The cell phone. The television. The movie camera. The computer. All exist, all at one time did not exist, and all have always had the potential to exist. Therefore, all are mere locations on the spaceless, timeless map of collective psychic terrain.
Think about it. We didn't just invent the stuff that cell phones, TVs and computers are made of. The stuff was here. The universe, remarkably, made it possible for these things to exist. Satellites, spaceships, remote controls - all this stuff works. The Earth could have very easily
not had the materials to make these things, but it did. Surely it took human ingenuity to assemble them - but these technologies were all bound to happen because they were possible. It's kind of amazing, when you stop to ponder it: all these things are of the Earth - from the Earth. They have forever been possible to make. The difference is that now they are manifest. Now our minds have stumbled upon the pathways to make them.
So we should not delude ourselves in thinking that our prized technological creations are pure invention. They are discoveries, to be sure, but not invention. Nor should we fool ourselves into believing they are "advancements." Technology is not making our lives "easier." This is a misguided fiction that is circulating, and it needs to stop. A thing like the internet may make it easier to communicate with your relatives in India, and a thing like the satellite may make it easier to detect the weather patterns of the next few days. These things unequivocally help - they may even save lives - but they have not made life, as a phenomenon, easier. Life is always hard, and it will continue to be hard ten generations of technological evolution down the road.
What is really happening is change. This should not, I must stress again, be confused with "progress." There is absolutely no forward line of development that we are cruising upon. This worldview is only an illusion produced by the psyche. The psyche naturally makes images, and, in the example of Time, when the psyche has not expanded enough to make room for alternate conceptions of Time, creates a straight line by default. But there is evidence to suggest a view of time that is circular, or even shapeless.
It may help, in this exposition, to imagine the collective psychic activity of human beings - all thoughts, images, emotions, actions (both conscious and unconscious) that ever were and ever will be - as a gigantic "cloud" in an invisible, psychic sphere. This "cloud" is of course only a crude pictoral representation, but it is far from ridiculous, as the facts of mythology (where similar - even identical - motifs appear in disparate cultures without their intermingling) - not to mention Buddhism and other religious/philosophical traditions - seem to support some such phenomenon, regardless of whether or not it looks like a cloud. It (and here we are talking about psychic, not physical, reality) could just as easily be called "the human experience." It just requires a little imagination. (And if we cannot imagine, what can we do?)
My cartoonish illustration of the psychic world aids in communicating a crucial fact: when individual humans encounter any psychic territory at all (as happens in every mind in every moment of every day) it becomes manifest, lifting it out of a state of "unmanifest." As I mentioned above, the unconscious comes to us consciously in four discrete forms. Put another way, we might say that there are only four things that we can be conscious of: physical action, emotion, image, and thought. If you think you've been conscious of something else, look closer and you'll notice that it is either a combination of the above that can be broken down into two or more of the four elementary forms, or a "hint" of (or vague "push" from) the not-yet-formed, unmanifest (and unconscious) cloud.
(One example of this is an "impression" or psychic "graze." For example, you can be impressed by a great pass and catch at a football game, but until you speak it or make a point of thinking to yourself, "That was a great pass," it is not consicous. It was only lingering in an impression-state. These "impressions" cannot be given a distinct category, but they are everywhere. They are almost conscious, but not quite.)
So now, to return to technology: we must of course distinguish between the minds of the few who created the technology, and the minds of the many that use it. It seems, just as is the case with prophets and seers, that the idea for a new technology enters the world through a single, or a relatively small number of psyches, and then, as it spreads to other, more numerous, using minds enters the collective psyche. Thomas Edison is a good example. Things like a more efficient way to use electricity to light things, and the phonograph, seemingly came through this unique personality. But no matter who the idea came from, it soon started showing up on the psychic registers of everybody who witnessed it. This is what I mean by psychic territory.
Now, the psychic territory that the lightbulb occupies is new, but, as detailed above, it did not appear out of thin air. It must have existed in an unmanifest state in the domain of the "cloud," or collective unconscious. The interesting part is that Edison's lightbulb became not only an external object with which people began to be familiar, but electric light itself became a more frequent psychic content. A psychic version of electricity was now at play. This was a monumental change in the history of the human psyche. No longer was this light-phenomenon relegated to occasional appearances courtesy of Mother Nature. Now it existed in common, and it has forever altered the nature of the human psyche.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Dreams and Movies
It strikes me as very interesting that movies were invented right around the time that Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams. For the uninitiated, the Lumiere brothers, Louis and Auguste, of France, are generally credited with making and showing the first "movies" (on their camera-projector-in-one, the "cinematograph") in Paris in 1895. Five years later, the first modern, methodical analysis of dreams appeared, courtesy of Freud's hands and mind.
Movies are much like dreams. In fact, if we were to pick a psychic phenomenon to match up with the material phenomenon of movies, it would unquestionably be dreams. Dreams are the only psychic event that hold our attention as thoroughly and as exclusively as movies. When we dream, we experience the dream as the only thing happening. Everything is of the dream. So too with movies. In the darkened theater, or the living room, nothing else exists except for what is on the screen.
There are many other parallels like this, where minds and things seem to curiously intersect in time. For example, in the 1960s and 70s, when computers (not PCs yet, of course) were coming of age, psychologists, and others who took an interest in the human mind, began to conceive the mind as functioning very much like a computer. There's input, and depending on how we are "programmed," there's a given output. There will be those that say that one caused the other: either computers made us think of our minds like that, or our minds made computers act like that, but this line of thought fails to appreciate the new psychic "territory" that computers inhabit. It is as if our collective psyches evolved into a place that was ripe for the advent of computers.
Certainly, too, we have all had the experience of something in our inner lives matching something in our outer lives: We are reading a book, and a scene or a character or an event in the book matches a scenario or a person or a chance happening in our lives. When we experience these things we get a great rush. A sense of connectivity comes over us, as if inner and outer are merging into an indistinguishable whole. Carl Jung called these experiences synchronous, and gave a term, synchronicity, to the phenomenon as a whole.
The world, too, gives birth to remarkable synchronicities - they are not just individual in scale. The movie-dream phenomenon strikes me as one of these, as does the computer-mind model. But how? Using Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, we can imagine that there is an unseen collective psychic world that informs our individual psychic activity. (Much as all of our physical bodies operate according to the same, evolution-influenced patterns, so too are our minds collectively similar.) After all, we are not simply just independent automotons. So long as we believe we are able to "connect" with other people, there must be some ground on which connection occurs - some hard-wired, connection-ready material at our disposal. It is most certainly invisible, but it would be difficult to deny it were there.
