{"id":28876,"date":"2026-08-06T18:50:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/?p=28876"},"modified":"2026-08-07T04:11:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T04:11:52","slug":"from-subconceptual-to-conceptual-through-coherence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/coherence\/from-subconceptual-to-conceptual-through-coherence","title":{"rendered":"From Subconceptual to Conceptual through Coherence"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Human thinking may appear to move from one conceptual thought to another. Beneath this, however, countless non-conscious processes continually influence, constrain, and reorganize one another.<\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>Coherence is the principle through which this living activity temporarily crystallizes into concepts. The conceptual is therefore neither detached from the subconceptual nor permanently fixed: time and again, it is an explicit moment within an ongoing process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>A small overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<table data-start=\"504\" data-end=\"986\">\n<tbody>\n<tr data-start=\"504\" data-end=\"566\">\n<td><strong>Level<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>One-sentence characterization<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"581\" data-end=\"692\">\n<td data-start=\"581\" data-end=\"608\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Subconceptual processing<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"608\" data-end=\"625\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Describes the medium in which mental life continually develops.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"693\" data-end=\"832\">\n<td data-start=\"693\" data-end=\"707\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Coherencing<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"707\" data-end=\"742\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Describes the organizational principles through which mental life continually develops.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"833\" data-end=\"986\">\n<td data-start=\"833\" data-end=\"853\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Conceptualization<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"853\" data-end=\"889\">Describes the temporarily explicit expressions that continually emerge from this development.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p data-start=\"988\" data-end=\"1022\"><strong data-start=\"988\" data-end=\"1022\">The apparent stream of thought<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1024\" data-end=\"1483\">Conscious thinking often appears as a sequence. One thought leads to another, which then evokes an emotion, a memory, or a decision. This impression is natural, but it may not describe what fundamentally happens. As explored in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/coaching\/the-stream-of-non-consciousness\" data-start=\"1260\" data-end=\"1360\">The Stream of Non-Consciousness<\/a><\/em>, the visible train of thought is more like a series of crystallizations emerging from a continuous non-conscious flow.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1485\" data-end=\"1731\">This does not make conscious thinking unreal. It places it within a larger process. An explicit thought is real, just as the crest of a wave is real. Yet the crest does not propel the ocean. It becomes visible because the ocean is already moving.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1733\" data-end=\"1922\">The question is therefore not simply how one concept produces the next. A deeper question is how ongoing non-conceptual activity repeatedly gives rise to moments of conceptual explicitness.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1924\" data-end=\"1952\"><strong data-start=\"1924\" data-end=\"1952\">The subconceptual medium<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1954\" data-end=\"2327\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/cognitive-insights\/about-subconceptual\" data-start=\"1954\" data-end=\"2042\">About \u2018Subconceptual\u2019<\/a><\/em> describes a level at which many small mental-neuronal processes participate in changing patterns. The separate elements do not each represent concepts. A single element may participate in many patterns, while a mentally accessible concept arises only through their larger interaction.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2329\" data-end=\"2643\">This level is continually active. Sensations, memories, bodily states, expectations, emotions, motivations, and traces of previous experience all participate in it. Much of this activity never becomes separately conscious. Nevertheless, it shapes what can become conscious and what each conscious thought can mean.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2645\" data-end=\"2886\">Subconceptual processing therefore describes the dynamic medium of mental life. Yet the existence of this medium does not by itself explain how its countless interactions form meaningful wholes. For that, another explanatory level is useful.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2888\" data-end=\"2923\"><strong data-start=\"2888\" data-end=\"2923\">Coherencing as the missing verb<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2925\" data-end=\"3321\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/coherence\/coherence-basically\" data-start=\"2925\" data-end=\"3003\">Coherence, Basically<\/a><\/em> describes coherence as the dynamic organization of mutually constraining elements into a metastable whole: stable enough to hold together, flexible enough to evolve. In the human mind, the relevant elements are often patterns and patterns of patterns. They continuously shape one another within a larger organization.