Imperative Soul

I had been playing Sudoku on my phone on the way to work today. As I got off the bus to walk to the library I was rather transfixed on the game and went into autopilot mode even before I got off the bus. As I was walking along the path I was looking down a bit and after being on autopilot for 3-4 minutes I finished my game and decided to look up to see how close the library was. I got quite a surprise when I discovered myself in a building quite away off the path to the library.

To me this was a clear unambiguous example of unconscious vs conscious experience. My unconscious mind was as attentive as my conscious mind. It’s just that given the limited input (I was looking down at my phone so the paving edges were in my periphery rather than the buildings) it faltered because it couldn’t figure out that the input was incomplete and insufficient to go the right way. I also clearly demonstrates that I can be aware of my environment without being conscious of my environment.

I have no conscious awareness or memory of walking the pavement, the last thing I consciously remember in relation to my movement was getting off the bus. Everything after that was memory of the small phone screen. My mind was processing and making decisions of input even though I was not conscious of that input. Moreover I had directed my mind initially to do this but then left it to it’s own devices. Could it be that some types of unconscious experience are solely unconscious because they aren’t encoded in memory? I’ve also been wondering about the similarities of this experience to blindsight where an apparently blind person still can see things but not on a conscious level.

Apart from some laughter and brightening my day, it provided me with some interesting contemplation.