Carl Jung's Secret Life: "The "Aryan Christ" - something rotten in Jungian psychology?

[T.C.]

I recently finished The Mind and The Brain by Jeffrey M Schwartz, and I think in that book I found the most apt description of the peg you're looking for.

A tiny bit of context, a group of researchers were looking for a measurable form of something that would indicate the presence of will, they noted that there was a measurable current in the brain that was denominated the readiness potential, something that fired up right before an action.

So, the experiment was to measure when did the consciousness of a decision to perform an act occurred, the Will hypothesis hoped to find that consciousness appeared prior to this readiness potential, but what they found is that it appeared AFTER the measurable electrical signals were observed, microseconds after, but after.

So, the author establishes the idea of "Free Won't", that is, not so much to convince ourselves of the authorship of our choices, but of our capacity to say no to certain initiatives, and thus have a say in which initiatives get a green light or a yes.

In that sense, what JBP says about ideas possessing a person, or the notion of the names of God, and of aligning ourselves with one group of another, takes on a different connotation that I think allows for both concepts to coexist. We choose our alignment by choosing which ideas, or names of God, we say no to, when it comes to their expression in our lives.

And it isn't really foreign or incompatible with any of the concepts of the work, if anything it grounds the conversation. But also, we have a lot of examples on our daily lives, dietary choices is one good example. We're hit with the idea of choosing to eat one thing or the other, but we say no to it, because knowledge informs the gatekeeper in our minds, we made a choice even if the initial idea didn't originate in us.

We align ourselves with the eating healthy god, but most importantly and occurring at the same time, we're aligning ourselves away from the junk eating god... if that makes sense.

And that is the humble peg I have found. And I think there's several stories depicting this principle, sort of.. It's as if the will of mortals was expressed in their capacity to deny the will of the gods, but not by pretending to rise to their level, or deny their power, but by exercising sovereign denial. And not to simply rebel by default either, but because that is how one truly grows, a necessary sin.

I hope the above made sense.

edit: Pressed send too soon.

Hmm, I’m aware of the study you mention, but the way you just wrote about it makes me see what Gurdjieff and Mouravieff said about the struggle between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in a different light. They always said that the point of the struggle was to build one’s will, and develop an individuality through friction, the heat which fuses the iron filings into a single mass.

We can now simply boil that down (excuse the pun) to the idea of being able to say “no” to ourselves.

And as I reread The Wave, I’m conscious of the fact that eventually I’ll be coming to the chapter about which synapses we allow to fire, which was related to the idea of a ‘primary’, as in ‘who will be picked to run’. I think that has something to do with the 3-5 code and how “prime numbers are the dwellings of the philosophers”, but I’m not there yet so I may be misremembering.

And when the C’s say, “the choice is always there. It’s WHEN you choose that counts”, we can relate that to the idea that “don’t you get more free will by assimilating knowledge?”, and “knowledge gives one the ability to determine what acts actually are acts of free will”. It’s like, before we find the work, we almost don’t realise we have the ability to say “no”, because we just identify with every thought we have and make no distinction between ourselves and ‘it’, so we have no reason to.

Cool stuff.

 

[Jones]

So, the author establishes the idea of "Free Won't", that is, not so much to convince ourselves of the authorship of our choices, but of our capacity to say no to certain initiatives, and thus have a say in which initiatives get a green light or a yes.

Funny this should be mentioned. Have identified times when I've said I need more won't power instead of will power and it kind of makes sense because after a bad experience actions that led up to the experience are categorised as 'I won't do that again!'

Edited to add: It’s not that black and white though - More like I won't do that again in that situation.

 

[Anthony]

Along the same lines as you guys were discussing choice and alignment, one finds similar thoughts express by McGilchrist. He brings it up in the context of the French Revolution and how pursuing liberty, equality and fraternity brings about the opposite if approached with a wrong disposition or attitude. I take it to mean that we do always have a choice but not in a simplistic sense of creating things from scratch. We can always take part in creation and play our roles, but we don't get to set the rules that are already given.