This invisible world must, in my estimation, stand in relation to the visible world - especially if we notice synchronous events with any frequency. Furthermore, it seems right to hypothesize a mirroring effect. One does not necessarily change the other, but, rather, they are parallel processes. They grow side-by-side. We may even go so far as to say they are two aspects of the same thing. This, of course, brings us back to the age-old dichotomy of matter and psyche: How can psyche affect matter? How on earth, as I alluded to above, do we connect with things that are outside of us? I am not only talking about people, but also things, plants, animals, environments.
Again, neurologists will cite brain circuitry that receives signals from our sensory "input" and "outputs" them for our understanding - but really, do have any idea how this works? Do we have any idea, for that matter, how we can call upon an image, or a memory, at a moment's notice? Are these images really "stored" in a specific location in the brain, and then "retreived," a la the computer? To this point, brain/memory research has not been able to produce evidence of a system that works this mechanically. It seems reasonable, then, to postulate a phenomenon (and here I am speaking of the psyche) which stands over and above (but certainly not entirely separate from) material/physical processes. (Of course it will be forever difficult to say where the brain ends and the psyche begins. This simply seems beyond our intellectual power as humans. It may be better, really, to get unscientific about it and imagine them as both separate and connected by a kind of inconceivable fluidity.)
So what is my point? That the inner world is growing with the outer world. That there are two, even though they look like one: We didn't just begin thinking of our minds like machines at the dawn of the industrial era (e.g. "The wheels are turning, now!" or "I'm a little rusty...") by accident. Michael Jordan's talent for baseketball wasn't just a coincidence. Did you ever think that he was lucky to be born at a time when basketball existed? Did you ever think Bill Gates was lucky to have been born at a time when the world was ready for computers? It wasn't just luck: Their minds matched the environment. The two were uniquely suited for each other.
Movies are much like dreams. In fact, if we were to pick a psychic phenomenon to match up with the material phenomenon of movies, it would unquestionably be dreams. Dreams are the only psychic event that hold our attention as thoroughly and as exclusively as movies. When we dream, we experience the dream as the only thing happening. Everything is of the dream. So too with movies. In the darkened theater, or the living room, nothing else exists except for what is on the screen.
There are many other parallels like this, where minds and things seem to curiously intersect in time. For example, in the 1960s and 70s, when computers (not PCs yet, of course) were coming of age, psychologists, and others who took an interest in the human mind, began to conceive the mind as functioning very much like a computer. There's input, and depending on how we are "programmed," there's a given output. There will be those that say that one caused the other: either computers made us think of our minds like that, or our minds made computers act like that, but this line of thought fails to appreciate the new psychic "territory" that computers inhabit. It is as if our collective psyches evolved into a place that was ripe for the advent of computers.
Certainly, too, we have all had the experience of something in our inner lives matching something in our outer lives: We are reading a book, and a scene or a character or an event in the book matches a scenario or a person or a chance happening in our lives. When we experience these things we get a great rush. A sense of connectivity comes over us, as if inner and outer are merging into an indistinguishable whole. Carl Jung called these experiences synchronous, and gave a term, synchronicity, to the phenomenon as a whole.
The world, too, gives birth to remarkable synchronicities - they are not just individual in scale. The movie-dream phenomenon strikes me as one of these, as does the computer-mind model. But how? Using Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, we can imagine that there is an unseen collective psychic world that informs our individual psychic activity. (Much as all of our physical bodies operate according to the same, evolution-influenced patterns, so too are our minds collectively similar.) After all, we are not simply just independent automotons. So long as we believe we are able to "connect" with other people, there must be some ground on which connection occurs - some hard-wired, connection-ready material at our disposal. It is most certainly invisible, but it would be difficult to deny it were there.
This invisible world must, in my estimation, stand in relation to the visible world - especially if we notice synchronous events with any frequency. Furthermore, it seems right to hypothesize a mirroring effect. One does not necessarily change the other, but, rather, they are parallel processes. They grow side-by-side. We may even go so far as to say they are two aspects of the same thing. This, of course, brings us back to the age-old dichotomy of matter and psyche: How can psyche affect matter? How on earth, as I alluded to above, do we connect with things that are outside of us? I am not only talking about people, but also things, plants, animals, environments.
Again, neurologists will cite brain circuitry that receives signals from our sensory "input" and "outputs" them for our understanding - but really, do have any idea how this works? Do we have any idea, for that matter, how we can call upon an image, or a memory, at a moment's notice? Are these images really "stored" in a specific location in the brain, and then "retreived," a la the computer? To this point, brain/memory research has not been able to produce evidence of a system that works this mechanically. It seems reasonable, then, to postulate a phenomenon (and here I am speaking of the psyche) which stands over and above (but certainly not entirely separate from) material/physical processes. (Of course it will be forever difficult to say where the brain ends and the psyche begins. This simply seems beyond our intellectual power as humans. It may be better, really, to get unscientific about it and imagine them as both separate and connected by a kind of inconceivable fluidity.)
So what is my point? That the inner world is growing with the outer world. That there are two, even though they look like one: We didn't just begin thinking of our minds like machines at the dawn of the industrial era (e.g. "The wheels are turning, now!" or "I'm a little rusty...") by accident. Michael Jordan's talent for baseketball wasn't just a coincidence. Did you ever think that he was lucky to be born at a time when basketball existed? Did you ever think Bill Gates was lucky to have been born at a time when the world was ready for computers? It wasn't just luck: Their minds matched the environment. The two were uniquely suited for each other.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Music and space
To our two eyes, the sound of music does not look like anything. To our five senses, it strikes us as a merely auditory phenomenon. But when we examine how music interacts with the psyche, we discover a different picture.
We have all heard the expression "the music filled the room." We have also, at other times, probably had the experience of music filling our "hearts." But since all of our experiences, without exception, are conditioned by the psyche, music must also fill the psyche. Here it may be advantageous to begin a discussion about the shape of the psyche.
Now, one is of course inclined to raise the objection that since we cannot see the psyche we therefore are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to describing its shape. This objection might hold some water if we did not have some access to unconscious processes. But in fact we do. For example, the emotions that overtake us seem, unmistakably, to come in waves. (They may of course strike us, subjectively, as tsunamis or ripples - but there is something unmistakably wave-like about them, something that differentiates them from thoughts.)