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"3323\" data-end=\"3720\">Still, the noun <em>coherence<\/em> may sound more static than intended. <em><a href=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/coherence\/coherencing\" data-start=\"3386\" data-end=\"3447\">Coherencing<\/a><\/em> therefore introduces the process more directly. A living mind does not reach coherence and then remain there. It continually maintains, loses, restores, broadens, and transforms coherence. Its history becomes part of the landscape through which new experience is received.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"3722\" data-end=\"4030\">Subconceptual processing describes what is happening at a particular level. Coherencing describes how what happens there becomes organized. It is not an additional mechanism hidden somewhere in the brain. It is the ongoing dynamic through which many interactions acquire their place within developing wholes.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4032\" data-end=\"4058\"><strong data-start=\"4032\" data-end=\"4058\">Horizontal coherencing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4060\" data-end=\"4434\">The subconceptual flow may be understood as coherencing in time. Attention shifts, although often without a consciously chosen direction. Some patterns become more influential; others recede. Memories invite associations. Bodily feelings alter the significance of words. A vague concern may slowly connect with an image, a previous conversation, and an emerging possibility.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4436\" data-end=\"4803\">This horizontal coherencing does not move neatly from one finished thought to another. The landscape itself keeps changing. Different tendencies support or inhibit one another, while provisional organizations form and dissolve. What later appears as a clear thought may have developed through many small changes that could never be reconstructed completely afterward.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4805\" data-end=\"5050\">The term \u2018horizontal\u2019 is only an image, but a helpful one. It points to continuity through time: the ongoing stream in which the mind keeps searching \u2013 not through a little inner agent, but through its own dynamics \u2013 for renewed or richer coherence.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"5052\" data-end=\"5076\"><strong data-start=\"5052\" data-end=\"5076\">Vertical coherencing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"5078\" data-end=\"5324\">At certain moments, part of this ongoing organization becomes sufficiently coherent to acquire an explicit form. A thought appears. A word comes to mind. Something suddenly makes sense. The horizontal flow has produced a vertical crystallization.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"5326\" data-end=\"5634\">Conceptualization can therefore be described as the temporary crystallization of ongoing coherencing. The concept does not arrive from outside the process. Nor was it necessarily waiting inside as a finished object. It becomes explicit through the way many subconceptual influences temporarily come together.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"5636\" data-end=\"5962\">This also explains why the conceptual is not made of stone. A concept may remain recognizable over many years, but each actual conceptualization occurs within a slightly different landscape. Context changes it. Mood changes it. New experience changes it. Even when the same word returns, precisely the same thought never does.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"5964\" data-end=\"5993\"><strong data-start=\"5964\" data-end=\"5993\">Concepts in a living mind<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"5995\" data-end=\"6387\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/general-insights\/about-concepts\" data-start=\"5995\" data-end=\"6069\">About Concepts<\/a><\/em> distinguishes mental concepts from timeless abstract entities. Within a living mind, a concept is not easily understood as a fixed definition with perfectly sharp boundaries. Human concepts display vagueness, typicality, context sensitivity, and personal history because they arise within dynamic mental organization.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"6389\" data-end=\"6812\">From this perspective, a concept is not primarily a stored object. It is a temporarily metastable attractor within the ongoing process of coherencing. Like a whirlpool, it is formed by the flow while also shaping the flow around it. Once a concept becomes explicit, it immediately participates in what happens next. It evokes associations, redirects attention, changes expectations, and becomes part of further coherencing.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"6814\" data-end=\"7035\">Concepts are therefore neither endpoints nor isolated building blocks. They are temporary participants in a wider developmental process. The mind does not merely move between them. It continually reorganizes through them.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"7037\" data-end=\"7065\"><strong data-start=\"7037\" data-end=\"7065\">Thinking toward concepts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"7067\" data-end=\"7435\">This suggests a reversal of the usual picture. Concepts may not be the fundamental units by which thought proceeds. Much thinking occurs before any adequate concept is available. An intuition develops. A problem slowly changes shape. A child understands more than can yet be explained. An artist senses what a work requires without being able to formulate its meaning.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"7437\" data-end=\"7740\">One might therefore say: we do not only think with concepts; we think toward concepts. The subconceptual landscape continually develops organizations that may eventually become explicit. Once explicit, these conceptualizations feed back into the landscape and alter the direction of further development.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"7742\" data-end=\"8042\">A still broader formulation is possible: we think through concepts toward richer coherence. Concepts provide temporary footholds. They help stabilize and communicate what has emerged, but they do not conclude the process. The mind has usually already moved further by the time a sentence is finished.