Bijou Drains
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Lew – I am not a German scholar, but I have a good friend who is German and works as a German – English (and sometimes as a German Geordie) translator. Therefore I was working on the basis of his notes and guidance on the subject based on his use of early publications written in German.
My assumption has always been that due to Freud’s later use of das Unterbewusste that later English translations of das Unbewusste have been using Freud’s later expressed preference for das Unterbewusste. Perhaps a 1st edition of “The Interpretation of Dreams” in the original German, might solve the question.
I just checked on line and the earliest German edition for sale is from 1921 (22 years later) and is priced at £437.00, so buying a copy might have to be a unfulfilled wish. I’ll let you know what it’s like if I ever dream about it.
With regards to the subconscious-unconscious debate (going on for at least the last 100 years.
Freud originally used it interchangeably with “unconscious” at the outset. The words in German are similar (subconscious is das Unterbewusste; unconscious is das Unbewusste), although I agree he eventually stuck with the term unconscious. (similar debate between the orignal use of the word Socialism and Communism)
I used the term subconscious, to differentiate it from unconscious in this debate as I didn’t want to link it to the more common use of the term i.e. knocked out cold.
Well, to be fair, MS, if those are the topics you want to post about, no one is stopping you or critising you for your posting.
Nor does any discussion I have with L Bird or with who ever I, or any one else choose to get into discussion, stop you from starting any discussions you want to start or contribute to, or in any way hamper you from having those discussions.
If you feel it “dominates” discussion, put some other topics on the board.
Anyway 29 posts in 8 days, is hardly dominating anything.
You say that “I like to be concrete and I go directly to the point and I do not turn it into an academic discussion”, however it is implied that you are saying that others should follow your preference and only have the kinds of discussion you wish to have.If you don’t want to read these postings, there is no requirement that you do.
Socialism is also about choice and free expression.
I don’t want to turn this into a spat, however I openly responded to YOUR postings. I don’t and have not criticised any area of debate you want to take part in, I would really appreciate it if you would respect my right to discuss topics that interest me, and in my right to dicuss them in the way that I choose to.
Yours for Socialism
I am using the term conscious mind, within the commonly used framework derived from Freud. The conscious mind in this sense means, as a part of mind which is responsible for rationalizing, paying attention, logical thinking and reasoning.
For example, if an individual is asked to add one and one, it is the conscious mind which will work out the calculation and give the answer.
In this framework the subconscious mind includes the parts of the mind that are not actively consciously being engaged, i.e. out of awareness, but are still influential on the outcomes of thought and behaviour.
An example of this is sub conscious bias. Say for a person’s formative years they been subjected to a plethora TV shows titles Saturday sunshine showtime or such like, full of cheerful, happy go luck Liverpudlian comedians, such as Stan Boardman, Tom O’Connor and Jimmy Tarbuck, and this had been further supplemented by fecking Cilla Black shouting “Surprise, surprise” over the bloody television. This unhappy individual might find that they have the subconscious desire when they meet another Liverpudlian to squeeze the throat of said Liverpudlian, so tightly that they strangle the poor hapless stranger to death, without realising that it is the build up of scouse tomfoolery that has led to this behavioural impulse.
Also included in that subconscious activity (note I am using the term subconscious, not unconscious) are the instinctual behaviours that I used as examples.
The reason that I made the examples I gave were aimed to discount the view of the Behaviourist school, such as BF Skinner, who argued that effectively all human personality is a result of a collection of operantly conditioned responses, based on reward and punishment.
I am not saying that these behaviours are not part of the human mind, just not part of the conscious mind
I’ve got to say that I’m surprised and perhaps even a little disappointed about the replies some of the members of this forum have put on the boards about this topic:
“What’s the point of these kinds of non exchanges”
“Every topic must be converted into a cockfight and an academic discussion”
for example
If one of the topics on the board is not something that interests you, then don’t read it.
If you think there should be some other topic being discussed, then put a post on the board about it.
No one is forcing you to read the topics you’re not interested in, there is no rationing on debate on the forum, so other members discussing whatever interests them does not interfere with your right to discuss what you want.
Surely we are part of a libertarian organisation, not some kind of Leninist group think sect, where all debate and discussion needs to be focussed on the needs of the vanguard.
I am fully aware of the fact that engaging with L Bird is like arm wrestling a double jointed octopus which has covered itself in baby oil and dropped a tab of acid, but if I choose to engage with him, what the F**k has it got to do with anyone else. L Bird may be a lot of things, but he doesn’t demand that other posters stop posting about issues that he is not particularly interested. Similarly I know my interests are often not the ones that other posters feel strongly about, the one going vegan/veggie debate does nothing for me, for instance, but I don’t try and suggest that we stifle debate about this subject.
