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How does having unconscious associations invalidate the idea of primary experience? It's not as if you consciously think of any associations you may carry in your head and then apply them to the current situation. Actually, how do you even know you're making the connection between the painting and a sunset at the exact instance when you first see the painting? Perhaps you recall the memory of a sunset a split second after you get a warm feeling. It's difficult to tell when you first think of something because thinking about thinking tends to make things complicated and murky. It reminds me of that famous claim that the areas in the brain associated with decision-making are activated before we start to make a choice. We feel as if we're deliberating over something, but are we really? When all is said and done, how do we really know in what order certain things occurred to us or how they even came to us? In some ways, it makes more sense that feelings would come first and justifications would come afterwards. After all, we would need to have some primary, visceral reaction or else there wouldn't be anything to base the story on.