On The Relationship Between 'Hope', 'Optimism', and 'Faith'

 From a 'scientific, rational-empirical paradigm' (which is probably not the dominant paradigm at work here), the idea of 'the evidence of things not seen' when defining 'faith' would be a contradiction in terms.

Both 'faith' and 'hope' tend to generally be 'futuristic-minded' which may contain a mixture of 'evidence' and/or 'lack of evidence'.

'Faith' tends to be a generally stronger word than 'hope'. with 'optimism' somewhere in between the two.

If I say, I hope for a better future, that is not quite as strong as, I am optimistic relative to a better future, which in turn is not as strong as 'I have faith in a better future.'

And where is this 'faith' directed? Faith in one's self? Faith in an improving economy? And/or, faith in God? Faith in God is probably most effective when it helps to translate into a faith in Self. The expression, 'God helps those who help themselves' is perhaps most relevant here. It implies that God created man -- indeed all plants and animals to succeed -- but generally, not those who remain passive.

We are all blessed with a unique combination of skills, abilities, and creative possibilities, but only if we use all the amazing 'life tools' that God gave us to succeed. If we bury or suppress these same amazing tools, then who is accountable and responsible for this? God? Or us.

Perhaps the phrase, 'Use them or lose them!' -- meaning God's amazing life tools given to us collectively and/or individually -- is the operative logic here.

In the end, we are all accountable to ourselves -- with or without 'God's help'. One might use the phrase, 'God set us in motion, but it is up to us to move'.

I use the words 'God' and 'Creation' in the same breath here -- indeed, 'God', 'Nature', 'Man', and 'Evolution' all ideally in harmony with each other. 'God gave man the tools of evolution but it is up to man to use those tools -- his mind and his body -- to the best advantage of man, and his ongoing evolution. That means sustaining the environment (both natural and social) that is sustaining him/us.

Again, this is on man's shoulders, not God's.

We all need to help to sustain each other -- and to sustain our environment -- in order to best sustain ourselves.

This is my Spinozian influence.

-- dgb, Jan. 30th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

On The Dialectic Relationship Between God and Self

People who wait around expecting to have 'faith' in wiinning the lottery or faith in 'God magically making their life better', putting their knight in shining armour or their beautiful princess right in front of their nose, may be very lucky if it happens -- may even be the lucky benefactor of 'fate'-- or they may end up 'Waiting for Godot' which means in effect wasting their life away while they are waiting...and nothing happens...

Perhaps best of all, relative to the 'relationship between God and Self, is the idea that 'God created each and everyone of us to succeed and to be hopeful, optimistic, and happy, as long as we continue to keep our mental-emotional (psychological) forces directed in a positive direction, and not aimed against ourselves and/or against others in a negative spirit of destruction and/or self-destruction.

We all need to endure hardship at one time or another and the greater this hardship is, the more we need to focus on holding onto this mutual 'faith' in the combined positive spirit -- and force -- of God and Self.

-- dgb, Jan. 30th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

A Mexican Proverb

From the tv show, Criminal Minds...

A Mexican proverb...

A house is not built upon the ground, but upon a woman.

An Introduction -- and Overview -- To Gap-DGB Personality Theory (Part 3)

Life is a journey from chaos to organization and back to chaos again -- the 'arc of life' if you will -- and that is focusing on one side of life, what I refer to as the 'Apollonian side' of life which is the 'organizational' side of life. In contrast, mythologically speaking, two other very relevant sides of life are: 2. the 'Aphroditian' (romantic)side of life'; and 3. the 'Dionysian' (sensual-sexual) side of life.

The personality evolves from chaos -- a newborn baby entering a world that he or she has no experience dealing with...

Impulses -- indeed instincts for food, warmth, touch, nurturing, comfort, safety... -- propel the baby forward with the only tool that baby has at his or her disposal upon entering this frightening new world: his or her vocal chords. 

Movement -- first, disorganized movement, and then more organized, co-ordinated movement with a purpose -- start to develop shortly thereafter, and baby, barring any health and/or adaptive complications, is on his or her way towards developing a greater and greater cognitive-emotional-physical skillset for dealing with the world and fulfilling his or her needs in conjunction with the world... 

 Cognitvely speaking, there are three main skillsets that baby needs to develop in the process of what is happening above: 1. association (recognizing similarities and regularities); 2. distinction (recognizing differences); and 3. memory that can be divided into two types: 'associative memory' and 'distinctive memory' (as well as the more usually distinguished short and long-term memory).

Long term 'associative and distinctive memories' that are carried over from childhood to adulthood we will refer to here as 'transferences'. From the word and concept of transference, we get such derrivative words and concepts as: 'transference complexes', 'transference neuroses', 'transference fixations', transference obsessions', 'transference avoidances', 'distancing transferences', 'rebellious transferences', 'approval-seeking transferences', 'schizoid transferences', 'violent transferences', 'oral transferences', 'anal transferences', 'oral-nurturing transferences', 'oral-obsessive transferences', 'anal-schizoid transferences', 'anal-rejecting transferences', 'anal-distancing transferences', 'impulsive transferences', 'defensive transferences', 'compensatory transferences', 'approach-avoidance transferences', 'transference memories', 'transference encounters', 'transference relationships'...and on and on we could/can go...

The road between newborn baby and adult personality theory travels through transference theory.

Alfred Adler had some very important things to say about transference theory but unfortunately (or fortunately) by the time he got around to saying these things, he had long since stepped outside of, and away from, the Classic Freudian Paradigm, and thus, he needed to invent a new terminology which we will call here 'lifestyle theory' complete with a whole host of different, competing assumptions and associated theories that 'hid' the associative (or potential associative) connection between Freudian Transference Theory and Adlerian Lifestyle Theory.  That is where I will come in to 'bridge the dialectic gap'.

Furthermore, the direction that Freud had started to go relative to 'Pre-Classical Traumacy and Transference Theory' was suddenly aborted shortly after 1896, a whole new set of associative assumptions and theories were built up after 1896 to replace the associative assumptions and theories that Freud had built up until 1896, and thus, a distinction that we can make here and now between 'transference-traumacy theory' and 'transference-fantasy and impulse theory', most Classical Freudians cannot even contemplate because they have been taught 'transference theory' entirely within the 'Classical Freudian Paradigm' or perhaps, a competing post-Classical paradigm' such as 'Object Relations Theory' and/or 'Self Psychology' which has developed different assumptions and theories about transference...

However, no-one within Freudian circles, to my knowledge, has asked the question: How would Freudian Transference Theory been different if he had never abandoned his 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' after 1896?

That is where I come in again and provide a 'Quantum-Integrative-Traumacy-Fantasy-Defense' Theory of Transference that combines elements of: 1. what Freud wrote before 1896; 2. What Freud wrote after 1896; and 3. what Adler wrote long after he had left Freud and Psychoanalysis. Thus, in essence, I am addressing and aiming to bridge two gaps here: 1. 'the pre-1896-post-1896 Freudian gap'; and 2. 'The Freudian-Adlerian gap'. You can add one more 'gap' to these two gaps, and that is the 'Freudian-Jungian gap'.

If this sounds complicated and confusing now, particulary if you are a reader less familiar with all the different stages (and seeming contradictions) of Freudian Theory, hopefully, it will become less so as we move along here.

Regarding Jung, there is some important Jungian Theory --  and 'DGB-Jungian Quantum-Integrative Theory' -- that we need to discuss before we move on to a more complete discussion of 'DGB Quantum-Integative Transference Theory'.

The Jungian and DGB-Jungian Theory that I am talking about we will encapsule under the concept and theory of 'The Mythological-Symbolic Genetic Self'. This more or less falls under the domain of what Jung called the 'Collective Unconscious'.

It is to this subject matter that we will turn to...probably tomorrow.

-- dgb, Jan. 26th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

I Imagine Nietzsche Giving Me An Earful...

It is very easy for me to overcomplicate matters.

In the wish for more clarity, I just create more confusion...

When this happens, I aim more often to enter Nietzsche's Room,

In Hegel's Hotel....

And let him blast away in my ear...

He speaks to me briskly, and then chases me away...

I hustle out the door with his words ringing in my ears...

More words do not necessarily give better value to your reader,

Give your readers an opportunity to think...

And develop their own thoughts...

Exert more clout, more power, with fewer words...

Either subtly...

Or with a hammer.


-- dgb, Jan. 26th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

The Dialectic Clash Between Historical Determinism and Historical Freedom

Here is one I just wrote for Helium...

Every philosophy that stands the test of time can generally -- if we look long and hard enough at it -- be seen to reflect at least a part of ourselves in some respect, either as a Dominant -- Often Used -- Paradigm (DP) within ourselves, or a more secretive, covert 'Shadow-Paradigm' (SP). Even this distinction is too 'either/or', too Aristotlean in its approach, as it blinds us to the possibility of other 'Bi-Polar Paradigms' such as the 'Realistic Paradigm' (RP) vs. the 'Idealistic Paradigm' (IP) or the 'Rational' (RaP) vs. 'Empirical' Paradigm' (EP) or the 'Enlightenment Paradigm (EnP) vs. the 'Romantic Paradigm (RoP) or the 'Humanistic Paradigm (HP) vs. 'Existential Paradigm (ExP)....And who says that our different paradigms all have to be 'bi-polar' and yet how can it be any different? All words, all concepts, all theories, all paradigms are defined in great part by their 'polar opposite paradigm'... We think that each of these polar opposite paradigms contradict each other, that they are mutally exclusive from each other, and yet we are fooled because we have all been deeply taught in Aristotelean logic that states that 'A' is 'A' and 'B' is 'B' and never the two should meet. A and B are identified, each in their own right, and each relative to be distinguished from each other by their seemingly mutually exclusive characteristics and properties.




In other words, it is impossible to by 'historically determined' and 'historically free' at the same time.



We have been taught -- by Aristotlean Logic -- to believe that 'freedom' and 'determinism' are mutually exclusive paradigms.



Pick a theory or paradigm -- ''freedom' or 'determinism' -- and argue for or against it. That is what we have been taught throughout elementary school, and middle school, and high school, and university... It is deeply ingrained in our brain...and we cannot 'free' ourselves from this Aristotlean paradigm because we have never been taught anything different...we have never been taught how to step outside of this 'Aristolean, either/or, right or wrong, mutually exclusive paradigm'...



Indeed, it can be generally stated that a person can never 'see' and 'free' themselves from a paradigm until someone teaches them how to see and use a different and opposing paradigm...with different gains and benefits...that need to be balanced against lost gains and benefits by jumping from the one paradigm from the other...