Thoughts, on the other hand, seem to come in a thinner form, and there is something about them that is "straighter" than emotion. One may very well get the sensation that a thought - a breakthrough, perhaps - is numinous, or "more than just a thought" but this apparent "thickness" is due only to the presence of an accompanying emotion. (Would anyone deny that, by and large, emotions are more powerful than - and therefore distinct from - thoughts? We may mince words about the definition of "powerful," but the fact is that the subjective experience of an emotion usually affects the individual to a greater degree than the subjective experience of a thought.)
So here we have discussed at least two aspects of psychic content, which helps us imagine the psyche as composed of distinct elements (see "Rumblings... Music" for more detail). But its structure (which, however, is closely aligned with its content) for the time being, remains a mystery. What of matter, then? In an earlier post I hypothesized that since the psyche is the sole conditioner of all experience, we are actually experiencing psyche when we encounter the material world. We do not directly experience the computer, for example, but rather, the psychic version of the computer. This of course seems immeasurably strange - even otherworldly - to the average reader, but the student of the psyche knows that an unmediated experience of the natural world is impossible. All experience - and here we must also include the experiences of animals - is necessarily filtered by a subjective factor, namely the psyche. For example, it is well known that two people may perceive the same object to be two slightly different colors. If we listen only to the neurologists and ophthalmologists we will remain convinced that this is due to differences in the brains and the eyes of the observers. But these specialists will, time and again, ignore the role of the psyche, which towers above physical processes in determining the character of our perceptions.
So, with the psyche as the all-encompassing mediating factor that I argue it to be, it stands to reason that our above-mentioned computer is not only material, but also psychic as well. This raises an interesting question: is the psychic computer an image of a computer, or does it have dimensionality like objects in the material world? Is there room, in other words, to speak of a three-dimensional psychic computer? Is that a too-absurd notion to consider?
If the psyche is as far-reaching as we say it is, can we afford to imagine it as some flat, static disc or some other such two-dimensional configuration? It is something, and it would seem to make more sense to characterize it with the same dynamism with which it animates us. Among other things, this means describing it in three dimensions.
Here again (see "The Difference" for additional discussion) I shall urge the reader to step out of the convention of the age and try to imagine a psyche which is not confined to our heads. If we can manage this feat of imagination (another product of the psyche, I might add), then we can begin to appreciate the psyche for what it is: a vast (as vast as the universe, perhaps!) network of connections, sparks, waves and forces. This characterization may seem overwhelming, outlandish, or both, but the psyche is not the physical world; thus we cannot imagine it in physical terms. It operates according to its own non-Newtonian, non-Einsteinian laws, which lay open for our discovery.
Here I have drifted a bit far from my opening musings on music, but I'll end here and keep the title unaltered, as music and psyche are awfully close relatives.
We have all heard the expression "the music filled the room." We have also, at other times, probably had the experience of music filling our "hearts." But since all of our experiences, without exception, are conditioned by the psyche, music must also fill the psyche. Here it may be advantageous to begin a discussion about the shape of the psyche.
Now, one is of course inclined to raise the objection that since we cannot see the psyche we therefore are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to describing its shape. This objection might hold some water if we did not have some access to unconscious processes. But in fact we do. For example, the emotions that overtake us seem, unmistakably, to come in waves. (They may of course strike us, subjectively, as tsunamis or ripples - but there is something unmistakably wave-like about them, something that differentiates them from thoughts.)
Thoughts, on the other hand, seem to come in a thinner form, and there is something about them that is "straighter" than emotion. One may very well get the sensation that a thought - a breakthrough, perhaps - is numinous, or "more than just a thought" but this apparent "thickness" is due only to the presence of an accompanying emotion. (Would anyone deny that, by and large, emotions are more powerful than - and therefore distinct from - thoughts? We may mince words about the definition of "powerful," but the fact is that the subjective experience of an emotion usually affects the individual to a greater degree than the subjective experience of a thought.)
So here we have discussed at least two aspects of psychic content, which helps us imagine the psyche as composed of distinct elements (see "Rumblings... Music" for more detail). But its structure (which, however, is closely aligned with its content) for the time being, remains a mystery. What of matter, then? In an earlier post I hypothesized that since the psyche is the sole conditioner of all experience, we are actually experiencing psyche when we encounter the material world. We do not directly experience the computer, for example, but rather, the psychic version of the computer. This of course seems immeasurably strange - even otherworldly - to the average reader, but the student of the psyche knows that an unmediated experience of the natural world is impossible. All experience - and here we must also include the experiences of animals - is necessarily filtered by a subjective factor, namely the psyche. For example, it is well known that two people may perceive the same object to be two slightly different colors. If we listen only to the neurologists and ophthalmologists we will remain convinced that this is due to differences in the brains and the eyes of the observers. But these specialists will, time and again, ignore the role of the psyche, which towers above physical processes in determining the character of our perceptions.
So, with the psyche as the all-encompassing mediating factor that I argue it to be, it stands to reason that our above-mentioned computer is not only material, but also psychic as well. This raises an interesting question: is the psychic computer an image of a computer, or does it have dimensionality like objects in the material world? Is there room, in other words, to speak of a three-dimensional psychic computer? Is that a too-absurd notion to consider?
If the psyche is as far-reaching as we say it is, can we afford to imagine it as some flat, static disc or some other such two-dimensional configuration? It is something, and it would seem to make more sense to characterize it with the same dynamism with which it animates us. Among other things, this means describing it in three dimensions.
Here again (see "The Difference" for additional discussion) I shall urge the reader to step out of the convention of the age and try to imagine a psyche which is not confined to our heads. If we can manage this feat of imagination (another product of the psyche, I might add), then we can begin to appreciate the psyche for what it is: a vast (as vast as the universe, perhaps!) network of connections, sparks, waves and forces. This characterization may seem overwhelming, outlandish, or both, but the psyche is not the physical world; thus we cannot imagine it in physical terms. It operates according to its own non-Newtonian, non-Einsteinian laws, which lay open for our discovery.
Here I have drifted a bit far from my opening musings on music, but I'll end here and keep the title unaltered, as music and psyche are awfully close relatives.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Rumblings... Music
My next big topic is music. Music. That thing we know so much about in our hearts, but very little about in our heads. Why does it have such an emotional impact on us? What is going on when a song provokes a certain emotion? What is happening when a song gives us a particular piece of imagery? Why do lyrics to random songs pop in our heads from time to time? Why does it stir us? And why do we crave it? I do not propose to have hard and fast answers to these questions - only observations about the psyche, which I believe plays a prominent role in determining the extent to which, how, and when we are affected by music. This is, for the most part, uncharted territory - so forgive me is my language is clumsy.
