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Does the Unconscious Mind Even Exist?

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Ginkgo

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I'm going to make the distinction between the unconscious and the unconscious mind. The unconscious, or rather, that which is unconscious, is what we are unaware of. However, the unconscious mind is a reservoir of unconscious information and an essential part of our psyches.

So does the latter even exist in your opinion? I don't doubt that there are symbols that pervade most if not all men's psyches; I also don't doubt that we are guided by them so often that we barely notice them if at all. Perhaps they work behind the scenes, but perhaps they spring from parts of our brain that deal very little with our peak consciousness.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this. I guess what I'm trying to ask is whether it's necessary to incorporate all of that which we don't know into something that is essentially accessible through deep introspection, intuition, etc, or whether that which we don't know may as well be an object of outward (more extraverted) discovery.
 

INTP

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Yes it does exist, people who are studuying any displine in psychology(including cognitive neuropsychology see it as something obvious.

Cba to explain all the proofs, because you asking that is pretty much the same as if i would ask you that do dogs actually exist.

The thing that people are disagreeing of is what exactly is this unconscious, not whether it exists or not.

One thing that everyone agree about that is that all your memories that you arent thinking at the moment are unconscious, then when you think of them, they come to consciousness for a brief moment and go back to unconscious.

I dont see whats even the point of asking if unconscious exists or not, because memories that arent in your consciousness at the moment still do exist, so unconscious is pretty self evident.
 

Qlip

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Hmmmm.. I'm trying to reconcile your question with how I percieve my own self, and I'm not exactly sure what you are asking. I deal with my unconscious as that second thing you said, as an external object, as my twin. I can introspect parts of my subconscious by thinking of scenarios and observing my own reactions, but at that point aren't I really dealling with something as if it were an external object?

You can do funky stuff with your mind by limited stimuli, changing your mind state, etc. Is this what you mean by accessing your subconscious directly?

The thing is, at some level our mind always goes to a place where our consciousness, our focus cannot go. I used to play games with myself, trying to follow my thoughts and where they sprang from.. they just show up. You can link them to other thoughts, and you may be right, but the process itself is building one model to describe another model and not actually accessing that original model in a direct fashion. Basically.. I think that our conscious self is a very small pinnacle resting on a very large base of who we are.
 
G

Ginkgo

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Yes it does exist, people who are studuying any displine in psychology(including cognitive neuropsychology see it as something obvious.

Cba to explain all the proofs, because you asking that is pretty much the same as if i would ask you that do dogs actually exist.

The thing that people are disagreeing of is what exactly is this unconscious, not whether it exists or not.

One thing that everyone agree about that is that all your memories that you arent thinking at the moment are unconscious, then when you think of them, they come to consciousness for a brief moment and go back to unconscious.

I dont see whats even the point of asking if unconscious exists or not, because memories that arent in your consciousness at the moment still do exist, so unconscious is pretty self evident.

Those memories are subject to personal experience and belong to the realm of the subconscious. As far as the unconscious is concerned, I'm referring to something that escapes personal experience and yet pervades through men's psyches.
 

Lark

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Yes it does exist, people who are studuying any displine in psychology(including cognitive neuropsychology see it as something obvious.

Cba to explain all the proofs, because you asking that is pretty much the same as if i would ask you that do dogs actually exist.

The thing that people are disagreeing of is what exactly is this unconscious, not whether it exists or not.

One thing that everyone agree about that is that all your memories that you arent thinking at the moment are unconscious, then when you think of them, they come to consciousness for a brief moment and go back to unconscious.

I dont see whats even the point of asking if unconscious exists or not, because memories that arent in your consciousness at the moment still do exist, so unconscious is pretty self evident.

Actually there's a total academic revolt against the idea. Again. Its like we're back in the days of the behaviourists and the unobservable is subjective anti-science and doesnt exist.

Anyway, suggesting that its not an argument about whether or not the unconscious exists but what the unconscious is, I think, is a bit of a positive gloss. I dont like the movements against the unconscious or subconscious functions, to be its an ideological struggle, fed by sociobiology and medicalised neurology which I thought had taken itself into the background but which doesnt seem to be the case after all.

Even when arguing about typifying or conceptualising the unconscious or mind I wouldnt suggest that earlier theories are without merit or seek to relegate them in status, they are useful for descriptive purposes.
 
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Unconscious mind? Does not exist. Mind = conscious, memories = unconscious

But then there are dreams and the like. fuuuu
 

INTP

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Those memories are subject to personal experience and belong to the realm of the subconscious. As far as the unconscious is concerned, I'm referring to something that escapes personal experience and yet pervades through men's psyches.

