Scott Thompson is one of the most influential designers of our time. In his book, Sculpting the Mind, Thompson asserts that the mind is the result of the body. He says the mind is a complex assemblage of muscle and nerves that can be activated by the body.
I think most people can agree that the mind is something that is activated by the body. It’s important to note that this is not the same thing as mind = muscle = nerve. In this case, it means the mind, or more specifically, the mind-set, is something we do and not something we have.
So, in the modern age, we aren’t just going to think and act, we are thinking and behaving and being. We are using our minds to accomplish things and think about how we are going to accomplish these things. In other words, the mind is the tool we use to accomplish things.
One of the biggest differences between the mind and the body is the difference between our unconscious and our conscious. Basically, the subconscious is the part of us that has all the thoughts, memories, feelings, etc., that we are subconsciously aware of. It’s not until the conscious mind starts to control the subconscious and bring it in line with conscious thoughts that the subconscious becomes conscious.
The subconscious is the part of us that we actually don’t know is there. It’s the part of us that we have a hard time controlling because it’s our subconscious, so we can’t really stop it from taking over. But the more our subconscious is controlled the more it becomes our conscious. There is a lot of research that shows that being aware of our subconscious as opposed to the conscious is beneficial and very effective.
When you think of your subconscious, you actually think of your body as a computer. Of course this is very different than the computer you are actually conscious of having. Our subconscious is a part of us that is hard to understand, even to ourselves. Its a part of us that is so dark and mysterious and makes us feel like we dont really belong here. Its a part of us that we dont even know exists. But its there. And we can use it.
I find it amusing that they call my subconscious a computer. My mind is a computer, although I am also a human being. It is just part of me. As a computer I could have been programmed to think that way. Its like one of those things in science where something is programmed to say one thing and be different from the other.
The difference between a computer and a human is that a computer has no self. And that makes it easier for people to get past that part of us and get to the part that we actually are. A person with a self, however, is always going to be a person, but it is not defined by what they believe they are. The point is that we can use our own self to get to the part of us that we are, whether that is more about self acceptance or self awareness.
We can use our self-awareness to figure out what we want from life through the lens of our own experiences. We can learn to see ourselves as we see ourselves in others, because that’s all we have. We also learn self-awareness if we are able to understand ourselves through our experiences, but we don’t have to choose between being a person or being a computer. We can choose to be both at the same time.
Self-awareness isn’t some fancy newfangled thing. I believe it’s a natural human trait, though. Myself, for example, have always been aware of the fact that I’m an idiot when I get in trouble and I’m always aware of myself. I have self-awareness because I have to. The problem is, I don’t think I’m really aware of myself as an idiot, but rather as a jerk.