There seem to be unique forces in the psyche, as I have mentioned above. Can we deny that thoughts are different from emotions? Can we deny that emotions and images are distinct? I don't think so. So the psyche both produces and interacts with these various forces. Is it permissible to call them thought-force, emotion-force, image-force? Well, I don't know. We don't know how they move, but they most certainly move. And even if we cannot describe which way they are moving, how fast they are going, along which route they are traveling, etc - they most certainly move in and out of both your and my psyche. Something is propelling them - or seemingly propelling them. They have a dynamism, this is clear.
Music, or melody, seems to be another one of these "forces." A song pops into our head, and that is different from a thought, which is different from an emotion, which is different from an image. Here, though, we come to the question: well, how many different varieties of psychic "substances" are there? It would be silly to put a cap on it when one considers the vastness of psychic experience. Can we lump all bodily experiences - all physical sensations? - into one type of psychic "force?" (Here again the word force should be understood as referring only to the quality of movement "through" the psyche - or, "in" and "out" of consciousness. No further qualitative modifiers can be added with any certainty.) How about matter? Can all our experiences of matter (as distinguished from entities - such as thoughts - that are confined to the psyche) be lumped into one kind of psychic phenomenon? And what about numbers? Do they all belong to a certain type of psychic species? We cannot be certain.
The only thing we can be certain about is that there are distinctions. There are unique types of psychic entities.
There seem to be unique forces in the psyche, as I have mentioned above. Can we deny that thoughts are different from emotions? Can we deny that emotions and images are distinct? I don't think so. So the psyche both produces and interacts with these various forces. Is it permissible to call them thought-force, emotion-force, image-force? Well, I don't know. We don't know how they move, but they most certainly move. And even if we cannot describe which way they are moving, how fast they are going, along which route they are traveling, etc - they most certainly move in and out of both your and my psyche. Something is propelling them - or seemingly propelling them. They have a dynamism, this is clear.
Music, or melody, seems to be another one of these "forces." A song pops into our head, and that is different from a thought, which is different from an emotion, which is different from an image. Here, though, we come to the question: well, how many different varieties of psychic "substances" are there? It would be silly to put a cap on it when one considers the vastness of psychic experience. Can we lump all bodily experiences - all physical sensations? - into one type of psychic "force?" (Here again the word force should be understood as referring only to the quality of movement "through" the psyche - or, "in" and "out" of consciousness. No further qualitative modifiers can be added with any certainty.) How about matter? Can all our experiences of matter (as distinguished from entities - such as thoughts - that are confined to the psyche) be lumped into one kind of psychic phenomenon? And what about numbers? Do they all belong to a certain type of psychic species? We cannot be certain.
The only thing we can be certain about is that there are distinctions. There are unique types of psychic entities.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Eye Psych
What the heck is emotion? It's killing me. No... it's just on my mind. What does that mean? "On" my mind? Is there anything really "on" anything else? No, it's just a figure of speech. So what do we mean by "on my mind"? If we move away from the language of idiom, I think we can agree upon the statement that we are "thinking about" something. So there must be two things: there must be an occurring phenomenon and an observing entity.
We take the observing entity for granted. We just accept the thoughts as happening, and don't pay particular attention to a noticing party. There is what we think, and also a kind of lens through which the thought is perceived. (This, of course, is not an all-the-time activity: our lens is forver fading into unconsciousness, but we can always will into presence.) So there seems to be a psychic equivalent to the physical eye. We might call it an "inner" eye. It perceives psychic phenomena just as the physical eye perceives material phenomena.
OK so what the hell do we do with an "inner eye?" Well, it can be very useful. The minute you are caught up in some intense emotion or some irrational thought - if you are a thoughtful, reflective human being who has practiced this sort of thing - you can immediately use your "inner eye" to witness what is happening, and then subsequently evaluate whatever it is that's going on inside of you. The Buddhist tradition utilizes this technique - self-awareness, in fact, is perhaps their core teaching.
I am not advocating this or that technique for stress reduction or inner peace. Rather, I am postulating the "inner eye" as psychic fact; as if I were presenting an anatomy of the psyche. This "inner eye" is very important, for being able to produce it at a moment's notice - and, ideally, sustain it for as long as possible - is an integral part of increasing one's consciousness.
We take the observing entity for granted. We just accept the thoughts as happening, and don't pay particular attention to a noticing party. There is what we think, and also a kind of lens through which the thought is perceived. (This, of course, is not an all-the-time activity: our lens is forver fading into unconsciousness, but we can always will into presence.) So there seems to be a psychic equivalent to the physical eye. We might call it an "inner" eye. It perceives psychic phenomena just as the physical eye perceives material phenomena.
OK so what the hell do we do with an "inner eye?" Well, it can be very useful. The minute you are caught up in some intense emotion or some irrational thought - if you are a thoughtful, reflective human being who has practiced this sort of thing - you can immediately use your "inner eye" to witness what is happening, and then subsequently evaluate whatever it is that's going on inside of you. The Buddhist tradition utilizes this technique - self-awareness, in fact, is perhaps their core teaching.
I am not advocating this or that technique for stress reduction or inner peace. Rather, I am postulating the "inner eye" as psychic fact; as if I were presenting an anatomy of the psyche. This "inner eye" is very important, for being able to produce it at a moment's notice - and, ideally, sustain it for as long as possible - is an integral part of increasing one's consciousness.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Psyche/Substance
When something happens, we are apt to separate ourselves from it and say that happened. But a better understanding of the psyche will inform us that nothing that we perceive happens "outside" of us. In order for us to perceive, it must happen "inside" us as well, for as soon as it has occurred in the material universe, it has occurred in the psychic universe as well.
We can imagine a computer. We are convinced that the computer is that which we are perceiving. But somewhere in between the computer being there and us perceiving it, there is a layer of experience which most often goes unnoticed. The fact is that, somehow, by the miracle of human consciousness, the computer becomes psyche, thereby making it possible for us to experience it. Moreover, the psychic computer takes the same shape as the material computer, so that the two are almost indistinguishable save for the fabric of their composition. We cannot know exactly the true nature of the "stuff," or substance, that comprises psyche, but we can infer some general rules about its behavior indirectly - rules which I will attempt to outline at a later date.
