Ok, Harry, I'm done, here. You find the appropriate word to express your relation to your dreams.

Are you saying that "I" learned how to walk, or my motor cortex did? — Bitter Crank

"You" learned how to walk; the learning was largely accomplished in the motor cortex (which is part of "you"). "You" were never 'conscious' of the details of walking (proprioception, balance, adjustment of back, abdominal, and extremity muscle groups, etc.) but the conscious "you" was aware that you were moving about, and shared in the excitement, the pride, the thrill of moving about.

Yes, but I can focus on each breath I take and and change the rate of my breathing. — Bitter Crank

Indeed, "you" can. Controlled breathing overrides the automatic brainstem control of breathing. Controlled breathing requires the focus of the conscious mind. When "you", the conscious mind, is focused on breathing it can't focus on very much else.

What I am groping for is a way of saying that "you" are composed of many functions; one of which is the function of consciousness. There are other, equally important functions that are not conscious. The not-conscious functions are no less "you" than the conscious function is "you". To borrow a phrase from Walt Whitman, "you" contain multitudes.

If I have not answered your question, then I admit defeat in supplying you with what you want. I just don't have any more theory about how the brain works. I intuit that somehow the brain coordinates the many essential functions of our brain, including our experience of consciousness. I have not the vaguest idea of where or how that is done.

Its not equivocation. There's plenty of philosophers who see desires, beliefs and intentions as normative. I can't distinguish what you're talking about as anything more than casual dispositions. So if you think desires are synonymous with casual dispositions then cool.

I didn't base my belief on feelings, Ernestm.

OK, so what I call a "desire", you call a "causal disposition". Do you recognize a difference between a causal disposition, and an intention? The difference being as I described, that the causal disposition doesn't necessitate any action, because the will prevents such action through will power. When the person decides what action to take, then this action is intentional. The intentional act is initiated by the will, not the causal disposition. Therefore we cannot say, as you suggest in the op, that the unconscious causal disposition is what motivates our activities. It is the conscious intention which motivates activities.

Yes. Casual disposition cannot fail to accord to a certain standard, whereas intentions can. Intentions... intend to some action which can fail.

That's why I prefer "desire" over "causal disposition", because there is no "cause" here. "Causal disposition" is a misnomer, because what is being referred to by this term is not causal at all. The inclination to act, which is being referred to here, doesn't cause the act because the will prevents any such inclinations from causing actions, allowing for deliberation.

Ok, Harry, I'm done, here. You find the appropriate word to express your relation to your dreams. — unenlightened

That's simple. I'd be dreaming, just as if I were hallucinating, I'd be hallucinating. I wouldn't be aware, though. That term is reserved for actual knowledge and realization being acquired. I honestly don't see what's so difficult here. I guess some people just can't bring themselves to admit that another might have a better explanation. That's a shame.

"You" learned how to walk; the learning was largely accomplished in the motor cortex (which is part of "you"). "You" were never 'conscious' of the details of walking (proprioception, balance, adjustment of back, abdominal, and extremity muscle groups, etc.) but the conscious "you" was aware that you were moving about, and shared in the excitement, the pride, the thrill of moving about. — Bitter Crank

But I was conscious of the details of walking when I was learning how to walk. I don't know how many times I have said this and you continue to overlook it.

Are you saying that the purpose of consciousness, the problems that it was designed to solve by natural selection, is to be aware that I'm moving about and to share in the excitement, pride and thrill of moving about? What am I sharing the excitement with - my motor cortex?

It seems a better explanation for the reason of consciousness is for finer control over my body. Once finer control is attained and the movements for a certain task are remembered, then consciousness can relegate the instructionst for that task to the sub-conscious while it attends to "more important" tasks that require fine control and a degree of fault tolerance.

I'd be dreaming, just as if I were hallucinating, I'd be hallucinating. I wouldn't be aware, though. — Harry Hindu

Something, though, must make the dream or the hallucination 'yours'. I'm certainly not aware of your dreams, but I am aware of mine, otherwise I could not recount them or call them 'mine', could I? If I'm not aware of the mirage, I won't be walking towards it.

That's the thing with a mirage. You are never walking towards it. That is what gives it up that it isn't a pool of water. Pools of water don't change position when you do. Once your realize it's a mirage, you stop walking towards it. Once you realize you're dreaming, or hallucinating, you find that you suddenly have more control over your behavior.

Interesting, UC. I'll think about it for a bit.

I have experienced that I did something that I considered simply rational. Say arguing an interpretation of a piece of literature, then later realized that what motivated me was not my 'simply being rational' about the contents of the novel, but rather that I identified with the main character and did not like interpretations of that character that were negative. I had an unconscious desire - one I did not want to notice (given the nature of the main character and my discomfort around the issues) - to argue another interpretation. My conscious mind could only regard this, at the time, as me just wanting to get at the best interpretation. Later, after facing some of my own issues, I realized what was really going on, and why I had had extra emotions in that discussion. I have experienced this kind of thing in all sorts of relationship discussions, where desires and desires not to notice these desires were not conscious at the time, but definitely present.

