The Jungian Unconscious, Unreality, & MMORPGs

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I'm posting this here because i think there's a spiritual component, and because reactions to the concept of the Unconscious are frequently influenced by religious belief.
I posted on a recent thread ( " i've been thinking" by DejaQ ) how it seemed to me that the concept of the Collective Unconscious , and the theories developed about it by Carl Jung, (including the role of Archetypes in everyones spiritual journeys,) were a very intelligent and inspiring modern approach to the Unreal, that which surrounds the Real ( "real" originally meaning "central"), which exists but which we rarely if ever see, and yet has great power over our lives.
I think it may well be a better idea than god. Or rather, a very good update/overhaul/revamp !

I have realised what it was that I found most personally poisonous in the teachings and methods of a personal development programme that i was involved with for several years, (There are increasing numbers of such programmes, with increasing numbers of evangelising "converts") ; that their system depended on denying the existence of the Jungian Unconscious.
To them everything is potentially visible, transparent, rational. For example there are reasons why people hold "limiting" beliefs, but people can be persuaded to abandon them with logic, by confrontation with Reality; also that people may not generally be aware of what is going on in their heads but this skill can be taught to them. Everything about the mind can be understood, according to them. People can choose how their mind will work without any mysteries, no corners left in the dark.

I think that the concept of the Unconscious,( created originally over 30 years or so by Freud to describe/explain "personal" conflict, and then further developed by Jung, in the 1920's and 30's, into a framework, the Collective Unconscious, capable of describing profound experience common to all or many people,) represents a threat to the traditional western idea of god, because it offers a better explanation, or description , free of outdated pedagogy, of the experience of the Unreal and how to integrate it in ones life.
How to connect with that .
And i suddenly began to wonder how many people actually did believe in it.
So.... do you believe in the Collective Unconscious?

PS: NEW ELEMENT ADDED further down page ! ! Re: MMORPGs

Last edited by ouinon on 03 Dec 2007, 2:09 pm, edited 20 times in total.

I take a pragmatist approach to the subject. As I see it, the unconscious is merely a construct. It does not "exist" anymore than happiness "exists" (or, for that matter, Asperger's syndrome and the neurotypical). If, as a construct, it helps to make sense out of some of our experiences, it can be used. If not, then another, more explanatory, construct should replace it.

Do you mean you would believe in it if you found it useful? If believing in it had some sort of "effect" which you could count on to some extent?
That's why i think it is like a new improved version of the older concept "god" ; without the now utterly debunked associated pedagogies; the, in my opinion, irrecoverably shamed and guilty church versions.
Can believe in the power and meaning "vehiculed" by the Unconscious without having to specify all the ways in which don't agree with "this passage of the scriptures", or the "church leaders interpretations", or such and such "church teaching"; being faced all the time with dogma which is unhelpful, outdated, and discriminatory.

Last edited by ouinon on 02 Dec 2007, 1:04 pm, edited 6 times in total.

In a sense. The reason I use the word "pragmatist" rather than "pragmatic" is because I am referring to the philosophy of pragmatism. From a pragmatist standpoint, theories and models should only be used if they work. If not, they should be abandoned.

On the surface, pragmatism probably sounds like common sense. However, a lot of people disagree with it.

These things aren't constructs. Proving them is simply difficult because it requires a better understanding of brain functioning. When one is "happy", specific parts of the brain light up. With Aspergers syndrome, again, the brain of an aspie can be observed to not function in the same manner as the majority of the population.

Getting to the original question of a sub-consious or unconsious, I think that these phenomenon lie somewhere near the base of the brain around the cerebral cortex.

IMO, all of our conceptions, outside of particular entities, are constructs. They are ways in which human beings make sense out of their experiences and observations.



Each person has a unique neurological makeup. AS and NT are human attempts to categorize some of that neurodiversity. Whether the cut off for AS is at point A or point B is a human (clinical) decision.



Even if neuroscientists are able to locate the source for what is called the unconscious, it will still, in my view, be a construct.

Buckminster Fuller demonstrated that all entities are events. In his work "I seem to be a verb" he laid out a good case that what we call things are in fact happenings - a mountain, for example, is in fact a large, extremely low frequency wave. This wave in the topography can be interpreted as a static thing or entity by humans whose temporal reference is many orders of magnitude smaller than the mountain.

Buddhism and some other traditins originating from Vedantic thought arrived at the same conclusions via a different path.

I admired Bucky Fuller for many reasons, but his metaphysics is not one of them. (Actually, I am suspicious of all metaphysical systems.) Whether entities are events, an idea which I suspect he borrowed from process philosophy, I cannot say. However, we were really discussing the reverse: whether events (like the unconscious) are entities. I am agnostic concerning both statements.



Why do you think that his assertions established a good case?



