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sunday reading: Jung, a case for religion

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20 comments

  • jwb267
    WOW thats a lot of reading!!!!!
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by buschmaster
    And how do we know that such ideas are not true? Many people would agree with me if I stated flatly that such ideas are probably illusions. What they fail to realize is that the denial is as impossible to "prove" as the assertion of religious belief. We are entirely free to choose which point of view to take; it will in any case be an arbitrary decision.

    Jung in his usual manner confounds two distinct types of discourse, namely, the language of the laboratory and the language of the salon. When Jung states that the truth of some matter is secondary to its heuristic value or possible benefit derived, he is doing so not as a scientist, but as a lay person; and in this regard he is simply advantaging his repute in one area to weight a personal opinion in another, one for which the rigors of science obviously are not possible, much less relevant.

    Fact is, fostering a Santa Claus myth to get children to behave lest they get coal in their stocking is not the same as fostering a theist myth to get people to behave for similar purpose. The truth or lack of it as regards the Santa Claus myth is unimportant because very little hangs in the balance; not so with belief in dieties, which has real world repercussions and in whose belief and non-belief people have slaughtered one another for thousands of years, and this regardless of any personal benefits realized.

    That it is impossible to disprove something does not on that account add one iota of weight or truth or meaning to the thing so posited (you can say as much about unicorns and the Easter Bunny), and Jung certainly is not speaking as a scientist in this regard. Fact is, the imponderability of propositions is precisely what distinguishes parlor talk from science, and the text presented here rightfully ranks up there with The Star and People Magazine for information value.
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  • dcon12
    quote:Originally posted by DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by buschmaster
    And how do we know that such ideas are not true? Many people would agree with me if I stated flatly that such ideas are probably illusions. What they fail to realize is that the denial is as impossible to "prove" as the assertion of religious belief. We are entirely free to choose which point of view to take; it will in any case be an arbitrary decision.

    Jung in his usual manner confounds two distinct types of discourse, namely, the language of the laboratory and the language of the salon. When Jung states that the truth of some matter is secondary to its heuristic value or possible benefit derived, he is doing so not as a scientist, but as a lay person; and in this regard he is simply advantaging his repute in one area to weight a personal opinion in another, one for which rigors of science pbviously are not relevant, much less possible.

    Fact is, fostering a Santa Claus myth to get children to behave lest they get coal in their stocking is not the same as fostering a theist myth to get people to behave for similar purpose. The truth or lack of it as regards the Santa Claus myth is unimportant because very little hangs in the balance; not so with belief in dieties, which has real world repercussions and in whose belief and non-belief people have slaughtered one another for thousands of years, and this regardless of any personal benefits realized.

    That it is impossible to disprove something does not on that account add one iota of weight or truth or meaning to the thing so posited (you can say as much about unicorns and the Easter Bunny), and Jung certainly is not speaking as a scientist in this regard. Fact is, the imponderability of propositions is precisely what distinguishes parlor talk from science, and the text presented here rightfully ranks up there with The Star and People Magazine for information value.




    But, what about the tooth fairy? Don
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  • whiteclouder
    But, DWS, when he pointed out that what we feared in the communist threat was exactly what we ourselves espoused here in the West: feed us, care for us, make our decisions and we'll be content and no trouble, I hear a mullah's call to prayer. We face Islam with the same blind eye. History is replete with examples of western barbarism; yet Islamic atrocities are held up as examples for fearing and hating them.

    Your dismissal of his essay for the reasons you give is why I feel comfortable with him---he does mix the lab with the salon; most of us do.

    Great to see a substantive post.

    Clouder..
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    Your dismissal of his essay for the reasons you give is why I feel comfortable with him---he does mix the lab with the salon; most of us do.

    That you "feel comfortable" with him is precisely the point. We do not likewise "feel comfortable" with Newton or Einstein because in science uptake of the propositions offered matters not one iota; that you agree with Jung (or Freud before him or Adler or Rogers after) has nothing to do with any actual evidence given in their support, but rather only that they contain apposite and felicitous counterparts to your own experience. And of course this, in turn, begs the question: Who the hell are you to say the way the world IS (not just the way the world IS TO YOU)?

