Editing Thought (section)

===Unconscious thought===
[[Conscious]] thought is the paradigmatic form of thinking and is often the focus of the corresponding research. But it has been argued that some forms of thought also happen on the [[Unconscious mind|unconscious level]].<ref name="Garrison">{{cite journal |last1=Garrison |first1=Katie E. |last2=Handley |first2=Ian M. |title=Not Merely Experiential: Unconscious Thought Can Be Rational |journal=Frontiers in Psychology |date=2017 |volume=8 |pages=1096 |doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01096 |pmid=28729844 |pmc=5498519 |issn=1664-1078|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Dijksterhuis">{{cite journal |last1=Dijksterhuis |first1=Ap |last2=Nordgren |first2=Loran F. |title=A Theory of Unconscious Thought |journal=Perspectives on Psychological Science |date=1 June 2006 |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=95–109 |doi=10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00007.x |pmid=26151465 |s2cid=7875280 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00007.x |language=en |issn=1745-6916|hdl=2066/55863 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Breyer">{{cite book |last1=Breyer |first1=Thiemo |last2=Gutland |first2=Christopher |title=Phenomenology of Thinking: Philosophical Investigations into the Character of Cognitive Experiences |date=2015 |pages=1–24 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BREI-15 |chapter=Introduction|publisher=Routledge }}</ref><ref name="Nida-rümelin"/> Unconscious thought is thought that happens in the background without being experienced. It is therefore not observed directly. Instead, its existence is usually inferred by other means.<ref name="Dijksterhuis"/> For example, when someone is faced with an important decision or a difficult problem, they may not be able to solve it straight away. But then, at a later time, the solution may suddenly flash before them even though no conscious steps of thinking were taken towards this solution in the meantime.<ref name="Dijksterhuis"/><ref name="Garrison"/> In such cases, the cognitive labor needed to arrive at a solution is often explained in terms of unconscious thoughts. The central idea is that a cognitive transition happened and we need to posit unconscious thoughts to be able to explain how it happened.<ref name="Dijksterhuis"/><ref name="Garrison"/>

It has been argued that conscious and unconscious thoughts differ not just concerning their relation to experience but also concerning their capacities. According to [[Unconscious thought theory|unconscious thought theorists]], for example, conscious thought excels at simple problems with few variables but is outperformed by unconscious thought when complex problems with many variables are involved.<ref name="Dijksterhuis"/><ref name="Garrison"/> This is sometimes explained through the claim that the number of items one can consciously think about at the same time is rather limited whereas unconscious thought lacks such limitations.<ref name="Dijksterhuis"/> But other researchers have rejected the claim that unconscious thought is often superior to conscious thought.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Abbott |first1=Alison |title=Unconscious thought not so smart after all |journal=Nature |date=1 January 2015 |volume=517 |issue=7536 |pages=537–538 |doi=10.1038/517537a |pmid=25631423 |bibcode=2015Natur.517..537A |language=en |issn=1476-4687}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mealor |first1=Andy David |last2=Dienes |first2=Zoltan |title=Conscious and Unconscious Thought in Artificial Grammar Learning |journal=Consciousness and Cognition |date=2012 |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=865–874 |doi=10.1016/j.concog.2012.03.001 |pmid=22472202 |s2cid=40114660 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MEACAU}}</ref> Other suggestions for the difference between the two forms of thinking include that conscious thought tends to follow formal logical laws while unconscious thought relies more on associative processing and that only conscious thinking is conceptually articulated and happens through the medium of language.<ref name="Dijksterhuis"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fowles |first1=Christopher |title=Nietzsche on conscious and unconscious thought |journal=Inquiry |date=2 January 2019 |volume=62 |issue=1 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1080/0020174X.2019.1527537 |s2cid=171812391 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0020174X.2019.1527537?journalCode=sinq20 |issn=0020-174X}}</ref>