My conscious mind could only regard this, at the time, as me just wanting to get at the best interpretation. Later, after facing some of my own issues, I realized what was really going on, and why I had had extra emotions in that discussion. I have experienced this kind of thing in all sorts of relationship discussions, where desires and desires not to notice these desires were not conscious at the time, but definitely present. — Coben

This is quite common, which is the reason why fiction or aesthetics in general is so important. Sometimes the presence of anxiety or depression, insomnia and nightmares, loss of concentration and other unexpected emotions are physical indicators of the brain - such as the hippocampus - interrupting the correct consolidation of experiences. Your attempt to interpret pieces of literature, or art, or music or film - or even creating fiction and characters - is essentially subjective communication that attempts to articulate personal experiences that the clarity is otherwise clouded by self-defence mechanisms and pleasurable escapes (drugs, alcohol, sex, food or overeating, even conformism) that form as barriers that justify or delude the imbedded childhood, environmental and social influences through emotional escape.

The way that I see it, our experiences are really our interpretation of our experiences and since our brains are instinctually made to avoid anxiety, our experiences can conflict with our environment, our minds, and our instincts and that leads to all sorts of issues. What we call our "desires" could quite simply be a defence-mechanism or escape and it takes quite a lot to know the difference between what is real or true, to what is you deluding yourself.

Don't you mean subconscious desires? And I'm not sure what that means, viz., to have unconscious desires, or subconscious desires. I think how people speak about our subconscious states is a bit weird. Isn't a desire by its very nature something you're aware of? What would it mean to have an unconscious desire? I have a desire for X, but I'm unaware of it. If I am aware of it, then it's not unconscious.

Isn't a desire by its very nature something you're aware of? What would it mean to have an unconscious desire? I have a desire for X, but I'm unaware of it. If I am aware of it, then it's not unconscious. — Sam26

An unconscious desire would be some motivation you're not aware of that influences your behavior. The psychological explanation is that what we are conscious of is only the tip of the iceberg as to what actually causes our behavior.

An unconscious desire would be some motivation you're not aware of that influences your behavior. The psychological explanation is that what we are conscious of is only the tip of the iceberg as to what actually causes our behavior. — Marchesk

There is no doubt that there are subconscious things that influence our behavior. However, I can't make any sense out of subconscious desires or beliefs. I either have a desire or I don't, and if I'm not aware of a desire how can it be a desire? If I have a desire for apple pie and I act on it, it's because I'm aware of the desire. If I'm not aware of it, then how can I act on it? Do I just start eating apple pie without knowing of the desire? Why am I eating apple pie? I don't know, it must be some desire in my subconscious. Moreover, if I'm not aware of the desire, how can I call it a desire? Maybe it's some other subconscious thing that's motivating me.

Suppose you like apple pie and someone hypnotized you to desire apple pie every time you hear the word 'Wittgenstein' ? If you are susceptible to the suggestion then you will desire apple pie and you will rationalize that desire whenever you hear the trigger word used.

Something like this was done with in a Stroop test in which color words like 'red', 'blue', 'green' are colored in the wrong colors. The subjects are then asked to identify the colors they see. Normally, there is a hesitation due to the conflict between the word's meaning and the color the subjects see. In a test Amir Raz, a cognitive neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal (2013) he gave half the test subjects a hypnotic suggestion to disregard any meanings attached to colored words, to treat them as if they were written in a foreign language. When the subjects took the test the one who had been given the post hypnotic suggestion did not display the same hesitancy as the non-hypnotized group.

I'm not sure how your example hurts my argument. The point of an unconscious desire is that it's not conscious. However, in your example you're simply giving a different cause to the desire (hypnosis), but if you have a desire for apple pie, then you are aware of the desire. You may not be aware of the underlying cause, but that's a separate issue. Many of us are unaware of many of the causes for our behavior, and some of those causes may or may not be subconscious.

Much of our language, or psychologist's language, isn't accurate or as precise as it should be, and it's confusing.

with

You may not be aware of the underlying cause, but that's a separate issue.

That's the unconscious cause of your current desire for that slice of warm apple pie topped some finely aged melted cheddar >:) , my point of view.

I either have a desire or I don't, and if I'm not aware of a desire how can it be a desire? — Sam26

In my view some people who desire to dominate other people are not aware of this desire, as an example. Indeed they often believe or at least state that they believe that they are being reasonable and egalitarian. But observation of them reveals, for instance, that they interrupt other people often, use certain forms of body language that others interpret as aggressive (e.g. waggling pokers :) ), and brush off criticism. The desire to exert - or indeed to accede to - power often feels to me like it's bubbling along under the surface of talk that's about something else, and actions that seem to be about just those actions.