Thoughts press for emergence into consciousness, and what happens next? For the most part they are rubber stamped and then allowed to slowly decay, floating and fading in the background. The vector that they were attached to and which pushed them into the light is quickly broken down and presumably recycled - there is little conscious insight into the source of these thoughts. Occasionally there is a thought that attracts extra attention, being aware of being aware of it it is isolated and turned about. If a question arises in this way, perhaps from a group of vaguely related thoughts then they are submitted to mind which synthesises a new thought out of them, or creates an analogy that makes a new figure out of them, related to them. These results are accepted by consciousness just like other thoughts and go through the same process. This use of the mind as a sort of computer is so ordinary that it is thought of as another conscious process when it is largely not so. It is slightly magical and the process is only felt not known. The role of consciousness seems largely clerical. This can't be all there is to it.