Extinction and the Dread of Insignificance

[coberst]

Extinction and the Dread of Insignificance

Becker compares three great thinkers Otto Rank, Wilhelm Reich, and Carl Jung to conclude that the three provide us nothing with which to connect their conclusions except that they dissented from Freud. However, there is agreement on the answer to the fundamental question, “What causes evil in human affairs?”

This agreement is also the agreement in all of the human sciences; “man wants above all to endure and prosper, to achieve immortality in some way”.

Wo/man wants, above all, to reject the knowledge of mortality; s/he does so by seeking to assure immortality in some way. Mortality is connected to our animal nature and thereby wo/man reaches for some way of being transcendent of that nature. As our mental capacity increased we rejected other animals with a vengeance because these other animals “embodied what man feared most, a nameless and faceless death.

Our fears are buried deeply within our unconsciousness by repression, that great discovery of the science of psychoanalysis. This repression “is achieved by the symbolic engineering of culture, which everywhere serves men as an antidote to terror by giving them a new and durable life beyond that of the body”.

I have recently finished reading “The Art of War” an article in the March 12, 2007 edition of “Time” by Lev Grossman. The article is about a, largely computer generated, movie regarding a war in ancient Greece. The movie’s title is “The 300 Spartans” and Zack Snyder is the director. The movie is, except for the human actors, a virtual world created by digital movie techniques. time.com/time/magazine/artic … -2,00.html

“Snyder is one of a small, hypertechnical fringe of directors who are exploring a new way to make movies by discarding props, sets, extras and real-life locations and replacing them with their computer-generated equivalents.”

“With so much computer-generated make-believe going on, the actor’s physicality is the movie’s only link to the real world…every frame was manipulated and color-shifted to create an intense, thunderstorm palette…The result is a gorgeous, dreamlike movie that’s almost perfect. Every frame is neat and composed, like an oil painting, not a hair or a grain of sand out of place. All noise and dissonance have been digitally eliminated. Maybe that’s the only way to make a war movie right now, or at least, the only way to make a war movie that’s not an antiwar movie…That’s why it’s a piece of mythology. It’s what we would hope for. [b]“300” is a vision of war as ennobling and morally unambiguous and spectacularly good-looking.”

That’s one hell of a special effect. And this movie is, I find, an insight into the meaning of “evil in human affairs”. We are all directors of our individual and our community’s virtual reality.

I suspect we have repressed such conscious thoughts about mortality that we are inclined to dispatch with a shrug any talk of such matters; do you ever consciously seek to “achieve immortality in some way”?[/b]

Quotes from “Escape from Evil”—Ernest Becker

[Ierrellus]

Hi, old friend (empasis on friend ),
This reminds me of current air force pilots who bomb targets as an enhanced video game. As we learned from Viet Nam, the best way to stop a war is to make it personal,to see the victims, to realize the killings and maimings of them and us. The best way to perpetuate such an evil is to cosmetize and idealize it. Computers can do that.
Immortality is a pipe dream. I. personally, can do without it. According to Aldous Huxley, it is the idolators of utopia, in the here and hereafter that cause the evil in this world.

[Cyrene]

What the hell is the needd of all this psychoanalysis bullshit?

Humans engage in ‘evil’ acts for two reasons:

One: we’ve evolved to make snap moral judgements about other peoples/beliefs. As in, we have conceptions of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ based on society and an evolved structure of the brain. (say we have adaptations to avoid randomly killing 30 people based on the drop of the hat. Its not advantageous, and people who engage in those actions, we call ‘evil’ because it violates these ‘expectations’ about how sane people should act)

2. We’re extremely violent circumstancially due to adaptation.

3. Some people are born with malfunctioning pre-frontal cortexes, odd sized brain structures, etc etc etc. That as a malfunction, can all create violent responses. For example, lack of oxygen to the brain can cause extreme rage and violence. If any of us had a condition where oxygen was not saturating our brains fast enough, we could easily murder the closest people to us, in a blood-bath, without being able to control our actions.

