The Echoes of the Mind (31) Mentation

Mentation

Thinking is the desire to gain reality by means of ideas. ~ Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset

Mentation is the mind at work, both consciously and subconsciously. Life presents itself as a series of puzzles which act as fodder for mentation.

A large fraction of autonomous cognitive processes are devoted to making sense of the information we acquire, and they do this by seeking simple descriptions of the world. ~ English psychologist Nick Chater & George Loewenstein

The conscious aspect of cognition is a sheer sliver of the mind’s prodigious labors. The subconscious is the engine of cognition. Cognition is the fruit of the subconscious.

Sensation, perception, and mentation all rely upon memory. Whereas sensation and perception rely upon short-term (working) memory, mentation is a consumer of long-term memory; hence, the fallibilities of memory are visited upon the mind at work in various ways.

All observation is also invention. ~ German perceptual psychologist Rudolf Arnheim