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orthonormal comments on Expected futility for humans - Less Wrong
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The unconscious mind is not some dark corner, it's the vast majority of "you". It's what and who you are, all the time you're not pointing your "Cartesian camcorder" at yourself. It's the huge huge majority of your computing capacity, nearly all of your personality, nearly all of your motivation, emotion, and beneath that the coldly calculating part that handles signaling, pack rank, etc. That's the real problem. Cutting it out of the picture in favor of the conscious mind is like the pinky finger demanding that the body be cut off.
IAWYC, but I want to add that the conscious mind has some strengths— like the ability to carefully verify logical arguments and calculate probabilities— which the unconscious mind doesn't seem to do much of.
I'm not sure how to describe what actually happens in my mind at the times that I feel myself trying to follow my conscious priorities against some unconscious resistance, but the phenomenon seems to be as volitional as anything else I do, and so it seems reasonable to reflect on whether and when this "conscious override" is a good idea.