Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Subconscious

:{{la|Subconscious}} – (View AfDView log{{•}} {{plainlink|1=http://toolserver.org/~betacommand/cgi-bin/afdparser?afd={{urlencode:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Subconscious}}|2=AfD statistics}})

:({{findsources|Subconscious}})

The subconscious does not exist. If it did, psychoanalysis would not work. According to a friend of mine who although specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy, had some training in it while she as getting her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, the subconscious is New Age bullshit and was literally never mentioned in any book. There are excuses of it being another word, but that only confuses people. According to Freud, the creator of psychoanalysis, "If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell whether he means the term topographically -- to indicate something lying in the mind beneath consciousness -- or qualitatively -- to indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He is probably not clear about any of it. The only trustworthy antithesis is between conscious and unconscious." PÆonU (talk) 18:01, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Keep - article describes a word which does exist (the word itself, whether or not the concept it is meant to refer to does). The article itself should be kept to clear up any ambiguity. –xeno^talk 18:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• Delete - The word does exist, but the subconscious does not exist in our mind. There is only a conscious and unconscious. Freud, Jung, and everyone trained in psychoanalysis understands this. PÆonU (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• : Then that's exactly what we should say in the article about it, along with a concerted effort to clean up links to it to point to the appropriate topics instead, where applicable. And if there isn't enough concrete information for an article (which I don't expect), it should at the very least be a disambiguation page pointing at the possible concepts that are commonly referred to by "Subconscious". But deletion doesn't help with [http://news.google.com/archivesearch?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=subconscious&cf=all&sugg=d&sa=N&lnav=d0&as_ldate=&as_hdate=&ldrange= such a widely used term], in particular if it's often used incorrectly or unclearly. Amalthea 18:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• ::That's just a waste of web space. We might as well make articles about the superconscious, the megaconscious, the maybeconscious, and the somewhatconscious. They're all just as ridiculous and non-existent as the subconscious. PÆonU (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• :::None of those words generated nearly 70,000 hits with the search Amalthea provided. –xeno^talk 18:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• ::::The internet is filled with garbage. I bet you can find a lot about the subconscious with a Google search, but you cannot find it in a text book. For that reason, this article should not exist. PÆonU (talk) 18:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• :::::There are many articles on Wikipedia that you cannot find in a text book. Perhaps your time would be better spent improving the article to ensure that it explains that the word "subconscious" is "used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a meaning-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings" (oh wait...) –xeno^talk 18:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• :: (ec) From a quick bit of research, it sure does seem that in Freudian psychoanalysis there is no "subconscious" ("Unterbewusstsein"), only the "unconscious mind" ("Unbewusstsein"). So the decision here seems to be whether the so called "New Age shit" is noteworthy enough, and has enough reliable sources analyzing it (and I expect all discarding it as bogus) to keep this is as a front to unconscious mind, or whether we should simply redirect it there as initially proposed by PÆonU as a reasonable search term. In any case, any incoming links should be checked by an expert whether they shouldn't rather point somewhere else. I'm going to ask in WP:WikiProject Psychology in at last. Amalthea 18:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• Keep, even if only as a redirect to unconscious mind. It's a very common word and concept. Tisane (talk) 23:34, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

:If I redirect it to unconscious mind, someone will just undo it. I can guarantee it. PÆonU (talk) 23:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Keep - whether it exists or not doesn't matter at enWP; only that it can be verified. The article states, "In everyday speech and popular writing, however, the term is very commonly encountered as a layman's replacement for the unconscious mind. The ... term [is] prominent in the New Age and self-help literature, in which investigating or controlling its supposed knowledge or power is seen as advantageous." If you ask 10 Wikipedians, probably 7 would agree it's a notable term. It's defined by [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=subconscious+definition&aq=4sx&aqi=g-s2g-sx1g-s1g-sx6&aql=&oq=subconsious hundreds of dictionaries]. There are [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&source=hp&q=subconscious&aql=&oq=subconsious&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws over 100,000 Ghits at Google scholar]. It's a word used in the news [http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&source=hp&q=subconscious&aql=&oq=subconsious&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=sn hundreds of times each week]. This is an easy rescue. Bearian (talk) 23:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
• Keep this needs to be closed immediately. this is an utterly nonsensical proposed deletion. the term (in addition to the term "unconscious mind") is and was widely used, became part of popular culture, influencing innumerable works of art and literature. It is entirely irrelevant whether the existence of this proposed phenomenon can be proved, disproved, or remain in limbo. Its also utterly irrelevant whether the turn of the century german psychology researchers used this term or not, or indeed whether any professional psychologist EVER used the word in any context. IT IS USED. Remember, articles are not written based on whether the information is TRUE, but only if the information is reliable and on a verifiable idea, phenomenon or object. Any debate on the existence or nonexistence of the subconscious is utterly appropriate to place within the article itself, as long as its sourced. the tendentious arguments of the nominator make it hard to assume good faith here. "new age shit" is not exactly npov. Should we remove all articles that refer to all ideas related to "new age" because one or more, even a majority of editors dont think ideas associated with it have any objective reality? it doesnt matter whether any or even all new age associated ideas are utter bs, they are notable, widely written about (if often amorphously defined), and of unparalleled influence in popular culture. (i do see a tendency for many new age associated articles to be poorly written and tautological, with extremely poorly defined terms, including this one, but thats another matter entirely).Mercurywoodrose (talk) 01:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Goal Accomplished I wanted this article either deleted or fixed. This AfD helped light the fire under your guys' asses. Like many other New Age articles, this was written poorly and unless fixed, doesn't belong on an encyclopaedia. Perhaps stupid ideas come from the subconscious? Who knows, but I sure as hell know that until I can move objects with my mind or win the lottery by picturing my numbers on a TV screen, the mind, especially a non-existent part of the mind, cannot affect the physical world. PÆonU (talk) 02:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.