Panpsychism

[Synapse]

Ervin Laszlo has proposed that the virtual energy field known as the quantum vacuum, or zero-point field, corresponds to what Indian teachings have called Akasha. the source of everything that exists, and in which the memory of the cosmos is encoded. I would like to take his reasoning a step further and suggest that the nature of this ultimate source is consciousness itself, nothing more and nothing less.

Panpsychism declares that the entire universe from the most distant galaxy all the way down to the smallest particle or wave is entirely sentient or conscious. They are all connected parts of the whole. Panpsychists believe that all matter in the universe has some degree of consciousness. In other words, the substance of the universe is composed entirely of Mind or Consciousness.

This Mind is in you and me, the most distant star, the smallest subatomic particle or wave, and we are all connected. Not only are we connected but also every particle within each entity is aware of all the other particles. We are all part of a grand communication scheme that is the "Glue" that holds the universe together.

Matter and Mind are both real and have always existed together and are one. While Mind and Matter can not be separated from each other, they are still not the same. Mind or consciousness is not a form of Matter or energy but they always go together.

Panpsychism is opposed to basic Materialism or any doctrine, which argues that the reality of the universe is composed solely of matter.

In order to explain consciousness, Materialism needs the supernatural miracle of dead matter somehow forming into consciousness. Panpsychism does not need miracles. It is consciousness. Since all the ingredients of Life are conscious there is no need for impossible materialistic scenarios to explain how life began.

Mind, Matter and Life have always existed. They are:

Co-eternal, Co-extensive as well as Co-creative.

I like the idea, correlates with my views in some ways.
Do you think this holds any credibility, too alternative or idealistic.
What do you think of this philosophy?

 

[JocktheMotie]

While I don't really agree with the idea that matter and energy can retain things like "memory" in the sense I think you're using it, I do see where you are coming from. Actually, instead of using the quantum vacuum as the existence of this energy that permeates the universe, I'd use the Higgs field instead, despite the fact it's not really proven yet. The issue with using the quantum vacuum as a source for this Mind is that on a macroscopic level it doesn't really exist. It's really only worth mentioning on tiny levels, and it basically is a constant dance of particle and energy cancellations, brief existences and annihilation which make it hard to argue that it can "remember" anything because its constituents are being constantly created and destroyed.

The Higgs field, however, is a non-zero field that essentially interacts with both matter and energy, and it is what gives matter its "mass" qualities. The Higgs field permeates all of space, and is apparent both macroscopically and at the tiniest of lengths.

 

[Nadir]

The problem with these kinds of ideas is that they occupy an area outside rationality and then throw stones at it, so that if you try to criticize this idea on the grounds that it has no valid reasoning, the singular kind of response you'll get ends up being something like "you're a materialist, you wouldn't understand the finesse of this school of thought", or, "there is no way we can reconcile our differences as long as you keep hanging on to reason", which isn't really a defense. So this idea really ends up being a belief, and objective reality gets thrown out of the window as the believers feverishly convince themselves of the truth while the rationalists look on with disapproval.

 

[Synapse]

What Panpsychism wants to achieve is the search for neural correlations of consciousness however it is at odds with emergentism because panpsychism wants to speculate there is a consciousness, a connection that goes beyond the current scientific views which isn't in conflict with empirical research only with its presuppositions.

Panpsychism enjoys a metaphysical advantage in that it avoids the difficulties of emergentism, which are greater than is generally thought. Not only is there a problem simply in accounting for the emergence of something so distinctive as consciousness from mere matter, it is surprisingly difficult to articulate a form of emergentism that does not threaten to make the emergent features causally impotent or epiphenomenal.

A more appropriate title for this thread would then be Panpsychism vs Emergentism.

Panpsychism and the Scientific World View

Panpsychism and emergentism. If one believes that the most fundamental physical entities (quarks, leptons, bosons, or whatever physics will ultimately settle upon) are devoid of any mental attributes, and if one also believes that some systems of these entities, such as human brains, do possess mental attributes, one is espousing some kind of doctrine of the emergence of mind. All the currently popular physicalist theories (such as behaviorism, central state identity theories, functionalism) are theories which attempt to provide an account of how the mental emerges from the physical.