Subconscious :D

you do know that subconscious is a synonym for unconscious? its just that subconscious isnt preferred by freud(and freud being the father of psychoanalysis, the word subconscious isnt preferred by anyone, but is just some old relic). the reason why subconscious isnt preferred is that it simply means below the treshold of consciousness and freud used two words for this preconscious(easy to retrieve to consciousness) and unconscious(harder to retrieve to consciousness).

From your description it seems like you are talking about collective unconscious and archetypes, not unconscious.

Well what comes to collective unconscious, the physioloical parts could be seen as mid brain, amydala etc.
For example there is a function of amygdala, that decides whether you eun or fight in dangerous situation(called fight or flight responce), the fight part could be seen as the hero archetype.

So this kinda hints that there is some truth to archetypes, but its impossible to prove if they advance like jung said. from personal experience i have experienced my anima and it pretty mch went as jung stated, but how do i prove that anima or any archetypes do exist? i cant and no one else can, but if you learn about them and collective unconscious, you will notice that they are pretty self evident.

Another example or proof of collective unconscious would be that some singing birds have their song coded in their dna. this is archetypal behavior. Some birds know automatically how to build a nest, again archetypal behavior. people falling in "love" at first sight, archetype again.

Collective unconscious is one of jungs biggest things(naturally people on this forum might think its typology because most people here o.ly know about typology), along with complexes and is also pretty much seen as a fact by most people in the field of psychology(naturally some ignorant guy is always arguing against something).
 

INTP

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Actually there's a total academic revolt against the idea. Again. Its like we're back in the days of the behaviourists and the unobservable is subjective anti-science and doesnt exist.

Anyway, suggesting that its not an argument about whether or not the unconscious exists but what the unconscious is, I think, is a bit of a positive gloss. I dont like the movements against the unconscious or subconscious functions, to be its an ideological struggle, fed by sociobiology and medicalised neurology which I thought had taken itself into the background but which doesnt seem to be the case after all.

Even when arguing about typifying or conceptualising the unconscious or mind I wouldnt suggest that earlier theories are without merit or seek to relegate them in status, they are useful for descriptive purposes.

Yea but you know behaviorism is pretty much forgotten as it has been debunked by science and neuroimaging and replaced with cognitive neuroscience.

Ill give you one example, subliminal perception. ez, behaviorism debunked and some form of unconscious proven by scientific methods.

We talked about the whole idea of unconscious on personality-, cognitive-, neuro- and clinical psychology courses quite alot and all lecturers told that unconscious is seen as a fact and only what it is is being argued about.

Another thing.


if you wouldnt be unconsciously projecting you assumptions on what room is supposed to look like, you wouldnt see that guy growing when he walks on other side of the room, instead you would see him walking closer to you and thats why starting to look bigger.
 

Lark

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I always thought behaviourism could be debunked fairly easily, it was a whole trend which I believe was based upon a pretty vulgar and militant interpretation of scientific research contra more speculative models, although the fate of psychoanalysis and behaviourism and then alternatives arising afterwards could be considered a vindication of Marx's reinterpretation of Hegel, ie the whole thesis, antithesis, new thesis. That conflict's necessary.

I just think that there's always the capacity for backsliding into what behaviourism was, that "species of animal", I really believe that Dawkins and others are of that breed and they do serious violence to research methodologies and theorising when they manage to exercise influence.
 

Elfa

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I'm gonna say what I've learnt until now in my psychology course in college, in my brazillian's english. ;P

When we say there is an unconcious or subconcious mind, we have to say there is a conscious or subconscious mind, and there are people who say there isn't a conscious mind - like in behaviourism. It doesn't mean you don't think or feel, it's just that behaviourists doesn't admit the separation between mind and body, they say thought and feeling are behaviors of the organism. So, if you don't have that "mind" thing, you can't have an unconscious mind. I believe there are some things we do we aren't aware of, or we do but don't know the reason, but I wouldn't say that we do it because the unconscious said we should do it. My guess it that some of our actions might be the result of stuff we learnt through our lives but just aren't aware of (yet).
The behaviourist philosophy of psychology is theory that is different from those called "mentalists" - these say there is a mind, and they study it. There are other philosphies in psychology...

Psychology is different from psychoanalysis!!
Psychology, as a science, focus the study in what can be seen or studied directly (but I leave the discussion about what can or cannot be studied directly to some other day...), so it may study the mind, like cognitive psychologists do (or not, in the case of the behaviourists). Psychoanalysis (that one from Freud) is not exactly psychology, since psychoanalysis has as axiom that there is the unconscious and our behaviours are largely determined by it, and the unconscious can't be studied directly. Freud made his theories based in the existence in this thing he called unconscious. He invented that term. He was a doctor, and in his clinic, when studying the most weird cases at his date, he thought there must be something hidden that determined people's behaviours, so he called that unconscious. But that's what Freud said, it doesn't mean it is the truth. It's what he said - and his theories are still being used, still working in some cases, not working in other cases, and are subject of lotssss of discussions.