Indeed, we can all say that we are 'historically determined' by a paradigm until we become aware of the fact that we are thinking inside a paradigm -- inside a conceptual box -- and we only start to become free of this paradigm once we start to learn 'the properties' of the opposing paradigm, and how to properly use this latter paradigm. This has become known as 'thinking outside the box'...



This is why G.W. Hegel is arguably the most revolutionary philosopher in the history of Western philosophy. He taught us how to think outside the Aristotlean box, the Aristotlean paradigm. Unfortunately, most of his work, including his philosphical classic 'The Phenomenology of Spirit (Mind)' was so obscure that there was only about 1 percent of the population that could read his work and understand what he was saying. Which is why we have books like 'Introducing Hegel...' For 'semantic translation' purposes to a reading audience that has an IQ of less than 180. I include myself in the latter category.



Even Hegel relished in 'historical determinism'. He refused to historically predict anything...and later in his career even tried to stay clear of the 'value judgment fitting game'....'This is bad.' This is good.' Perhaps partly because he had the Prussian aristocracy looking after his welfare as long as he said the right thing, or didn't say the wrong thing...(this is only a speculative guess on my part...but let's put it this way, if you are a philosopher and you are being paid by someone who has a partisan, vested interested in what you do and don't say, well, at this point you cease to be a 'true philosopher' (because your opinion can be bought).



And yet Hegel had already achieved his greatness by creating the paradigm of 'dialectic logic' to compete with the stagnancy of the aforementioned Aristotlean, structural, either/or, logic.



Remember what was said above: Everyone is historically determined by a 'dominant internal paradigm' (DP) unless or until they/we can see beyond this self-restricting and constricting paradigm.



For example, we are all partly restricted and constricted by 'the right and wrong paradigm' in situations where 'right and wrong might not be mutually exclusive and/or the best way to approach the issue...



And we are all partly restricted and constricted when -- in typical Aristotlean fashion -- we take the 'domestic violence' issue and immediately demand the distinction between 'victim' and 'victimizer' -- and we coddle the 'victim' and we stereotype and ostracize the 'victiimizer' -- in typical Aristotlean fashion -- and we fail to see that our so-called 'victim' can also at the same time be a 'victimizer' and our so-called 'victimizer' can also at the same time be a 'victim'. This is the essence of 'dialectic logic' -- seeing and evaluating issues more dynamically as opposed to statically and stereotypically... A can influence B and B can influence A -- and slowly or quickly their so-called distinctions and stereotypes can start to overlap and merge into each other. This can also be called 'dialectic wholism' or 'dynamic wholism' as opposed to 'either/or reductionism'.



Whenever and wherever there is social and/or sexual intercourse at work, there is also 'dialectic logic' at work -- and/or play.



The dialectic paradigm demands that we not only look at A and B separately in their real or alleged mutual distinctions but also that we look at how A and B interact with each other, affect each other, influence each other -- and sometimes merge together in what become 'shared characteristics' (or shared characteristics in their offspring).



In the court of domestic violence, sometimes it is best that we throw out the categories of 'victim' and 'victimizer' altogether and instead start to look at the categories of 'instigator' and 'retaliator'. (It seems that most sports have graduated to 'dialectic logic' whereas our courtrooms still hang onto at least partly outdated reductionistic Aristotlean logic...)



To be sure, sometimes the distinction between 'victim' and 'victimizer' may be very clear cut. But 'context' should determine this -- and every case should be evaluated differently -- not every case going through a cookie-cutter legal system and courtroom where the 'victimizer' and 'victim' is classified within 20 minutes of the police getting to the scene of the alleged domestic violence, as defined by 1000 lobbyist groups that have manhandled our politicians and dictated 'specialist-over-protectionist' changes in the law... and the idea, the democratic ideal, of 'equality of the sexes'... Both sexes need to be held equally accountable for their actions inside and outside the home -- and one sex shouldn't be overly protected by 'making the first call', 'water power', the fact that there are children in the house, and/or by 1000 lobbyst groups that outnumber the other sex by about the same number of soldiers as Custer was outnumbered by the Indians at Little Big Horn...



This too is a form of historical -- and political-legal -- determinism.



Historical 'freedom' demands that 'unconscious, dominant individual, cultural, legal, economic, political, religious, national, and global paradigms be firstly brought to conscousness, analyzed and evaluated rationally-empirically, humanistic-existentially, assertively and compassionately in contrast to its bi-polar opposite paradigm...



We have the Democrats who are focused on creating jobs...This is their first priorty as asserted by Obama the other day...



We have the Republicans who are focused on reducing the national debt...



Looked at from an Aristolean 'either/or' perspective, the question becomes: Which should be America's number one priority? Pick the one or the other.



Looked at dialectically, the question instead becomes:



How can we both increase American jobs and reduce the national debt at the same time?



Gee, here's a brainwave...



How about reverse the free trade agreement?



The minute we become conscious of a paradigm,



And are capable of stepping outside of it,



Are capable of more fully understanding and seeing the benefits of the opposite paradigm...then utilizing this opposing paradigm...



And perhaps integrating these two opposing paradigms creatively somewhere in the middle...



That is the point at which we all -- either individually and/or collectively,



Become less historically determined,



And more historically free...


-- dgb, Jan. 26th, 2011,

-- david gordon bain

A New Introduction To Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology: Where Philosophers and Psychologists Meet

This essay was written the other day for another blogsite -- WordPress.

Modified and updated Jan. 26th, 2011.

For those of you who are new to Hegel's Hotel, here is my latest introduction to Hegel's Hotel...


Good day!



My name is David Gordon Bain and I hope to provide you with an ongoing, evolving series of essays on The History, Evolution, and Potential Integration of Western Philosophy and Clinical Psychology. I already have over 1000 essays under my belt at my ‘Hegel’s Hotel’ blogsite at Blogger.com — and who knows — maybe over the next 4 years I can deliver another 1000 essays right here.

I knew from the first time I read ‘Psycho-Cybernetics’ (the bestseller by Maxwell Maltz in the 60s) and ‘Language in Thought and Action’ (by S.I. Hayakawa, the premiere General Semanticist of the 1960s, and an American Senator from 1977 to 1983), that I wanted to study psychology — and I have spent an adult lifetime doing so, in conjunction with my more recent education, through books and on the internet, in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy.


I was listening a few days ago in the middle of the night to the Piers Morgan interview of Oprah Winfrey on CNN, and I heard Oprah say that her ‘brand was love’. Morgan tried to say that Oprah was ‘America’s therapist’ which she didn’t feel entirely comfortable with, preferring to stick to ‘her brand’ that she was comfortable with — love. Now it could be easily argued that what Oprah does on television, and what a therapist does in his or her office, are essentially the same: both, ideally, help to free up a person from his or her personal internal conflicts and traumacies, through greater social acceptance (the therapist, Oprah) and help in this regard towards greater self-acceptance in order that the person feels ‘freer’ to express his or her love, both inside (in terms of laying off the self-persecution in favor of better self-nurturing) and outside in the person’s immediate and larger social envirionment.


Now my ‘brand’ – or the brand/purpose of ‘Hegel’s Hotel’ — is not too different. Philosophically, I have a significant Spinozian influence within me, which means that I believe that ’everything is ultimately connected’. (One just has to find the connection.)


My ‘brand’ if you will is ‘integration’ or ‘dialectic integration’ or ‘multi-dialectic integration’ — three terms and concepts that I use over and over again in my philosophical work.


Stated another way, I aim to ‘metaphorically build bridges’ where before there were ‘walls’, ‘impasses’, ‘chasms’, ‘abysses’, ‘gaps’…


In this regard, I also call my integrative philosophy-psychology: ‘Hegel’s Hotel: Gap-DGB Philosophy-Psychology’, where ‘gap’ stands for the many different types of ‘gaps’ or ‘holes’ or ‘impasses’ or ‘avoidances’ in our lives, and DGB (a double or triple acronym) for the initials of my name, and also for the words ‘Dialectic-Gap-Bridging’ which you will see at the bottom of most of my essays. You can add an ‘n’ in there and get ‘Dialectic-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations’, or an ‘i’ and get ‘Dialectic-Gap-Bridging-Integrations’, or I also use the ‘DGBN’ acronym sometimes to stand for ‘Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism’.


What this latter idea means is that: Democracy and Capitalism are only ‘ethically well connected’ and ‘mutually compatible’ as long as both indvidual people and all groups and organizations of people of all different sizes and philosophies can ‘see beyond both individual and group narcissism (i.e., their own self and/or special interests) and into the eyes and heart of another (or groups of others) who may not share this same self and/or special interest. Democracy requires a balanced interplay between self-assertiveness and social sensitivity (empathy, caring, compassion, love… a wish for self-growth and well-being in others as well as oneself).

Unfortunately, ‘Capitalism’ — or what I call the ‘pathological version of Capitalism’ — i.e., ‘Narcissistic Capitalism’ — teaches individuals and groups of individuals (organizations, institutions, corporations, governments, so-called ‘charities’ that mask underlying narcissistic motivations…) to think and feel and talk and act with $ signs in their eyes that have not interest in ‘win-win ethically fair relationships’ whatsoever. And/or even if they do, an employer’s idea of ‘ethical fairness’ might be/likely will be quite different than an employee’s idea of ‘ethical fairness’ when focused on the same issue (such as salary, beneits, expense accounts, etc.) Which opens up the very tough question of ‘How do we define ‘ethical fairness’ in a Capitalist environment?’ Supply and demand? Market value? Or do we, in some cases, require ‘salary caps’ such as in the case of athletes and bankers and CEOs and even some/many government officials who will take their salaries to the moon (or their expense accounts) if they are uncontrolled, unchecked, and worst of all sometimes, non-transparent — ‘narcissistically hidden’ from prying public eyes (such as in the case of those government officials who don’t want their expense accounts — or the detailed contents of them — made public).


Within the field of philosophy, I will take you back to our second oldest known Greek/Western Philosopher — Anaximander (610-546BC) — and show you how his ancient, seemingly primitive philosophy can be viewed as the backbone of all Western Dialectic Philosophy.


In case you don’t know what ‘Dialectic Philosophy’ means, let me briefly define it within my own paradigm of Hegel’s Hotel. Perhaps some/many of you will be familiar with G.W. Hegel’s famous rendition and clarification of ‘dialectic logic and dialectic philosophy’ that subscribed to the basic formula of: 1. ‘thesis’; 2. ‘anti-or-counter-thesis’; and 3. ’synthesis’ or ‘integration’. This was described by Hegel as being the best type of model/formula for describing how people, cultures, history, philosophy, politics, art…and everything else within man’s reach evolve over time in cyclical fashion –meaning the dialectic model/formula repeats itself over and over again, ad inifinitum at higher and higher stages of evolution….