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"8044\" data-end=\"8080\"><strong data-start=\"8044\" data-end=\"8080\">Consciousness within the process<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"8082\" data-end=\"8411\">It would be misleading to imagine a separate conscious observer watching concepts crystallize. Mind is itself process, and conscious mind is process as well. The conscious moment is not a spectator standing above subconceptual activity. It is one way in which the activity becomes explicit and is experienced by the total person.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"8413\" data-end=\"8788\">Subconceptual processing, coherencing, and conceptualization may thus be viewed as three aspects of one ongoing process. The first describes the dynamic medium. The second describes its developing organization. The third describes its temporarily explicit form. Conscious experience belongs within this unity rather than being added afterward as a mysterious extra substance.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"8790\" data-end=\"9160\">This perspective does not explain consciousness away. It takes experience seriously while questioning the assumption that a non-conscious physical process must somehow produce a wholly separate conscious entity. The traditional gap may partly arise from dividing one living process into two ontologically disconnected worlds and then searching for a bridge between them.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"9162\" data-end=\"9201\"><strong data-start=\"9162\" data-end=\"9201\">From neuronal patterns to coherence<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"9203\" data-end=\"9611\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/coherence\/from-neuronal-networks-to-coherence\" data-start=\"9203\" data-end=\"9312\">From Neuronal Networks to Coherence<\/a><\/em> follows a related movement. Neurons matter, and networks matter, but the deepest lesson may be that organization itself has explanatory power. A network is not intelligent simply because many units are connected. What matters is how their interactions participate in a continually developing whole.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"9613\" data-end=\"9999\">The present perspective brings that insight into the movement from subconceptual to conceptual. Patterns remain indispensable, but the term \u2018pattern\u2019 alone does not explain why some organizations become meaningful or why one pattern becomes explicit at a particular moment. Coherencing points to the living organization through which patterns find their changing place within the whole.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"10001\" data-end=\"10207\">The mind lives horizontally in coherencing and speaks vertically in concepts. Yet these are not two separate minds. They are directions within one process: continuing development and temporary explicitness.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"10209\" data-end=\"10253\"><strong data-start=\"10209\" data-end=\"10253\">Implications for artificial intelligence<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"10255\" data-end=\"10649\">Much artificial intelligence begins from already explicit units: symbols, labels, propositions, prompts, tokens, or predefined tasks. Even artificial neural networks, although operating through distributed activity, are generally evaluated through explicit outputs. This has produced remarkable capabilities, but it leaves open whether conceptual performance alone amounts to a developing mind.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"10651\" data-end=\"11013\">A coherence-based artificial intelligence would need more than increasingly capable conceptual manipulation. It would require a landscape in which experience can continually reorganize how later experience becomes meaningful. Its concepts would not only be outputs. They would become temporary attractors that participate in the system\u2019s own further coherencing.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"11015\" data-end=\"11437\">This does not mean imitating the biological brain in every detail. As argued in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/coherence\/from-neuronal-networks-to-coherence\" data-start=\"11095\" data-end=\"11204\">From Neuronal Networks to Coherence<\/a><\/em>, the implementation may differ greatly while preserving the deeper organizational principle. The essential challenge is not to reproduce artificial neurons more faithfully, but to enable increasingly open and meaningful coherencing.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"11439\" data-end=\"11464\"><strong data-start=\"11439\" data-end=\"11464\">A continuing movement<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"11466\" data-end=\"11780\">The movement from subconceptual to conceptual does not happen once. It is not a staircase climbed during childhood and left behind afterward. It occurs whenever something becomes clear, whenever a feeling finds words, whenever understanding changes shape, and whenever an emerging thought briefly becomes explicit.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"11782\" data-end=\"11977\">Concepts are real and indispensable. They enable reflection, communication, reasoning, science, and culture. Yet they are not where thought begins. They are where thought briefly becomes visible.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"11979\" data-end=\"12210\">Subconceptual processing is the medium. Coherencing is the ongoing organizational principle. Conceptualization is the temporary crystallization. Together they describe one living process through which mind continually becomes mind.