Common sense won’t ‘cut the mustard’

[coberst]

Common sense won’t ‘cut the mustard’

More than three hundred years ago Isaac Newton introduced a theory of mechanics that fit beautifully within our common sense intuition and understanding. Newton’s mechanics, the theory of force acting upon objects, uses such common sense parameters as velocity, mass, force, distance, acceleration, and momentum. The student of physics could “feel” the correctness of Isaac’s formulas.

Quantum mechanics was another problem completely. The physicists seeking to intuit and understand the inner world of the atom were faced with trying to understand something that was beyond the world of human intuition. The inner world of the atom was a world incongruent with common sense.

Early in the twentieth century Freud discovered the psychic unconscious; the inner world of human reality that was somewhat like the inner world of the atom in that it was not easily understood by common sense intuition. Freud’s theory of repression represents itself as a means for comprehending this psychic phenomenon.

The Freudian theory of repression was a revolutionary idea originally discovered in the attempt to comprehend human nature as it develops within civilized society. Civilization demands that the individual repress many natural urges. “In the new Freudian perspective, the essence of society is repression of the individual, and the essence of the individual is repression of himself.”

Feud made this breakthrough discovery of human unconsciousness as a result of his attempt to understand and possibly relieve certain “mad” symptoms of the mentally deranged. Freud found meaningfulness within the psychopathology of everyday life, including slips of the tongue, errors, dreams, and random thoughts.

“Meaningfulness means expression of a purpose or an intention.” The expressions contained in dreams were Freud’s principal means for discovering the presence of the unconscious. These dream expressions uncovered an existence that drove Freud “to embrace the paradox that there are in the human being purposes of which he knows nothing, involuntary purposes, or, in more technical Freudian language, “unconscious” ideas.”

The dynamic conflict between the unconscious and the conscious, i.e. neurosis, is not easily recognized as such by the untutored self.

SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) has recently discovered the importance of the cognitive unconsciousness. Utilizing new brain scanning technology and computer modeling, cognitive science has, in the last three to four decades, introduced us to a new concept; “the unconscious cognitive mind”. This new theory of cognition has made us conscious of the fact that most of our conscious life is dictated by our unconscious cognitive processes. Conservatively speaking 95% of cognitive thought is unconscious.

Comprehension of even the most basic human tendencies is no longer available to the common sense intuition. To grasp the essential elements of living successfully within a high tech society we must find ways to supplement our meager formal education that seems to prepare us only for a life of production and consumption; without the necessary understanding needed to be satisfied and successful in that new world where common sense is no longer sufficient for comprehending the vicissitudes of living.

Have you checked on your unconscious life lately? How does one check on their unconscious life?

[Ahmabeliever]

Common sense would be not stressing over your subconscious mind and how to control it. It's all in the way you think and percieve things, you can change your conscious thought and alter your emotional makeup very simply.

Take a look at neurolinguistics.

Garbage in, garbage out.

[coberst]

One of the reasons we need to learn something about psychology, i.e. about our unconscious, is because the first five years of an infant's life determines to a great extent what the personality of that individual will be for their entire life.

Only when we begin to comprehend our self can we begin to solve many of our problems that if left to fester may well destroy our civilization. We have developed a strong technology, which if left without proper understanding may well destroy our civilization.

We can no longer afford the luxury of just intellectually coasting through life. We either become part of the solution or we remain part of the problem. We must become self-actualizing self-learners when our school daze are over.

[Ahmabeliever]

You use a lot of we statements, I disagree with much of what you say (not all of it) so 'we' may well be the wrong word. And saying what I need to do?...

We can no longer afford the luxury of just intellectually coasting through life. We either become part of the solution or we remain part of the problem.

Intellectual coasting through life, that's what you're doing here though, this thread changes nothing. Or does it? Individual perception... has nothing to do with what everyone else's position actually is.

WE do the best we can. We ARE evolving. Freud was obsessed by the fact we all want to get laid all the time and are dishonest about it due to whatever repressive dogma. What the point of it all was - it's ok to be gay or horny or flamboyant or dress in ladies things or..... (add 'quirk' here)...

WE get that already. And young people are getting laid a lot more than we did a couple decades ago. Our teens don't care for all the 'norms' (games) we'd once observed as social ritual. And the games really were a facade, Freud would love it today to see so many changes in young people's attitudes and thier acceptance of cultural and sexual mix.

On the whole we are less repressed, so what is the social malaise, the neurosis we are stricken with, if it is not Freudian in origin.

The Status Quo Is Bulls***

FEAR of public opinion, FEAR of not being pretty enough/clever enough/witty enough... there's your repression of self expression. Most of this comes from advertising and society, not parentage.

Snobbery, seperation in any form.

Psychology is the tool of the media to make you feel you are no good without everything they sell, without the look, the attitude...

And they keep raising the bar!

WE like to be a part of, a contributer, valued, wanted, needed even, we want to love and be loved, to have a place, friends, and fellowship.

Love is the answer?

the first five years of an infant's life determines to a great extent what the personality of that individual will be for their entire life.

Have you noticed how dual income households are typical now. This never used to be. There was a parent home, not a babysitter. Tutoring, not TV as a babysitter...

