Forums > General > How Does Your Conscience Work?
Someone posed this question somewhere else and I thought it was very interesting, and it would be interesting to see how others respond to it:
Your conscience. What does it feel like? How do you conceptualize it?
It’s a pretty simple question, but one that is quite hard to actually put to words for most.
Discuss.
This is what I said:
It’s very hard for me to put words to how my conscience works. Part of the problem is I actually largely do not think in language. Because of that I can only describe it by relation; and that can be inaccurate at times. I can start by stating that I do not think in language. I think in images, feelings, concepts, and general ideas. I can think of an entire storage list of information, maybe a paragraph in a book, without “thinking” a single word. When I need to retain a string of numbers, I will not be able to if I try to “think” the numbers in an order, even saying it outloud sometimes will cause me to fail. Instead I half imagine the physical shape of the numbers in my head, and the “feel” of the numbers. It remains in this limbo state in effect, where I am just about to actively “think out” the number sequence. I can see and “feel” the numbers, but not think it. Once I write down the numbers or recall them, they can be lost. However, this “loss” is not permenant in some cases. If I “forget it” for a period of time, my mind can work it out in the back of my mind (my subconscious really, but I digress as that is not the topic of discussion right now), and hours later I could recall it.
This simple example is how I recall, remember, and think in the majority of cases. Much of what I think feel say and do remains in this psudeo-thought state where it is on the border between being verbal, visual, felt, or another unknown mode. The second I drift into one of these and extract it (I need to externalize it into one mode in order to get it out), I can explain it and process it. Sometimes I am not aware that I am doing this. If I pay attention I can “recall” where a thought or idea came from. This act of translation between extracting information from my conscious (and what I assume to be subconcious as well, I could be describing that at the same time) is why I can appear lost in thought or scatter-brained (which is largely a misnomer, although I will say I am at times for ease of others to understand). This is also why I say I am a slow thinker. I think very intensely and deeply about pretty much everything, but there is a high volume of material to go through.
I actually don’t have complete control over how I think. To me things often “come to me out of the blue”. This is because of the afformentioned way in which my thoughts remain in a limbo state in a sense. The act of recalling and understanding something is fast on an internal level. Things can very quickly fill this room, getting it out of the room is the slow part. That slow part I have control over. However as I in effect did not “choose” to put all the information into that room in the way that I did, I in effect did not actually control how I thought the idea in the first place. This can be frusterating at times as I can sometimes become irratated with myself with the inefficency of this information. More in the act of translating it and describing it. With pratice new information sets work better, and can become translated easier.
This entire post is actually an example of this. I intuitively understood all of this in my head, but it takes time, trial/error, and a lot of effort to get it down. This is also why I started by saying “it’s hard to explain”. In a way it is ironic to say that it is hard to think about how I think and then further explain it.
*this post was a stream of consciousss. Which was (in hindsight) done on purpose to retain accuracy and authenticity of this.
well hum…
I think that the conscience is the little voice inside my head that speaks when I am thinking about something and warn/advice me.
It’s a little cricket with a top hat who sings!
well more likely to be a mini-me…lol
mostly its telling me to eat chocolate and ice cream!
Do you mean conscience or being conscious? For me my conscience is the centre of a network of all the mental aspects of my being; a crossroads where my thoughts, feelings, memories, experiences and values collide. It evolves all the time as all of the above are in a state of flux and evolution. Personally having a conscience is fuelled early on by emotional responses to certain situations and or experiences and as memories of these increase your values are developed, a rational way of systemising the means by which your conscience operates. Your imagination is a crucial part of your conscience because if you are in a dilemna you have yet to commit to an action and thus yet to feel the emotional result. Your imagination drives your memories, feelings and experiences and tries to find situations that are similar and identify the after feeling you get. So for me the conscience works like a super fast search engine whether we know it or not looking for similar situations we have yet or imagines how unknown scenarios might feel.
Mostly mine tells me to do whatever feels ‘right’ at that moment. That is quite vague, but it really seems to be the best way to explain it.
Sometimes it might be a selfish action, sometimes it might be selfless, but I find both of those have their place, and being too much of either is not great.
I guess part of it comes from an empathetic place where I try to put myself in someone else’s shoes, and also try to think how I’d like to be treated in such a situation. That was always pretty strongly instilled into me growing up.
On the other hand, there is the self preservation instinct and the need to put my own desires first. This is where things can get a little messy and the line between taking for what I deserve and being assertive, and being an aggressive ass, can begin to blur. I find that this instinct has become much stronger in recent years.
Like everything, it is a combination of genetics and environment/upbringing. What scares me a little is how many people with a warped sense of conscience there are in society! Apparently 1-2% of the population are psychopaths (not the crazed homicidal kind, but more those who lack a sense of empathy) and most of them are in upper management roles. Then again, conscience can be subjective, and who is to say that they aren’t defective, but a prime example of survival of the fittest.
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