‘Dialectic logic’ is contrasted against ‘Aristolean logic’ where Aristotle distinguished between ‘A’ and ‘B’ — each with mutually exclusive properties that prevented ‘A’ from ever being ‘B’ and ‘B’ from every being ‘A’. For example, a ‘wolf’ can never be a ‘coyote’ and a ‘coyote’ can never be a ‘wolf’. Well, both Hegelian dialectic logic and observable evolutionary theory defy what Aristotle was trying to teach us (i.e., the ‘law of identity and non-identity’). A ‘wolf’ has a particular ‘identity’, a ‘coyote’ has a particular ‘identity’ and never the two shall meet — Nature has distinguished the two from each other such that the ‘two categories’ or ‘species’ of animals will always be ‘non-identical’ and ‘mutally exclusive’ from each other.


Well, Aristotle didn’t take into account the ‘dialectically integrative nature of evolution’. All you need is a ‘wolf’ breeding with a ‘coyote’ and you might as well throw Aristotle’s ‘A’ and ‘B’ categories out the window. Because you now have a ‘new, dialectically integrative species’ that can be labelled as ‘AB’ — or a ‘colf’ Southern Ontario — from what I understand is happening down Kingston way — is full of them: this ‘new’ breed of animal, a cross between a coyote and a wolf, is bigger and stronger than a coyote and yet is less afraid of people and more apt to raid farms for chickens and other livestock, unlike most wolves that prefer to stay in the deeper wild.


Even ‘Aristolean logic’ can be combined or dialectically integrated with ‘Hegelian or post-Hegelian dialectic logic’ in which case a person looking at a ‘colf’ and using both models or systems of logic at the same time, can both appreciate the different properties that may or may not have been geneologically inherited by a colf that can be attributed to either of its coyote or wolf parent (which mayl become harder and harder over succeeding generations), and also at the same time, examine the ‘new, dialectically integrative properties of the animal’ that make it a ‘new breed of animal’ with ’different’ physical and/or psychological properties from either of its preceding parents.


Thus, paradoxically, but in tune with the adaptive necessities of life, from an evolutionary perspective, every species of animal, including man – indeed, most importantly man — becomes both a ‘closed (Aristolean) system’ and an ‘open, dialectically integrative (Hegelian) system, at the same time. Life is full of such dichotomies, seemingly paradocially and contradictory, but not so, when you understand the full dynamics of Hegelian dialectic and multi-dialectic logic. Binary opposite extremes along any polar spectrum can either repel each other, collide with each other, attract each other, or even ‘mate’ with each other in order to form dialectically integrative, new, evolutionary systems.

This makes seemingly 'different structures' -- 'A' vs. 'B' -- often less different, the more and more they interact. Or alternatively, the differences continue to be polarized -- perhaps even exaggerated such as in political forums where differences (such as between 'Conservatives' and 'Liberals' or between 'Republicans' and 'Democrats') are exaggerated for dramatic effect.

Regardless, here is the difference between Aristotlean 'Either/Or' Logic and Hegelian Dialectic (Interactive) Logic.

Aristotlean Logic emphasizes 'structural and/or generalized, characteristic differences' between 'A' and 'B' -- say between 'the heart' and 'the liver' -- whereas Hegelian dialectic logic looks at the engagement and interaction between 'A' and 'B', and how both 'A' influences -- and changes the process dynamics, even the structural characterists of 'B' while at the same time, or alternatively, 'B' influences -- and changes -- the process dynamics, even the structural characteristics of 'A'.

Thus, upon the engagement and interaction between 'A' and 'B', everything structurally and dynamically changes in 'A' and 'B'. This is the essence of Hegelian dialectic -- and dynamic -- logic, as opposed to the more structurally unchanging nature of Aristotlean logic.


The same idea of ‘dialectic evolution’ can easily explain the existence and evolution of all these ‘super new viruses and bacteria’ that have mutated with other viruses and/or bacteria, and have learned to ‘compensate’ and ‘defend themselves’ against the attack of ‘anti-biotics’ that are often less effective than they used to be against older strains of bacteria. Any 'vaccine' has the capture the changing nature of the virus it is designed to help the body defend against -- if it doesn't, then it is quite likely to be useless, caught in the stagnant logic and 'box' of Aristotlean logic that suggests, for example, that we do not need to heed the differences between a 2010 'flu strain' and a 2011 flu strain of 'supposedly the same virus' that may have sufficiently different structural and dynamic properties as to make the year old vaccine obsolete.

So in a nutshell, what I wish to extrapolate on here, and to teach within the sphere of ‘Hegel’s Hotel’, the benefits, the potential dangers, the idealism, and the realism of attracting, repelling, clashing, and ‘mating’ dialectic systems containing ‘bi-polar opposite extreme characteristics’ that can either love each other, hate each other — and/or both.


Sound like the typical marriage?

Of course it does…

Why?

Because a marriage system is a dialectic system — with both closed and open properties that are both attracted to, and repel each other. Every marriage is a paradox, an existential dichotomomy — and a supreme challenge to successfully integrate given its likely bi-polar extremes — and/or its hunger for such extremes (when ‘sameness’ and ‘stagnancy’ has set in, in order to promote self- and relationship-growth. Most marriages seek some kind of optimal (homeostatic, dialectic) balance between conservative stability and liberal, boundary-breaking, change. Too much of one and/or the other can quickly or slowly destroy the relationship over time.


That is enough DGB Philosophy-Psychology for today.


It should — hopefully — give you some insight into the kind of work I do in my essays here…

‘Bridging gaps’…

‘Building bridges’…

Across ‘Nietzschean Abysses’…

– dgb, January 25th, 2011,

– David Gordon Bain,

– Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations…

– Are Still in Process…

An Introduction -- and Overview -- To Gap-DGB Philosophy-Psychology and Personality Theory (Part 2)

Just finished, January 23rd, 2011...


The personality -- just like the body, and just like the birth and death of life -- starts in chaos and ends in chaos.

The arc of life (see Part 1 of this essay) is generally one of 'no organization' to 'better and better organization' right to the 'top of the arc of life' and then a slow or fast downward process back to chaos -- and finally death.

Now this is not to say that 'supreme organization' is always the 'ultimate barometer' of 'success, health, and happiness in life' because 'over-organization' can be as much a 'life-killer' as 'no organization at all'.

Once again, there is a dialectic process going on between 'no organization at all' and 'supreme organization' -- the two needing and affecting each other.

Creativity demands the existence of chaos -- chaos is the 'birth unit' of all life  -- and the successful evolution of life from a lesser state to a higher state of evolution demands the dialectic interplay between chaos and organization, between Dionyssus (creative spontaneity) and Apollo (planned organization).

And so it is with the 'birth of the individual personality'...

The unconscious is the birthplace of the personality -- and the unconscious thrives in an environment of chaotic (creative) spontaneity, no distinctions initially, until the organism starts to feel the difference between 'narcissistic pleasure' and 'narcissistic pain' -- and based upon these two primary distinctions, all other resulting distinctions, start to fall in line...

At birth, and for the first little while, all 'ethics' is 'narcissistic ethics'. Even 'love' is built from narcissism: In order for me to 'love' you, you have to be 'narcissistically important to me'.

That might be putting it crudely, but, only slightly modified, put it this way: How can you love someone who is not important to you?

'Splits' in the personality start to arise in the personality for perhaps a varitey of reasons, three of which I can easily speak of and which often interact with each other:

1. Functional usefulness and 'the increasing specialization' of labour within the confines of the personality;

2. Traumacy -- and 'traumatic learning' -- which within the confines of Gap-DGB Personality Theory will often be called 'transference learning' (Freudian influence), 'lifestyle learning' (Adlerian influence), and/or 'transference-lifestyle learning' (Freudian-Adlerian dialectically integrative influence).

3. 'Social Learning' -- which may or may not 'fit' with 'personal, experiential learning'.  For example, if Victorian society taught people 'not to masturbate' (for fabricated and/or ignorant reasons such as 'you'll go insane' or 'your thing will fall off' or 'you'll develop neursosis like neurastenia' (see definition below)...and meanwhile, people -- both men and women -- are finding by personal experience that masturbation can be intensely pleasurable, then you are quite likely to see the beginning of a 'general split and dissociation (see definition below) in the individual and/or collective cultural personality between what society on the one  hand is teaching you is 'wrong' and what your body, on the other hand, is telling you is....oh, so 'right'...

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Neurasthenia

Neurasthenia is a psycho-pathological term first used by George Miller Beard[1] in 1869 to denote a condition with symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, headache, neuralgia and depressed mood.[footnotes 1][citation needed] It is currently a diagnosis in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (and in the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders, translated as 神经衰弱). However, it is no longer included as a diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Americans were supposed to be particularly prone to neurasthenia, which resulted in the nickname "Americanitis"[2] (popularized by William James). Today, the condition is still commonly diagnosed in Asia.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Dissociation

Dissociation is a partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s conscious or psychological functioning.[1] Dissociation can be a response to trauma or drugs and perhaps allows the mind to distance itself from experiences that are too much for the psyche to process at that time.[2] Dissociative disruptions can affect any aspect of a person’s functioning.[3][4][5][6] Although some dissociative disruptions involve amnesia, the vast majority of dissociative events do not.[7] Since dissociations are normally unanticipated, they are typically experienced as startling, autonomous intrusions into the person's usual ways of responding or functioning. Due to their unexpected and largely inexplicable nature, they tend to be quite unsettling.

Different dissociative disorders have different relationships to stress and trauma.[8] Dissociative amnesia and fugue states are often triggered by life stresses that fall far short of trauma.[9][10] Depersonalization disorder is sometimes triggered by trauma, but may be preceded only by stress, psychoactive substances, or no identifiable stress at all.[11]

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dgb...cont'd...

I call the 'Chaotic Unconscious (CU)' --  i.e., part of the initial birthplace of the personality -- by a second name -- the 'Undifferentiated Apeiron (UI)', in respect t how much influence the 2550 year old Greek dialectic philosopher -- Anaxamander -- has had on my work. However, there are also Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, and Gestalt influences in everything I have written above.

Next up in the evolutionary development of the personality is 'The Genetic Self (GS)'.
This concept of the GS incorprates two Jungian concepts together -- The Self, and The Collective Unconscious.