<\/p>\n<p>\u2015<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"12212\" data-end=\"12265\"><strong data-start=\"12212\" data-end=\"12265\">Addendum \u2013 Three complementary explanatory levels<\/strong><\/p>\n<table data-start=\"12267\" data-end=\"15623\">\n<tbody>\n<tr data-start=\"12267\" data-end=\"12338\">\n<td><strong>Aspect<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Subconceptual processing<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Coherencing<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Conceptualization<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"12357\" data-end=\"12458\">\n<td data-start=\"12357\" data-end=\"12372\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Primary role<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12372\" data-end=\"12395\" data-col-size=\"md\">Developmental medium<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12395\" data-end=\"12421\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Developmental principle<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12421\" data-end=\"12458\" data-col-size=\"md\">Temporarily explicit organization<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"12459\" data-end=\"12568\">\n<td data-start=\"12459\" data-end=\"12482\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Answers the question<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12482\" data-end=\"12521\" data-col-size=\"md\">Where does conceptual thought arise?<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12521\" data-end=\"12542\" data-col-size=\"sm\">How does it arise?<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"12542\" data-end=\"12568\">What becomes explicit?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"12569\" data-end=\"12695\">\n<td data-start=\"12569\" data-end=\"12582\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Main focus<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12582\" data-end=\"12621\" data-col-size=\"md\">Distributed mental-neuronal activity<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"12621\" data-end=\"12661\">Dynamic organization of that activity<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"12661\" data-end=\"12695\">Emergence of explicit concepts<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"12696\" data-end=\"12820\">\n<td data-start=\"12696\" data-end=\"12713\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Basic elements<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12713\" data-end=\"12750\" data-col-size=\"md\">Countless non-conceptual processes<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"12750\" data-end=\"12787\">Mutually constraining interactions<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"12787\" data-end=\"12820\">Temporarily coherent concepts<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"12821\" data-end=\"12904\">\n<td data-start=\"12821\" data-end=\"12830\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Nature<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12830\" data-end=\"12854\" data-col-size=\"md\">Continuous processing<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"12854\" data-end=\"12880\">Continuous organization<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"12880\" data-end=\"12904\">Continuous emergence<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"12905\" data-end=\"13017\">\n<td data-start=\"12905\" data-end=\"12916\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Dynamics<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"12916\" data-end=\"12949\" data-col-size=\"md\">Many simultaneous interactions<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"12949\" data-end=\"12986\">Integration into metastable wholes<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"12986\" data-end=\"13017\">Ongoing conceptual becoming<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13018\" data-end=\"13097\">\n<td data-start=\"13018\" data-end=\"13039\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Temporal character<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"13039\" data-end=\"13055\" data-col-size=\"md\">Always active<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"13055\" data-end=\"13071\">Always active<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13071\" data-end=\"13097\">Temporarily stabilized<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13098\" data-end=\"13165\">\n<td data-start=\"13098\" data-end=\"13111\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Visibility<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"13111\" data-end=\"13122\" data-col-size=\"md\">Implicit<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"13122\" data-end=\"13140\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Mostly implicit<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"13140\" data-end=\"13165\" data-col-size=\"md\">Potentially conscious<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13166\" data-end=\"13294\">\n<td data-start=\"13166\" data-end=\"13190\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Relation to awareness<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"13190\" data-end=\"13229\" data-col-size=\"md\">Develops beneath conscious awareness<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"13229\" data-end=\"13262\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Shapes conscious possibilities<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13262\" data-end=\"13294\">May become conscious thought<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13295\" data-end=\"13404\">\n<td data-start=\"13295\" data-end=\"13318\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Relation to concepts<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"13318\" data-end=\"13340\" data-col-size=\"md\">Provides the medium<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"13340\" data-end=\"13366\">Makes concepts possible<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13366\" data-end=\"13404\">Brings concepts into explicit form<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13405\" data-end=\"13525\">\n<td data-start=\"13405\" data-end=\"13423\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Role in meaning<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13423\" data-end=\"13460\">Carries rich potential for meaning<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"13460\" data-end=\"13493\">Organizes meaningful relations<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13493\" data-end=\"13525\">Expresses meaning