… and if you consider the class of “subconscious activities done in order to reach another goal”, you’ll see that if covers both “low-level” stuff like breathing, and “high-level” stuff like thinking (or at least, the mechanics of thinking—retrieving memories, updating beliefs, etc.). So you get one category instead of two.
Another way to get one category instead of two…
Think of boredom as a signal of not incorporating new, useful physical info. Breathing and thinking (usefully) are not boring because those processes facilitate the body’s exploitation or incorporation of physical info. In other words, boredom arises from a lack of novelty on the level of physics, though the process of breathing may seem repetitive or non-novel on the level of biomechanics.
… and if you consider the class of “subconscious activities done in order to reach another goal”, you’ll see that if covers both “low-level” stuff like breathing, and “high-level” stuff like thinking (or at least, the mechanics of thinking—retrieving memories, updating beliefs, etc.). So you get one category instead of two.
Another way to get one category instead of two… Think of boredom as a signal of not incorporating new, useful physical info. Breathing and thinking (usefully) are not boring because those processes facilitate the body’s exploitation or incorporation of physical info. In other words, boredom arises from a lack of novelty on the level of physics, though the process of breathing may seem repetitive or non-novel on the level of biomechanics.