The first Jungian concept -- The Self -- pertains to what some might call a 'God-and/or Nature given template' in the personality -- a propensity for passion, energy, and/or ability in a certain direction...

With the birth of the organism and the unique individual personality within the organism, The Genetic -- Potential, Unactualized -- Self starts off as 'pure potential possibility' with a propensity for movement in a certain direction....

But this state of 'purest state of potential energy' is very short-lived, indeed, the baby is already conscious and moving in the womb, and then once it is born, the newborn baby emits its first 'outside world' movement, its first cry -- the first 'outer world transfer' of potential to kinetic energy in the newborn organism.

Ideally speaking, we all have the potential -- as we come into our new world -- to be the next 'Michael Jordan' in whatever the realm of our 'greatest potential energy, passion, and/or ability' may be.

Sometimes our energy, passion, and ability may not be ideally connected -- and/or they may become connected through some 'accident' or 'traumacy' in life -- the beginning of a 'transference-lifestyle complex' -- which then may steer our passion, energy, and ability down a certain path that may not have been 'figural' to us, and 'fixated' within us, before...

When our Genetic Self meets our 'Archetype Ideals' and/or 'Transference-Lifestyle Complexes', complete with unbelievable 'compensations' and 'overcompensations' of energy and passion -- at this point, huge things can start to happen, either good and/or bad, depending on either the path we end up taking through life, and/or the level of 'extremism' with which we take this path.  The seeds of greatness in a person are often also the seeds of self-destruction -- or some compromised mixture of both.

The path of a person's 'Transference-Lifestyle Complex (his or her 'TLC') is often the path of a 'Superman' or 'Superwoman' if it is passionate and energetic enough. Now in some cases, depending on individual circumstance, a TLC may also 'block personal growth'. This may be the path of the alienated person whose TLC may stand in the way as a 'blockage' between his Central Ego and his Genetic Self (GS). 

Everything is subject to individual case and circumstance  which is why such  Freudian overgeneralizations, or at least one-sided and tilted generalizations, as 'The Oedipal Complex', 'Childhood Sexuality', and 'Fantasy Theory' need to be integrated with his earlier 'Traumacy and/or Seduction Theory', not polarized against a theory that Freud once believed in as passionately as he later came to believe in The Oedipal Complex, Childhood Sexuality, and Fantasy Theory.

We will continue the development of this essay in Part 3.

-- dgb, Jan. 23rd, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

-- Are Still in Progress...

An Introduction -- and Overview -- To Gap-DGB Philosophy-Psychology and Personality Theory (Part 1)

There are a number of ideas that I would like to quickly summarize within the confines of this essay, at least one of which is brand new for me, others which have been with me for varying lengths of time -- 10, 20, 30, even 40 years.

Let's start with the brand new idea. I heard an NBA player on tv the other day talking about an 'arc' in a player's evolutionary development.

I said to myself, 'Now there is an idea that I like -- and well worthy of bringing into the creative mix of Hegel's Hotel.'

Being 55 years old, and partly in the midst of a 'post-mid-life crisis', also having battled the flu for going on 3 weeks now, one gets some personal insight into the idea of 'organismic efficiency and inefficiency'.

Facebook provides a rare insight in terms of 'the juxtaposition of different generations' all on the same social network, and often 'chatting' side by side in the same venue, fully illustrating some of the different 'subjective frames of interest' that go hand in hand with the different generations, the different age groups.

It's like the book 'Passages' for anyone who might remember and/or read that book when it first came out. Extrapolating from this book, we can distinguish between 'unique, individual mindsets', 'cultural mindsets', 'political mindsets', 'religious mindsets', 'economic mindsets -- and 'generaltional mindsets'.

Referring to the latter, I look at the lates 'profile picture' of my son and his new girlfriend, or a day or so previously, my son and his cousin, and they look like 'models off the cover of a magazine'. (For this oldtimer, I think of The Rolling Stones song, 'Little Queenie', written by Chuck Berry...

................................................................................

Chuck Berry)

I got the lumps in my throat
When I saw her coming down the aisle
I gets the wiggles in my knees
When she looked at me and sweetly smiled
There she is again standing over by the record machine
Oooh, she's looking like a model on the cover of a magazine
Why she's too cute to be a minute over seventeen

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Juxtaposed beside these pictures are the generally much less flattering pictures (I will speak for myself primarily here because some of my friends look much better than I do, and after it is all said and done, it is the underlying relationship that still stands the test of time some 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years later and beyond that is a much better barometer of the relationship than the 'shock of the aging process' that we see in both ourselves and our friends who we may have known as far back as when we were kids in high school, or when we worked together at a time when the testosterone and estrogen was 'filling the air'... (and had pictures to rival the ones that we now see in our kids 20 or 30 years later).

You look back at some of the 'peak moments' in your life -- let's use the barometer of 'phsyical energy, skills, and achievement' here for the moment -- in my own case, back to a time when I ran-walked one of the early 'Miles for Millions' marathons that at the time was more than 30 miles (not kilometres), in about 6 hours, or 'led off a baseball game by hitting an 80 mile an hour fast ball for a homerun at a park that I still go by now and again at Islingtion and Bloor in the west end of Toronto... Or when I caught a softball in a company pick up game, racing straight back and catching it over my head like the 'famous Willie Mays World Series catch' (well, maybe I didn't travel quite that far back but I had a cup of beer in my other hand!)...

We all can do the same if we want to travel down memory lane...

But anyways, you may start to get the idea of what is meant by 'the arc of life (and death)' -- the idea that we start life in a more or less 'chaotic state', a bundle full of largely unorganized energy except relative to those 'needs' that are 'most pertinent' and 'figural' to a newborn baby who is trying to stay alive...

In tennis, I heard the other day, that a professional tennis player generally peaks around 24 years old -- this is generally the top of his or her 'tennis arc' -- and by 29 this arc is generally on a 'downward movement towards more energy inefficiency'' as younger, more 'energy efficient' players generally start to take their place at the 'top of the tennis arc'. Rafael Nadel is 24 years old right now and ranked the number 1 tennis player in the world; he took over 'the top of the arc' from the previous number 1 tennis player, Roger Federer, who is now ranked number 2 in the world, and who dominated the tennis scene in his younger 20s. He is 29 years old right now.

Now, there will always be those excpetions of people who somehow manage to defy the 'normal age barrriers' but usually they have to do it through 'extra hard work', or in some cases, partly with 'money'.

You take what I just said about the 'arc of life' -- and in some cases we may even be able to talk about 'two or more arcs of life' --  and now you go back to some of Freud's earliest influences from 'physics', laws that he learned about 'Thermogenics' -- primarily, 1. 'The Conservation of Energy'; and 2. 'Entropy' -- and you can see how these two laws affected/influenced his work throughout his life, even after he had long left the study of physics.

The idea that I have been discussing above pertaining to 'the arc of life' is associated with the law of entropy -- the idea 'that we come from the earth when we are born and we return to the earth when we die'. ('Dust unto dust...')

I don't profess to be any particular religious follower, other than for comparisons and contrasts in ideas, but in this case, science and religion at least partly meet...


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Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

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Entropy...From Wikipedia...

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that is a measure of the energy not available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when converting energy to work. During this work entropy accumulates in the system, but has to be removed by dissipation in the form of waste heat.


The concept of entropy is defined by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of a closed system always increases. Thus, entropy is also measure of the tendency of a process, such as a chemical reaction, to be entropically favored, or to proceed in a particular direction. It determines that thermal energy always flows spontaneously from regions of higher temperature to regions of lower temperature, in the form of heat. These processes reduce the state of order of the initial systems, and therefore entropy is an expression of disorder or randomness. This model is the basis of the microscopic interpretation of entropy in statistical mechanics describing the probability of the constituents of a thermodynamic system to be occupying accessible quantum mechanical states, a model directly related to the information entropy.




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dgb...

Unless you have studied physics seriously, I don't expect you to understand all of this -- I certainly don't -- but it gives you the gist of what 'entropy' is all about: the idea of energy being lost in an energy-producing system over time due to increasing inefficiency in the system -- and thus, an increase in the 'waste of incoming raw potential energy' that is less and less efficiently turned into 'work or kinetic energy'', due to such things as 'aging', 'oxidation', the breakdown of organ systems and their processes, decreases in cell production, changes in cell structure, and 'the arc of life'...

Ain't life peachy....If you are my age, or closing in on it, look what you have to look forward to....if you are my parents age, then you know by personal experience how much worse it can get...but I don't think I need to worry about getting to their age...I'm still skeptical that I will make 60.

So let us turn our attention away from 'physical energy' and into the realm of 'mental energy' -- like Freud did in his early professional years.

Fortunately, in the realm of 'mental energy', I think we all have the potential for a much longer 'arc of life'. The memory cells may be fewer and further between -- less efficient than they used to be in my best 'dispatching years' -- but still, in terms of mental energy, I stil feel like I am 'at the top of my game, the top of my arc', especially when you add the accumulation of valuable knowledge and experience that you potentially gain with every new day of life. As long as you can still do something with it...

What does 'Gap' mean in 'Gap-DGB' Psychology and Personality Theory?

It is a very important part of the equation here and can be associated to 'Nietzsche's Abyss' -- the abyss that separates 'being' from 'becoming'.

'Gap' also refers to the gap that separates 'potential energy' from 'kinetic energy'.

How efficient is my 'energy conversion'?

How efficient is your energy conversion?

I have a thought in my head. Consider my thought to be 'potential energy'.

As soon as my thought -- in the case of this essay -- has been comitted to paper in an organized and coherent fashion, then a 'bridge' has been built, and travelled over, between potential energy and kinetic energy, between being and becoming.

I have traversed over top of  Nietzsche's Abyss.

If my essay falls through,

Or in any other life goal,

There isn't a successful conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy.

Then we can say,

That there was a 'fall into Nietzsche's Abyss',

Although you can fall into Nietzsche's Abyss by acting 'non-prudently' as well,

But in general,

The rise of the 'Superman' or 'Superwoman', 

Requires a 'successful transference of potential energy to meaningful kinetic energy -- and successful love and/or work.'

Now what does the 'DGB' stand for...

Aside from the initials of my name,

'DGB', as you can see at the bottom of most of my essays,

Stands for 'Dialectic-Gap-Bridging'...

In other words, it stands for traversing over top of Nietzsche's Abyss...

From converting potential energy to kinetic energy,

From converting being to becoming...

It stands for a measure of 'energy conversion efficiency'...

And defeating entropy...


-- Another Nietzschean Abyss...

-- Has,  for the moment, 

-- Been Successfully, 

-- Traversed...