Jung also believed in the unconscious, and MBTI is based in his theories.

About accessing the unconscious by introspection, Wikipedia says: "Unconscious thoughts are not directly accessible to ordinary introspection, but are supposed to be capable of being "tapped" and "interpreted" by special methods and techniques such as meditation, random association, dream analysis, and verbal slips (commonly known as a Freudian slip), examined and conducted during psychoanalysis." (according to Freud...)

I just tried to simplify some things a little, so it's lacking some stuff...

But I guess I'm leaning more to the behaviorist side, and I may work with behaviorism in the future... So I think there isn't an unconscious mind - there are just things we aren't aware of, or something like that... I'm not sure of my opinion, I'm still in the first year of college!


One thing that everyone agree about that is that all your memories that you arent thinking at the moment are unconscious, then when you think of them, they come to consciousness for a brief moment and go back to unconscious.

I dont see whats even the point of asking if unconscious exists or not, because memories that arent in your consciousness at the moment still do exist, so unconscious is pretty self evident.

Freud made these three concepts: conscious, preconscious and unconscious mind. Those things we remember at the moment are conscious; when we aren't thinking about them, but we can recall them anytime are in the preconscious. The other thing that determines us is the uncounscious.
 

Little_Sticks

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I always thought behaviourism could be debunked fairly easily, it was a whole trend which I believe was based upon a pretty vulgar and militant interpretation of scientific research contra more speculative models, although the fate of psychoanalysis and behaviourism and then alternatives arising afterwards could be considered a vindication of Marx's reinterpretation of Hegel, ie the whole thesis, antithesis, new thesis. That conflict's necessary.

I just think that there's always the capacity for backsliding into what behaviourism was, that "species of animal", I really believe that Dawkins and others are of that breed and they do serious violence to research methodologies and theorising when they manage to exercise influence.

Behaviorism exists in so many ways though, the biggest one being 'setting an example for others'. That doesn't mean it's the end all, explains everything, of all psychological theories, but it doesn't have to be. How can it be bunk if it attempts to explain one limited aspect of reality, just as all psychological theories I've ever been aware of? It's probably one of the most practical theories because it stays relatively simple and reproducible.
 
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Freud made these three concepts: conscious, preconscious and unconscious mind. Those things we remember at the moment are conscious; when we aren't thinking about them, but we can recall them anytime are in the preconscious. The other thing that determines us is the uncounscious.

This is my view, although I wouldn't call the preconscious and unconscious a "mind." I have always been intrigued by my lack of ability to recall a memory at one point in time, and then spontaneously recalling it with no effort at an entirely different time.
 

Elfa

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Yea but you know behaviorism is pretty much forgotten as it has been debunked by science and neuroimaging and replaced with cognitive neuroscience.

Ill give you one example, subliminal perception. ez, behaviorism debunked and some form of unconscious proven by scientific methods.

We talked about the whole idea of unconscious on personality-, cognitive-, neuro- and clinical psychology courses quite alot and all lecturers told that unconscious is seen as a fact and only what it is is being argued about.

Behaviourism is not forgotten...
 
G

Ginkgo

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Subconscious :D

you do know that subconscious is a synonym for unconscious? its just that subconscious isnt preferred by freud(and freud being the father of psychoanalysis, the word subconscious isnt preferred by anyone, but is just some old relic). the reason why subconscious isnt preferred is that it simply means below the treshold of consciousness and freud used two words for this preconscious(easy to retrieve to consciousness) and unconscious(harder to retrieve to consciousness).

From your description it seems like you are talking about collective unconscious and archetypes, not unconscious.

Well what comes to collective unconscious, the physioloical parts could be seen as mid brain, amydala etc.
For example there is a function of amygdala, that decides whether you eun or fight in dangerous situation(called fight or flight responce), the fight part could be seen as the hero archetype.

So this kinda hints that there is some truth to archetypes, but its impossible to prove if they advance like jung said. from personal experience i have experienced my anima and it pretty mch went as jung stated, but how do i prove that anima or any archetypes do exist? i cant and no one else can, but if you learn about them and collective unconscious, you will notice that they are pretty self evident.

Another example or proof of collective unconscious would be that some singing birds have their song coded in their dna. this is archetypal behavior. Some birds know automatically how to build a nest, again archetypal behavior. people falling in "love" at first sight, archetype again.