Since panpsychism is, by definition, the doctrine that mind, in some sense of the term, is everywhere, in some sense of that term, it would seem to be intuitively clear that if one does not place mind at the very foundation, and in fact regards mentality to be a feature of systems of non-mentalistic entities, then one is an emergentist. Panpsychism's assertion that mind suffuses the universe presents a fundamental and sharp contrast with its basic rival, emergentism, which asserts that mind appears only at certain times, in certain places under certain—probably very special and very rare—conditions.

It was the modern “mechanistic” picture of the world inaugurated by Galileo, Descartes and Newton which put the problem of the mind at center stage while paradoxically sweeping it under the rug. The whole problem-space was severely distorted by what was virtually a stipulated separation of matter from mind, so that what could have been merely a useful conceptual distinction was transformed into an ontological gulf. Thus, everything that could not be accounted for in terms of the interactions of simple material components was conveniently labelled a “secondary quality” inhabiting not the “real” world but merely the conscious mind. For instance, in a maneuver reminiscent of Democritus, colors were banished from the world of matter, replaced with the “causal powers” of physical things to produce “in the mind” the experience we call color. Thus the world was made safe for physics.

The current burst of scientific and philosophical studies of mind sparked by the “cognitive revolution” has rekindled debate about the perennial dilemma of emergentism versus panpsychism. The recently renewed and once again influential claim of some philosophers, especially David Chalmers, that the explanation of consciousness presents a uniquely difficult problem for science has forced the reexamination of the metaphysical foundations of the scientific world view (see The Conscious Mind 1996). Chalmers calls this problem the “hard problem of consciousness”; it is also sometimes called the “explanatory gap” or the “generation problem”. The key difficulty is how to explain in naturalistic terms the generation of consciousness by “mere matter”. Once again it seems imperative to decide whether and how mind emerges upon, or exists only under, some specifiable and non-universal natural and non-mentalistic conditions or whether mind itself forms a part of the fundamental structure of the world, perhaps in some of the ways panpsychists have suggested.

It obviously remains far from clear that quantum mechanics necessarily leads to panpsychism and one might wish to deploy the powerful theory of emergence which quantum mechanics provides in the service of a more traditional emergentism which sees mind developing from non-mental aspects of nature (such an approach is taken by Silberstein and McGeever 1999). Assessing such a strategy would require consideration of the plausibility of the claim that mind and consciousness can be explicated solely in terms of the physical properties and entities postulated by quantum mechanics, a difficult task which one might harbor some doubts. The point here is simply that the combination problem can be addressed from within a panpsychist framework.

At present, the predominance of the scientific view of the world, and a general disinclination towards dualistic as well as idealistic metaphysics, brings with it the triumph of emergentism, and the key issue becomes that of assessing the prospects of theories of emergent mentality. All modern physicalistic theories of mind implicitly rest upon a theory of emergence (which is seldom articulated in any detail), but, thus far, none of these has dealt with consciousness in a fully satisfactory way (that is, the problem of the emergence of consciousness has not gone the way of the problem of the emergence of chemistry). Unless and until we have such a satisfactory account, panpsychism remains an open possibility.

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

I'm with Nadir. It might be true, but how could you ever find out?

To be honest, I'm not even sure what it means for something inanimate to be aware of anything. Awareness assumes experience, and experience assumes some kind of biology, doesn't it? To say that my computer is aware of me in some other weird form would be to water down the definition of the word aware. I'm not even aware of everything around me, but I'm to accept that my monitor is? Sounds fishy.

 

[Anja]

I can't keep up with you guys on this type of conversation but I have questions. Maybe they fit here. Are plants conscious? Do they have memory? Are they considered inanimate?

 

[AOA]

Panpsychism... that's quite a thought.

Didn't collect much off this subject other than that the concept of 'consciousness' (in us) is being defined as relative as opposed to absolute - much a consideration for it's function.

