Recently I’ve had a discussion with some friends in my book club. One of them mentioned that she’s currently reading “The righteous mind” by Jonathan Haidt, and there’s a point in the book where the author discusses about how we often form decision before we’re consciously aware of it.
This reminds me of the very famous scientific experiment named “Libet”, in which it is proved that our decisions are often made unconsciously over 300 milliseconds before our conscious mind recognizes and reports it.
That somehow makes me remember a very thought-provoking idea in “Finding meanings in the second half of life” by James Hollis, in which the author cites Carl Jung and states that what we don’t understand about our unconscious mind will affect everything around us. For example, it shows in the fact that we seem to form our opinion (of hate or like) on a stranger even before talking to them. And similarly, it’s also applied to the activities we choose to engage in or not.
However, if that is the case, you might ask what is the role of our conscious mind - the thing we’re often most proud of, as it seems to make all the difference between us and other species in the animal kingdom.
Yes, as the researcher behind the Libet experiment suggested, our conscious mind will step in a little bit later in that decision-making process.
However, what is crucial here (which hasn’t been discussed properly yet), is how mature and well-trained our conscious mind is, because I believe it’s the key criterion in deciding whether we will accept and follow unconditionally these unconscious decisions or not.
This awareness comes to me from my reading of ancient philosophy, especially Stoicism, where one can learn how people like Marcus Aurelius (the Roman Emperor) and Seneca separate between what they call ‘the natural reaction’ to their independent conscious judgement.
In other words, if our conscious mind is naïve, immature, untrained (as in a child), this second step might not even happen, which means we keep acting purely based on the unconscious decisions. But guess what, it’s not only for children. Even for us adults, our conscious mind can be extremely immature and incapable, if we haven’t trained it properly. Look at how the young adults of some rich families act and let their emotions determine their behaviour and you will know.
Another thing is, it’s not easy to find someone with that mature conscious mind around us to observe. You might be lucky if you have a wise grandpa/ma or some old folks living nearby and sharing their wisdom with you. But I guess in our modern world we rarely know our neighbours, or even our grandpa/ma, don’t we?
That’s why I believe reading ancient philosophy is so valuable. Read how Socrates didn’t even react when he was punched in the face, or how Marcus Aurelius had to dedicate a huge effort in not letting his thoughts and acts be affected by his power (remember, he is Emperor of the Roman Empire), and you will see (and hopefully learn) how important it is to train your conscious mind, with practices like resisting your temptation for instant gratification, or reflecting on your own experiences and thinking about how to improve your conscious judgement from them, etc.
Anyway, I’m digressing. So the point here is that only with an adequate level of mature conscious mind, that we can see its role in the decision-making process. In other words, it's when we can see ourselves stop for a moment, in order to think and check whether these unconscious impressions/decisions are in line with our values, our rational judgement, and if not, whether we can be able to resist it no matter how much temptation and instant gratification it could bring to us.
Finally, and maybe even more interesting, is that there’s also a self-protection mechanism in this decision-making process as well. It reflects in the way our mind will always be able to find some reasons to justify our actions/decisions, no matter how silly and wrong it can be. Over time and generations, we have developed some amazing ability to protect our mental state.
However, it’s exactly because of this ability that many of us seem to neglect the importance of training our conscious mind.
And that, to me, is really a pity!
A Dreamer