4. the brain, environment and genes are all a giant feedback loop. traumatic experiences, ,horrifying visions, whatever, environmental shit can effect your genes/brain and can make people break down in all sorts of fucked up ways which can eventually lead to violence.

---

We’re unconscious of plenty of these adaptations, well, at least until they break the surface. But i see no need for insane psychoanalysis.

Use modern day neurobiology to understand physical brain disorders, use modern day cognitive/neurobiological/behavorial genetics/psychological sciences to come to an understanding of how things effect the human brain.

[Ierrellus]

Hi, Cy,
Are you anti-psychology or do you believe it is irrelevant to the discussion even though you use it in your response?
The killer nature of humans (Arbrey–“African Genesis”) is still hotly debated. It is not a foregone conclusion.

[coberst]

Hi Ierrellus

Our educational system teaches little or nothing about this very important subject of psychology. I have only in the last few years gained any knowledge of this subject myself. It is a shame that our (US) educational system has gradauated young people so unprepared for life beyond maximizing production and consumption.

[Cyrene]

@Ierrellus

Hi, Cy,
Are you anti-psychology or do you believe it is irrelevant to the discussion even though you use it in your response?
The killer nature of humans (Arbrey–“African Genesis”) is still hotly debated. It is not a foregone conclusion.

No, I am not anti-psychology by any standard. I’m against teaching psychology that has no basis in real science, or is outdated by decades. Theres plenty of great psychology and brain sciences; evolutionary psychology, cognitive science (and its subfields) behavorial genetics, cognitive-neuroscience, evolutionary-cognitive neuroscience and plenty of good psychology that doesn’t easily fit into any one subfield or crosses many like ‘evolutionary cognitive neuroscience’, linguistics, cross-cultural studies, compartive gender studies, the list is near endless. Theres a lot of great science on the subject,.

I am against teaching ancient behavorism and nonsensical freudian psychoanalysis though. Its about evidence/conceptual integration of science, the ‘standard social science model’ old freudian psychology, behavorism, etc, all are nonsensical.

[Ierrellus]

Freud admits in “Civilization and Its Discontents” that the cause of neuroses may be chemical. This admission opened the doors of investigation for the sciences of which you speak that have to do with psychology. He goes on to note that such sciences, as addressers of chemical influences or causes on mental states, existed somewhere in the future, hence he used psychoanalysis, the only method available at that time for combatting mental disorders.

[Cyrene]

@Ierrellus

Freud admits in “Civilization and Its Discontents” that the cause of neuroses may be chemical. This admission opened the doors of investigation for the sciences of which you speak that have to do with psychology.

I never said that freud wasn’t a good scientist for his *time, or that he didn’t influence the direction of science into decent places. Though many others did at the time as well.

He goes on to note that such sciences, as addressers of chemical influences or causes on mental states, existed somewhere in the future, hence he used psychoanalysis, the only method available at that time for combatting mental disorders.

I never said I disliked freud, I dislike people using his work as a modern basis of understanding the human mind, because its so largely outdated and crazy by modern standards of science.

[Ierrellus]

Sow me an instance from the Freudian canon that amounts to outdated or crazy.

[Braxton_Fuzzledorf]

@Ierrellus

Sow me an instance from the Freudian canon that amounts to outdated or crazy.

penis envy?

[Equilibrium]

Everything has a end.

[Ierrellus]

@Braxton Fuzzledorf

@Ierrellus

Sow me an instance from the Freudian canon that amounts to outdated or crazy.

penis envy?

Aw, BF, that’'s evident in these posts!

[Braxton_Fuzzledorf]

@Ierrellus

@Braxton Fuzzledorf

@Ierrellus

Sow me an instance from the Freudian canon that amounts to outdated or crazy.

penis envy?