The left hemisphere misunderstands the importance of implicitness. There is therefore a problem for it, that certain logically desirable goals simply cannot be directly pursued, because direct pursuit changes their nature and they flee from approach: thus the direct pursuit of liberty, equality and fraternity – despite being fine ideals – is problematic. The French Revolution famously championed liberty, equality and fraternity. The problem with bringing them to the fore as concepts and going for them explicitly, left-hemisphere fashion, rather than allowing them to emerge as the necessary accompaniment of a certain tolerant disposition towards the world, right-hemisphere fashion, is that they can be only negative entities once they become the province of the left hemisphere. This is because the left hemisphere, despite its view of itself as bringing things about, can only say ‘no’ or not say ‘no’ to what it finds given to it by the right hemisphere (just as the right hemisphere in turn can only say no or not say no to ‘the Other’, i.e. whatever it is that exists apart from ourselves: see Chapter 5 above). Thus, since there is no equality in the givenness of things as they actually appear to the right hemisphere, equality becomes, for the left hemisphere, a need and a drive to pull down anything that stands out as not equalling ‘equality’ – the essentially negative sense in which equality was pursued through the mayhem and carnage of the French Revolution.

 

[luc]

So, the experiment was to measure when did the consciousness of a decision to perform an act occurred, the Will hypothesis hoped to find that consciousness appeared prior to this readiness potential, but what they found is that it appeared AFTER the measurable electrical signals were observed, microseconds after, but after.

So, the author establishes the idea of "Free Won't", that is, not so much to convince ourselves of the authorship of our choices, but of our capacity to say no to certain initiatives, and thus have a say in which initiatives get a green light or a yes.

Just a note that the Libet experiments this refers to are far from straight-forward and allow for many interpretations. See here for some food for thought: The Libet Experiments and How to Maximize Free Will

 

[Joe]

A tiny bit of context, a group of researchers were looking for a measurable form of something that would indicate the presence of will, they noted that there was a measurable current in the brain that was denominated the readiness potential, something that fired up right before an action.

So, the experiment was to measure when did the consciousness of a decision to perform an act occurred, the Will hypothesis hoped to find that consciousness appeared prior to this readiness potential, but what they found is that it appeared AFTER the measurable electrical signals were observed, microseconds after, but after.

Interesting. So what does the "readiness potential" mean? Is that not consciousness? If not, how did they "measure" consciousness?

 

[Joe]

Along the same lines as you guys were discussing choice and alignment, one finds similar thoughts express by McGilchrist. He brings it up in the context of the French Revolution and how pursuing liberty, equality and fraternity brings about the opposite if approached with a wrong disposition or attitude. I take it to mean that we do always have a choice but not in a simplistic sense of creating things from scratch. We can always take part in creation and play our roles, but we don't get to set the rules that are already given.

That's a great explanation by McGilchrist! I immediately thought of it in terms of the US' desire to impose 'freedom and democracy' on the world, clearly using a left hemisphere perspective.

 

[Jones]

That's a great explanation by McGilchrist! I immediately thought of it in terms of the US' desire to impose 'freedom and democracy' on the world, clearly using a left hemisphere perspective.

And of LGBTIQ trying to impose tolerance and acceptance.

 

[brandon]

Gives me the mental image of someone learning to swim, trying to use forceful narrow strokes, flailing around pushing at every little wavelet & getting nowhere, fighting the sea - instead of working with it, feeling the whole wave & letting it carry them where they want to go..

Thanks for sharing that excerpt Anthony, that's super interesting (I have not read McGilchrist's books), especially this bit made the whole right/left brain thing so much clearer to me:

This is because the left hemisphere, despite its view of itself as bringing things about, can only say ‘no’ or not say ‘no’ to what it finds given to it by the right hemisphere (just as the right hemisphere in turn can only say no or not say no to ‘the Other’, i.e. whatever it is that exists apart from ourselves: see Chapter 5 above)

 

[Alejo]

Interesting. So what does the "readiness potential" mean? Is that not consciousness? If not, how did they "measure" consciousness?

From what I recall, they measured the consciousness by asking the participants to note when their awareness of the desire to make a movement, of the arm if I recall correctly, happened. It always came after the readiness potential was initially observed.. a few microseconds later.

Though as Luc said, there might be more to that experiment than I am aware of, I only just read his book and haven't deeply looked into the experiment itself.

 

[eightyfour]

Well, the sexual dysphoria of today looks like it has roots in Jungian Dionysian ideas. The guy was SERIOUSLY warped. He actually wrote that the "god within" was libido.

I can see a session with Cs coming up...

Jungian "Libido" was energy the in person a (not sexual libido). Introverted libido or extroverted libido is the orientation. Mare Louise Von
Franz, Joseph Campbell, Allan Watts and Jordan Peterson can help with understanding Jung's ideas.

 

[hlat]

Jungian "Libido" was energy the in person a (not sexual libido). Introverted libido or extroverted libido is the orientation. Mare Louise Von
Franz, Joseph Campbell, Allan Watts and Jordan Peterson can help with understanding Jung's ideas.

