Is the Unconscious real?

[arlin]

9 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

Nope...

The best book is the one written with the words of your mental experience, though. Read it carefully.

Allright then  

[winterknight]

36 minutes ago, arlin said:

Im in italy. I don't know what you really mean by that.

Call the Associazione Italiana di Psicoanalisi and ask for a referral to enter analysis.

[arlin]

3 hours ago, winterknight said:

Call the Associazione Italiana di Psicoanalisi and ask for a referral to enter analysis.

This means that they will analyse me?  

[winterknight]

13 minutes ago, arlin said:

This means that they will analyse me?  

Psychoanalysis ("analysis") is the therapy that Freud started, but it has advanced a lot since then.

If you enter analysis -- that means undergoing that type of therapy -- it is the best way of dealing with emotional blocks and understanding psychodynamic theory.

[arlin]

15 minutes ago, winterknight said:

Psychoanalysis ("analysis") is the therapy that Freud started, but it has advanced a lot since then.

If you enter analysis -- that means undergoing that type of therapy -- it is the best way of dealing with emotional blocks and understanding psychodynamic theory.

But i don't know what's the price of a session. Maybe i should ask them.

thank you tho

[Truth Addict]

11 hours ago, Shiva said:

What is real is what you think is real.

Kind of.

But it's still a limited world-view.

@Serotoninluv was great at explaining that to me. Thanks man!

[Cocolove]

Freud had some revolutionary ideas that people don't give him credit for since they've been molded into our society. On the other hand he was full of shit. Psycho-dynamic theory is pure gold if you study the right people, like Jung. And from the absolute perspective their is no unconscious but relatively it's true and very useful. Just like the physical world is. You can use ideas of the physical world to cure cancer or fly planes and shit and you can use the relative truths of the unconscious. 

[LastThursday]

On 28/06/2019 at 0:59 AM, bmcnicho said:

Ego consciousness is but the surface of the much larger psyche, but it emerges from, and is heavily influenced by, the unconscious. 

Nice. But how do you know that? Or did somebody tell you that?

On 28/06/2019 at 0:59 AM, bmcnicho said:

Even though the unconscious is distinct from ego consciousness, you can still become aware of it in your experience, just not directly.  The unconscious can only be known symbolically,

Direct or indirect, symbolically or not, it can only be in your consciousness. It's nowhere else. Because there is nothing outside of your conciousness.

On 28/06/2019 at 0:59 AM, bmcnicho said:

no interpretation can fully explain the unconscious content,

And what would that content be exactly? If you can't 'know' it in consciousness, then what use  is it? You have to be really really aware of stories told to you that start like this: "This thing exists. BUT. It cannot be known". Yeah right move along.

Sorry I'm not picking on you in particular.

Why invoke the idea of an unconscious at all? What about Occam's razor? What can't be explained without reference to an "unconscious"?

Why diminish the power of consciousness and make it secondary to some unfathomable black box of whirring stuff?

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by LastThursday
typo

[SoonHei]

There is no other "real" than the real you think exists... But that very real, is actually unreal. Really. ♥

[bmcnicho]

@LastThursday The existence of the unconscious can be demonstrated by the fact that we are not transparent to ourselves.  We rarely understand what's truely motivating us to act the way we do.  Defense mechanisms and self deceptions are obvious examples of this.  Or consider that many evil people believe they are doing good.  This is because their darker motivations lie underneath, unknown to them.  

There is more to what we are than our limited ego conception, but unless one has done extensive shadow work, it can be difficult to recognize this.  This process also helps unpack cultural indoctrination.  We assume that our thoughts and beliefs are our own, but most we merely pick up from the people around us so that we can unconsciously spread them further.

21 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Direct or indirect, symbolically or not, it can only be in your consciousness. It's nowhere else. Because there is nothing outside of your consciousness.

Yes, but this depends on how you define "your consciousness".  There is much beyond personal ego consciousness, but there is nothing beyond God consciousness.  Making the unconscious conscious is how the ego can dissolve into the Absolute.

21 hours ago, LastThursday said:

You have to be really really aware of stories told to you that start like this: "This thing exists. BUT. It cannot be known".