Hegel's Hotel: Table of Contents...and Links....

Hegel's Hotel: Where Philosophers and Psychologists, Past and Present -- Meet

Main Lobby

ML1:  Introductory Essays For Guests to Hegel's Hotel

Link: http://hegelshotel-dgbn-topdog.blogspot.com/

Mezzanine Level

ML2: More Introductory Essays on The Multi-Dialectic, Post-Hegelian Perspective/Paradigm

Link: http://hegelshotel-dgbn-introductions.blogspot.com/

Basement Level

BL5: Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology: Soap-Operas in The Sky...and on Earth

Link: http://hegelshotel-dgbn-history.blogspot.com/

BL4: The Pre-Socratic, Ancient Greek Dialectic Philosophers

BL400: Overview: Meet The Earliest, Ancient Dialectic Philosophers

BL401: Anaximander: http://hegelshotel-dgbn-emaildebates1-2.blogspot.com/

BL402: Heraclitus:

BL403: Parmenides:  

BL3: The Ancient Chinese Philosophers: Lao Tse, The Han Philosophers...

BL2: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle

BL1: Post-Aristotlean Roman Philosophy

On Hegelian Philosophy and Tragedy....Thoughts From 2008....

david gordon bain says:


7/5/2008 at 6:51 pm

“The tragedy in the realm of the ethical is to fall between the spell of two equal moral imperatives; thus the subject is constrained by the inextricable fate of failure no matter which he might choose.”

Unless a creative synthesis can be arrived at that circumvents the prospective tragedy on either or both ends of the apparent paradox/ impasse.

david gordon bain, author of dgb philosophy

Reply

david gordon bain says:

8/11/2008 at 7:25 pm

Step outside the realm of the ethical — or at least partly — and you have sufficient room for an even greater human tragedy — whether you choose to call it an ancient Greek tragedy as expounded on later by Nietzsche with a strong Hegelian influence or you choose to believe that these are all simply different archetype examples of what is an inherent division or contradiction in the human psyche — specifically the ethical vs. the unethical, the moral vs. immoral, the narcissistic vs. the anti-narcissistic…

Here the moral imperative — or shall I say dilemma — is simply this: to transgress or not to transgress; to be selfish or to restrain myself on the grounds that my behavior could either hurt somebody else, particularly someone I care deeply about, and/or in the end, it could hurt me more than the simple adventure into unbridled pleasure is worth…

To finish with a Shakespearean flourish — that is the question.

There is no template answer.

As Kierkegaard woud say: either/or.

It’s your life, your decision, your accountability — both to yourself and others. Self-assertiveness, passion, and compassion for others are all important. Choose.

– david gordon bain, Aug. 11th, 2008.

Reply

David Gordon Bain says:

11/9/2008 at 8:35 am

Life is a pendulum swing between 'balance' and 'unbalance', between stretching in different degrees towards one particular brand of extremism, before reaching a point of judgment where one decides that one has had enough of that, and then swinging back again towards the middle, if not past the middle point and out towards the opposite polarity. This pendulum process of life never stops.

This is the Hegelian (or post-Hegelian) 'life-cycle' of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis — then start the whole process over again, ideally at a higher state of experience and wisdom but that is certainly not guaranteed because man has a high propensity for narcissism, greed, love, ***, jealousy, envy, hate, unilateralism, power, revenge, imperialism, '*** for tat', destruction, and self-destruction. These factors inevitably undermine the 'ideal' element in the Hegelian evolutionary life cycle, undermine the 'learning from history' factor — and, indeed, add a very common 'tragic' element to the whole process — life and death, evolution and regression, continually hanging in the balance of man's individual and/or collective, reason and/or stupidity.

There is no way of predicting whether man will learn — and/or not learn — individually and/or collectively — from his or her earlier acts of transgression and/or narcissistic/righteous stupidity.

This adds an 'existential, free-will' component to any Hegelian thought of 'predictable historical determinism'.

– dgb, Nov. 9th, 2008.

David Gordon Bain, author of 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy'

Notes On The Anaximander Essays....

The four essays on Anaximander that can be found below are meant to be provocative and controversial....but at the same time stimulating and partly new in their implications...

As a foundational base, I invite you  to read the notes on Anaximander that can be found on Wikipedia....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximander...

Or in any of the other articles that can be  found on the internet today that will give you a basic understanding of his philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/anaximan/

I have taken what was written in these articles, expanded on them, connected them to the evolutionary development of dialectic philosophy and psychology over some 2550 years, particular since Hegel published his famous philosophical treatise, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit (Mind) in 1807, and the developments that happened both in philosophy and then clinincal psychology from then to 2010 today.

Some readers might think that I have gone too far in stretching Anaximander's philosophical ideas to today's philosophy and psychology; others may see the associations I make quite easily and 'go with my flow'...

You can read the Anaximander essays either from top to bottom or bottom to top keeping in mind the dates they were written because the essays are not necessarily presented in chronological order. There is a certain overlap or redundancy in these essays as I strive to convey my message as simply and clearly as possible in slightly different ways. The redundancy may not necessarily be a bad thing as what I am not able to effectively communicate in one essay you may be able to pick up better in one of the other essays.

What I am trying to show above all else is that there is a 'geneological dialectical philosophy tree' that starts in Anaxamander's philosophy (even before that in ancient Greek mythology) and emphasizes the idea of 'bi-polar opposites' and this idea runs for about 2565 through both Western and Eastern philosophy to the present.

In clinical psychology diagnoses and circles, we hear the very common diagnostic term these days -- 'bi-polar disorder' which used to go by the previous name of 'manic-depression'.

It is this associative connection between ancient Greek mythology, Anaxamander's ancient pre-Socratic philosophy, and today's clinical psychology diagnostic terms, concepts, and the phenomena they are meant to represent that I am aiming to bridge in the four or more essays that you can read below.

This 'philosophical and psychological associative link' from Ancient Greece to the present will take us through the philosophies of Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida, as well as through the psychologies of Freud, Jung, Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Berne, Perls, Masson, and others...

It is a long road, a long geneological path...

And it starts in ancient Greek mythology,

And then branches out into the philosophy of Anaximander,

And those that follow him,

As I start to layout in the four Anaximander essays below...

I find it a fascinating, exciting journey...

I hope you will too...

-- dgb, Jan. 16th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

-- Are Still in Progress...

Room 304: Why Anaximander is One of The Most Important Philosophers in Western Philosophy (and How His Primitive, Archaic -- But Inherently Brilliant -- Ideas Are Still Being Used)

October 26th, 2010...



I have reached a point in my self studies in philosophy where I have at least a pretty solid basic overall knowledge of most of the history and evolution of Western philosophy...


And one thing, one point, keeps coming back to me over and over again...


The second oldest recognized philosopher in Western history -- one Mr. (or shall I give him the post-humous respect that he deserves and say 'Dr.') Anaxamander who philosophized in the late 500 BC years -- in my opinion is still not given his rightful due respect as one of the greatest philosophers in Western history....comparable to Lao Tse or Confucous in Eastern Philosophy, and even though his work is very sparse, vague, and fragmented, what remains of it, if interpreted in the right light -- and of course I have 'the right light' -- is in essence a philosophical masterpiece, both a precursor of, and the philosophical equivalent for such an early age, of Hegel's much, much more fully recognized and honoured 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1804).


In short, Anaxamander's philosophy was a 500 BC 'roughly construed' template or archetype of 'The Phenomemology of Spirit' some 2300 years plus before the 'real Hegelian thing' came into published existence in 1804.


In fact, it is quite possible that Anaxamander invented the word 'arche' (see....http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Bios/Anaximander.html) which means basically 'first principle' as in the word 'archetype' which would become an indispensible word in Jungian Psychology some 2400 years plus... (more on the connection between Anaxamander and Jungian Psychology below...)

Anaxamander has been connected to 'evolutionary theory' and has been called the first 'evolutionist' because he believed that men evolved from fish. Not bad for someone thinking some 2550 years ago!

Here is how Anaxamander was smarter than all the other Pre-Socratic philosophers, most of whome were looking for the 'ultimate primordial archetype substance of life'...

Thales said 'water' was the first primal 'cause' of life...

Anaxamenes said 'air' was the first primal 'cause' of life...

Heraclitus said 'fire' was the first primal 'cause' of life....


But Anaxamander -- who fit in there historically right after Thales -- was sharper than all the other Pre-Socratics when he argued that each one of these so-called (in my words, not theirs) 'primordial, archetypal life substances' was in essence 'restricted by its particular molecular structure and boundaries' (again, my 21st century words, not in Anaxamander's 500 BC vocabulary ) that precluded the evolutionary existence and/or development of all the others...thus, none of these particular substances in themselves ('water', 'air', or 'fire') could be the 'primordial, archetypal life substance' that they were all looking for...

There had to be some larger, over-riding principle and/or 'structure' that contained them all, and in particular, 'contained all of the opposites' that Anaxamander saw around him in life...

Anaxamander conceptualized and named this 'over-riding, infinite storage structure' of all of 'life's (and death's) chaotic, unorganized, undifferentiated opposite structural and dynamic pieces' -- 'The Apeiron'...

Now I will argue right here and now -- and I will argue in front of any other philosopher -- that 'The Apeiron' -- as archaic as the concept may appear to us at first glance now -- was, and is, the most important concept that was ever invented in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy. More important than any concept that Socrates or Plato or Aristotle created...We will come back to Lao Tse, Heraclitus, and Spinoza because they had some important conceptual insights into this same 'life mystery' that Anaxamander was shining his philosophical light on...


What Anaxamander had his conceptual finger on was an idea that was superior to Darwin's theory of evolution and far superior to his own idea that 'man evolved from fishes'....

I will give Anaxamander's philosophical and cosmological theory a 21st century name and call it 'binary evolution theory' or 'multi-dialectic theory'.

Anaxamander, in essence, was the 'Hegel' of Pre-Socratic times...Hegel some 2300 years plus before the real Hegel published 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'...and Heraclitus, like Lao Tse in The East, added one more essential piece to Anaxamander's 'binary theory of evolution' that was indispensible to Anaxamander's 'binary evolution theory' that he didn't get to -- and that was/is the theory of 'homeostasis' or 'homeostatic balance' or 'equilibrium'...which Walter Bradford Cannon would 'formalize' some 2500 years later in modern medicine in his classic book called 'The Wisdom of The Body' (1932)...