... it's like saying "I'm pissed off at his/her stupidity, and I hate that", but that's not taking into account that a lot of people can be stupid, so when you take into account everybody else, the decision whether to be pissed at them 'all' and hate that is quite another one. You start to think more-or-less 'relative' (like on a scale), whereas you were thinking 'absolute' for him/her. Pretty much a context of it's own.

So in some ways, in my opinion, panpsychism is a good source of thought in that context... just not compatible with general belief, as it isn't backed up by evidence.

 

[Venom]

In order to explain consciousness, Materialism needs the supernatural miracle of dead matter somehow forming into consciousness. Panpsychism does not need miracles. It is consciousness. Since all the ingredients of Life are conscious there is no need for impossible materialistic scenarios to explain how life began.

I like the idea, correlates with my views in some ways.
Do you think this holds any credibility, too alternative or idealistic.
What do you think of this philosophy?

I think its bullshit.
1. unfalsifiable
2. no mechanism
3. no predictions

materialism needs no such "magic" to explain consciousness.

there is no "self" center of the brain, so its obvious that there is no "will center" of the brain. Therefore, if anyone is going to be as crass as to simply look for the "consciousness center" of the brain, of course they arent going to find it and have to come up with supernatural bullshit.

The human brain is an analogue PARALLEL neural net processing machine. Consciousness is merely the "sensation" of thinking. When you move your leg, you are conscious of it because of the sensation. Consciousness is "feeling" the sensation of certain parts of your brain "firing/thinking/processing". More accurately, its the ability to remember separate sensations and form a sense of time by comparing these. From this, the illusion of creating "thoughts" over small amounts of time, becomes "consciousness".

If you have ever blacked out for hours at a time, you will understand that without a past, you are nothing. As in, if you're whole life was a black out, you would have nothing to comment on, talk about, feel about, base your reaction to it on etc.... your "self" is dependent on experiencing the material world.

materialism requiring the supernatural to explain consciousness? = fail

edit:
1. there will be computers in the next 40 years with enough computing power for us to attempt to program consciousness (falsifiable)
2. if we achieve this with said computer, then the mechanisms will be more apparent.
3. the predictions of materialistic consciousness line up with pharmacology

my position is not 99% provable, today. However, at least its falsefiable and WILL be testable. For now its plausible inference.

 

[Feops]

Panpsychism declares that the entire universe from the most distant galaxy all the way down to the smallest particle or wave is entirely sentient or conscious.

I can't quite get my head about that part. Would this mean it's unlinked from my brain and thought process? Do I gain more consciousnesses when I eat? Does it dilute my existing consciousness? If I drink and sweat out a significant amount of weight over a day, have I become a somewhat different person for all the exchange in such a short time?

It's an interesting thought but seems to conflict far too much with what we know about matter/waves.

 

[Synapse]

This is a theory and a theory is usually from hypothesis or belief, wanted to express the view as it is interesting. After all Carl Jung investigated psychological and mythological archetypes, and began to argue for a panpsychical and mystical view of the human condition.

The 'Theory of Mind' has morphed into a 'Theory of Everything'. Carl Jung, a vocal protagonist of universal interconnectedness through his concepts of the collective unconscious and archetypes, predicted this synthesis. In Aion (1951), he prophetically states that "sooner or later nuclear physics and the psychology of the unconscious will draw closer together as both of them, independently of one another and from opposite directions, push forward into transcendental territory, the one with the concept of the atom, the other with that of the archetype"

So I was curious to see where the idea went

David Chalmers proposed a theory based on information that every structure contains information and any structure can be fully described using information. He observes that information is ubiquitous and that experience must also be ubiquitous.

If this [experience is ubiquitous] is correct then experience is associated with even very simple systems. This idea is often regarded as outrageous, or even crazy. But I think it deserves a close examination. It is not so obvious to me that the idea is misguided, and in some ways it has a certain appeal.

Adult consciousness involves a limited set of brain structures. Much of the brain operates below consciousness. We are not conscious of most of our body most of the time. Experiences enter consciousness when something notable happens like stubbing a toe. Why not assume all the activity not entering our stream of consciousness is nonetheless conscious, but with a limited connection to stream of consciousness? What is left out is as important as what is present. The consciousness we experience is an executive control with a limited capacity to deal with information. So complex filters exist to insure only relevant experience gets through. There is nothing special about the neurons that make up this executive control. Why not assume all the structures in the brain correspond to a consciousness that is their structure.

