The freudian unconscious is weighted (though lacan lightened it up considerably!) and of course psychoanalysis has gifted to culture all sorts of psychobabble. The neuroscience of the likes of LeDoux and Damasio is cutting edge modern bioevolutionary stuff that digs deep into brain meat, and necessarily points to mental processes of which we are totally unaware. Although we live in an 'age of reason' there is a long tradition of philosophical critique that we are not at all reasonable, that passions drive us to act, a point made very cogently by David Hume.Too, literature -and art in general - has always specialised in revealing that of which we are unaware in the bright light of reason. The...

The freudian unconscious is weighted (though lacan lightened it up considerably!) and of course psychoanalysis has gifted to culture all sorts of psychobabble. The neuroscience of the likes of LeDoux and Damasio is cutting edge modern bioevolutionary stuff that digs deep into brain meat, and necessarily points to mental processes of which we are totally unaware. Although we live in an 'age of reason' there is a long tradition of philosophical critique that we are not at all reasonable, that passions drive us to act, a point made very cogently by David Hume.Too, literature -and art in general - has always specialised in revealing that of which we are unaware in the bright light of reason. The late evolved cortex thinks it is the boss: the most up to date research as well as the long philosophical and literary intuitive traditions show it isn't. And it is not just the deeper structures of the brain that are 'unconscious' it is the complex visceral systems of the gut, the body itself which are not just machines to carry our 'conscious minds' but the evolved animal essence of our self. But , hey, don't worry! That's just my opinion.

Our conscience thinks it is is charge, but is often overruled by the subconscious. For example-How long can you hold your breath. Another example is the way that due to the development of language, our mind can often see ideas represented as words. The deeper root of an idea can be seen to a point, when we learn another language, where we relate a word in another language, through the concept that represents that word. Sometimes areas of the subconscious can be traced to a shallow degree in this way, but perhaps there could be a comparison to cabinet files in an operating system. You might never know they are there, but try operating, after they have been altered or deleted. Our conscience ...

Our conscience thinks it is is charge, but is often overruled by the subconscious. For example-How long can you hold your breath. Another example is the way that due to the development of language, our mind can often see ideas represented as words. The deeper root of an idea can be seen to a point, when we learn another language, where we relate a word in another language, through the concept that represents that word. Sometimes areas of the subconscious can be traced to a shallow degree in this way, but perhaps there could be a comparison to cabinet files in an operating system. You might never know they are there, but try operating, after they have been altered or deleted. Our conscience can be left without reference points that it didn't know were there. (I probably only used cabinet files as an example because when I asked about them once, the advice was-don't even think about touching them.) Freud was only guessing. I'm not sure he really worked out what a subconscious was, he just decided. Psychiatrists can be like that.