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Do philosophers and other popular thinkers now mistake automaticity for the unconscious? Do we now say that water upon a river flowing down the path of least resistance is behaving unconsciously? So, too, is it now correct to describe neural pathways of least resistance as exhibiting an “unconscious”?
Accepted:
October 19, 2005

Comments

Peter Lipton
October 21, 2005 (changed October 21, 2005) Permalink

One way one might try to distinguish automaticity from the unconscious would be to say that of these two types of state, only unconsious states are representations, are about anything. For example, my unconscious desire to be reunited with my childhood sled (cf. Rosebud in the great movie Citizen Kane) is about something -- a sled -- while all that neural processing involved in controling my breathing is not a representation of anything, though my life depends on it.

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