    It isn't just that Jung's "analysis" doesn't leave us any more knowledgeable when it leaves us; it's that it doesn't leave us any more knowledgeable than when it found us. It only makes explicit what anyone must already believe in order for his "analysis" to have a point. But from the fact that it has a point, it does not follow that it is true.

    Jung is being a poet here. Ergo: zzz-zzz-zzz
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  • bobski
    read the bible.
    proverbs 1,7.
    romans 1,18-22.

    underline 22.
    [;)]

    http://www.surprisingdiscoveries.com/main2.htm
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    read the bible.
    proverbs 1,7.
    romans 1,18-22.

    underline 22

    ...or the Quran

    ...or the Bhagavad Gita

    ...or...

    zzz-zzz-zzz
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  • whiteclouder
    quote:Originally posted by DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    Your dismissal of his essay for the reasons you give is why I feel comfortable with him---he does mix the lab with the salon; most of us do.

    That you "feel comfortable" with him is precisely the point. We do not likewise "feel comfortable" with Newton or Einstein because in science uptake of the propositions offered matters not one iota; that you agree with Jung (or Freud before him or Adler or Rogers after) has nothing to do with any actual evidence given in their support, but rather only that they contain apposite and felicitous counterparts to your own experience. And of course this, in turn, begs the question: Who the hell are you to say the way the world IS (not just the way the world IS TO YOU)?

    It isn't just that Jung's "analysis" doesn't leave us any more knowledgeable when it leaves us; it's that it doesn't leave us any more knowledgeable than when it found us. It only makes explicit what anyone must already believe in order for his "analysis" to have a point. But from the fact that it has a point, it does not follow that it is true.

    Jung is being a poet here. Ergo: zzz-zzz-zzz


    I know that was your point. My world is fashioned such that I can devote my time to the fantastic; I do not dwell on the why, but rather on the sense. Your arguments, it seems to me (safe caveat) are always centered in the logical though I know you have a lyrical side as well. I have always found such posts interesting and informative, just a little sophistic sometimes.

    So Jung could be a poet, too. I applaud that.

    Clouder..
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  • whiteclouder
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    read the bible.
    proverbs 1,7.
    romans 1,18-22.

    underline 22.
    [;)]




    Read Mad Magazine, 1978/June, page 31.

    Clouder..
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    So Jung could be a poet, too. I applaud that.

    Unfortunately, the suffering of untold millions from mental disease over the millennia is neither served nor abated by the contemplative excursions of poets posing as scientists. There is as much science in Freud and Jung as there is in Austen and Proust; and Austen and Proust are infinitely better writers, without the pretense of trafficking hypotheses.
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  • whiteclouder
    quote:Originally posted by DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    So Jung could be a poet, too. I applaud that.

    Unfortunately, the suffering of untold millions from mental disease over the millennia is neither served nor abated by the contemplative excursions of poets posing as scientists. There is as much science in Freud and Jung as there is in Austen and Proust; and Austen and Proust are infinitely better writers, without the pretense of trafficking hypotheses.


    Proust understood the value of refection and introspection; his conclusions that were woven into his work could not stand any of your scientific tests. Does that make his hypothetical any less valuable? Austen simply leaves me cold.

    Mental illness is best treated as a disease of the brain and left out of the realm of 'soul' healers.

    Clouder..

    Clouder..
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    Proust understood the value of refection and introspection; his conclusions that were woven into his work could not stand any of your scientific tests. Does that make his hypothetical any less valuable?

    I rather thought that was my point. And further to that point, neither Proust nor Austen are part of any curriculum for a Psychology degree. Why not? Because they didn't sport lab coats and clipboards?
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  • whiteclouder
    quote:Originally posted by DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    Proust understood the value of refection and introspection; his conclusions that were woven into his work could not stand any of your scientific tests. Does that make his hypothetical any less valuable?

