breathe and how to keep their heart beating and digesting the food that comes through the mother. So I think the subconcious is still there, we just add this illusion of conciousness when we grow.

is there a choice ?

[dicey_lord]

That makes sense. But then, what keeps the subconscious from doing harmful things to oneself ? Is it the consciousness that tells you that you should not stop breathing because normal living people always breathe ? No- then, people can play dead when they are asleep. Or/Also, knowing need not necessarily encompass doing what you know - i can breathe without knowing how to breathe (as probably what you meant above) - or without knowing that I know how to breathe. Where does this knowledge come from ? So, why is knowing such a big deal, as long what needs to be done gets done ?

Re: is there a choice ?

[ex_perepel]

That's exactly what I meant by the previous post! The conciousness is a gift to us from our subconciousness. The whole "understanding" thing is an illusion created by the mechanism, so that the decision making part wouldn't fuck up. It just picks what it thinks is best and then the subconciousness does the actual right thing. So, yeah, we don't know how to breathe, nor do we know that we don't know how to breathe, yet we still do, and so the right thing gets done regardless of whether you know about it or not.