Abstract

This research has focused on the innate functions of each of the four faculties of mind that make up the human thinking system in all human beings. This means explaining what type of thoughts and what type of behaviors arise from each of the four faculties of mind within a person at any point in time. We have to find out how all four faculties of mind individually work together as a team, but often against each other, that produces the phenomenon of a divided mind or a divided self in the form of the “I” and the “me” alluded to by William James, and made crystal clear by William Shakespeare’s much quoted soliloquy; ‘to be, or not to be, that is the question’. To do that, we have to dive deep down to examine the abilities and powers of each faculty of mind and how each faculty of mind measures its own powers specific functions against its fellow faculties of mind within the human thinking system. The function and power of each faculty of mind depends on its place in the pecking order of emergence within the human thinking system, which also sets the reason for its existence within the human consciousness. According to the pecking order of emergence, the first faculty of mind known as the perceptual-mind has the greatest power but less abilities. The second faculty of mind to emerge called the human imagination has less power but greater abilities than the first faculty of perceptual-mind. The third faculty of mind called ego/reason has even less power than the faculties of imagination and perceptual-mind, but greater abilities of logical analysis than both of them. The fourth and last faculty of mind to emerge known as the superego/conscience has little or no power at all, hence it is called (“the still small voice within”). It is no accident that the faculties of mind are four and not three as (Plato and Freud supposed). The four faculties of mind often divide into two equal opposing camps within the human thinking system that depicts good versus evil in human nature as the basis of all conflicts and wars in the world. This division manifests as good cop versus bad cop, kindness versus wickedness, selfishness against selflessness, which Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jack Rousseau argued about in human nature. Each of the two opposing camps has a leader and an assistant. In the first camp, the faculty of perceptual-mind is leader and the imagination is its assistant. This camp always opposes the camp of ego/reason as the leader, and the faculty of superego/conscience as its assistant. This is what causes the division within the mind known as the divided self, between the faculties of perceptual-mind and imagination on one side versus the opposition by faculties of ego/reason and superego/conscience, that William James spoke about.