Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Psychoanalysis is Quantum Mechanics

Psychoanalysis is Quantum Mechanics

I use the metaphor Psychoanalysis is Quantum Mechanics as a linguistic means to convey to you my comprehension of PSA (psychoanalysis) is somewhat based upon my comprehension of QM (quantum mechanics). This is not to say that I know a lot about either of these domains of knowledge but that I think that you may know more about QM than you do about PSA. The linguistic metaphor and the conceptual metaphor are the means that we humans have for comprehending the “unknown” based upon our comprehension of the “known”.

The physicist is a scientist studying the inner reality of the atom and the psychoanalyst is a scientist studying the inner reality of our psyche. The inner reality of the atom is “weird” to our day-to-day comprehension of reality just as the inner reality of the psyche is also “weird” to our day-to-day comprehension of reality.

Richard Feynman, now deceased, was a theoretical physicist and professor of physics at MIT gave to his students the following description of what physics is all about:

“We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes “the world” is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics. Even if we know every rule, however…what we really can explain in terms of those rules is very limited, because almost all situations are so enormously complicated that we cannot follow the plays of the game using the rules, much less tell what is going to happen next. We must, therefore, limit ourselves to the more basic question of the rules of the game. If we know the rules, we consider that we “understand” the world.”

The natural sciences, especially physics, have been very successful at learning the rules of the game. Our didactic (teaching by telling) educational system has been very successful at teaching these rules to their students. The students have been very successful at using these rules and the algorithms and paradigms developed from these rules in developing the high tech economy that we have.

I claim that, metaphorically speaking, Otto Rank is Richard Feynman.

Alois Riegl’s major work in art history Historical Grammar of the Visual Arts foreshadowed the direction that contemporary art history was to take. Riegl was a major figure for establishing art history as a self-sufficient university study as a means for understanding art.

Riegl’s concept of “art-will” contains a strong psychological element that dictates a focus upon the personality of the creative artist. The study of the growth of personality sponsored by the creative individual will is Otto Rank’s major contribution to psychoanalysis.

The individual will means the freedom of choice; with that will comes ethical responsibility and guilt, the footprint of freedom. Will psychology introduced by Rank represents the birth of individuality as it manifests it self in civilization and the accompanying art, literature, music, science, and the possibility of immortality. Rollo May, a well known exponent of existential psychotherapy was deeply influenced by Rank and commented “I have long considered Otto Rank to be the great unacknowledged genius in Freud’s circle”.

If you would like to learn more about Otto Rank's theory, his most important works are Art and Artist, Truth and Reality, and Will Therapy.

“The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics.” This is Richard Feynman speaking and is quoted in his most remarkable book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.

This book is a masterful exposition by a master teacher and scientist of quantum mechanics; aimed not at teaching students to do calculations, but at teaching them to understand what's going on behind calculations. Reading this book helps students avoid "a false sophistication which emphasizes technique rather than understanding." Most important, in my estimation, is that it is a book that any lay person can read, understand and enjoy. It will give the rugged individual--undaunted by preconceived notions--an opportunity to appreciate the mysteries and marvels of modern physics.

Feynman, in my opinion as well as many others, is a master scientist, wonderful human being, and most of all a master teacher.

There is a layering quality in book publishing that works marvelously for the lay reader. Such individuals as Kant, Einstein, and Darwin write books explaining their original thoughts. A second layer of authors condense and clarify the thoughts of these original thinkers into a form more accessible to the learning student seeking to join the ranks of the experts. Then there is a third level where a person with fine writing skills takes this material and writes a book that is accurate, polished, and readable for the person looking to understand the general aspects of a domain of knowledge without too many complications.

Richard Feynman is one of those rare creatures who fit all three levels of authorship. Most important to us, who wish to understand without too many complications, Feynman has written a book “QED”, which makes it possible for us to accomplish this task with much pleasure and awe.

PSA (psychoanalysis) is somewhat based upon my
comprehension of QM (quantum mechanics).
I think that you may know more about QM than you do about PSA.
/ coberst /
#
I read a book ( forgot which ) that Schrodinger had written
to his colleague ( as a joke) that he was afraid that QT
would be changed in PSA theory.
====.
S

More correct.
Schrodinger wrote to colleague that Psi wave function
became psychology theory . . . . and that he suspected
the QT would describe psychological process.
==========.
S.