We could almost say that Heraclitus' philosophical relationship to his (indirect?) teacher, Anaxamander, was similar to Marx's philosophical relationship to his main (indirect) teacher -- Hegel. Except the relationships were essentially different. Marx turned Hegel's idealistic dialectic philosophy upside down and made it both 'materialistic' and 'one-sided towards the political left' whereas Heraclitus both learned from Anaxamander, indeed, added an essential component to Anaxamander's theory of binary evolution (homeostasis or equilibrium) but Heraclitus was not as 'visionary' a philosopher as Anaxamander was. Anaxamander had a 'better overall philosophical world picture' of how everything in life and death came together -- and blew apart -- Anaxamander saw the 'competition of opposites' and their 'will to defeat each other' whereas Heraclitus saw the 'attraction of opposites', how they needed each other to survive and evolve which is the one part of Anaxamander's binary evolution theory that he missed -- i.e., the 'attraction and need of opposites for each other'...


Anaxamander saw only how opposites tried to conquer and destroy each other like 'Sparta' and 'Athens' continually tried to conquer and destroy each other. Anaxamander didn't see how Sparta and Athens 'needed each other' to fend of 'outside threats'...like 'the Persian Army'.

Which brings us to another important Western philosophical, psychological, and political concept that has taken thousands of years to develop -- another essential part of DGB Multi-Dialectic Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...just like the concept of 'binary or dialectic evolution' -- and that is the concept of 'binary or dialectic negotiation, integration -- and unity'. A totally Hegelian concept (with the name being added here within the confines of 'Hegel's Hotel').


So Anaxamander saw the 'competition of opposites' whereas Heraclitus saw the 'co-operation of opposites' -- both essential ideas in 'the geneological conceptual tree' that branches from Anaxamander (the main 'tree trunk'), to Heraclitus, to Spinoza, to Kant, to Fichte, to Schelling, to Hegel, to Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy) to Freud, to Jung, to Perls, to Foucault, to Derrida, ...and all the way up to 21st century philosophy -- and DGB 'Multi-Dialectic or Binary Evolution and Homeostatic Theory'...

Schelling is basically a 'dialectic' version of Spinoza. I love them both for what they accomplished philosophically -- and spiritually. Spinoza was a 'philosophical bridge' between religion and science -- but nobody, even in 'the philosophically liberal' country of Holland at the time, could see Spinoza's integrative brilliance. All they could 'smell' in Spinoza's spiritual brand of 'wholistic philosophy and religious-scientific pantheism' was a 'sneaky form of atheism'. And Spinoza is lucky that that 'particular Church judged perspective' of his philosophy at the time didn't get him killed. It did get him 'ex-communicated' from both the Judist Church and his community. Spinoza was not the first or the last philosophical genius to be rejected by his community.


Creative brilliance is the birth child of three things:


1. An unusual -- and sometimes shocking -- organization of The 'Apeiron-Chaotic-Shadow Self';

2. An unusual integration of the ideas of others before you who you have learned from;


3. 'Thinking outside the box' in both the above respects...


Either some people have it and some people don't, and/or we all potentially 'have it' except some people are more 'suppressed' and 'repressed' by 'the philosophy of the herd'...


What was Spinoza's religious crime?


I partly cry for the man who had the courage in the 1600s to say...'God is in everything'...(and everyone)...God is both our Creator and our Creation...The two are mutually indispensible parts of each other...Spinoza was Heraclitus partly reincarnated except Spinoza was a far gentler man than Heraclitus was and Heraclitus was a 'dialectic philosopher' whereas Spinoza wasn't...They were both 'pantheists' in that they both 'saw God in everything'...all of life's Creations...)


Wow! What a brilliant concept! But how do we bring this concept back to Anaxamander?


By means of the psychological concepts of 'introjection' and 'projection'...


Man is the Ultimate Projector...He (and she) projects him and herself into EVERYTHING!!

Into 'God'...into other 'people'...into 'structures' and 'statues'...into 'animals'...into 'art'...into 'philosophy' and 'psychology' and 'politics' and 'architecture' and 'culture' and 'religion'...Wherever man goes, whatever he sees, he 'projects him/herself into his outer environment'....

In this regard, man also is 'the Ultimate Narcissist' -- man is the legend of Narcissus -- he looks into the pond and sees his reflection, he looks into everything and everyone and sees a reflection of him or herself...he or she just doesn't always know that they are doing this -- about 80 or 90 percent of the time (unless you teach yourself how to 'catch your projections' -- this 'cognitive process' is carried out almost entirely un(sub)consciously...

Now, how can all of this -- Spinoza, Schelling, pantheism, projection and introjection, archetypes, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Foucault, Derrida... -- be tied and integrated back to Anaxamander?

You've got to think outside the box...or perhaps, rather, 'inside the box' where all others are 'thinking outside the box'...

The 'Apeiron' can be defined as 'Primordial, Archetypal Undifferentiated Binary Chaos'...in the process of becoming differentiated -- and then 'shot into the world'...


And this 'Primordial, Archetypal, Undifferentiated Binary Chaos differentiating into binary opposition'...Is Not Only Outside of Us...It Is Also Inside of Us!!!
Freud called 'it' -- i.e., our 'Internal Apeiron' -- 'The Id'...

Jung called 'it' -- again, our 'Internal Apeiron' -- 'The Shadow'...


And the 'Id-Shadow-Primordial Binary Self' is an 'Internal Mass of Undifferentiated, Disorganized, Opposing, Social and/or Anti-Social, Loving and/or Hating, Kind and/or Evil Thoughts, Ideas, Impulses, Feelings, Talents, Skills, Potentials...Waiting to be differentiated, expressed, rise to the surface of the personality, and/or stay underneath and manipulate the personality from underneath...'Satan', 'Dionysus', 'Hell', 'Hades', all different concepts, ideas, Gods, myths, mythologies, symbols, projections...aimed at describing our darkest, inner primordial selves...and the clash between 'God' and 'Satan' -- our inner most beautiful and most evil selves...Satan evicted from God's Kingdom...and forever alienated, disavoved, always looking to strike back at the God, the man, the part of his Dialectical Binary Self that rejected him and kicked him out of 'Heaven'....which is the 'Spirit and The Soul of The Self in Dialectical Unity, Wholism, and Peace with him or herself...which is then 'projected' out into the 'community', or conversely, the 'disavowed and rejected internal Shadow of ourselves -- whether it be the metaphorical, symbolic, mythological 'Dionysus' or 'Satan' or whoever....'projects' his rejected, sad, mad, and/or blatantly evil Satanic Self back out into the World, The Heaven, that rejected him...
And this, my dear readers, is the essential 'geneological tree' that connects Anaxamander to me...through all the rest of the philosophers who I may or may not have mention along the way...


Regardless of whether my 'lofty, unorthodox vision' of man, life, and evolution is viewed as 'creatively brilliant' or 'outrageously stupid', I could not have developed this vision without all of the philosophers and psychologists who I have read and who I hold the greatest of respect for...


I love my parents and their 'Protestant religious beliefs' -- and how they apply them in their day to day lives...


But my interpretration of 'The Bible' changed in university -- decades ago, in the 1970s, if only in its initial percolating form -- the day I opened Erich Fromm's 'The Forgotten Language' (1951) and read how he interpreted The Bible 'metaphorically' and 'mythologically' rather than 'literally'.


It is the 'Fromm-Jung-Freud-Schelling-Spinoza-Heraclitus-Anaxamander' Connection that has just a few minutes ago resulted in my creation of perhaps one of the most  unorthodox, shocking interpretations of 'The Cross' that you may ever get...and it is not meant to offend anyone, regardless of your religious or non-religious mindset...


In this DGB 'Dialectical-Humanistic-Existential-Pantheist' interpretation of The Cross...


1. You have 'God' at the top of The Cross...symbolizing both the 'highest of man's rational, sane, humane, self and social ideals' as well as the 'highest of man's creative and humanistic-existential potentials'....paradoxically and ironically representative in this regard also of Nietzsche's (paraphrased) 'Will To Creative Self-Empowerment'...

2. You have 'Satan' at the bottom of The Cross...symbolizing both man's inherent potential for 'assertive, unorthodox opinions, perspectives, and lifestyles' (which may not necessarily be bad but still perceived as 'bad enough' to be 'disavowed, dissociated, alienatated from society') and for what Satan is usually most symbolized for -- mans' potential for Evil against both himself and/or others which is usually arrived at through some radical internal combination of 'trauma', 'rejection', 'abandonment', 'betrayal', 'alienation', 'disavowal', 'internal dissociation', 'righteousness', and 'narcisissm'...

3. On the 'right' side of The Cross, you have 'Apollo' symbolizing man's 'most Logical, Rational, Just and Fair, Equal Rights and Democracy Oriented, Enlightened Self'...

4. On the 'left' side of The Cross you have 'Dionysus' symbolizing man's most 'Sensual, Sexual, Romantic, Creative, Irrational, Unpredictable, Romantic Self'...

5. Finally, in the middle of The Cross, you have 'Jesus' who can represent either of two things: 1. 'the Integrative, Harmonious, Peaceful, Dialectically Unified Self'; and/or 2. 'The Crucified, Internal, Strife and Conflict-Ridden, Alienated, Disavowed Self', the Ultimate Symbol of Man's Internal and External Propensity for Fear, Anger, Rage, Violence, War...When The Personality Is Not Dialectically Connected and At Peace and Harmony With Itself...


The first symbolization of Jesus is probably closer to a 'Christian' symbolization of Jesus (introjected and integrated into the personality and the Self); the second symbolization is a symbolization of Jesus' victimization by his fellow man (and/or by Himself)' when He failed at His -- which is now 'our' -- task of integrating peacefully both within ourselves and within our community of others...


I will let you chew on this essay for a while...


-- dgb, Oct. 26th, 2010,


-- David Gordon Bain,


-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

Room 303: Anaximander's Ancient, Cosmic Multi-Bi-Polar, Power-Drama Philosophy

Most students of philosophy do not appreciate just how brilliant -- Anaxamander -- the second oldest known philosopher in both Greek and Western Civilization, and his dialectic conception of the cosmic world, was -- and still is. Anaxamander was the king of the Pre-Socratic philosophers....In fact, I will be very bold and go one step further. Anaxamander's cosmic philosophy -- as primitive, archaic, and symbolic as it may have been -- is a more important conception of the cosmic world -- and the psychology of man -- than every part of Platonic philosophy except that part which indirectly builds from the multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar philosophy that Anaxamander laid down before him. Is that bold enough? Let me support my case.



We hear the words 'bi-polar this' and 'bi-polar that' these days...as in 'bi-polar, manic-depression' which used to be simply 'manic-depression' before psychiatrists and other mental health workers started to add the 'bi-polar personality' tag to it...