Equating existence to immediate experience violates our sense of objective physical reality. That reality is a pragmatic creation of consciousness. This is not denying our scientific understanding of physical structure. It is describing the context in which that structure has existence and meaning.

You just never know with these things.

 

[Venom]

Equating existence to immediate experience violates our sense of objective physical reality.

no, it doesnt. go get hammered tonight and have your friends film you doing something ridiculous and have them not tell you about it for weeks. then when you do finally watch the videos, you will go "its as if it never happened!? i cant like ever really experience those videos from my POV", but the fact is that you did, at the exact moments they were happening, the only problem is that you can't remember experiencing them and therefore its as if they never happened (to your consciousness).

Therefore, in order to feel like you have a string of conscious in the general, you need memory. My main point: The only reason we are able to come to any sense of an objective reality is because "Equating existence to immediate experience" is something we can remember for more than a second. IE: if we didnt have memory, than all our existence would be, would be the immediate experience.

Adult consciousness involves a limited set of brain structures. Much of the brain operates below consciousness. We are not conscious of most of our body most of the time. Experiences enter consciousness when something notable happens like stubbing a toe. Why not assume all the activity not entering our stream of consciousness is nonetheless conscious, but with a limited connection to stream of consciousness? What is left out is as important as what is present. The consciousness we experience is an executive control with a limited capacity to deal with information. So complex filters exist to insure only relevant experience gets through. There is nothing special about the neurons that make up this executive control. Why not assume all the structures in the brain correspond to a consciousness that is their structure.

you aren't saying anything. youve described the brain as a structure that filters out crap that it doesnt need to make executive decisions. I agree. Now where does one suddenly make the jump to the entire universe "being conscious"?

I guess if we are going to play word games and define consciousness in a way that: "particles that remember their geometric shape/function", then fine, the universe is conscious.

(damn i sound angry in this post...forgive me )

 

[Synapse]

no, it doesnt. go get hammered tonight and have your friends film you doing something ridiculous and have them not tell you about it for weeks. then when you do finally watch the videos, you will go "its as if it never happened!? i cant like ever really experience those videos from my POV", but the fact is that you did, at the exact moments they were happening, the only problem is that you can't remember experiencing them and therefore its as if they never happened (to your consciousness).

Therefore, in order to feel like you have a string of conscious in the general, you need memory. My main point: The only reason we are able to come to any sense of an objective reality is because "Equating existence to immediate experience" is something we can remember for more than a second. IE: if we didnt have memory, than all our existence would be, would be the immediate experience.

you aren't saying anything. youve described the brain as a structure that filters out crap that it doesnt need to make executive decisions. I agree. Now where does one suddenly make the jump to the entire universe "being conscious"?

I guess if we are going to play word games and define consciousness in a way that: "particles that remember their geometric shape/function", then fine, the universe is conscious.

(damn i sound angry in this post...forgive me )

Thanks sorta, I think I just think I got caught up in the ideas a bit since learning of it myself only recently, when I started, the idea just clicked like the sort of idea that makes sense even though its at odds with current thinking. I wanted to present the idea and I did.

What I'm trying to get at is that qualia, phenomenal reality, that seems to be completely describable in physical terms is, that qualia are inside and outside brains, that all our experiences, perceptions, sensations, dreams, thoughts and feelings are forms appearing in consciousness hence energy is consciousness, matter is consciousness in that sense physicalism entails panpsychism or should.

For why then would Alfred North Whitehead a mathematician find the idea appealing, its possible when he saw the collapse of Newtonian physics due to Einstein's work, made him think that perhaps there is something missing in the current equation. But of course he refers to it as panexperientialism. Perhaps that is why David Chalmers is reluctant to present his views as panpsychism too because then it becomes too broad and can be confused and lumped with animism, hylozoism, pantheism and panentheism even though it should be considered more often, you could almost call it radical materialism, its from a similar source of inquiry. Its just at odd with scientific presuppositions really.