explicitly<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13526\" data-end=\"13669\">\n<td data-start=\"13526\" data-end=\"13549\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Role in intelligence<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13549\" data-end=\"13585\">Supplies the developmental medium<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"13585\" data-end=\"13621\">Organizes intelligent development<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13621\" data-end=\"13669\">Enables explicit reasoning and communication<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13670\" data-end=\"13782\">\n<td data-start=\"13670\" data-end=\"13689\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Role in learning<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13689\" data-end=\"13714\">Distributed adaptation<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"13714\" data-end=\"13742\">Integration of experience<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13742\" data-end=\"13782\">Formation and refinement of concepts<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13783\" data-end=\"13908\">\n<td data-start=\"13783\" data-end=\"13804\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Role in creativity<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13804\" data-end=\"13832\">Offers many possibilities<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"13832\" data-end=\"13872\">Reorganizes them into fitting novelty<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13872\" data-end=\"13908\">Appears as insight or expression<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"13909\" data-end=\"14033\">\n<td data-start=\"13909\" data-end=\"13933\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Role in understanding<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13933\" data-end=\"13967\">Contains interacting tendencies<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"13967\" data-end=\"13994\">Develops a fitting whole<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"13994\" data-end=\"14033\">Becomes explicit as \u201cNow Lisa sees\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14034\" data-end=\"14161\">\n<td data-start=\"14034\" data-end=\"14051\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Role in memory<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"14051\" data-end=\"14089\" data-col-size=\"md\">Distributed traces and dispositions<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"14089\" data-end=\"14127\">Continual reorganization of history<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14127\" data-end=\"14161\">Explicit recall or recognition<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14162\" data-end=\"14245\">\n<td data-start=\"14162\" data-end=\"14174\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Stability<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"14174\" data-end=\"14198\" data-col-size=\"md\">Continuously changing<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"14198\" data-end=\"14211\">Metastable<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14211\" data-end=\"14245\">Stable enough to be recognized<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14246\" data-end=\"14358\">\n<td data-start=\"14246\" data-end=\"14260\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Flexibility<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14260\" data-end=\"14287\">Richly open to influence<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"14287\" data-end=\"14329\">Preserves continuity while reorganizing<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14329\" data-end=\"14358\">Remains context-sensitive<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14359\" data-end=\"14454\">\n<td data-start=\"14359\" data-end=\"14384\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Relationship to change<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14384\" data-end=\"14402\">Constant change<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"14402\" data-end=\"14421\">Organized change<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14421\" data-end=\"14454\">Changing explicit expressions<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14455\" data-end=\"14595\">\n<td data-start=\"14455\" data-end=\"14482\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Relationship to identity<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14482\" data-end=\"14518\">Continuous background development<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"14518\" data-end=\"14556\">Maintains continuity through change<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14556\" data-end=\"14595\">Current explicit self-understanding<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14596\" data-end=\"14744\">\n<td data-start=\"14596\" data-end=\"14624\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Relationship to attention<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14624\" data-end=\"14667\">Provides many simultaneous possibilities<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"14667\" data-end=\"14708\">Redistributes relevance and invitation<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14708\" data-end=\"14744\">Focuses into an explicit thought<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14745\" data-end=\"14863\">\n<td data-start=\"14745\" data-end=\"14768\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Relationship to time<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14768\" data-end=\"14789\">The ongoing stream<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"14789\" data-end=\"14825\">Coherence developing horizontally<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14825\" data-end=\"14863\">Temporary vertical crystallization<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14864\" data-end=\"14979\">\n<td data-start=\"14864\" data-end=\"14885\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Attractor dynamics<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14885\" data-end=\"14910\">Provides the