Aw, BF, that’'s evident in these posts!

yes . . . well . . . ahem . . .

i think the problem hard-science folk often have with psychanalysis is simply that they don’t see the value of metaphor in understanding the world - personally, i find that stance totally incomprehensible . . . penis-envy does have its own little place in helping us understand people, but, you have to admit, on the surface, it’s a bit far-fetched ( . . . well, i suppose you don’t have to admit that . . . )

in any case:

[Ierrellus]

B.F.,
Freud used Greek mythology in the same way that current philosophers use “thought experiments”–to explain theory. Metaphor, my friend, is the closest the human brain gets to its physical experiences. An example I’ve used elsewhere-- a primal human sees an insect or animal floating down the river on a slab of wood. Using metaphor, the human tries floating like that. It works! It is in the tertiary realm of symbols, not the secondary realm of metaphors, that confusions arise.

[Braxton_Fuzzledorf]

@Ierrellus

B.F.,
Freud used Greek mythology in the same way that current philosophers use “thought experiments”–to explain theory. Metaphor, my friend, is the closest the human brain gets to its physical experiences. An example I’ve used elsewhere-- a primal human sees an insect or animal floating down the river on a slab of wood. Using metaphor, the human tries floating like that. It works! It is in the tertiary realm of symbols, not the secondary realm of metaphors, that confusions arise.

yes, very much - without metaphor, science has no engine - metaphor however, does lead to confusions of its own - particularily when people fail to realize that it is metaphor and act upon it as though it were literal - that’s dogma and, of course, science is guilty of it too

[Cyrene]

science largely uses metaphor, thats not the problem with frued or psychoanalysis. Its not. another example is that freud thought people we’re attracted to their mothers, when demonstratably, people who grow up in normal environmennts, have incest avoidance mechanisms.

Theres dozens and dozens of examples, where freuds psychology is outdated and plain just wrong. Its just wrong most of the time. He has a lot of great stuff to say about religion, but even that is not nearly as detailed as modern researchers and probably partially wrong.

All ‘hard sciences’ means is accepting a high standard of evidence and conceptual integration of ideas, the ‘soft sciences’ which do this, maybe not to the same degree, but to a good degree, are the oens worth talking about. The social sciences that don;'t abandon scientific critera and statistical reasoning.

evolutionary psychology is a social science of sorts, it doesn’t suffer from the same blarring insanities that other psychologies do (though all sciences has its share of ‘scientists’ making nonsensical claims) but the accepted evolutionarypsychology, doesn’t suffer from these problems.

and yeah i read plenty of science where metaphor is the key to a complex understanding of highly complex systems. Books on complex neuroscience are full of metaphors that can literally turn on your key to understanding/highlighting the last 10pages of complex material in a way that technical jargon alone couldn’t, at least for *A LOT of people. metaphor is a beautiful tool for science when *USED carefully and accurately.

i don’t have a problem with freudian metaphors, he’s just wrong, again and again and again.

[mohawkalex]

@coberst

do you ever consciously seek to “achieve immortality in some way”?

Do you think it’s possible to achieve immortality while remaining obscure? To be immortal does our identity need to be known, and is there any significance to our identity, is our identity only remembered as a result of our actions?

If a person’s actions ever influence a pivotal point in history, that is then remembered throughout the ages, could they not be immortal while remaining totally obscure? For example we know of the “great fire of London”, but we don’t know who actually started it, so maybe that person is immortal as we remember them via the result of their existance, even though we don’t know their identity?

Personally I dread the significance required to know that I’ve achieved immortality in my life time, because of the attention that it brings from todays invasive and pervasive media feedback loop…

Maybe I can just be immortal to myself…

PS, if we actually do know who started the great fire of London, then substitute with an example that works… wikipedia only mentions where it started, not the who, in my brief glance…

[Braxton_Fuzzledorf]

@Cyrene

science largely uses metaphor, thats not the problem with frued or psychoanalysis. Its not. another example is that freud thought people we’re attracted to their mothers, when demonstratably, people who grow up in normal environmennts, have incest avoidance mechanisms.

That doesn’t mean the desire ceases ever to exist

Theres dozens and dozens of examples, where freuds psychology is outdated and plain just wrong. Its just wrong most of the time. He has a lot of great stuff to say about religion, but even that is not nearly as detailed as modern researchers and probably partially wrong.

i’d be interested to hear your opinion of Lacan

All ‘hard sciences’ means is accepting a high standard of evidence and conceptual integration of ideas, the ‘soft sciences’ which do this, maybe not to the same degree, but to a good degree, are the oens worth talking about. The social sciences that don;'t abandon scientific critera and statistical reasoning.