In a spiritual context isn't that what enlightenment means, to realize that you are the universe, that all phenomena are preceded by mind, made by mind and ruled by mind.

In any case I like this site on Panpsychism. I also find this pdf Towards a Science of Consciousness nice.

Methodological panpsychism assumes the following: the truth of relevant physicalism; a minimalist form of panpsychism, according to which some qualia occur outside brains; the (possibly forthcoming) truth of naturalistic accounts of perception and of the distinction between persona and subpersonal states. The minimalist form of panpsychism becomes innocent once we accept physicalism. The argument solves the hard problem of consciousness by dissolving it. There is no problem of “finding” the “physical correlate” of qualia and then to understand “how” that physical correlate “could be” qualitative. The mode of being of physical reality is assumed to be qualitative from the onset. But it is an innocent way of being qualitative.

Actually, upon reflection, we discover that we do not have a single argument that could make us think that physical reality is not qualitative! We do have thought experiments that presuppose a qualitativeless conception of physics and hence cannot prove it. Intuitions to the contrary (the “Cartesian intuition”, the idea that we would never understand what it is like to be a bat, etc) are not sufficient to establish the non-qualitativeness of physical reality. These intuitions actually have a simple explanation in the fact that we pre-philosophically spend a good deal of energy in attributing psychological states of various kind to people and animals in order to explain their behaviour, and do not do the same with, say stones.

Conscious states do not play any role in explanation of behaviour of stones. It is tempting to conclude that this difference is explained by the fact that stones are just inert matter; we are matter full of qualia – as we can experience all the time. But the conclusion is unwarranted, and have seen that it is easily overruled by other ways to account for the difference between stone and us.

And why do we have hard times in understand the other thesis, that qualitative reality is physical? Again, the dual “Cartesian intuition” is at the origin of the bias: the idea that physical reality is the domain of res extensa, of the physical bodies. An object bias pervades our representation of the world and an intentional bias pervades our representation of the mind.

The universe inside the stone is somewhat different from ours, but not much. In both there is a “blooming, buzzing” reality, in William Jame’s phrase. But inside the stone there is a “blooming, buzzing confusion”, whereas inside us there is an ordered show that our bodies can use to navigate their environment. We (our biological ancestors, that is) have domesticated qualia, that is to say, we have domesticated the physical world.

I profess I'm no philosopher or scientist but I will explore ideas that resonate with me and Panpsychism is an interesting proposition after all as it tries to bridge the gap between the physical and the non physical and I thought it was one of the more novel ideas out there to try to explain consciousness.

 

[CzeCze]

Synapse, you hang out in metaphysical bookstores, don't you?

On consciousness: You would love reading skeptics' reviews of that center for psychic etc.etc.etc. (forgot the place's name, it's in the states) The one that did an experiment where they wound up a bunch of computerized? mechanized? toys and cited that the toys tended to 'follow' and group aruond the human subject, even though there was nothing in their design or programming that would direct them to do so.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Is there any reason whatever to believe in panpsychism? Do we realize at all that by content of this proposition we are asserting that chairs and tables have minds?

The fact that living species have minds is explained by neural activity that inheres within their minds. This is the only known way to us with regard to how minds could exist. There is no such neural activity immanent within all things. Therefore there is no reason to assume that all things may have minds.

What justification could there be in favor of panpsychism? That the relationship between mind and matter is existent and mysterious? That some strange force called 'energy' underlies both and must be found in both mind and matter? Physicists know that atoms are comprised of force trapped within a unit. That is the only empirically tenable justification for existence of force. Such a force is purely material and is responsible for the neurons in our brain which lead us to have minds. The force is responsible only for matter and not for the mind. Only a certain kind of matter renders minds possible, namely neuronal synchrony.

This is a theory and a theory is usually from hypothesis or belief, wanted to express the view as it is interesting. After all Carl Jung investigated psychological and mythological archetypes, and began to argue for a panpsychical and mystical view of the human condition.