It depends on the school of Buddhism. However, yes, to those connected with Nagarjuna. Still, precedent is not evidence.

As intriguing as I find the Jungian concept of the Collective Unconscious, I'm reluctant to think of it as anything more than wishful thinking on Jung's part. Unless it's some sort of mind-to-mind-to-mind network based on something like mirror neurons, I don't see how it could possibly work.

On the other hand, I've seen anecdotal evidence of the Freudian UCS in my own life, such as when I have a strong positive or negative reaction to something I've just encountered. Something appears to be happening behind the scenes of my consciousness.

It's very interesting to say in the least.. I wonder if Freud or Jeung had some sort of 'special' ability when i came to empathizing. Maybe a systematic empathy or something?

Actually I think that the Freudian model has been rather superseded.
Cognitive Psychology, including its derivatives in personal development programmes, has discovered that it IS perfectly possible to "hear"/listen to much of our "unconscious"; the automatic, usually invisible, thoughts and beliefs ( "decided on by ourselves at certain moments in our life, from partial information, or to protect ourselves from unbearably painful feelings, and therefore not necessarily reliable/useful) which guide our actions and reactions "from behind the scenes", and to change them, or at least better understand them.
Neuropsychology has also explained many of the "invisible" workings of the brain/mind. Psychoanalysis now often seems like an expensive and longwinded way to achieve what cognitive psychology would be able to expose in a few weeks, or neurological approach could describe, and perhaps deal with with medication or dietary change in a few months.

Jungs model, of the Collective Unconscious, is different. It's more about finding a way to relate to/connect with the immense power of the Unreal. Myth. In modern society things/events that are unreal are considered inferior, irrelevant , as inevitably/inherently rubbish. Reality is worshipped, as the ultimate authority. As Ragtime so eloquently put it elsewhere" Reality is true ". Whereas Jungian psychology takes Unreality seriously, thinks that it is a precious part of humanity, that it exists and has value. Also that it has "rules"/laws. It is not some fluffy comfort-blanket.

( New element) Nick Yee, with his "Daedalus Gateway"/Project, has done some very interesting work on the MMORPG ( massively multi-player online roleplay game) experiences of thousands of people. His project is the biggest, longest running study of MMORPG-players and their habits, beliefs, life developments, tastes, and motivations for playing, that exists.
His work challenges the idea that "virtual reality"/MMORPGs are necessarily time-wasting, addictive black holes. He suggests that this "unreality" can be very effective learning space for many people. That for instance people acquire management skills in these games, the ability to cope with responsibility, teamworking skills, longterm-thinking skills, etc, ( to the point that some big companies now take certain experience on MMORPGs into account in job applications ! ! Yes, really ). His point is that virtual reality is useful and valuable. And my point is that the ancient "inner" version, of dreams, with equally amazing heroes, and villains, and shadows, and friends on the journey etc,and even deeper lifeskills perhaps, is what Jungian Psychology is about.
Since he started his project Yee has noticed a small shift in the general attitude to "virtual reality" games/experiences, as in the job application stuff, but also in how more and more studies are setting up to research this phenomena, and how media treatment of the subject is slightly less prone to panic-mongering hysteria!! .
Another aspect that he is now looking at is how peoples chosen avatar can influence the way they behave online, and how certain body language rules exist even on a screen, like distance to keep between self and others. Which is also very interesting from an aspie point of view.

I think that the reification of Reality to the detriment of Unreality may have contributed to sidelining of people on the autistic spectrum.

Last edited by ouinon on 03 Dec 2007, 9:42 am, edited 13 times in total.

am wondering whether MMORPGs represent, along with the increasingly complex creations of "other realities" in books and films, and comic books/manga etc, of recent years, ( even the last 200 years, in widest sense of popular fictional worlds created in which is possible to immerse oneself ) an effort to replace the lost contact with Unreality, which is no longer recognised except as entertainment. Because the world of dreams ( night dreams) is no longer taken seriously, no longer seen as an important part of life, as important as real things/events, many people search for a "real" equivalent. There is none. None that enable you to take as active a role in an as unpredictable, and endlessly alive, but "safe" environment as in dreams, in the MMORPG of the collective unconscious.

Last edited by ouinon on 04 Dec 2007, 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

Jung indicates, in some of his writings, that he saw the collective unconscious and its archetypes as genetic. In that sense, he appears to be more of a biopsychologist (or sociobiologist) than, as some authors have portrayed him, a mystic.

Yes, i noticed too, in some of his thoughts on the collective unconscious he likens it to an evolutionary thing, hard wired instructions to make sure that men ( and women) get round to reproducing in optimum conditions etc.

Possibly. They certainly have become 'our' myths. And as for '200 years', think back to Cervantes, and Don Quixote.

What's a MMORPG?