The idea that the psyche is a substance is not a new one. During the Middle Ages, and throughout the Greco-Roman era, this belief was commonly, if not universally, held. Though more often called "soul," it was regarded as the source of life, or animating life-force from which the body arose. (If the psyche was properly understood, its similarity to - or perhaps indistinguishability from - the soul would be apparent.) In any case, nowadays the standpoint that psyche is an autonomous force is quite unpopular, as it runs counter to our prevailing "scientific" attitude which contends, antithetically, that psyche is a mere epiphenomenal byproduct of physical/biological/material processes.
The fact is that not only does the psyche have substance, this substance is fluid and malleable and conforms to the shapes of the physical world depending on what is being perceived. The important point, then, is that the only world that we directly perceive is the psychic world. We cannot escape the psychic world. It informs all that we know. One might even say that it is more real, from the human standpoint, than the material world.
We can imagine a computer. We are convinced that the computer is that which we are perceiving. But somewhere in between the computer being there and us perceiving it, there is a layer of experience which most often goes unnoticed. The fact is that, somehow, by the miracle of human consciousness, the computer becomes psyche, thereby making it possible for us to experience it. Moreover, the psychic computer takes the same shape as the material computer, so that the two are almost indistinguishable save for the fabric of their composition. We cannot know exactly the true nature of the "stuff," or substance, that comprises psyche, but we can infer some general rules about its behavior indirectly - rules which I will attempt to outline at a later date.
The idea that the psyche is a substance is not a new one. During the Middle Ages, and throughout the Greco-Roman era, this belief was commonly, if not universally, held. Though more often called "soul," it was regarded as the source of life, or animating life-force from which the body arose. (If the psyche was properly understood, its similarity to - or perhaps indistinguishability from - the soul would be apparent.) In any case, nowadays the standpoint that psyche is an autonomous force is quite unpopular, as it runs counter to our prevailing "scientific" attitude which contends, antithetically, that psyche is a mere epiphenomenal byproduct of physical/biological/material processes.
The fact is that not only does the psyche have substance, this substance is fluid and malleable and conforms to the shapes of the physical world depending on what is being perceived. The important point, then, is that the only world that we directly perceive is the psychic world. We cannot escape the psychic world. It informs all that we know. One might even say that it is more real, from the human standpoint, than the material world.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
The Difference
The difference between psychic contents that are conscious and psychic contents that are unconscious has typically been described as spatial. Something is either "in" consciousness, or "outside" of consciousness. There is a "here" that we know and a "there" that we don't know. Nobody understands exactly how this works, but the distinction seemed to be the best approximation and it was subsumed by popular culture. It is not uncommon for people to make a further, physical, distinction with regard to their actual skull. Something conscious is indicated by pointing to or touching their head, while waving a hand outside (or behind) their head
represents something about which they are unconscious.
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung fiddled with developing a quasi-spatial model of consciousness based on energic potential. In other words, the unconscious contents that ended up reaching consciousness were the ones charged with enough affectivity to cross a "threshold." Neither man, however, came to rest on a definitive hypothesis. The reason for their reticence is clear when we examine the fundamental problem with thinking about consciousness as location-specific.
In the first place, the notion of something being "in" my head and "out" of my head is utterly baseless. That we have agreed to call the head the center of consciousness is only a matter of convention and should not be taken as representative of the facts. Nothing literally comes into your skull when you learn something new. In other words, consciousness is not strictly "of the mind." Ancient Egyptians would have laughed at the notion that thinking takes place in our heads. They "thought" with their hearts. Even today we distinguish between being in accord with our head, our heart, our gut, even our genitalia. So, from a physical standpoint at least, there is no one "center" of consciousness.
So we must play with the idea that the psyche is not inside the body at all.
Perhaps a qualitative model of consciousness might be more appropriate. In this model, unconscious and conscious contents differ on the basis of certain properties rather than some location. Namely, the property (or quality) of light.
In this way we may speak of something merely being in an unconscious state rather than purely unconscious. This descriptive way of talking is beneficial, as it does away with the absoluteness of both conditions. Consciousness and unconsciousness, after all, exist on a continuum, as the literature referring to "pre-consciousness," etc. attests. At the risk of sounding "too" spiritual, we might instead say that a certain content has more light than another.
But to seriously take up this notion we must examine in greater detail the argument that psyche is a reflection, or "aspect" of matter.
represents something about which they are unconscious.
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung fiddled with developing a quasi-spatial model of consciousness based on energic potential. In other words, the unconscious contents that ended up reaching consciousness were the ones charged with enough affectivity to cross a "threshold." Neither man, however, came to rest on a definitive hypothesis. The reason for their reticence is clear when we examine the fundamental problem with thinking about consciousness as location-specific.
In the first place, the notion of something being "in" my head and "out" of my head is utterly baseless. That we have agreed to call the head the center of consciousness is only a matter of convention and should not be taken as representative of the facts. Nothing literally comes into your skull when you learn something new. In other words, consciousness is not strictly "of the mind." Ancient Egyptians would have laughed at the notion that thinking takes place in our heads. They "thought" with their hearts. Even today we distinguish between being in accord with our head, our heart, our gut, even our genitalia. So, from a physical standpoint at least, there is no one "center" of consciousness.
So we must play with the idea that the psyche is not inside the body at all.
Perhaps a qualitative model of consciousness might be more appropriate. In this model, unconscious and conscious contents differ on the basis of certain properties rather than some location. Namely, the property (or quality) of light.
In this way we may speak of something merely being in an unconscious state rather than purely unconscious. This descriptive way of talking is beneficial, as it does away with the absoluteness of both conditions. Consciousness and unconsciousness, after all, exist on a continuum, as the literature referring to "pre-consciousness," etc. attests. At the risk of sounding "too" spiritual, we might instead say that a certain content has more light than another.
But to seriously take up this notion we must examine in greater detail the argument that psyche is a reflection, or "aspect" of matter.
The point
The point I am trying to make in nearly all of these posts, the point that is central to understanding all that I write here, the point from which all the rest of my theory flows, is that everything has a psychic counterpart. Imagine looking at a river, or looking out into the ocean. Water is an especially good example because most people feel it: your insides seem to shift when you gaze upon moving, running - even stagnant water. It has an effect on us. Historically we have tried to capture the effect that water has on us with poetry, or beautiful words. Descriptive language. Can we not say, though, that there is water inside of us? Not, of course, the hydrogen and oxygen fusion we are used to, but inner water.