The 'Theory of Mind' has morphed into a 'Theory of Everything'. Carl Jung, a vocal protagonist of universal interconnectedness through his concepts of the collective unconscious and archetypes, predicted this synthesis. In Aion (1951), he prophetically states that "sooner or later nuclear physics and the psychology of the unconscious will draw closer together as both of them, independently of one another and from opposite directions, push forward into transcendental territory, the one with the concept of the atom, the other with that of the archetype"

So I was curious to see where the idea went

David Chalmers proposed a theory based on information that every structure contains information and any structure can be fully described using information. He observes that information is ubiquitous and that experience must also be ubiquitous.

If this [experience is ubiquitous] is correct then experience is associated with even very simple systems. This idea is often regarded as outrageous, or even crazy. But I think it deserves a close examination. It is not so obvious to me that the idea is misguided, and in some ways it has a certain appeal.

Adult consciousness involves a limited set of brain structures. Much of the brain operates below consciousness. We are not conscious of most of our body most of the time. Experiences enter consciousness when something notable happens like stubbing a toe. Why not assume all the activity not entering our stream of consciousness is nonetheless conscious, but with a limited connection to stream of consciousness? What is left out is as important as what is present. The consciousness we experience is an executive control with a limited capacity to deal with information. So complex filters exist to insure only relevant experience gets through. There is nothing special about the neurons that make up this executive control. Why not assume all the structures in the brain correspond to a consciousness that is their structure.

Equating existence to immediate experience violates our sense of objective physical reality. That reality is a pragmatic creation of consciousness. This is not denying our scientific understanding of physical structure. It is describing the context in which that structure has existence and meaning.

You just never know with these things.

Jung had nothing to say on Panpsychism or any topic of philosophy of mind that is even tangentially relevant to the phenomenon at hand. He merely pointed out that our mind works in a certain way (creates archetypes of a sort), though this has nothing to do with all things having minds (panpsychism) or with the relationship between mind and matter.

David Chalmers proposed a theory based on information that every structure contains information and any structure can be fully described using information. He observes that information is ubiquitous and that experience must also be ubiquitous..

Any structure can be described using information, yet not every structure contains information. We can collect information about a cactus, yet a cactus cannot tell us anything about itself or about anything as it does not contain information.

For why then would Alfred North Whitehead a mathematician find the idea appealing, its possible when he saw the collapse of Newtonian physics due to Einstein's work, made him think that perhaps there is something missing in the current equation...

What you're saying is that a mathematician found panpsychism appealing and therefore there must be something to it.

It may be the case that Newton's physics were destroyed by Einstein's yet panpsychism bears no bearing upon the problem.

In a spiritual context isn't that what enlightenment means, to realize that you are the universe, that all phenomena are preceded by mind, made by mind and ruled by mind.

That may be the spiritual teaching of some sages, yet there is no reason to believe them true. Just because panpsychism pays homage to such views, we are not offered any reasons to endorse it.

P.S

I bet all is preceded by mind. I bet my computer never existed before I first thought about it.

I bet I am the universe and that there is no distinction between my personal identity and that of my cat and the ground I walk on.

I bet the universe is ruled by my mind and when I cease to believe that you exist, you shall perish.

 

[Synapse]

SolitaryWalker you rational homosapian you.

I brought the idea up since I enjoyed the style of thought and felt such an idea should get attention to be speculated about. Then I realized nobody wants to speculate about it much since the tangibility of such an idea is intangible.

Neuronal synchrony is a good point and then this thread may proceed to slide.

 

[Helios]

...

Jung had nothing to say on Panpsychism or any topic of philosophy of mind that is even tangentially relevant to the phenomenon at hand. He merely pointed out that our mind works in a certain way (creates archetypes of a sort), though this has nothing to do with all things having minds (panpsychism) or with the relationship between mind and matter.

...

To be picky:

"A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the personal unconscious. But this personal conscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious...it is...identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us...The contents of the collective unconscious...are known as archetypes...For our purposes this term is apposite and helpful, because it tells us that so far as the collective unconscious contents are concerned we are dealing with archaic or-I would say-primordial types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times."