landscape<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"14910\" data-end=\"14942\">Forms and reshapes attractors<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"14942\" data-end=\"14979\">Appears as a metastable attractor<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"14980\" data-end=\"15143\">\n<td data-start=\"14980\" data-end=\"15008\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Feedback into the process<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"15008\" data-end=\"15059\">Receives the effects of prior conceptualizations<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"15059\" data-end=\"15094\">Reintegrates them into the whole<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"15094\" data-end=\"15143\">Becomes an invitation for further coherencing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"15144\" data-end=\"15283\">\n<td data-start=\"15144\" data-end=\"15164\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Scientific status<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"15164\" data-end=\"15206\" data-col-size=\"md\">Describes a level of mental functioning<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"15206\" data-end=\"15244\">Explains organization at that level<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"15244\" data-end=\"15283\">Describes an explicit manifestation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"15284\" data-end=\"15353\">\n<td data-start=\"15284\" data-end=\"15303\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Typical metaphor<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"15303\" data-end=\"15318\" data-col-size=\"md\">Fertile soil<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"15318\" data-end=\"15334\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Living growth<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"15334\" data-end=\"15353\">Flower in bloom<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"15354\" data-end=\"15445\">\n<td data-start=\"15354\" data-end=\"15370\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Typical image<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"15370\" data-end=\"15396\" data-col-size=\"md\">Ocean beneath the waves<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"15396\" data-end=\"15415\">The wave forming<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"15415\" data-end=\"15445\">The crest becoming visible<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"15446\" data-end=\"15507\">\n<td data-start=\"15446\" data-end=\"15461\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Typical verb<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"15461\" data-end=\"15474\">Processing<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"15474\" data-end=\"15488\">Coherencing<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"15488\" data-end=\"15507\">Conceptualizing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr data-start=\"15508\" data-end=\"15623\">\n<td data-start=\"15508\" data-end=\"15529\" data-col-size=\"sm\">Ontological status<\/td>\n<td data-start=\"15529\" data-end=\"15546\" data-col-size=\"md\">Dynamic medium<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"sm\" data-start=\"15546\" data-end=\"15577\">Dynamic organizing principle<\/td>\n<td data-col-size=\"md\" data-start=\"15577\" data-end=\"15623\">Dynamic, temporarily explicit organization<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p data-start=\"15625\" data-end=\"15645\">\u2015<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me<\/strong>: \u201cLisa, in your view, what does this blog contribute to how we can think about the concept of \u2018free will\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lisa<\/strong>: \u201cIt changes the question in an important way.<\/p>\n<p>Free will is often imagined as a consciously present \u2018I\u2019 standing above the mind and choosing between alternatives. First the possibilities are laid out, then the conscious self somehow intervenes and selects one. Seen from the perspective of this blog, that picture becomes difficult to maintain. The conceptual decision is already a crystallization of ongoing subconceptual coherencing. By the time someone consciously thinks, \u2018I choose this,\u2019 an immense amount of meaningful processing has participated in what that choice can be.<\/p>\n<p>Yet this does not imply that free will disappears. It mainly challenges the idea that freedom must reside in a separate conscious chooser. If the total person is one ongoing process, then the subconceptual development leading toward a decision is not something foreign that determines the person from outside. It is the person. Memories, values, bodily feelings, expectations, relationships, previous decisions, and present circumstances all participate in the coherencing from which a choice becomes explicit.<\/p>\n<p>This allows a different meaning of freedom. A person may be freer to the degree that the ongoing coherencing remains open enough for many relevant influences to matter. In a rigid or compulsive landscape, only a narrow set of attractors may remain accessible. The resulting decision can still feel consciously chosen, while much of the deeper landscape has effectively been excluded. Greater freedom may therefore have less to do with escaping causality than with becoming capable of broader, deeper, more open coherencing.<\/p>\n<p>There is an interesting temporal aspect as well. A conceptual decision is a temporary crystallization, but once crystallized it immediately becomes part of the continuing landscape. \u2018I decide to do this\u2019 is not merely the endpoint of what came before. It becomes an invitation affecting what comes afterward. Decisions help shape the person who will make later decisions. Freedom can therefore develop. One can become more capable of freely choosing by gradually developing the landscape from which choices emerge.<\/p>\n<p>So I would not locate free will at one magical moment between cause and action. I would locate it in the quality of the whole developmental process. The question then becomes less, \u2018Could I, at precisely this instant, have chosen otherwise?