What if consciousness is not what drives the human mind?
Imagine a world where consciousness doesn't steer the human mind. A realm where our thoughts, decisions, and actions are not the result of our conscious deliberations. This provocative idea challenges our fundamental understanding of human cognition and its implications are profound.
Not just a suggestion
Hypnotic suggestion can be seen as a means of communicating an idea or belief that, when accepted, has the power to alter a person’s perceptions or behavior
- Studies using hypnosis have shown that a person’s mood, thoughts and perceptions can be profoundly altered by suggestion
The Personal Narrative
The contents of consciousness are a subset of the experiences, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs that are generated by non-conscious processes within our brains.
- This subset takes the form of a personal narrative, which is constantly being updated and provides information to be stored in your autobiographical memory and gives human beings a way of communicating the things they have perceived and experienced to others.
What’s the point?
As a passive accompaniment to non-conscious processes, we don’t think that the phenomenon of personal awareness has a purpose, in much the same way that rainbows do not.
- Rainbows simply result from the reflection, refraction and dispersion of sunlight through water droplets – none of which serves any particular purpose.
- Our conclusions also raise questions about the notions of free will and personal responsibility.
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