It makes very little sense upon first hearing it, but the more we get comfortable with the idea, the more sense it makes: We are humans. Humans reflect. We are the only species, in fact, that reflects. We observe the world. We notice. We take note. And that which we have apprehended takes on a life of its own. It transforms into something else. Everything we perceive. Everything we see is at once registered in another meter. Matter becomes psyche.
At lower levels of consciousness the difference is difficult to recognize, but as people grow in consciousness they report a kind of harmony, or fusing with nature. Well, what have they fused? What were the two things that were not One before? It might be reasonable to say matter and psyche. Perhaps when we grow in consciousness there is some inner counterpart to the sun - a "psychic light" that shines upon a greater portion of the collective unconscious (this is a term used by Carl Jung that essentially means the psychic universe). This "collective unconscious" mirrors the material universe.
It's craziness. It's crazy. It's obscene. But it's true.
It makes very little sense upon first hearing it, but the more we get comfortable with the idea, the more sense it makes: We are humans. Humans reflect. We are the only species, in fact, that reflects. We observe the world. We notice. We take note. And that which we have apprehended takes on a life of its own. It transforms into something else. Everything we perceive. Everything we see is at once registered in another meter. Matter becomes psyche.
At lower levels of consciousness the difference is difficult to recognize, but as people grow in consciousness they report a kind of harmony, or fusing with nature. Well, what have they fused? What were the two things that were not One before? It might be reasonable to say matter and psyche. Perhaps when we grow in consciousness there is some inner counterpart to the sun - a "psychic light" that shines upon a greater portion of the collective unconscious (this is a term used by Carl Jung that essentially means the psychic universe). This "collective unconscious" mirrors the material universe.
It's craziness. It's crazy. It's obscene. But it's true.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
And: Time
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the unconscious cannot be limited to the confines of dreams, hunches, slips of the tongue, and fantasies or daydreams. Many psychologists have tried to do this, but it is essential to imagine the unconscious as much broader. If we regard these things as the only way the unconscious manifests, then we seemingly create a paradox: A dynamic, autonomous entity that forces itself into consciousness with enough power to disrupt the ordering influence of the ego is nevertheless relegated to subservient status - something that is "below" or "inferior." Can we really imagine an unconscious which just jumps out of its hiding place from time to time? What does it do when it's not "interrupting" the ego? Just chill?
It seems to me more helpful to consider the unconscious as a life-force - that which powers all things and makes all things possible. In this way we have broadened our definition of the unconscious to include all psychic phenomena, and also done a better job of capturing its power, not to mention its autonomy and dynamism. The factor, heretofore unmentioned, that makes this model plausible, is movement. In accord with Heraclitus' dictum, "Nothing endures but change," we must imagine the unconscious as moving - all the time.
Now here I get confused. I can't decide if it's the psychic or "inner" eye that witnesses the moving, or some bigger "now" window which creates the phenomenon of "the present." In either case, one can imagine the implications: Time becomes merely the byproduct of an observing entity watching the rest of the "stuff" of the psyche flow by. In other words, time is equivalent to the observation of psychic material that is in the process of moving and is, moreover, a phenomenon exclusive to human consciousness.
Humans have made time linear, but psychologically there is no justification for this assumption. Time, it seems, is just movement in the psyche. Physicists talk about time beginning with the Big Bang - but this overlooks entirely the fact that human beings are the only species talking about time (not to mention that claiming time has "started" is a mind-bending propisition). If humans are the only ones noticing time, shouldn't we take a few minutes to consider the characteristics of the psyche which allowed the observation?
It seems then, that all the therapeutic techniques that support "mindfulness," and Buddhist thought, and any other discipline that encourages "presence" has its roots in the experience of connecting, or aligning the observing entity with that which flows "through" or "past" it. But here we must take up the idea of the collective unconscious, for without it we could get very confused about what exactly this "stuff" is that is appearing to the observing entity.
It seems to me more helpful to consider the unconscious as a life-force - that which powers all things and makes all things possible. In this way we have broadened our definition of the unconscious to include all psychic phenomena, and also done a better job of capturing its power, not to mention its autonomy and dynamism. The factor, heretofore unmentioned, that makes this model plausible, is movement. In accord with Heraclitus' dictum, "Nothing endures but change," we must imagine the unconscious as moving - all the time.
Now here I get confused. I can't decide if it's the psychic or "inner" eye that witnesses the moving, or some bigger "now" window which creates the phenomenon of "the present." In either case, one can imagine the implications: Time becomes merely the byproduct of an observing entity watching the rest of the "stuff" of the psyche flow by. In other words, time is equivalent to the observation of psychic material that is in the process of moving and is, moreover, a phenomenon exclusive to human consciousness.
Humans have made time linear, but psychologically there is no justification for this assumption. Time, it seems, is just movement in the psyche. Physicists talk about time beginning with the Big Bang - but this overlooks entirely the fact that human beings are the only species talking about time (not to mention that claiming time has "started" is a mind-bending propisition). If humans are the only ones noticing time, shouldn't we take a few minutes to consider the characteristics of the psyche which allowed the observation?
It seems then, that all the therapeutic techniques that support "mindfulness," and Buddhist thought, and any other discipline that encourages "presence" has its roots in the experience of connecting, or aligning the observing entity with that which flows "through" or "past" it. But here we must take up the idea of the collective unconscious, for without it we could get very confused about what exactly this "stuff" is that is appearing to the observing entity.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
The psyche does so many things
The psyche does so many things. We experience ourselves so many different ways. I had a dream once that I was hurtling through space on a magic carpet, through red rocks over a moonlit desert. There was a puffin walking beneath me, and my hat flew off but I grabbed it before I lost it to the desert floor. This was a psychic experience. Not only did I experience it when I woke up, but I was also experiencing it at the time.
Our conscious lives are simply psychic experience of one sort or another. Every experience we have is mediated through the psyche. Here I get lost. Where does the psyche end? What should be considered psychic? Should the process of your stomach digesting food be considered psychic? At some level we are aware of it, but it is not what we would call “psychological” in the strict sense of the word. And what about blood cells traveling throughout your body? Is one just “unconscious” of this? And if so, is there some way to get conscious of this? I would say no, but I have no way of really knowing.