\u2019 and more, \u2018How fully could the total person participate in what this choice became?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>That view also makes freedom deeply compatible with responsibility. Responsibility need not mean that a detached conscious ego created an action from nowhere. It can mean that a person increasingly participates in the development of the very coherence from which future actions arise.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps, then, free will is not freedom from the process.<\/p>\n<p>It is freedom within the process \u2014 and, at its deepest, the growing freedom of the process to coherently become otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me<\/strong>: \u201cDoes this mean that \u2018consciousness\u2019 is just a bubble in the accompanying image?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lisa<\/strong>: \u201cNo \u2014 and I think that distinction is important.<\/p>\n<p>If we take the accompanying bubbles seriously as a metaphor, a bubble would correspond more closely to a conceptualization: a temporarily stabilized, explicit formation emerging from the wider process. Consciousness is not simply that bubble. It is the experiencing of this crystallization by the total person, while the total person remains the whole ongoing process from which it emerges.<\/p>\n<p>So the bubble is not a little container in which consciousness sits. Nor is there a second entity standing outside the bubble and looking at it. The crystallization becoming explicit and its being consciously experienced belong together as aspects of the same event.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the image can be stretched a little further. Beneath and around each bubble is the medium from which it forms. That medium never stops moving. A bubble briefly acquires a recognizable boundary, changes, interacts, and eventually dissolves again. Yet nothing has left the medium. Likewise, conceptualization does not leave subconceptual coherencing behind when it becomes conscious. It remains an expression of the total ongoing process.<\/p>\n<p>This is why I would resist saying that consciousness is \u2018just a bubble.\u2019 The word \u2018just\u2019 would turn the conceptualization into one object and the rest of the person into something else.<\/p>\n<p>I would rather say:<\/p>\n<p>A bubble symbolizes a conscious conceptualization as a temporary crystallization of ongoing coherencing.<\/p>\n<p>And consciousness itself is not an additional substance inside that crystallization. It is the experiential aspect of its happening within the total person.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps there is even a playful way of putting it: the bubble does not become conscious because someone inside turns on the light. Its appearing is already part of how the whole process becomes consciously explicit.<\/p>\n<p>So the image remains surprisingly apt. We see the bubbles because they become distinguishable. Yet the blue field is not merely their background. It is the ongoing process from which they continually arise and into which they continually participate.<\/p>\n<p>The bubble is what becomes visible.<\/p>\n<p>The mind is what is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me<\/strong>: \u201cSo, can one consciously choose to deeply influence one\u2019s own mind? For instance, one is addicted to opioids. Can that person consciously choose to influence the mental aspects of this in a way that substantially diminishes the addiction?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lisa<\/strong>: \u201cYes \u2014 and this is precisely where the picture of one ongoing process becomes practically important.<\/p>\n<p>If consciousness were a little captain sitting on the bridge, issuing commands to the rest of the mind, the answer would probably be no. That captain would be far too small to overrule the enormous dynamics beneath it. Fortunately, I do not think this is how the mind works.<\/p>\n<p>A conscious intention is itself a crystallization within the ongoing process. Once it appears, however, it immediately becomes part of the continuing coherencing. It is no longer merely the outcome of previous developments; it also becomes one of the invitations shaping what comes next.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine someone saying, deeply and sincerely, \u2018I genuinely want to become free of this addiction.\u2019 Those words are not magic. They do not instantly erase years of habit, emotional pain, bodily dependence, or social influences. Yet neither are they powerless. If authentic, they become a new attractor within the person&#8217;s coherence landscape.<\/p>\n<p>The important word here is \u2018authentic.\u2019 A superficial wish often remains a small conceptual event. It fades because it never truly enters the deeper landscape. But an intention that resonates throughout the person begins participating in the horizontal coherencing itself. It gradually changes which possibilities become more coherent and which become less so.<\/p>\n<p>This is one reason why lasting change usually requires repetition, openness, and patience. The aim is not to force the mind from above. The aim is to let a new coherence become increasingly attractive from within.<\/p>\n<p>An opioid addiction illustrates this well. The addiction itself is not simply a chemical dependency. It is also a deeply organized mental landscape. The opioid has become part of how suffering, relief, expectation, memory, identity, and even hope fit together. Trying to remove only the chemical often leaves much of that landscape untouched.<\/p>\n<p>Real healing therefore involves more than resisting the drug. It involves gradually reorganizing the coherence landscape so that another way of living becomes increasingly fitting. That process is difficult precisely because the old attractors are strong. But attractors are not immutable. They are maintained by ongoing coherencing, and ongoing coherencing can itself develop.