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Can you say more? I'd like to hear about examples you've experienced.


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I'd say there's a pretty good case that during states like 'highway hypnosis' where we're performing some long-running monotonous task and seemingly cease being consciously aware of it, we're not 'conscious' as most people define the term. I've had situations when extremely tired when I've zoned out for long periods while driving (yeah I probably shouldn't have been driving at that point) and been jolted out of it by some event on the road (eg. someone cutting in in front of me.) By the time I was consciously aware of the situation I'd already slowed and/or moved to the side to avoid the collision so I was clearly still operating the car with some level of competence beyond just simple lane-following, but I had no memory of the preceding 10-15km.

A little more controversially, I think being in a state of 'flow' (aka that state most of us see as the epitome of intellectual existence) almost definitionally means you're not 'self-aware'. You're wholly focused on the activity rather than yourself.

More generally, any routine situation where people spend a lot of time in a semi-dissociated state. I don't think people are actively conscious most of the time, consciousness is more like a supervisor task that pops up to intervene when the baseline circuits governing moment-to-moment behaviour reach a certain level of perplexity.


Thanks, those are interesting! I didn't think of them and I can see your point

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