So psychology isn’t a soft science worth talking about, or is it that you conceptualize it to be strictly a hard science?

evolutionary psychology is a social science of sorts, it doesn’t suffer from the same blarring insanities that other psychologies do (though all sciences has its share of ‘scientists’ making nonsensical claims) but the accepted evolutionarypsychology, doesn’t suffer from these problems.

Funny, i was just having inner with an M.A. in neuroscience who felt evolutionary psychology consisted largely of synthetic, unproven construsts and questioned its scientific value

and yeah i read plenty of science where metaphor is the key to a complex understanding of highly complex systems. Books on complex neuroscience are full of metaphors that can literally turn on your key to understanding/highlighting the last 10pages of complex material in a way that technical jargon alone couldn’t, at least for *A LOT of people. metaphor is a beautiful tool for science when *USED carefully and accurately.

i don’t have a problem with freudian metaphors, he’s just wrong, again and again and again.

Then we agree on the significance of metaphor, but we still disagree on its applications - even the most stretched of Freud’s metaphors can have value when used in a broad enough context.

[Cyrene]

Funny, i was just having inner with an M.A. in neuroscience who felt evolutionary psychology consisted largely of synthetic, unproven construsts and questioned its scientific value

Thats probably because most neurologists know shit about evolution? and he’s probably an idiot making unsubstantiated claims about a science he doesn’t fully understand, or he’s familiar with a tiny bit of evolutionary psychology which did happen to be quacky, or he’s biased.

I can point to dozens of evolutionary psychology work, that rests on the solid foundation of evolutionary biology, and which is basically refferable as fact, because the evidence is so strong.

Seriously, he doesn’t understand the claims being forwarded. Tell him to explain to me how the idea that children have language aquisition adaptations is bullshit. Tell him to explain away the fmri studies showing that males have facial resembelence kin-detection modules that females don;'t have, tell him to explain away the massive cross-cultural studies of donald brown.

Then get back to me, get back to me with his explanation of why these studies are wrong; and i’ll have fun tearing it to shreds..

tell him to educate himself on things like evolutionary cognitive neuroscience. Or evolutionary biology. or cognitive neuroscience.

I’ve studied neuroscience extensively for years, it fits perfectly with evolutionary psychology, and I don’t know what that joker is talking about.

[Cyrene]

The strength of an evolutionary approach is that it can aid discovery: it allows you to generate predictions about what programs the mind might contain, so that you can conduct experiments to see if they in fact exist. My own work on programs specialized for cheater detection is one example. The prediction that we would have mental programs that make us very good at detecting cheaters in situations of social exchange (reciprocation) can be easily generated from Trivers’ model of reciprocal altruism, which was published in 1971. But in 1971, no one knew if the human mind has such programs. So I tested for their presence – a decade later. The existence of cheater detection programs was not previously known; the evolutionary approach allowed them to be discovered. An explanation cannot be “after the fact” if the fact it explains was not previously known.

What about evolutionary explanations of phenomena that are already known? Those who have a professional knowledge of evolutionary biology know that it is not possible to cook up after the fact explanations of just any trait. There are important constraints on evolutionary explanation. More to the point, every decent evolutionary explanation has testable predictions about the design of the trait. For example, the hypothesis that pregnancy sickness is a byproduct of prenatal hormones predicts different patterns of food aversions than the hypothesis that it is an adaptation that evolved to protect the fetus from pathogens and plant toxins in food at the point in embryogenesis when the fetus is most vulnerable – during the first trimester. Evolutionary hypotheses – whether generated to discover a new trait or to explain one that is already known – carry predictions about the design of that trait. The alternative – having no hypothesis about adaptive function – carries no predictions whatsoever. So which is the more constrained and sober scientific approach?!

• Leda cosmides, interview.

Cheater dectection modules, anti-cuckholdry in males, theres a lot of insight evolutionary psychology has offered science, and its responsible for some of the largest cross-cultural studies to date, as well.