The Unconscious Mind: Does it Exist?

[WW3 Memorabilia]

Freud made mostly high level conversational speculations about the behavior of humans, which can not be confirmed or denied in the context of neuroscience, since they don't make any predictions about physical mechanisms. Nor did he create any testable theoretical frameworks concerning information processing or learning. Which is not surprising, because next to nothing was known about the architecture of the brain.

I don't know what you mean by 'psyche', but if it involves thinking, learning, understanding, creating, knowing, responding or indeed anything else that you can call fundamental to the production of behavior, then yes, it's all in the brain.

I don't see any need to invoke anything else, what's the point?

 

[articul8]

eg. a scientist looking at neurological process can see that what is going on in the brain would indicate that eg. dreaming is taking place. But you can't tell what is being dreamt of or the nature of the feelings that are being aroused in the individual dreamer.

of course no dreams without a brain. But the significance of cognitive experience for the subject is not reducible to any amount of scientific data

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

But the significance of cognitive experience for the subject is not reducible to any amount of scientific data

Only if you want to put the idea of 'exclusive access' up on a pedestal does that become important. I don't see why the lack of effective tools to probe an individual's subjective experience should annoint personal experience with special significance. It's all just information going in, memories being formed, behaviour going out, no magic there, beyond the beauty of the system itself.

 

[articul8]

"Personal" experience is a profoundly unhelpful description of psychoanalysis, where what the subject encounters is precisely the resistance of the "personal" to the impersonal psychic forces that relate to biological drives.

I think the disctinction between subjective experience and objective knowledge is necessary and meaningful - an analyst can't "cure" a patient directly by changing the way their brain works - they can just introduce someone to a context where the way they relate to themselves gets objectified and hence is open to reflection and revision.

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

I would argue that psychoanalysis has a pretty poor track record in curing or helping anyone; beyond what one could gain from speaking to a regular untrained person. It had been largely abandonded as a formal discipline, and plays only a minor and mainly historical role in current education and treatment.

Pretty much everything you hear from modern psychology/neuroscience/cognitive science regarding conscious/unconscious processes concerns notions of attention, neural plasticity, memory, lesional deficits etc. 'The unconscious' is not a *thing*, it's just err, what you can't or are not at this moment utilizing.

 

[articul8]

It had been largely abandonded as a formal discipline, and plays only a minor and mainly historical role in current education and treatment.
.

Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies are still widely practised - and if anything becoming more relevant as limitations of CBT are exposed.

Of course not where physiological damage to the brain is responsible for impaired cognitive function, then psychoanalysis won't cure that.

All depends what you mean "cure" - cure is the name for learning to live with the disorder we call normality.

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

http://www.google.com/trends?q=psychoanalysis

Steady decline there, if that says anything at all.

In terms of coverage in non genre publications, the subject of psychoanalysis, and mainstream university education concening the subject - it barely exists. Psychology is now almost exclusively focused on producing experimental data. In my experience.

 

[articul8]

But how the instituional interests policing the field of their academic specialism - "psychology" - chooses to define its sphere of 'expertise' (in measurable outputs, marketable evidence based research that will attract corporate funding etc) does not exhaust the sphere of social relevance of psychoanalysis as a practice or intellectual reference point - it has helped to revolutionise literary theory, feminism, historiography, theories of race and subjection etc.etc.

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

Sociological theories have done about as much good for society as psychoanalysis has done for it's patients, imo.

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

It's a good analogy though, I agree that they exist in the same realm.

 

[Blagsta]

Freudian/Jungian style models of cognition are redundant .

They're not models of cognition. You're making a category error.

 

[Blagsta]

Freud made mostly high level conversational speculations about the behavior of humans, which can not be confirmed or denied in the context of neuroscience, since they don't make any predictions about physical mechanisms. Nor did he create any testable theoretical frameworks concerning information processing or learning. Which is not surprising, because next to nothing was known about the architecture of the brain.

I don't know what you mean by 'psyche', but if it involves thinking, learning, understanding, creating, knowing, responding or indeed anything else that you can call fundamental to the production of behavior, then yes, it's all in the brain.

I don't see any need to invoke anything else, what's the point?

Oh, you know you're making a category error.

In that case, I'm baffled as to what point you're making.

