Blob: The Subliminal Aspect of “Babs”

There is evidence that processes involved in believing are deeply influenced by factors that are subliminal and non-conscious (cf. Holzer, this volume, Meihner, this volume); there is an expanding list of phenomena so considered (cf. Berg, this volume). Because we usually are not conscious of most of the things we believe, a model of creditions must accommodate the subliminal aspects of believing (Teske 2007). The term blob is introduced to refer to a bab that remains subconsciously hidden. Blobs are non-conscious babs that mediate the influence of the content and degree of a belief on affects, motivations, and actions at a subliminal level.

In sum, the bab is a cover-term denoting aspects of belief including propositional content, emotion, mightiness, and certainty. In order to describe a single bab, it is necessary to name its propositional content, its emotional loading (for instance fear, joy, anger, and so on), its subjective importance (mega-bab vs. mini-bab) to the ‘bab-owner’, and its subjectively felt degree of certainty (e.g., doubt vs. certainty).