Carl Jung was fundamentally a student of Immanuel Kant.  Kant believed that the thing in itself was more real than interpretations of it.  This contrasts with western rationalism prior to Kant, which held that reality was best known and explained by abstract patterns. 

Jung used this idea to say that mythological symbols have a unique significance that cannot be completely explained away.  This is similar to Leo's video, What is Actuality?, where he explained that we must distinguish direct experience from concepts and imagination.

[LastThursday]

@bmcnicho ok.

What are my motivations for arguing against an "unconscious" being valid?

1. I like to be contrary.

2. I like to win an argument.

3. I enjoy being direct and abrasive.

4. Maybe I can express a different point of view and shift someone's perception in the process.

5. Maybe I'm like a dog with a bone and need someone to validate my ideas and pat me on the head.

6. Maybe I'm an unconscious idiot arguing about something I know nothing about.

So, I've suddenly become conscious of my motivations - that according to you (not just you) were previously below the surface in my unconscious - my "darker motivations".

So I continue in my therapy and unpack each of the points 1 to 6 above - dredging up ever more unconscious flotsam and jetsam - and connecting it to things in my childhood and trauma and learned behaviours.

But notice how ALL of the above is just an instance of the following:

3 hours ago, bmcnicho said:

This is similar to Leo's video, What is Actuality?, where he explained that we must distinguish direct experience from concepts and imagination.

In other words concepts and imagination. An interpretation of something you have no access to (because it doesn't exist). A story made up for the occasion.

What happens when we drop the idea of an "unconscious"? Nothing changes, except to realise that we are REALLY good at making up stories about ourselves and to hide the fact that it's confabulation, we attribute it to something established and scientific: The Unconscious.

Don't get me wrong, the conscious stories we have about ourselves are extremely powerful and changing them is just as powerful. That is better therapy.

My opinion is that the story of the "unconscious" tries to solve a scientific problem of cause and effect. That anything which is discontinuous in direct conscious experience must have a smooth chain of cause and effect outside of the conscious experience - that things don't just happen "for no reason" or "come out of nowhere". But my direct experience is telling me otherwise.

[arlin]

@LastThursday

Why not taking those concepts simply as tools to understand ourselves better? Maybe the unconscious is real,maybe not.

But those theories exist because somebody has benefitted from them.

[bmcnicho]

@LastThursday You bring up a lot of important points.  Shadow work done properly shouldn't be vague speculation.  A lot of Freud's theories strike me that way, either trying to find some deep rooted childhood explaination or trying to reduce too much down to sexuality.  (Not to strawman Freud, as he made many important contributions, I'm generalizing here.)  I've even noticed with Jung that he'll sometimes interpret dreams in a seemingly arbitrary way, although perhaps I merely lack his expertise. 

Shadow work should be grounded in direct experience, similarly to how Leo describes contemplation.  You introspect about possible explainations for your behavior and keep delving down, trying to reach rock bottom.  It can be very easy to get lost in theories while doing this.  All interpretations are imaginary, but perhaps there's something deeper that it's all pointing to.

[LastThursday]

On 01/07/2019 at 0:32 PM, arlin said:

Maybe the unconscious is real,maybe not.

That is exactly how you should approach all belief. Every belief should be counterbalanced with disbelief. The mind should be nimble and flexible.

18 hours ago, bmcnicho said:

All interpretations are imaginary, but perhaps there's something deeper that it's all pointing to.

And it isn't the unsconscious, it's God.  And that is something coming from an atheist. Maybe ex-atheist.  Hmmm not sure, still working it out...

[bmcnicho]

@LastThursday According to Jung, God exists within the unconscious as the archetype of the Self, but you're right that we should be skeptical.  The map is not the territory and at a certain point the distinctions become mostly semantic.

I'm at a similar place regarding God and atheism.  Perhaps it depends what you mean by God as Jordan Peterson would say.

[arlin]

22 hours ago, LastThursday said:

That is exactly how you should approach all belief. Every belief should be counterbalanced with disbelief. The mind should be nimble and flexible.

That's right!