 

[Blagsta]

I would argue that psychoanalysis has a pretty poor track record in curing or helping anyone; beyond what one could gain from speaking to a regular untrained person. It had been largely abandonded as a formal discipline, and plays only a minor and mainly historical role in current education and treatment.

Incorrect.

Pretty much everything you hear from modern psychology/neuroscience/cognitive science regarding conscious/unconscious processes concerns notions of attention, neural plasticity, memory, lesional deficits etc. 'The unconscious' is not a *thing*, it's just err, what you can't or are not at this moment utilizing.

another category error

 

[Blagsta]

http://www.google.com/trends?q=psychoanalysis

Steady decline there, if that says anything at all.

In terms of coverage in non genre publications, the subject of psychoanalysis, and mainstream university education concening the subject - it barely exists. Psychology is now almost exclusively focused on producing experimental data. In my experience.

psychoanalysis != psychology

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

psychoanalysis != psychology

Surely they were traditionally synonymous? You can certainly trace the correlation all the way back to William James.

Although I agree that they are no longer in the same category - psychology was a field with enough cross-pollination to adapt to the rigour enforced by genuine discoveries in neuroscience; it would have died if it hadn't.

Psychoanlysis is free from this because it makes no attempt to explain or enquire within any kind of progressive context.
It's great in that sense for the practitioner, you get all the respect of a scientist from your believers, without ever having to prove any of your theories or methods. Jackpot!

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

They're not models of cognition. You're making a category error.

I think you're attempting some kind of semantic point here. It doesn't really work if you apply it to something as broad as the word 'cognition', though. Since that can really mean anything that can be said to contribute to 'thought'. It was deliberately general.

 

[coccinelle]

The original post asked about the existence of the unconscious and most of the replies concern neuroscience. That's roughly equivalent to someone asking about music and people discussing quality of vinyl and turntables. The question, it seemed to me, is not about the machine but about the ghost that the machine serves.

In my opinion, you cannot assess the unconscious objectively, it belongs in a realm that can only be acessed subjectively. As someone said, you can measure brain activity during deep dreams but the unconscious is not that activity, it is what causes that activity. That activity may be in the brain but that does not mean the unconscious resides there.

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

The OP was asking if the unconscious/subconscious mind was real. And I'm providing answers based on the study of the neural correlates of consciousness. Your suggestion that the subconscious is a non-physical entity, arising outside the nervous system, is a form of dualism; which by its very definition can not answer questions about reality - since it exists in a realm beyond proof.

I'll ask again, what is it about the unconscious and its influence on behaviour that you believe can not be provided directly by a physical system? Without the need for interface with external forces?

 

[coccinelle]

Part of the problem lies in the term 'unconscious mind' which I think is almost a contradiction. I believe the conscious mind and the unconscious are almost as different as chalk and cheese. One is predominantly a (peculiarly human) function and the other is predominantly a state or a dimension, like a bucket and a well, There is a blurry interface, probably better referred to as a lower human consciousness but access to the true unconscious is denied because of its potential danger.

I think work with the unconscious is done only by people such as yogis and lamas. I think psychiatry (because it has classified itself as a science) can only speculate as far as that lower consciousness. To go farther, it would need to reclassify itself as an art.

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

I accept those are doctrines with a long history and perhaps somewhat enlightening perspectives. Mental exploration of the post-physical is a hopefully prescient journey into something we humans may well get a chance at addressing directly at some point in our future. But to me, they're still just imaginings of possible realities.

I don't think that kind of sub/unconscious is what Freud nor the OP's hypnosis people were talking about, though. To me, they're even lesser theories because they involve the active denial or ignorance of clarifying insights from the modern understanding of the brain. They don't get the privilege of opting out, because they're materialistic theories.

 

[coccinelle]

I don't think that kind of sub/unconscious is what Freud nor the OP's hypnosis people were talking about, though. .

Possibly not. My experience of the unconscious comes from 20+ years of meditation and the use of metaphisical frameworks and magickal 'tricks' to still or sidestep the conscious mind and try to find doorways into what I consider to be the true unconscious, which starts with the human unconscious and extends, through various levels and through various barriers, into - well - chaos and the uncreate world.

The most powerful tool I have found has been Ayahuasca though I understand that Mescaline (both used with intent) is also very significant. My experiences of Ayahuasca have been the equivalent of experiencing the whole human dream process while conscious though the part that corresponds to REM sleep was still hidden.