So there is a line between the psychic and the non-psychic, but I don’t think we’re sure exactly where it is.
The psyche has currents. Different parts vibrate at different speeds, and manifest differently in consciousness. Take, for example, the time that you were in an emergency and you had to call 9-1-1. Was that just a thought? Was it an emotion? Or was it your entire being that ran to that phone and pushed those numbers. Was there anything distracting you? Was your mind dazed, or lost on some other unfinished matter in your life? Probably not. Probably every cell of your body was directed toward placing that phone call. It probably seemed like the entire universe depended on you getting through.
And then there are other times. Other times that you can’t decide what to do. Other times when a thousand possibilities are swirling through your head, and you wish one would just jump out and say “Me! Choose ME!” Those times are difficult because we seem to be contending with a whole host of forces coursing through our bodies and minds. So it seems: some actions that we do seem to come from a fuller place – a place of certainty, while others seem to come from tiny threads: we hope this is right; we think this is the case… but it might not be so.
The unconscious is happening all the time. It is a set of energies that sets our life acourse. I’ve had many experiences in which things have just “come” to me. Words, images, even feelings. These things have seemingly just “arrived” at my doorstep without any intentionality on my part. They seem to be preordained, and they give you the feeling of them having “supposed” to have happened like that, that they could not have happened any other way.
When sadness overtakes you, it is like some force, some grip. We often talk about emotions but nobody has really taken the time to think about what they are – what their substance is. I envision them as psychic waves that pulse through our psyches at varying frequencies and intensities. Certainly there are thoughts that come with the emotion – enough with these psychologists trying to decide which comes “first”… The thought comes with the emotion, and we are only equipped to be conscious of one at a time. Do you think we could simultaneously be fully conscious of a thought and an emotion? It’s impossible. We can waver back and forth between the two, but consciousness only has room to observe more of one or the other. One of the two necessarily slides into greater unconsciousness. So there are these rhythms, these currents, these frequencies that visit us that are all part of the unconscious matrix.
They seem to be unique, independent strands of energy that can only intermittently be apprehended by consciousness. Consciousness is now, present, golden. Time is the awareness that these forces are moving. Like personal consciousness is a golden sphere that just passes over different parts of a universal consciousness.
Our conscious lives are simply psychic experience of one sort or another. Every experience we have is mediated through the psyche. Here I get lost. Where does the psyche end? What should be considered psychic? Should the process of your stomach digesting food be considered psychic? At some level we are aware of it, but it is not what we would call “psychological” in the strict sense of the word. And what about blood cells traveling throughout your body? Is one just “unconscious” of this? And if so, is there some way to get conscious of this? I would say no, but I have no way of really knowing.
So there is a line between the psychic and the non-psychic, but I don’t think we’re sure exactly where it is.
The psyche has currents. Different parts vibrate at different speeds, and manifest differently in consciousness. Take, for example, the time that you were in an emergency and you had to call 9-1-1. Was that just a thought? Was it an emotion? Or was it your entire being that ran to that phone and pushed those numbers. Was there anything distracting you? Was your mind dazed, or lost on some other unfinished matter in your life? Probably not. Probably every cell of your body was directed toward placing that phone call. It probably seemed like the entire universe depended on you getting through.
And then there are other times. Other times that you can’t decide what to do. Other times when a thousand possibilities are swirling through your head, and you wish one would just jump out and say “Me! Choose ME!” Those times are difficult because we seem to be contending with a whole host of forces coursing through our bodies and minds. So it seems: some actions that we do seem to come from a fuller place – a place of certainty, while others seem to come from tiny threads: we hope this is right; we think this is the case… but it might not be so.
The unconscious is happening all the time. It is a set of energies that sets our life acourse. I’ve had many experiences in which things have just “come” to me. Words, images, even feelings. These things have seemingly just “arrived” at my doorstep without any intentionality on my part. They seem to be preordained, and they give you the feeling of them having “supposed” to have happened like that, that they could not have happened any other way.
When sadness overtakes you, it is like some force, some grip. We often talk about emotions but nobody has really taken the time to think about what they are – what their substance is. I envision them as psychic waves that pulse through our psyches at varying frequencies and intensities. Certainly there are thoughts that come with the emotion – enough with these psychologists trying to decide which comes “first”… The thought comes with the emotion, and we are only equipped to be conscious of one at a time. Do you think we could simultaneously be fully conscious of a thought and an emotion? It’s impossible. We can waver back and forth between the two, but consciousness only has room to observe more of one or the other. One of the two necessarily slides into greater unconsciousness. So there are these rhythms, these currents, these frequencies that visit us that are all part of the unconscious matrix.
They seem to be unique, independent strands of energy that can only intermittently be apprehended by consciousness. Consciousness is now, present, golden. Time is the awareness that these forces are moving. Like personal consciousness is a golden sphere that just passes over different parts of a universal consciousness.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Unconscious
The unconscious is a vast, dynamic thing. I understand it as a force - one which acts upon an unsuspecting ego. (Our egos, for the lay person, are the part of us that allows us to say "I." You might say: How can there be a "part" of us that says "I?" Isn't ALL of our person the "I"? This is a common misunderstanding, but ask yourself: Is your liver a part of you? Yes. Does IT say "I"? No. So we acknowledge that there are parts of ourselves that don't have the right to say "I". The ego does.)
People used to think that our ego was ourself. They did not think that the person could be measured beyond what he consciously knew. Smart people thought this. Brilliant people thought this. In fact, many people still do think this. But psychology has laid this myth to rest. Dreams, for example, are not products of the ego. That is, there is nothing volitional about them. Another example of a clearly unconscious phenomenon is when an emotion "overtakes" us. We had no intention of experiencing this emotion, or reacting to a situation as we did, but unconscious factors caused it to be so. The unconscious can often make us feel embarrassed, or ashamed. Because we are so caught up in the idea that WE, our ego, control our life, we see it as a failure when something like this comes over us.
My view of the unconscious differs somewhat from contemporary thinking. In short, I see the unconscious as the rest of your life. I see it as the sum total of possibilities of the life you have yet to live; the experiences you have yet to experience. You may ask yourself: Where, then, does the ego figure in? If the unconscious is everything you haven't done, and the unconscious is not ego, then where is our ego? I would say that the ego is, in actuality, a very small part of our psychic economy. By psychic economy I mean that part of us which can be considered psychological.