Collective unconscious is one of jungs biggest things(naturally people on this forum might think its typology because most people here o.ly know about typology), along with complexes and is also pretty much seen as a fact by most people in the field of psychology(naturally some ignorant guy is always arguing against something).

Good thoughts.
 

INTP

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I'm gonna say what I've learnt until now in my psychology course in college, in my brazillian's english. ;P

When we say there is an unconcious or subconcious mind, we have to say there is a conscious or subconscious mind, and there are people who say there isn't a conscious mind - like in behaviourism. It doesn't mean you don't think or feel, it's just that behaviourists doesn't admit the separation between mind and body, they say thought and feeling are behaviors of the organism. So, if you don't have that "mind" thing, you can't have an unconscious mind. I believe there are some things we do we aren't aware of, or we do but don't know the reason, but I wouldn't say that we do it because the unconscious said we should do it. My guess it that some of our actions might be the result of stuff we learnt through our lives but just aren't aware of (yet).
The behaviourist philosophy of psychology is theory that is different from those called "mentalists" - these say there is a mind, and they study it. There are other philosphies in psychology...

Psychology is different from psychoanalysis!!
Psychology, as a science, focus the study in what can be seen or studied directly (but I leave the discussion about what can or cannot be studied directly to some other day...), so it may study the mind, like cognitive psychologists do (or not, in the case of the behaviourists). Psychoanalysis (that one from Freud) is not exactly psychology, since psychoanalysis has as axiom that there is the unconscious and our behaviours are largely determined by it, and the unconscious can't be studied directly. Freud made his theories based in the existence in this thing he called unconscious. He invented that term. He was a doctor, and in his clinic, when studying the most weird cases at his date, he thought there must be something hidden that determined people's behaviours, so he called that unconscious. But that's what Freud said, it doesn't mean it is the truth. It's what he said - and his theories are still being used, still working in some cases, not working in other cases, and are subject of lotssss of discussions.

Jung also believed in the unconscious, and MBTI is based in his theories.

About accessing the unconscious by introspection, Wikipedia says: "Unconscious thoughts are not directly accessible to ordinary introspection, but are supposed to be capable of being "tapped" and "interpreted" by special methods and techniques such as meditation, random association, dream analysis, and verbal slips (commonly known as a Freudian slip), examined and conducted during psychoanalysis." (according to Freud...)

I just tried to simplify some things a little, so it's lacking some stuff...

But I guess I'm leaning more to the behaviorist side, and I may work with behaviorism in the future... So I think there isn't an unconscious mind - there are just things we aren't aware of, or something like that... I'm not sure of my opinion, I'm still in the first year of college!




Freud made these three concepts: conscious, preconscious and unconscious mind. Those things we remember at the moment are conscious; when we aren't thinking about them, but we can recall them anytime are in the preconscious. The other thing that determines us is the uncounscious.


Behaviorism is an assumption that mind is irrelevant and people are just acting according to external world, thus they think that looking at how people behave to certain stimuli, they can find out everything from him.
I looked it up and you were right, some branches of behaviorism still exist and behaviorism was just largely replaced by cognitive psychology(what you called mentalism? studies how mental processes affect behavior) and cognitive neuropsychology(tries to find neural correlate to mental processes). i dont really get why some people cant let go of behaviorism already..

Even tho MBTI is based on jungs theories of personality and unconscious is one of the key aspects to jungs personality theory, MBTI leaves unconscious totally out of it(one of the reasons why it sucks compared to jungs theory). in MBTI you speak of undeveloped functions and means that you simply dont use them or cant use them well, they drain you or what ever. jung on the other hand talks about these "undeveloped" functions as unconscious functions that you still use as much as developed functions, but you use them unconsciously(dont have conscious control over) and that they link themselves to other functions and have guiding effect to consciousness.

Freud didnt come up with the idea of unconscious, that idea has been around for ages(if i remember right, even aristoteles wrote something about it). freud simply made claims about what this unconscious is. and if you are trying to nitpick on freudian definition of those, at least do the nitpicking properly;

conscious: everything we are aware at a given moment
preconscious: thoughts, feelings, memories, that can be easily brought to conscious level
unconscious: thoughts, feelings, memories and wishes that are difficult to bring awareness.

Its not that unconscious determines us, its just that unconscious is us.

Personally i prefer jungian approach to whole psyche(conscious, personal unconscious, collective unconscious and body). but jung approach is largely the same as freuds, but jung doesent talk about everything that freud did and some of those things are pretty important. but thats not because jung disapproved them, its just because he didnt have anything to add.

Did wikipedia actually say "random association" :D ? Anyways the wiki quote sucks and only lists words, not concepts or meanings behind the words.
 

527468

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It has to exist, or else wtf else am doing right now. I think I'm feeding energy into my subconscious.
 
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