My eureka moment this morning came in the form of a visualization of the mind in a manner similar to a circuit diagram. Nothing too novel, but inspiring from a drawing perspective. I have it here drawn in pen on a piece of paper, but it will take more time to get up to speed with digital tools. Maybe I should use a flowcharting tool.

Nonetheless, a written description will do for now:

First, a square. Inside the square is a person's body; outside is the environment. Divide the the space inside the square into four corners along two conceptual axes.

First, divide the body along the horizontal axis. On the left is the sub- or unconscious, consciousness to the left. Consciousness being the fuzzy thing that it is, it may be edifying to ditch the label entirely. One may substitute "I" on the right, and "brain" on the left. This was inspired by the confrontation I've had recently with the appearance of the brain being just as mysterious and unknown as the outside world. "We" are occasionally unable to explain our selves - our perceptions and our impulses - to ourselves, and to others. On those occasions, "we" do not seem to actually reside within the brain that we have always been most intimately located near. A key definition to self-identification seems to be self-awareness, self knowledge.

This is a little strange to me because of the common illusion that it is ignorance that provides us with agency. Ignorance is what we have about things external to us - like the environment, or with powerful impulses and sensations. It's the fact that I know what I want, and what I will decide, given whatever specific hypothetical circumstances, that grants me agency. I am not afraid of determinism. Being a machine changes does not change my experience of or interaction with the world one wit. It all adds up to normality. "Weep not for me, for I am machine - and no mere machine at that." A warm, sensitive, human machine - just like everyone else.

Now move to the vertical axis. As I've hinted already, on top we have sensation - input of signals from the environment into the body. on the bottom, we have motivation - signal outflow from the body into the environment. The senses serve as the gateway of input signals - light, heat, sound, etc., into the body. They flow into the body square on the top left - the subconscious/sensation corner. Signal ultimately flows out on the lower right - the conscious/motivation corner.

In order to travel from the first corner to the latter, signals have to cross one axis at a time. Sensation signals that cross the horizontal axis into motivation first are translated from stimulus to response subconsciously. They become instinctive impulses. Those impulses then pass across the other vertical axis into consciousness before being able to express themselves in bodily action.

Or, alternatively, the subconscious sensation signal could cross the vertical axis first, passing into consciousness, before being translated into motivational action by conscious processes. This is a familiar, transparent process, since it's done by the same conscious, self-aware, mind everyone has.

Of course, signals can exit the body without traversing the conscious mind (reflexes), so I would imagine strictly conscious sensation would be plausible too. It might be good to account for this by tilting the square into a diamond, and allowing for sensory and active gateways from the other two corners, as well. Perhaps our use of science, technology, and strict, formal, mathematical reasoning is what can allow us to bypass our subconscious, traditional senses - and their inherent sensory biases (such as those which produce optical or cognitive illusions of which we have been customarily unaware) - and receive signals directly within the conscious mind.

So here's the newest thought that inspired the diagram: There are two distinct signal filters in the mind. The subconscious filters our conscious sensation (attention), and the conscious filters our subconscious motivation (ethics). The filters are constructed to receive signals and eliminate some based on specific criteria, allowing only others to continue on.