 

[Santino]

Possibly not. My experience of the unconscious comes from 20+ years of meditation and the use of metaphisical frameworks and magickal 'tricks' to still or sidestep the conscious mind and try to find doorways into what I consider to be the true unconscious, which starts with the human unconscious and extends, through various levels and through various barriers, into - well - chaos and the uncreate world.

The most powerful tool I have found has been Ayahuasca though I understand that Mescaline (both used with intent) is also very significant. My experiences of Ayahuasca have been the equivalent of experiencing the whole human dream process while conscious though the part that corresponds to REM sleep was still hidden.

So you were whacked out on goof balls?

 

[Blagsta]

The OP was asking if the unconscious/subconscious mind was real. And I'm providing answers based on the study of the neural correlates of consciousness. Your suggestion that the subconscious is a non-physical entity, arising outside the nervous system, is a form of dualism; which by its very definition can not answer questions about reality - since it exists in a realm beyond proof.

I'll ask again, what is it about the unconscious and its influence on behaviour that you believe can not be provided directly by a physical system? Without the need for interface with external forces?

You're assuming that we're anywhere near working out how subjective experience arises from the study of the brain. We're not.

 

[xes]

Yes, the unconscious mind exists. It quietly runs in the background, doing things and making sure everything's working ok. Hypnosis, NLP and meditation all work with it.

 

[Blagsta]

You're assuming that we're anywhere near working out how subjective experience arises from the study of the brain. We're not.

In fact, studying the brain is next to useless in understanding what it is to be human. Art, literature etc is much better.

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

You're assuming that we're anywhere near working out how subjective experience arises from the study of the brain. We're not.

That might have been the case a decade ago, but I believe we really are close now. I'm relatively convinced about notions of a 'common cortical algorithm'. Once you have that as your basic assumption, then subjective experience doesn't really look such an imposing goal. It's not an intuitive theory, but it makes a lot of sense when you start applying it.

In fact, studying the brain is next to useless in understanding what it is to be human. Art, literature etc is much better.

I agree that what a human learns and experiences (including art and whatever cultural artifacts you deem important) is part of understanding. Unfortunately, without a varified working assumption about how information is stored and interpreted in the brain, then sociological/cultural theories have no boundaries and no way of crossing the line between correlation and causation.

I'm not advocating an empirical neuroscientific bottom-up approach here - we have absolutely mountains of data on the subject and very little consensus. What is needed is a fundamental understanding of the underlying principles, which draws its constraints from the biology, but is not afraid to see past contrived details.

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

Yes, the unconscious mind exists. It quietly runs in the background, doing things and making sure everything's working ok. Hypnosis, NLP and meditation all work with it.

I think 3000 years of doing exactly these kind of things has proven that this approach is insufficient to account for whatever the unconscious is. If 'the unconscious' is important to cognition, then try and write down in detail what it does, then try and simulate it. See how far that kind of verbal, self-perception based model gets you.

 

[xes]

I'm not sure if it is something that you can write down in detail what it does. I'm very new to hypnosis and meditation, so I only have a very limited experience of it. But I know that there's something there, grinding away behind the scenes. And it's pretty funky too

 

[cesare]

I think 3000 years of doing exactly these kind of things has proven that this approach is insufficient to account for whatever the unconscious is. If 'the unconscious' is important to cognition, then try and write down in detail what it does, then try and simulate it. See how far that kind of verbal, self-perception based model gets you.

You want the unconscious mind consciously mapped?

 

[WW3 Memorabilia]

I'm not sure if it is something that you can write down in detail what it does. I'm very new to hypnosis and meditation, so I only have a very limited experience of it. But I know that there's something there, grinding away behind the scenes. And it's pretty funky too

If the unconscious mind is important to cognition, if it solves problems and it answers questions about how to deal with physical reality, and you also agree that this process comes from the brain, and not like, the spirit, or mars or whatever - then it already is written down. Either the substrate which is then developed through learning, or an actual complete problem solving algorithm subcompartment is written down in whatever structure your genes grow during development.

So if it's written down in this structure, then it follows that you can simulate or reproduce it in some way (technology constraints allowed). Spend 50 years meditating, practicing NLP and hypnotising anyone who will listen, then try and write a simulation which can interpret the sentence 'john likes apples, so he crossed the road to the supermarket to buy one' and see how much any of your previous learning helps you in this task.