So if the unconscious is the rest of our lives, what, then, is left for the ego to do? In my view, the ego only acts as a container, or boundary. It has nothing to with the content of psychic life, only the form. It is that which gives shape to psychic activity, not psychic activity itself. If you can imagine a river where the water is the unconscious, the ego would only be the banks. It's a rough approximation, but if you were asked what constituted "the river," you would say the water. Nobody would say the banks. So too with life: the unconscious is life, in all its dynamism and power. The ego is just the walls keeping the water in one place.
People used to think that our ego was ourself. They did not think that the person could be measured beyond what he consciously knew. Smart people thought this. Brilliant people thought this. In fact, many people still do think this. But psychology has laid this myth to rest. Dreams, for example, are not products of the ego. That is, there is nothing volitional about them. Another example of a clearly unconscious phenomenon is when an emotion "overtakes" us. We had no intention of experiencing this emotion, or reacting to a situation as we did, but unconscious factors caused it to be so. The unconscious can often make us feel embarrassed, or ashamed. Because we are so caught up in the idea that WE, our ego, control our life, we see it as a failure when something like this comes over us.
My view of the unconscious differs somewhat from contemporary thinking. In short, I see the unconscious as the rest of your life. I see it as the sum total of possibilities of the life you have yet to live; the experiences you have yet to experience. You may ask yourself: Where, then, does the ego figure in? If the unconscious is everything you haven't done, and the unconscious is not ego, then where is our ego? I would say that the ego is, in actuality, a very small part of our psychic economy. By psychic economy I mean that part of us which can be considered psychological.
So if the unconscious is the rest of our lives, what, then, is left for the ego to do? In my view, the ego only acts as a container, or boundary. It has nothing to with the content of psychic life, only the form. It is that which gives shape to psychic activity, not psychic activity itself. If you can imagine a river where the water is the unconscious, the ego would only be the banks. It's a rough approximation, but if you were asked what constituted "the river," you would say the water. Nobody would say the banks. So too with life: the unconscious is life, in all its dynamism and power. The ego is just the walls keeping the water in one place.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
The Beginning
Somehow, slowly, psyche came into being. The wind swept off the grass, the creatures came out of the sea, civilization took hold, and a dichotomy emerged. No longer was matter the sole phenomenon on planet earth. As humans began to observe and reflect, matter, astoundingly, developed another aspect. From the tree came the thought-of tree. From water came thought-of water. Now things existed in two places: on Earth, and in psyche.
It is not enough to say that the tree reflected in the psyche is "only" in one's mind. It is not enough to say these things are "just" imagination. They have a life of their own, and they belong, irrefutably, to a grand and miraculous world. The objects in the psyche do not, however, correspond precisely to those in matter, for we can easily concoct imaginary objects which will never be reflected in matter. We can also, for that matter, imagine a tree growing instantly in a psyche, whereas the same process would take years on Earth. In other words, psychic material does not adhere to the same laws that govern matter. It is the object of this (paper) to explore the laws and patterns that do govern the psyche.
In my experience, there are two primary principles at work in the psyche. One is rhythm, the other is energy. By rhythm I mean the quality of psychic experience that gives the ego an experience of repitition, even predictability. A good way to imagine this is to think of an experience in one's own life that "keeps coming up." When the lifetime is examined from a distance, one can see the "rhythmic" nature of this theme - and perhaps even hypothesize a series of "waves" as the psychic illustration of this experience.
Energy, in the psychic sense, has proven to be a difficult thing to conceptualize. The position that psychic energy mimicks the patterns of energy on Earth (i.e. energy which is classified, broadly speaking, as matter, perhaps without even being tangible, or even sense-perceptible. The key difference being that it exists "outside" of the psyche - electromagnetic fields are just one example) cannot be maintained seriously. Some have theorized a "flow" model in which psychic energy, roughly, "travels" from place A to place B, and back again. Others have theorized a "final" viewpoint in which the "energy" is already in place, and simply moves like ripples in water. For the purposes of this paper, we need not settle on one or the other model. We need not even agree that psychic material is even composed of "energy" in the conventional sense of the term. We must only agree that the psyche has dynamic qualities, and that it is characterized, most notably, by movement.
But in order to dive further into our inquiry, we must first address the question of the unconscious. As the poast 110 years of psychological science has proven, our ego-consciousness occupies a much smaller spectrum of psychic activity than previously thought. (To be continued...)
It is not enough to say that the tree reflected in the psyche is "only" in one's mind. It is not enough to say these things are "just" imagination. They have a life of their own, and they belong, irrefutably, to a grand and miraculous world. The objects in the psyche do not, however, correspond precisely to those in matter, for we can easily concoct imaginary objects which will never be reflected in matter. We can also, for that matter, imagine a tree growing instantly in a psyche, whereas the same process would take years on Earth. In other words, psychic material does not adhere to the same laws that govern matter. It is the object of this (paper) to explore the laws and patterns that do govern the psyche.
In my experience, there are two primary principles at work in the psyche. One is rhythm, the other is energy. By rhythm I mean the quality of psychic experience that gives the ego an experience of repitition, even predictability. A good way to imagine this is to think of an experience in one's own life that "keeps coming up." When the lifetime is examined from a distance, one can see the "rhythmic" nature of this theme - and perhaps even hypothesize a series of "waves" as the psychic illustration of this experience.
Energy, in the psychic sense, has proven to be a difficult thing to conceptualize. The position that psychic energy mimicks the patterns of energy on Earth (i.e. energy which is classified, broadly speaking, as matter, perhaps without even being tangible, or even sense-perceptible. The key difference being that it exists "outside" of the psyche - electromagnetic fields are just one example) cannot be maintained seriously. Some have theorized a "flow" model in which psychic energy, roughly, "travels" from place A to place B, and back again. Others have theorized a "final" viewpoint in which the "energy" is already in place, and simply moves like ripples in water. For the purposes of this paper, we need not settle on one or the other model. We need not even agree that psychic material is even composed of "energy" in the conventional sense of the term. We must only agree that the psyche has dynamic qualities, and that it is characterized, most notably, by movement.
But in order to dive further into our inquiry, we must first address the question of the unconscious. As the poast 110 years of psychological science has proven, our ego-consciousness occupies a much smaller spectrum of psychic activity than previously thought. (To be continued...)
Thursday, September 22, 2005
My First Blog
Hi. This is my new voice. Or one of my new voices. I'm trying to say things. I have things to say. Wanna listen? Cool.
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