P.S.
"... indeed an understanding of psi phenomena and of
consciousness must provide the basis of an improved
understanding of quantum mechanics."
/ Evan Walker /

In 2000 Walker published book - The Physics of Consciousness.
This book attempts to describe how quantum mechanical processes
may be responsible for the creation of human consciousness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Harris_Walker

=============================

Physics and Consciousness / Unconsciousness .

Science has demonstrated unequivocally
that our physical reality can not be separated
from our conscious awareness of it.
===========.
#
Dr. Jahn is the founder of PEAR
(Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research).
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

From that site:
"The enormous databases produced by PEAR provide clear evidence that
human thought and emotion can produce measureable influences on
physical reality. The researchers have also developed several
theoretical models that attempt to accommodate the empirical results,
which cannot be explained by any currently recognized scientific
model."
#
Same Soul, Many Bodies:
Discover the Healing Power of Future Lives
through Progression Therapy (Paperback)
by Brian L. Weiss (Author) "EACH OF US IS IMMORTAL..."
http://www.brianweiss.com/
#
Spirituality Spot Found in Brain.
http://www.livescience.com/health/081224-brain-spirit.html
#
Quantum Theory of Consciousness:

Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis.
Some psychologists compare our consciousness with iceberg.
The small visible part of this iceberg is our consciousness.
And the unseen (underwater) greater part of the iceberg is
our subconsciousness. Therefore they say, the man uses
only 10% of possibility of his brain.
And if it so, why doesn’t anybody teach us how
to develop our unconsciousness.
I think it is because there are few people who understand
that the processes of unconsciousness are connected
with quantum processes. The unconsciousness theory
closely united with quantum theory.
These quantum processes which take place in lifeless
(inanimate) nature also take place in our brain.
Our brain can be the laboratory in which we can
test the truth of quantum theory.
===== ========
"The conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind"
- Chuang Tzu
The conflict between right and wrong can be explain
by the theory of “Quantum dualism of consciousness” .
============.
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik. Socratus.
======================.

Psychology speaks of an unconscious and SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) speaks of an unconscious. Each science is speaking of a different kind of unconscious.

Unconscious thought forms 95% of all thought

In the 1970s a new body of empirical research began to introduce findings that questioned the traditional Anglo-American cognitive paradigm of AI (Artificial Intelligence), i.e. symbol manipulation.

This research indicates that the neurological structures associated with sensorimotor activity are mapped directly to the higher cortical brain structures to form the foundation for subjective conceptualization in the human brain. In other words, our abstract ideas are constructed with copies of sensorimotor neurological structures as a foundation. “It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought—and that may be a serious underestimate.”

Categorization, the first level of abstraction from “Reality” is our first level of conceptualization and thus of knowing. Seeing is a process that includes categorization, we see something as an interaction between the seer and what is seen. “Seeing typically involves categorization.”

Our categories are what we consider to be real in the world: tree, rock, animal…Our concepts are what we use to structure our reasoning about these categories. Concepts are neural structures that are the fundamental means by which we reason about categories.

Human categories, the stuff of experience, are reasoned about in many different ways. These differing ways of reasoning, these different conceptualizations, are called prototypes and represent the second level of conceptualization

Typical-case prototype conceptualization modes are “used in drawing inferences about category members in the absence of any special contextual information. Ideal-case prototypes allow us to evaluate category members relative to some conceptual standard…Social stereotypes are used to make snap judgments…Salient exemplars (well-known examples) are used for making probability judgments…Reasoning with prototypes is, indeed, so common that it is inconceivable that we could function for long without them.”

When we conceptualize categories in this fashion we often envision them using spatial metaphors. Spatial relation metaphors form the heart of our ability to perceive, conceive, and to move about in space. We unconsciously form spatial relation contexts for entities: ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘about’, ‘across from’ some other entity are common relationships that make it possible for us to function in our normal manner.