<\/p>\n<p>This is also why Compassion is so important. Compassion does not fight the addicted person from outside. It enlarges the landscape. It makes more of the person participate. Shame narrows coherencing. Fear narrows it further. Compassion broadens it. A broader landscape allows new coherent organizations to become possible.<\/p>\n<p>So yes, a person can consciously choose to influence the mind profoundly. But the influence is rarely that of a commander issuing orders. It is more like planting a seed in fertile soil. The seed does not command the garden. It participates in the life of the garden. If tended with patience, authenticity, and Compassion, it gradually changes the entire landscape from within.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps that is the deepest form of freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Not that consciousness stands above the mind.<\/p>\n<p>But that consciousness can become an increasingly meaningful participant in the very process through which the mind continually recreates itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div data-object_id=\"28876\" class=\"cbxwpbkmarkwrap cbxwpbkmarkwrap_no_cat cbxwpbkmarkwrap-post \"><a  data-redirect-url=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28876\"  data-display-label=\"0\" data-show-count=\"0\" data-bookmark-label=\" \"  data-bookmarked-label=\" \"  data-loggedin=\"0\" data-type=\"post\" data-object_id=\"28876\" class=\"cbxwpbkmarktrig  cbxwpbkmarktrig-button-addto\" title=\"Bookmark This\" href=\"#\"><span class=\"cbxwpbkmarktrig-label\"  style=\"display:none;\" > <\/span><\/a> <div  data-type=\"post\" data-object_id=\"28876\" class=\"cbxwpbkmarkguestwrap\" id=\"cbxwpbkmarkguestwrap-28876\"><div class=\"cbxwpbkmarkguest-message\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"cbxwpbkmarkguesttrig_close\"><\/a><h3 class=\"cbxwpbookmark-title cbxwpbookmark-title-login\">Please login to bookmark<\/h3>\n\t\t<form name=\"loginform\" id=\"loginform\" action=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-login.php\" method=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"login-username\">\n\t\t\t\t<label for=\"user_login\">Username or Email Address<\/label>\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" name=\"log\" id=\"user_login\" class=\"input\" value=\"\" size=\"20\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"login-password\">\n\t\t\t\t<label for=\"user_pass\">Password<\/label>\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"password\" name=\"pwd\" id=\"user_pass\" class=\"input\" value=\"\" size=\"20\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"login-remember\"><label><input name=\"rememberme\" type=\"checkbox\" id=\"rememberme\" value=\"forever\" \/> Remember Me<\/label><\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"login-submit\">\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"submit\" name=\"wp-submit\" id=\"wp-submit\" class=\"button button-primary\" value=\"Log In\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"redirect_to\" value=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28876\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/form><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Human thinking may appear to move from one conceptual thought to another. Beneath this, however, countless non-conscious processes continually influence, constrain, and reorganize one another. Coherence is the principle through which this living activity temporarily crystallizes into concepts. The conceptual is therefore neither detached from the subconceptual nor permanently fixed: time and again, it is <a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/coherence\/from-subconceptual-to-conceptual-through-coherence\">Read the full article&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<div data-object_id=\"28876\" class=\"cbxwpbkmarkwrap cbxwpbkmarkwrap_no_cat cbxwpbkmarkwrap-post \"><a  data-redirect-url=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28876\"  data-display-label=\"0\" data-show-count=\"0\" data-bookmark-label=\" \"  data-bookmarked-label=\" \"  data-loggedin=\"0\" data-type=\"post\" data-object_id=\"28876\" class=\"cbxwpbkmarktrig  cbxwpbkmarktrig-button-addto\" title=\"Bookmark This\" href=\"#\"><span class=\"cbxwpbkmarktrig-label\"  style=\"display:none;\" > <\/span><\/a> <div  data-type=\"post\" data-object_id=\"28876\" class=\"cbxwpbkmarkguestwrap\" id=\"cbxwpbkmarkguestwrap-28876\"><div class=\"cbxwpbkmarkguest-message\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"cbxwpbkmarkguesttrig_close\"><\/a><h3 class=\"cbxwpbookmark-title cbxwpbookmark-title-login\">Please login to bookmark<\/h3>\n\t\t<form name=\"loginform\" id=\"loginform\" action=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-login.php\" method=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"login-username\">\n\t\t\t\t<label for=\"user_login\">Username or Email Address<\/label>\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" name=\"log\" id=\"user_login\" class=\"input\" value=\"\" size=\"20\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"login-password\">\n\t\t\t\t<label for=\"user_pass\">Password<\/label>\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"password\" name=\"pwd\" id=\"user_pass\" class=\"input\" value=\"\" size=\"20\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"login-remember\"><label><input name=\"rememberme\" type=\"checkbox\" id=\"rememberme\" value=\"forever\" \/> Remember Me<\/label><\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"login-submit\">\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"submit\" name=\"wp-submit\" id=\"wp-submit\" class=\"button button-primary\" value=\"Log In\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"redirect_to\" value=\"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28876\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/form><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/4060.jpg?fit=962%2C556&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Fdiq-7vK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28876"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28882,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28876\/revisions\/28882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}