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From: bm007c@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Basem Moussa)
Subject: Re: Is CONSCIOUSNESS continuous? discrete? quantized?
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Date: Wed, 1 Mar 95 22:13:55 GMT
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Bob Kovsky (kovsky@netcom.com) wrote:

: 	There are gradations in the involvement of consciousness in 
: activities, such as whether consciousness is active (as when one is 
: programming) or passive (as when listening to another person); or 
: foreground (programming again) or background (often while driving).  My 
: experience is:  the more consciousness, the more advantage.

"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copybooks and by
eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the
habit of thinking of what we are doing.  The precise opposite is the case. 
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which
we can perform without thinking about them.  Operations of thought are like
cavalry charges in a battle - they are strictly limited in number, they
require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."
	-A.N. Whitehead

If you care to talk practicality, talk procedural memory.  It is more than
obvious now that there are many, many instances where the mental friction of
conscious effort gets in the way.  It isn't even at all ludicrous to claim
the exact opposite; that, in fact, the less consciousness, the more
advantage. 
Question: when procedural memory takes care of something that used to be 
conscious, what are you doing?

Who knows? consciousness may just be god's fail-safe device to keep us
mortal.

-Basem