    I rather thought that was my point. And further to that point, neither Proust nor Austen are part of any curriculum for a Psychology degree. Why not? Because they didn't sport lab coats and clipboards?



    Yes, it is; I wasn't disagreeing, I was suggesting that Jung, like Proust, accepted there was more to us than can be proven, that science is not the end all, that we are human and must live as such.

    Why are Proust and Austen not in the cirriculum? Proust could be, as could Aristotle and Socrates and the program might be richer for it. All rock and no mortar is a rubble pile in waiting.

    Clouder..
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    All rock and no mortar is a rubble pile in waiting.

    Wally, Wally, Wally: Often the mind believes it is thinking, when it is only passing from one metaphor to the next. Reminder that there must be more to us than can be proven is provided every day in belles lettres, and this only as it should be. Science, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter; if you dare to proffer explanations or prophylactic claims for the diagnosis and treatment of mental disease, you better be able to do more than only restate what is illustrated in any good novel; and when those explanations and claims fail to effect even a modicum of remission, do not then stroke your beard and wisely posit that there must be "more to us than can be proven".
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  • buschmaster
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    But, DWS, when he pointed out that what we feared in the communist threat was exactly what we ourselves espoused here in the West: feed us, care for us, make our decisions and we'll be content and no trouble, I hear a mullah's call to prayer. We face Islam with the same blind eye. History is replete with examples of western barbarism; yet Islamic atrocities are held up as examples for fearing and hating them.very observative! what held true then holds true today even with different circumstances. what he said must be right.

    DWS, it's not a research paper, it's an essay. you discover your discoveries with research, you present and explain them with an essay, which of course will include opinion and a divergence from strictly scientific terms. so as you have already done your thinking and are presenting your argument in the same mode.
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by buschmaster
    DWS, it's not a research paper, it's an essay.

    It is neither. And neither Freud, Jung, Adler nor Rogers discovered their "discoveries" through research; they invented them.

    I suggest that before you presume to instruct on the merits of these poets posing as scientists that you do your own research into the matter; ask why the precepts fostered by each of them are all but wholly abandoned by the community they serve every twenty or thirty years in favor of a new darling with a new paradigm; ask yourself why no more is known about the "unconscious" or "id" or "ego" or "animus" today than was posited over a hundred years ago; and ask yourself why patients who seek psychoanalytic treatment today still have no better symptom remission rate than those who do not. And while your at it, do not further presume that by saying I have already done my thinking on the matter that it in any way equates to wrong thinking, unless, of course, you would care to offer reasoned rejoinder to the contrary.
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  • whiteclouder
    And to the crux as I see it: can what we are discussing be captured as science? Given all that you suppose: proofs, concrete evidence, empirical evidence, and so forth, can psychology be a science?

    I spring for the metaphor because that's the way I think. Are you suggesting that thought without a conclusion is a waste? That moving between metaphors is folly? Offering one as an example of how one sees a subject, shallow? I have no beard and concluded long ago that wise men earned the title: I have not.

    You are a sceintist, Rob, I a dreamer.

    You gonna be home the last week in September?

    Clouder..
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by whiteclouder
    Are you suggesting that thought without a conclusion is a waste? That moving between metaphors is folly? Offering one as an example of how one sees a subject, shallow?

    No, I'm suggesting that it isn't science. That, and when it comes to the treatment of human disease metaphors don't get it done (hence the mess in psychology today).

    I'll be home the last week of September. I'm having a bunch of Neo-Jedi's over to Simonize my Kubota.
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  • dcon12
    quote:Originally posted by DancesWithSheep
    I'll be home the last week of September. I'm having a bunch of Neo-Jedi's over to Simonize my Kubota.



    Thats right, Matty only shines the hummer. Don
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  • DancesWithSheep
    quote:Originally posted by dcon12
    Thats right, Matty only shines the hummer. Don

    So true. But never has my Hummer been more tumescent in moonlight.
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