What dual incomes achieved... was that the average wage could then come down... inflation rose slightly higher than wages over a period, and now we have dual income households struggling to cover costs, where before it only took one wage to struggle with a households costs .

It's becoming normal to 'not be there'. Many parents themselves trapped in the psychology of 'the Jones's" - doing their best to do their best by supplying their child with all that stuff...

"Our child will never want for anything" is a glib catch-phrase in this light.

Infants do not wan't any thing, they are seedlings that need to be nurtured in the right light.

Love is the answer.

[jedaisoul]

Originally Posted by coberst

Conservatively speaking 95% of cognitive thought is unconscious.

As far as I'm aware, we currently have no means of linking individual thoughts to brain activity. So how was this figure derived, and how reliable is it?

Even if you can distinguish the brain activity caused by cognitive thought from other activity, how do you know whether it was conscious or not? As you cannot determine what the brain activity represents (e.g. the image of a rabbit), you can't ask the individual "were you thinking about a rabbit?", and get a reliable answer.

[jedaisoul]

Originally Posted by Ahmabeliever

Freud was obsessed by the fact we all want to get laid all the time and are dishonest about it due to whatever repressive dogma... WE get that already. And young people are getting laid a lot more than we did a couple decades ago.

And Freud lived in a far more repressive age than we did! They put coverings on table legs to avoid men getting horny at the sight of a well turned piece of wood!!!

Also, much of what Freud said gives us insight into his neuroses. He was not an impartial observer. All in all, quoting Freud doesn't cut the mustard either.

[Ahmabeliever]

And Freud lived in a far more repressive age than we did! They put coverings on table legs to avoid men getting horny at the sight of a well turned piece of wood!!!

Ya gotta admit it, some of those victorian tables were pretty hot!

That was my point, that society has lifted a lot of repression, things have changed. Not ideally, no, but some steps have been taken to 'get over ourselves.'

But now we have a new church with new ways to make one feel unworthy - success or suck, snooze you lose, winners circles... money, bling, it's impersonal, it's what people kill for, crave for, dream of having... and all it really does is relieve financial pressure. We are losing our essential/expressive selves in a different direction. Clones of media representation. The loss of self-worth due to counting it in hard cash...

[jedaisoul]

Originally Posted by Ahmabeliever

But now we have a new church with new ways to make one feel unworthy - success or suck, snooze you lose, winners circles... money, bling, it's impersonal, it's what people kill for, crave for, dream of having... and all it really does is relieve financial pressure. We are losing our essential/expressive selves in a different direction. Clones of media representation. The loss of self-worth due to counting it in hard cash...

The trouble is, there is always going to be people who let others decide their priorities (and beliefs!), and those who seek their own way. Even if you managed to convince some people of the worth of making their own mind up, they'd just agree with you!!!

[coberst]

Originally Posted by jedaisoul

As far as I'm aware, we currently have no means of linking individual thoughts to brain activity. So how was this figure derived, and how reliable is it?

Even if you can distinguish the brain activity caused by cognitive thought from other activity, how do you know whether it was conscious or not? As you cannot determine what the brain activity represents (e.g. the image of a rabbit), you can't ask the individual "were you thinking about a rabbit?", and get a reliable answer.

Cognitive science is the empirical science that studies conceptual systems. SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science), as you might suppose, has a different paradigm than does the first generation cognitive science that focused upon Artificial Intelligence, which focused upon symbol manipulation.

SGCS was born in the 70s and quickly made some startling discoveries. An important and revolutionary discovery was that most thought is unconscious, not in the Freudian sense but in the cognitive sense, which is about human conceptual systems.

If we think about it such an idea, that 95% of all thought is unconscious thought, we should not be surprised. Just think about the activities that take place while carrying on a conversation:

Accessing memory related to the conversation.
Making sense out of the order of sounds coming from the other person would be an enormous activity.
Assigning meaning both to the words and to the total structure.
Framing the issues involved in the discussion and perhaps arguing with the different framing from your partner.
Performing inferences from the concepts so constructed.
Constructing mental images that are relevant. Interpreting body language and planning what to say next.

An individual who is cognizant of the activities required could easily identify those that are conscious and then subtract that from the total. I suspect a computer programmer could easily count the lines of logic required to program a computer to do this job and easily identify the ratio of conscious to conscious activities.

[coberst]

Ahmabelieve


I am a retired engineer and I have been studying psychology for the last many months because it appears to me that everyone should have some knowledge of this science.

I often post on Internet forums important ideas about which I would like for others to become conscious. Often these posts are about fundamental concepts of psychology and psychoanalysis. Much of what I have learned has come from such authors as Ernest Becker, Norman Brown, and Ira Progoff.

When I post ideas about psychology and psychoanalysis I often receive very negative comments from individuals who are obviously ignorant of these matters and thus must be guided by negative propaganda that seems to permeate our culture.

I suspect that the degree of ignorance of psychology may be about as total as is the degree of ignorance of QM (quantum mechanics). However, everyone seems to hold QM in high regard whereas almost everyone I encounter on Internet forums holds contempt for psychology.

Does anyone here have a considered opinion as to why this is true, assuming you agree it is true?