- C.G. Jung (1981), The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 2nd ed., Princeton University Press: United States of America, pp. 3-5.

There does not here appear to be room for talking of the "creation" of archetypes by one's mind.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

To be picky:

"A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the personal unconscious. But this personal conscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious...it is...identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us...The contents of the collective unconscious...are known as archetypes...For our purposes this term is apposite and helpful, because it tells us that so far as the collective unconscious contents are concerned we are dealing with archaic or-I would say-primordial types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times."

- C.G. Jung (1981), The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 2nd ed., Princeton University Press: United States of America, pp. 3-4.

There does not here appear to be room for talking of the "creation" of archetypes by one's mind.

True, creating usually means that an entity A comes up with something that is distinct from its own identity. The passage you have cited shows that Jung thinks that archetypes are an intrinsic part of the identity of mind. This view seems to be false because an archetype is a complicated cognitive notion. Our minds are not able to process such complex ideas at birth, so in principle archetypes cannot be innate. To claim that they are innate would mean to reinvoke the idea that there is innate knowledge, which has not been widely endorsed (for justifiable reasons) since Plato.

 

[Helios]

True, creating usually means that an entity A comes up with something that is distinct from its own identity. The passage you have cited shows that Jung thinks that archetypes are an intrinsic part of the identity of mind. This view seems to be false because an archetype is a complicated cognitive notion. Our minds are not able to process such complex ideas at birth, so in principle archetypes cannot be innate. To claim that they are innate would mean to reinvoke the idea that there is innate knowledge, which has not been widely endorsed (for justifiable reasons) since Plato.

The quotation in question was not an assessment of Jung's thesis, but only an explication of it, viz.:

"He (Jung) merely pointed out that our mind works in a certain way (creates archetypes of a sort)..."

I am not contesting that what Jung is asserting is true, but merely showing your explication to be errant.

However, despite this, I find at least one of your objections to Jung's thesis inadequate: that archetypes are not experienced at birth is not to say that they are not inborn, but that they have yet to be experienced. This is roughly analogous to the human capacity for language which, whilst present at birth, does not permit the acquisition of language until much later.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

I am not sure if I understand your message.

Do you agree with Jung that archetypes are inborn, or are in our perspective since birth?

That is the claim I have impugned. I suggest that because our minds are only capable of simple cognitive processes at birth, and conjuring an archetype is a complex process, our minds do not have archetypes in perspective. However, when our minds become capable of more complex cognitive operations, they conjure archetypes, much like they learn a language.

 

[Helios]

I am not sure if I understand your message.

Do you agree with Jung that archetypes are inborn, or are in our perspective since birth?

I am not contesting that what Jung is asserting is true, but merely showing your explication to be errant.

I presently regard Jung's claims regarding a collective unconscious and its archetypical contents as fanciful conjecture; my purpose was not to offer an apology for Jung's position, but only to correct your explanation of Jung's position, viz.

He (Jung) merely pointed out that our mind works in a certain way (creates archetypes of a sort)...

Your response to my correction indicated a misapprehension of my purpose. The issue was not whether what Jung claims is true, but what it is Jung claims. Regardless, I do find the following challenge inadequate, specifically because it is an instance of the Straw man fallacy:

That is the claim I have impugned. I suggest that because our minds are only capable of simple cognitive processes at birth, and conjuring an archetype is a complex process, our minds do not have archetypes in perspective. However, when our minds become capable of more complex cognitive operations, they conjure archetypes, much like they learn a language.

"Archetypes" are defined by Jung as, "only those psychic contents which have not yet been submitted to conscious elaboration and are therefore an immediate datum of psychic experience". This elaboration, much of (but not all of) which cognitive development is needed to facilitate, is an elaboration of the already present archetypes; even if most of this elaboration cannot be performed at birth, that does not require that those archetypes not already be present in the collective unconscious. It seems, however, that a certain form of "conscious elaboration" is available even to newborns: Jung believes that archetypes can be immediately manifested in dreams and visions. Presumably, as even infants dream, they too elaborate archetypes in this manner, though this is altogether different from the other modes of elaboration requiring cognitive development, such as mythologizing processes.