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...