Jung's ideas didn't fit the bill.

I finished Colin Wilson's "Lord of the Underworld" and I think it should be read along with Noll's book. Wilson takes a more charitable view of Jung, but I don't know if this is because he didn't dig into the archives like Noll did, or because he simply chose to ignore many things.

At the same time that he is being more or less nice to Jung, the man, he actually writes a pretty devastating analysis of Jung's ideas and modes of presentation. There's nothing mean about it, he just simply points out all the errors and omissions while also reminding the reader that Jung, himself, seemed to be a pretty messed up person and his ideas were pretty much him trying to solve his own existential crisis in terms of his historical time and place and individual personality.

It's a much shorter book than Noll's, and much easier to read but it still ends up doing the same thing: putting Jung's ideas where they belong in a category of ATTEMPTS to sort out our reality that didn't quite fit the bill.

 

[Ryan]

Along the same lines as you guys were discussing choice and alignment, one finds similar thoughts express by McGilchrist.

Thanks for sharing this, Anthony. Gives a whole new meaning to the concept of the Passive or "Denying" Force!

 

[herondancer]

The above exchange brought a small memory back to mind. I can't remember exactly when, maybe very late teens. I know I was confused and depressed because at the time, I couldn't seem to make one right decision, big or small, and life felt so hard. I was watching a hawk circling in the sky, thinking how lucky animals were, in that the seemed to instinctively know what to do in any given situation, and how much I wish I had that. And the thought came, (I'm sure it wasn't my own) that "Yes, that's true. But neither do they have any choice in their actions. They do as they must. You get to choose." And though there were no other insights like "All is lessons", somehow I felt better. Looking back, it seemed like a small nudge along the path that ended here.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

From what I recall, they measured the consciousness by asking the participants to note when their awareness of the desire to make a movement, of the arm if I recall correctly, happened. It always came after the readiness potential was initially observed.. a few microseconds later.

Though as Luc said, there might be more to that experiment than I am aware of, I only just read his book and haven't deeply looked into the experiment itself.

Yep, they were defining consciousness as conscious awareness. The readiness potential occurred before the subjects were consciously aware of having made a decision (assuming the accuracy of such measurements and reports). In addition to Luc's article, there's this one, which is in line with what Luc wrote, and Langan's ideas that he included in the article:

New brain research appears to support free will -- Sott.net

Philosopher Alessandra Buccella and experimental psychologist Tomáš Dominik, both at Chapman University, offer some interesting support for free will. Many commentators interpreted Benjamin Libet's experiments that showed that the brain's...

www.sott.net

And then the researchers discovered a surprising thing: "Meaningless choices were preceded by a readiness potential, just as in previous experiments. Meaningful choices were not, however. When we care about a decision and its outcome, our brain appears to behave differently than when a decision is arbitrary."

 

[Keit]

Speaking of meaningless vs meaningful choices, there are also these quotes from an old thread about free will:

The choices we are given are not free will. But making a choice may be an act of free will, or may be automatic (or because someone
else is imposing his free will on us).

Imagination and creativity are important, but not necessary to exercise free will. Knowledge is needed. Without knowledge there is no free will.
Blindly selecting one of many possibilities is not an act of free will.

What is exercising brain is not knowledge but the act of seeking for knowledge. When knowledge is "given" - it does not exercise brain. Searching for and utilizing knowledge does. Will may have a different "seat" than just brain.

I think that free will is very similar to being able to do something, anything. It is also closely associated with knowledge, i.e. knowledge of things to do or the extent (if there is one) of what is possible to do.

So to have more free will, we must have more and more knowledge. If knowledge is a limitless concept (which in a limitless universe it probably is at least in potential) then the extent of our free will is defined by the extent of our knowledge.

There is probably also the factor of choice, because we have to chose what we will do with the knowledge/free will that we acquire (or if we will acquire it at all or the type of knowledge that we acquire), and all of this is possibly based on a theoretical nature of being.

But all of this is kind of circular because being is probably there at the beginning because it probably defines our approach to the topic of free will and knowledge. There are those who do not believe in limitless universe and knowledge etc, so their free will is also defined (or limited) by their belief which is possibly a function of their being, but then being can be increased by input of knowledge and increased free will.

So maybe knowledge is there at the beginning before Being, or maybe all three, knowledge, being and freewill are all there together in some measure at the beginning.

Or maybe it is something else altogether.