We hear this 'bi-polar personality' tag as a type of 'mental health pathology' and yet most of us -- including many if not most mental health workers do not properly understand....Man is full of 'multi-bi-polarities' and this is a normal part of healthy mental and physical and physiological and bio-chemical and organic and cosmic, natural processes...Protons (positive charges) and electrons (negative charges) coming together, and/or splitting apart, according to different positive or negative or neutral electrical charges...

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Atom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Atom (disambiguation).


The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense, central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons (except in the case of hydrogen-1, which is the only stable nuclide with no neutrons). The electrons of an atom are bound to the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. Likewise, a group of atoms can remain bound to each other, forming a molecule. An atom containing an equal number of protons and electrons is electrically neutral, otherwise it has a positive or negative charge and is an ion. An atom is classified according to the number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus: the number of protons determines the chemical element, and the number of neutrons determines the isotope of the element.[1]

The name atom comes from the Greek "ἄτομος"—átomos (from α-, "un-" + τέμνω - temno, "to cut"[2]), which means uncuttable, or indivisible, something that cannot be divided further.[3] The concept of an atom as an indivisible component of matter was first proposed by early Indian and Greek philosophers. In the 17th and 18th centuries, chemists provided a physical basis for this idea by showing that certain substances could not be further broken down by chemical methods. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, physicists discovered subatomic components and structure inside the atom, thereby demonstrating that the 'atom' was divisible. The principles of quantum mechanics were used to successfully model the atom.[4][5]

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dgb continued...

Medical conditions like high and low blood pressure, high and low blood sugar levels, hyper and hypothyroidism, acidic and alkaline blood levels...indicate that any and all body functions are based on the floating, ranging principle of a 'homeostatic, bi-polarity spectrum' where 'health' is usually found in 'the balanced middle'...

The same 'homeostatic priniciple' can easily be extended and applied to any and all life functions whether they be cognitive-mental-psychological functions on the inside looking out, or extending outwards into the respective and overlapping realms of the philosophical, the economic, the legal, the political and/or the aforementioned medical...Everything in the universe is based on the principle of 'bi-polarity'...In the realm of language, a word would not mean anything unless we could partly define it by contrasting it with its opposite word and concept...

The word and concept of 'light' would have no meaning if we did not understand, having directly experienced, the meaning of the concept of and the word 'dark'...

In summary, the world we live in is a world of 'multiple bi-polarities'...

In this regard, Anaxamander was the first Western philosopher to describe the world as a world of multiple bi-polarities competing against, and essentially trying to overpower each other...one dominating and the other sliding back into the Shadow, the undifferentiated Chaos of the 'Apeiron'...until the 'suppressed' polarity becomes 're-charged' and comes out of The Shadow to 're-compete' against the 'dominant-in-the-limelight' polarity that bring the two opposites together...Heraclitus, an indirect student of Anaxamander, would later add that 'opposites attract as well as repel each other'...

This dialectic cosmic philosophy of Anaxamander's was very, very modern -- and still is -- just as ancient Eastern philosophy would build from the twin dialectic or bi-polar concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' which would become one of the central features, if not the central feature, of much Eastern philosophy today -- particularly Taoism/Daoism. Again, the central feature here was one of 'homeostatic balance' between the 'masculine' characteristic of 'yang' and the 'feminine' concept of 'yin'....applied even to Eastern Medicine...which would become the central feature of the current North American 'Natural Health' industry...

Can you start to see how brilliant a concept -- or conceptuology or cosmology or cosmic philosophy -- that Anaxamander had latched onto and started to describe...some 2550 years ago!!!

It was so brilliant a cosmic philosophy that it contained the seeds of the brilliant philosophies and psychologies of Heraclitus, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, W.B. Cannon, Perls, Berne, Foucault, and Derrida hundreds and even thousands of years later...And that is just quickly off the top of my head...

The conceptuology and cosmic mythology-philosophy is so brilliant that it has been perculating in the depths of my subconscious for a number of years now and is about to become the focus of my mythological-philosophical model of the the human psyche...


Call this conceptuology 'Anaxamander's Multi-Bi-Polar (or Multi-Dialectic) Power-Drama' played out both inside and outside the human psyche...

-- dgb, November 22nd, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain

Room 302: A 21st Century Internalization of Anaximander's Ancient, Cosmic Multi-Bi-Polar Power-Drama Philosophy: Act 3

We are what we believe -- both internally and externally.



And Axamander -- the second oldest Greek and Western philosopher -- gave us a very primitive but very wise, and modern, 21st century cosmic philosophy that is well worth developing beyond its original scope.


In order to do this, we need to all look deep inside ourselves into the darkest regions of our own evolving, mythological, subconscious selves; not outside into the deepest, darkest, furthest, corner of the universe...


The outer universe is but a mirror to our inner souls -- and visa versa. The two are dialectic reflections of each other. God -- our Creator -- is in everything, and conversely, everything in us is a part of God's Individual and Universal Creation.


I am a multi-dialectic atheist, agnostic, pantheist, spiritualist, mythologist, and rational-empiricist -- all tied up into one.

And before you say that I am trumpeting a fully contradictory and inconsistent philosophy, I ask you to look inside yourself and see that you too are full of internal -- and externally applied contradictions...


Does that make us all hypocrites? Partly. It certainly makes us all internally bi-polar and -- and at different times, in different contexts -- contradictory.

Put it this way.

Man is a walking, talking, endless bundle of internal contradictions.

Too many to count them all...just note and classify them all, individually, or dialectically (bi-polarly) as they make their sudden or slowly evolving appearance...

If someone tries to tell me that 'God said this...'...or 'God said that...'

I become a rational-empiricist, a skeptic, a cynic, and a border-line atheist...

I have studied psychology long enough to know when I am listening to a 'projection'... (ascribing to someone or something else what we believe or what fits the characteristics of our one and only self...)

'Have some self-awareness and courage, man! Take ownership and accountability for your own opinion, your own belief -- don't try to lay it on God's plate and feed it to me as 'The Gospel'!

If someone asks me if I am an 'agnostic', I say, 'Yeah, I'm an 'agnositic'....Rationally and empirically, I don't know if or when or whether God exists or existed or not...except through my own idle speculations...I certainly haven't see God standing in front of me at any point in my life!!


Even the transition from speculating about 'Our Creator' to 'worshipping God' poses some huge potential problems...the idea of -- and a 'blind faith' in -- 'God' carries a lot more potential 'psychopathologies' within it than talking about the theory of 'Intelligent Design' and then perhaps an 'Intelligent Designer/Creator'....


Wherever and whenever there are great expectations, it is only a matter of time before there is likely to be a great 'reality crash' in these same 'over-idealized' expectations...


We fantasize perfections in others -- including God -- that we feel incapable or unwilling to live up to in ourselves...


It is easier to worship a God than it is to strive to be one...And by this I mean striving to live up to our 'God-given talents'.  (Which paradoxically takes me out of atheism, out of agnosticism, perhaps not out of pantheism but integrated with some sort of deism and/or religion.) Perhaps 'God' is our Creator, we are all a part of God in that we share a part of His/Her Creation in ourselves, some talents not unique, other talents definitely unique....and by living up to our God-given talents in a way that brings more goodness, peace, and harmony into the world, we are shining a light back on 'God' as our Creator....When we lose harmony both with ourselves and our fellow man, we also lose harmony with 'God'....But this type of spiritual or religous speculating is taking me away from my more 'rational-empirical-scientific' side...So I continue to fluctuate back and forth...
If you ask me whether I believe in God 'mythologically' and 'spiritually', this is where I get most excited...This is where most of my energy lies in 'bringing God to life' -- inside ourselves...

In this regard, if you go back to Greek and Roman mythology-philosophy as well as the beginning of the Roman-Christian religion, you will see that there seems to be a rather straight-forward evolution in Greek mythology from 'Zeus' to Roman mythology and 'Jupitor' to Christian religion and 'God'...
'Zeus-Jupitor-God' reflects the ongoing mythology of the 'Alpha-Male' -- worshipped by both men and women alike...

In contrast, the 'Jesus Christ' mythology reflects the bi-polarity of the 'Therapeutically Healing' but more 'Feminine Male'.

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With the 'Alpha-Male Mythology', we associate the characteristics of 'manliness', 'toughness', 'strength', 'courage', 'guts', 'balls', 'testosterone galore', 'leadership by strength'...and so on... The negative side of the 'alpah male mythology' is usually destructiveness, aggression, violence, no ability or willingness to listen, this is the alpha-male's 'achilles heel' if you will...


In contrast, with the 'Jesus Christ-Therapeutic (More Effeminate) Male Mythology' we associate such characteristics as peace and harmony, conflict-resolution, therapeutic healing, wholism, unity, as well as often 'martyrdom' as its potential negatively (and/or positively) perceived flipside.. and potential 'achilles heel'...


The negative, pathological alpha male self-destructs in the midst of destroying others...
(too much 'yang', not enough 'yin'...)

The negative, pathological effeminate, submissive male destroys himself through lack of sufficient self-assertion...(too much 'yin', not enough 'yang')

One of the main bi-polarities of man -- both men and women -- is their inherent psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical bi-sexuality -- the ongoing search for a balance between 'yin' and 'yang', between the more 'masculine' and 'feminine' characteristics within all of us, both male and female, as we all strive for 'dialectic wholism, unity, and harmony'...between often opposing, conflicting more 'masculine' and 'feminine' characteristics...


This is reflected in our past and present Greek, Roman, -- and even 'Christian' 'mythologies'...


Now, for our purposes here, there is one more important mythological figure that we need to talk about -- 'The Counter-Alpha-Male' (or Female for that matter).

In ancient Greek mythology, the Counter-Alpha-Male was played out by 'Dionysus' -- God of sensory pleasure, alcohol, group celebrations and dances, festivity, and liberal sexuality....In Roman mythology, Dionysus became known as 'Bachus'...

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BACHUS, BACUS. Bacchus is a Lydian name for Dionysus, the Thracian fertility god. A son of Jupiter, he later became the god of wine. Jupiter visited Semele, princess of Thebes, at night, and when she became pregnant, she asked to see his face. As he showed himself in thunder and lightning, she caught afire; thereupon, Jupiter ripped the infant out of her womb and placed him in his thigh, where he remained until he reached maturity. Ovid calls Bacchus "son of the thunderbolt, twice born" (Met IV.9-17; OM IV.1-118).
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The closest we have in the Christian religion to Dionysus and Bachus -- is probably 'Satan'....with perhaps a little more, or a lot more, added evil intent...Perhaps this was after 'The Fall of Rome' -- after the mythology of Dionysus/Bachus made a shamble out of Roman Civilization through hedonistic extremism...

