You won’t find a detailed study of the human unconscious in relation to risk and safety in the safety industry. Yet, you will hear countless references to it as: ‘complacency’, ‘lack of awareness’ and ‘lack of concentration’ etc. Indeed, most often when the word ‘complacency’ is given that’s the end of the story, we now have a meaningless word to explain the inexplicable.

We also hear in Safety the use of the word ‘sub-conscious’. This is a clear indicator that the speaker knows next to nothing about consciousness. Similarly, there are groups (with no expertise in psychology, neuroscience or social psychology pushing in the safety industry, a mechanistic worldview about: ‘eyes on the task’, ‘mind on the task’, ‘human factors’, ‘awareness’ training, ‘habits’, ‘distractions’, ‘’paying attention’, ‘culture’, ‘saving lives’, ‘mind wandering’, ‘neuroscience’ and ‘line of fire’. Only Safety could present the neuroscience of risk with no expertise in neuroscience! (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-and-non-neuroscience/ ).

It seems the expertise one needs most to present all of this goop is engineering! But this doesn’t seem to stop the marketing, propaganda and ignorance to make money. And, what’s more, all of this is nonsense has nothing to do with understanding consciousness.

The same mob will tell you about ‘conscious actions’ and ‘sub-conscious actions’ all anchored to the semiotic of a brain. The human Mind has very little to do with the brain. Do your homework (https://safetyrisk.net/essential-readings-neuroscience-and-the-whole-person/ ).

But no amount of research matters to Safety. Safety laps up all this stuff complete with a semiotic cog to explain how humans make decisions!

All of this is simplistic nonsense and dangerous and, leads people back to good olde behaviourism that doesn’t work.

None of this stuff is founded in any expertise or research into the human unconscious and collective unconscious. Indeed, none of this stuff is ethical or professional. Such is the fraudulence of Safety (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-fraudulence/ ).

If you actually want to begin research into human judgment and decision making you could start here (https://safetyrisk.net/essential-readings-neuroscience-and-the-whole-person/). This is a reading list you will never find in safety (1 or 2). Or perhaps start here: Blackmore, S., and Troscianko, E., (2024)  Consciousness, An Introduction.

The truth is, scientists know so little of the human unconscious (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/consciousness-is-a-continuum-and-scientists-are-starting-to-measure-it/) and, the body-mind problem remains. (https://theconversation.com/science-as-we-know-it-cant-explain-consciousness-but-a-revolution-is-coming-126143 )

But don’t worry, good olde Safety comes to the rescue with naivety and nonsense to sell to a gullible industry that can’t think critically.

Then we also have nonsense like the Bradley Curve (https://safetyrisk.net/nonsense-curves-and-pyramids/) that supposes that humans have a natural propensity to harm and, this is also nonsense. Anyone with a skerrick of intelligence knows that Allostasis and Homeostasis (https://safetyrisk.net/allostasis-and-homeostasis-in-risk/) are the natural and evolutionary energies/forces that sustain life.  But hey, let’s not ley credible research get in the way of making money from delusion.

One thing is for sure. When it comes to Quantum Physics (https://safetyrisk.net/quantum-systems-and-operationalising-spor/; https://safetyrisk.net/cllr-june-newsletter-2024/) we know even less about what consciousness is (https://safetyrisk.net/what-does-quantum-tell-safety/ ).

The trouble is, Safety wants certainty and controllability, not mystery (https://safetyrisk.net/radical-uncertainty/). This is crazy, because the very meaning of the language of risk is about not knowing! The absurdity is ludicrous.

This brings us back to the importance of knowing what we don’t know.

• It is absurd to talk about ‘controlling habits’. It’s not a habit unless it is unconscious.
• It is absurd to label unconscious heuristics as ‘error’.
• It is even more absurd to talk about controls for the unconscious. The unconscious is neither irrational or rational but beyond the language and metaphor of rationality.
• It is ludicrous to see Safety parading such ignorance about the unconscious.
• It is nonsense to think the word ‘complacency’ explains anything.
• It is crazy to offer guesses about the unconscious as truth.
• It is simply stupid to NOT situate the unconscious within what we know of Allostasis.
• Neuroscience is NOT the study of the brain and the human brain is nothing like a computer.
• Human brains are not ‘programmable’ and any language about such simply demonstrates that the speaker has no expertise in Neuroscience and is a behaviourist.
• As much as Safety would like to turn Neuroscience into behaviourism, such language completely manipulates what the human nervous system is about – a nervous system.
• Neuroscientists most often study the embodied human as a ‘Mind’.
• The nervous system is complemented by the endocrine system and immune systems, all working independently and embodied.
• The brain doesn’t ‘control’ the nervous system, at best it functions as an organ that hosts conversations between these three independent systems.
• Anyone who uses the language of the ‘subconscious’ has no idea of the history, development or knowledge about unconsciousness.
• Human decision making is not ‘made in the brain’, human decision making is embodied and many aspects of automaticity don’t involve the brain.
• The concept of ‘inattention’ is simplistic nonsense for how fallible humans embody the following: cognitive biases, social biases, emotions, feelings, heuristics, habits, intuitions, implicit knowledge and experiential learning.
• Safety might like to turn Neuroscience into some simplistic behaviourist sausage, the human unconscious is a wicked problem.
• Yes, there are reasons why people do what they do, but don’t go seeking answers from Safety.
• Any talk of zero associated with Neuroscience is an indictment of the speaker. No one with any expertise in Neuroscience would entertain for one second that human decision making and zero were compatible.
• And please, don’t take any notice of safety people talking about what they don’t know.

If you are interested in exploring why people do what they do, you can study here: https://cllr.com.au/elearning/  or, for a positive and constructive look at the nature of risk and decision making, download Envisioning Risk, Seeing, Vision and Meaning in Risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/envisioning-risk-seeing-vision-and-meaning-in-risk/).