7 July 2012

The Entities of the Mind

From all the theories that we have formed pertaining to the the mind, we can conclude that the mind is divided into three main entities, If you may. There is the conscious mind which is involved with - as the name suggests - conscious actions and thoughts etc. Ex: if I were to want to pick up an object and do so I am consciously doing the act and therefore using my conscious mind. There are two functions exhibited in that simple action, one being my thought and the other being my actions. This would be classified as voluntary actions in biological terms. While all voluntary actions maybe conscious, not all conscious actions are voluntary. For example : I breathe consciously and it isn't an involuntary action at all times like in the case of taking in deep breaths during yoga or swimming. The other entity of the human mind would be the subconscious mind which is what at work almost 90% of the time. The subconscious mind would deal with dreams and any thought that has been pushed back from the conscious mind. As the conscious mind only deals with current events and finds all other thoughts and actions not related to the current situation it is facing, as irrelevant and thus pushes that thought or action to the subconscious mind where it is either retained for later recollection or forgotten. As the name suggests the actions and thoughts are subconsciously done, meaning they ate neither conscious nor unconscious but somewhere in the middle, usually leaning towards one entity. Then of course, there is the unconscious mind which does nothing except for actions that are absolutely necessary for us humans to be alive. The function of this part of the mind can be anywhere along the lines of pumping blood to breathing at times. Questions may arise now pertaining to the involuntary actions and reflex actions done by the mind, but we need to remember that reflex and involuntary actions are conducted by the reflex arc an does not go directly to the brain so as to minimize the reaction time of the part of the body that is being affected by the stimulus. Thus, this is not part of any of the three main entities of the mind that we have classified in this theory.