In the Christian religion, 'Satan' is God's 'estranged, disavowed, and/or evicted angel' -- evicted from Heaven, so Satan 'set up shop' in 'Hell'...located in the fiery underground of the earth as opposed to the the peaceful Heavens and Skies...


Satan is partly a mythological extension of Dionysus/Bachus in his desire for pleasure and hedonism...but also righteous defiant and contemptful of God, and in this contemptful regard, downright evil, nasty, vengeful, and violent...towards the peace, harmony, and justice in God's Kingdom...Satan is the 'anti-thesis' of God...or the 'Anti-Christ'...in that Satan is just as defiant towards the 'attempted therapeutic healing' of Jesus Christ...


Into this partial mythological 'power-play' between different 'God's in the Greek Kingdom' (although the Roman and Christian aspects of it had not been fully developed yet), walks Anaxamander (about 610-546 BC)...with a fresh, rational-empirical, and scientific as well as a partly mythological brain...


Anaxamander's first main concept was 'The Apeiron' which might be equated today with our concept of 'The Universe'...or 'Undifferentiated Chaos' -- before the differentation and separtation of all earthly bi-polar opposites...


Thus, The Apeiron can be construed as the 'Chaotic-Shadow Birthplace of all life, matter, energy, bi-polar splits -- and underlying knowledge'...

Now look into the psychology of Freud and Jung, and we will see some strong similarities here between Anaxamander's concept of 'The Apeiron' and Freud's concept of 'The Unconscious' and later 'The Id' as well as Jung's concept of 'The Shadow'...


The Apeiron is the universal birthplace of 'undifferentiated opposites' (the bi-polar cosmic philosophy of Anaxamander).


DGB's extension and application of 'The Apeiron' into the psychology of Freud and Jung....

The Apeiron is the individual birthplace in 'The Unconscious-Id-Shadow (UIS)', of all undifferentiated opposite potentials, characteristics, beliefs, values, ideas...some of which proceed up to the 'upper echelons of the conscious personality' and others which stay back in the deep UIS -- The Apeiron -- as undeveloped, or suppressed, or repressed, or inferior, or estranged, or disavowed potentials that may stay down there for virtually one's whole life, or some could slowly evolve over time into more 'competent or even superior functions' and progress as such upwards into the conscious personality...

Finally, in some cases of 'neurotic or psycho-pathic pathology' or 'radical evolution', some characteristics could go 'screaming up to the top of the personality like a bolt of lightning', a thunderbolt from Zeus, or an erupting volcano, and/or a Dionysian-Bachusian -- even a 'Satanic' -- power-play, seemingly from the 'Depths of Hell'....One minute we are 'Dr. Jeckyl' and the next minute we are 'Mr. or Ms. Hyde'...One minute we are the very 'rational-empirical' Apollo, and the next minute we are the 'sensory seductive-sexual' Dionysus-Bachus...

Such is the Bi-Polar, Dialectic (Thesis/AntiThesis/Syntheis) Nature of Man seemingly pulled in, or from, two opposing directions, with opposite intentions, opposite beliefs and values, contradictory to the bottom core...the unique, individual context determining either the radical, extremist outcome of any internal 'power struggle' and/or 'the compromise-formation' between the two struggling 'mythological' and/or 'rational-empirical' antagonists -- whether they be Apollo and Dionysus-Bachus, Apollo and Aphrodite-Venus-Cupid-Psyche, God and Satan, Jesus Christ and Satan, Zeus and Hera...or whatever/whoever...

At the deepest, darkest, volcanic boiling caldron of our psyches, we are all a swirling mass of undifferentiated opposite potentials, contradictions, paradoxes, dichotomies...spiralling upwards into consciousness, or remaining hidden, but still potentially active, in the Shadows of our Apeiron-Id-Unconscious Self....


What comes next is the splitting of our Unconscious Self (US) -- and then our Conscious Ego (CE) -- into opposite, competing, attracting, repelling, compensating dominating or submissive or egalitarian parts...

As the atom can be split, so too can the US and the CE inside our personality, our psyche, through the process of both functional specialization and/or psychic trauma...

These psychic splits -- either conscious or unconscious or both -- fragment us into countless 'psychic dialectic or triadic ego-molecules' -- 'thesis' vs. 'anti-thesis' vs. 'compromise-formation' or 'synthesis/integration'...


Too many to count, our overall health hangs in the balance of their 'homeostatic (dialectic-triadic) balance...Are our opposite tendencies basically harmonious, peaceful, and integrated with each other? Or are they at wor with each other, with no conflict-resolution in sight?


In Gestalt Therapy, the standard, generic psychic split is conceptualized as being between 'topdog' and 'underdog'...In Freudian Psychology, there are numerous listed psychic splits such as between the 'conscious' and 'unconscious', between the 'primary process' and the 'secondary process', between the 'superego' and the 'id', between the 'life' and 'death' instinct', between the 'sex' and 'aggressive' instinct...between 'sadist' and 'masochist', between 'voyeur' and 'exhibitionist', between 'active' and 'passive'...and so on...

In Jungian Psychology, we have the split between 'personna' and 'shadow'...in Adlerian Psychology between 'inferiority feeling' and 'superiority striving'...(although Adler didn't call this a 'split'...he called it 'compensation'...)

In Object Relations, we have the split between 'external object' and 'internal object', between 'introjection' and 'projection', between 'rejecting object' and 'exciting 'object'...in Transactional Analysis we have the psychic split between 'The Nurturing Parent' and 'The Critical, Rejecting Parent'...We all have the split between the 'Adaptive Child' and 'The Free Child'...

And on it goes...more potential psychic splits than I -- or anyone else -- can possibly list and count here...some real, some arbitrarily conceptual...

The key to psychological growth and psychotherapy then becomes: To what extent do these 'psychic splits' work in harmony with each other to re-produce a 'balanced, functional triadic unit', in balance with other psychic triadic units, and working together towards an overall state of psychic-mental-emotional 'homeostatic balance' (peace and harmony both iside and outside the personality)?


Now I am not sure whether or not you followed me in that last paragraph but let me try to extrapolate on the implications and applications of what I just said. I'm partly over my head here because I do not know more chemistry, biology, physics, and bio-chemistry. But not entirely. Somebody with more knowledge in these three or four areas might be able to offer more technical details in what I am about to say.


Hegel's diaelctic formula -- thesis plus anti-thesis equals synthesis (oversimplified) -- has something profound to say about both energy and evolution theory, the two being inter-connected and bound together...Through dialectic energy, man -- and indeed all life -- both mutates and evolves on the one hand...and deconstructs on the other hand... (Freud's idea of the life and death instinct-force.)


For example, the combustion of ogygen in the mitochondria of each living cell creates the paradox of life and death at the same time....life through energy combustion...and death through the free radical and oxidation process...That is why we have a big 'health surge' to get more and more 'anti-oxidants' into our body to combat the deconstructive-destructive-death process of oxidation/free radicals destroying live cells...


There is a point at which the theory of Quantum Mechanics merges with Hegelian Dialectic Theory and this should not surprise us because all of life and death energy is tied up to Hegelian and/or post-Hegelian (Multi-) Dialectic Theory... If a wolf and coyote mate, the resulting offspring are going to have some of the characteristics of the wolf and some of the characteristics of the coyote. Each individual offspring is going to have its own unique blend of characteristics that will be partly similar, and partly different than each of its fellow siblings...as well as the father and mother...

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Particle-wave duality


Main article: Wave–particle duality

Quantum mechanics shows that light acts both as waves and as particles.Quantum mechanics reveals how subatomic particles can have wave-like properties and waves can have particle-like properties. This phenomenon is known as wave–particle duality. The explanation stems from a theory proposed by French physicist Louis de Broglie in 1924 that subatomic particles like electrons are associated with waves. Experiments later found he was correct: Electrons can bend around objects and can display wave shapes.[8]:6


Neither wave nor particle is an entirely satisfactory model to use in understanding light. Indeed, astrophysicist A.S. Eddington proposed in 1927 that "We can scarcely describe such an entity as a wave or as a particle; perhaps as a compromise we had better call it a 'wavicle' ".[10] This term was later popularised by mathematician Banesh Hoffmann.[11]:172

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If I am blending Freudian and Jungian Theory together in my work, I can guarantee you that it will not be exactly the same as any other Freudian-Jungian integration out there. Because the sum of my knowledge, experiences and particular integrations is both unique and constantly evolving as I evolve...Every new experience and/or piece of knowledge in my mind generates the possibility of a new blend, a new integration, and a direction or sub-direction to the already partly integrated theory...This process will never stop as long as I am alive, changing, and still writing...

'Dialectic energy' represents an 'uncertainty principle' because when two people meet together at any point in time you never know for sure what the net result of this meeting is going to be...Dialectic energy is the 'biochemical, physical, psychological, mental, and emotional energy generated between them -- that can not be predicted with any consistent deal of accuracy before they meet'.

Dialectic energy is the 'wave' that links two 'particles' (or people)...
Dialectic energy can be a mediating, compromising, democratic force...It is built into all democratic governments. When you don't have a mediating, compromising force, then you have the potential for a 'pathological' leader like we are seeing over there in North Korea....who is a walking, talking time bomb, or worse, a nuclear bomb waiting to happen....Dr. Strangelove with an itchy nuclear trigger finger who figures if he is going to go down, then he is going to take the world with him...


No dialectic energy, and cross-exchange of information, values, and saner opinions...and you have the potential for unmitigated righteousness, narcissism, and extremism projecting itself onto the world...


This is what happens when internal psychic splits work dysfunctionally against each other in ways that do not solve problems and/or resolve conflicts, but rather move the personality-and organism-as-a-whole towards some sort of impulsive insane action, and/or conversely, self-immobility (entropy, inaction, lethargy...)...Either path can lead sooner or later to destruction and/or self-destruction.


Thus the primary psychological question here becomes: How best to use our 'psychic bi-polar splits' to harmonize in the middle towards 'homeostatic (dialectic-democratic) balance -- which theologically speaking, we might call 'heaven'. Bi-polar righteous or narcissistic or suppressed or repressed pathology, conversely, can best be described as 'Hell'.


Sometimes the road to 'Heaven' goes through 'Hell'....

I'm not the first to say that...

-- dgb, Nov. 26th-27th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain,


-- dialectic gap bridging negotiations...

-- are still in process...