[Avodah] free will

[via Avodah]

From: Micha Berger via Avodah  <avodah at lists.aishdas.org>

>>BTW, Cognitive Behavioral  Therapy, which is quite popular among 
practicing
O therapists -- at least  here in the States -- assumes there is an
unconscious.<<

--  
Micha  Berger              
micha at aishdas.org         




>>>>
I believe I can prove there is an unconscious although I can't prove  
there's a "deep unconscious" that influences our conscious behavior.  I can  
prove that there is at the very least a "shallow unconscious" that goes on  
working without our awareness.  My proof is logical, experiential:
 
This is a common occurrence that all of us humans have experienced.   You 
are talking to a friend and trying to remember the name of a book you once  
read or the name of a certain person or a word that exactly describes what  
you're trying to say, but even though it's "on the tip of your tongue" you 
just  can't remember it.  You say to your friend, "Never mind, I just can't  
remember it" and you go on talking about something else.  Suddenly, a  little 
while later, the name you were trying to remember or the word you just  
couldn't dredge up suddenly pops into your head right in the middle of a  
sentence about something else entirely.  Or the forgotten name or word may  pop 
into your head later that day while you're shopping or reading  something 
unrelated.  It is obvious that while you were consciously doing  whatever you 
were doing, some unconscious process in your brain continued to  search for 
the missing word.
 
For many years I had a certain mental image of what was going on when this  
kind of thing happens.  I pictured stacks and stacks in a library and a  
little mental librarian running up and down the aisles and searching the  
stacks.  When she finds what she's looking for (what you're looking for)  she 
flags it, bursts into your consciousness and shouts, "I found it, here it  is!"
 
In recent years I have formed a different image:  not a librarian in  your 
brain but a computer process going on in the background, searching the  
files on your computer while you are sending emails and watching videos of  
laughing babies.  When the program finds what you were searching for, a  pop-up 
literally pops up on your screen -- the screen of your brain -- and  
announces, "Here it is, what you were looking for!"
 
Librarian or computer search process -- whatever it is, it is obviously  
operating in the background without your conscious awareness.  So your  brain 
certainly has an unconscious.
 
 

--Toby Katz
t613k at aol.com
..
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