When we perceive a black cat and do not wish to cross its path our imagination conceives container shapes such that we do not penetrate the container space occupied by the cat at some time in its journey. We function in space and the container schema is a normal means we have for reasoning about action in space. Such imaginings are not conscious but most of our perception and conception is an automatic unconscious force for functioning in the world.

Our manner of using language to explain experience provides us with an insight into our cognitive structuring process. Perceptual cues are mapped onto cognitive spaces wherein a representation of the experience is structured onto our spatial-relation contour. There is no direct connection between perception and language.

The claim of cognitive science is “that the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and the body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

Quotes from Philosophy in the Flesh by Lakoff



“The disease called man”—Nietzsche/

Aristotle said that all men seek happiness. Freud said that the goal of the pleasure-principle is happiness. Man’s desire for happiness sets at odds to the reality-principle. It is the reality-principle that propels the world into tomorrow. Humans naturally seek what they wish but “reality imposes on human beings the necessity of renunciation of pleasures”.

Therein lay the rub and the rub is called repression.

Freud says that the whole edifice of psychoanalysis is constructed on the theory of repression—the essence of society is the repression of the individual--the essence of the individual is repression of him or her self—Freud’s theory is that the phenomena dreams, neurotic symptoms, and errors are caused—i.e. the principle of psychic determinism—they are meaningful because this means there is purpose or intention—“since the purport of these purposive expressions is generally unknown to the person whose purpose they express, Freud is driven to embrace the paradox that there are in a human being purposes of which he knows nothing, involuntary purpose”—i.e. unconscious ideas.

Neurosis is “the disease called man” Nietzsche. “Neurosis is an essential consequence of civilization or culture.” Brown

“Between “normality” and “abnormality” there is no qualitative but only a quantitative difference, based largely on the practical question of whether our neurosis is serious enough to incapacitate us for work.” The difference between “neurotic and healthy is only that the healthy have a socially useful form of neurosis.”

Freud defined psychoanalysis as “nothing more than discovery of the unconscious in mental life”—the other hypothesis is that “some unconscious ideas in a human being are incapable of becoming conscious to him in the ordinary way, because they are strenuously disowned and resisted by the conscious life”.

Norman Brown tells us that to comprehend Freud one must understand “repression”. “In the new Freudian perspective, the essence of society is repression of the individual, the essence of the individual is repression of the self.”

Freud discovered the importance of repression when he discovered the meaning of the “mad” symptoms of the mentally deranged, plus the meaning of dreams, and thirdly the everyday happenings regarded as slips of the tongue, errors, and random thoughts. He concludes that dreams, mental derangements, and common every day errors (Freudian slips) have meaningful causes that can be explained. Meaningful is the key word here.

Since these psychic phenomena are unconscious we must accept that we have motivation to action with a purpose for which we are unconscious (involuntary purposes). This inner nature of which we are completely unaware leads to Freud’s definition of psychoanalysis as “nothing more than the discovery of the unconscious in mental life.”

Freud discovered that sapiens have unconscious causes which are hidden from her because they are disowned and hidden by the conscious self. The dynamic relationship between the unconscious and conscious life is a constant battle and psychoanalysis is a science of this mental conflict.

The rejection of an idea which is one’s very own and remains so is repression. The essence of repression is in the fact that the individual refuses to recognize this reality of her very own nature. This nature becomes evident when it erupts into consciousness only in dreams or neurotic symptoms or by slips of the tongue.

The unconscious is illuminated only when it is being repressed by the conscious mind. It is a process of psychic conflict. “We obtain our theory of the unconscious from the theory of repression.” Freud’s hypothesis of the repressed unconscious results from the conclusion that it is common to all humans. This is a phenomenon of everyday life; neurosis is common to all humans.

Dreams are normal phenomena and being that the structure of dreams is common to neurotics and normal people the dream is also neurotic. “Between “normality” and “abnormality” there is no qualitative but only quantitative difference, based largely on the practical question of whether our neurosis is serious enough to incapacitate us for work…the doctrine of the universal neurosis of mankind is the psychoanalytical analogue of the theological doctrine of original sin.”

Quotes from Life against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History Norman O. Brown