To put to bed (nail bed) the toe nail question, which misses the point any way. Growing toe nails are not a product of activity within the brain, therefore your question is irrelevant, as the brain does not have any impact in terms of toe nail growth. The actions I raised were actions which were based on observable brain activity.
The point I was making is that the Skinnerist approach (perhaps L Bird might read some of Skinner’s work, as it is pretty clear he has not) is that ALL human behaviour is rooted in learnt behaviour in terms of on going operant conditioning, i.e. as a result of trial and error and that behaviour that is rewarding is maintained and non rewarding behaviour is eliminated.
There is clear evidence that this is not the case and that some (not all, but some behaviour) is based on instinctual responses. The example of I have given is of a new born baby instinctivly making first eye contact with its mother (or mother subsitute). The fact that this behvaviour occurs within moments of birth in the vast majority of children, indicates that this is an instinctual response rather than through operant conditioning.
An even more clear example of this is the suckling instinct in new born babies. In the Skinnerist approach the explnation is that new born babies would latch on to this rewarding experience as a result of a random action the child performed. I am afraid if the life and death of babies was resultant on the chance of a baby selecting a random action of suckling during the first few hours of life, we would see a hell of a lot more dead babies in the first days of birth.
For a even more obvious example of the fact that instinctive behaviours are present in mammals, the cat and cucumber response is pretty clear, see link (I have got to say that I for one do not find the response funny, as some of those filming this do).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7vML9C3PZk
This does not mean that I think that not behaviour is not fully conscious, just that some behaviours are instinctual.
As to the question of conscious behaviour and unconscious behaviour (in Freudian terms). It seems to me that humans do behave in ways that are influenced by thoughts that that could be described as sub conscious. An example of this sub consconscious activity is the Stroop effect.
And Ladies and Gentleman, this year’s 2022 Boris Johnson Award for “never answering a straight question” goes to……. drum roll….
Yes it’s L Bird!!!!
L Bird speaks – “thank you, thank you, your applause is warm and generous. First I’d like to thank my imaginary chum Karl Marx, he is so helpful to me in my hard work, the fact that in my mind he always says what ever I make up about him is really the bed rock to my fantastical personal little world.
This is a great honour to me, I hope that your can trust me to make sure I don’t ever answer a straight question”
Audience – “We trust you L Bird, honestly we really trust you”
Not for the first time, you have tried to muddy the waters; I will resist your fatuous attempts to be insulting.
I will clarify the question for you. When a baby smiles to its mother for the first time, is that a behaviour (as in your definition of a behaviour it is a conscious human action). Here’s a clue, the smile is clearly not a conditioned response.
I will also ask you another question, is a person who has Tourette’s syndrome, who lets out a loud barking noise on regular occasions, displaying behaviour?
Since ‘biology’ (eg. breathing) is fixed, we have no choice, so it’s not a ‘behaviour’
Any behaviour that is fixed, is not a behviour?
Apart from the obvious comment that breathing is not fixed, we can stop and we can choose how we breathe (we can chose to breathe heavily or shallowly, we can chose to breath through our mouths or through our noses), such a definition has other problems.
According to your definition, a new born infant has a suckling impulse, presumably this is not a behaviour?
Jumping away from something hot often happens involventarily, is this too not a behavoiur.
In terms of the sub consious mind, many things we do is not consviously chosen, does this not deserve the catogory behaviour.
Is all behaviour social? This implies that anything you do on your own is not behaviour. Does not mean that mean that masturbation is not a behaviuor (assuming of course you do it on your own)?
As to Skinner, I often surprised that a number of Socialist hold him in some degree of esteem, considering some of his opinions, for example:
“It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.”
I suppose a different way (and simpler way of expressing it) is that people’s thinking is a reflection of their brains, in the smae way that teh speed a car can travel is a refelction of the car’s engine. The difference is is that a brain is impacted very much on what has happened to it before that point, a car engine might get slower by use, but it is unlikely to get quicker.
Im terms of MS’s point, which is valid, we also need to be careful about the pure behaviourist (Skinnerist) assumption that all behaviour is learnt. It clearly isn’t. For instance, following birth, we didn’t learn to breathe by trial and error. If that was true there would be a lot less of us.
In a sense this would be entirely predictable, the areas of the brain they have looked at are largely influenced by the impact of attachment experiences.
As these attachment experiences are largely based on our interactions with other human beings and how we develop views on those other human beings, our brain architecture will reflect this.
To put it another way, because, to a large extent, our brain architecture is patterned by the events we experience, and the events that are most influential in the development of the brain are social experiences, it is therefore highly likely that our thoughts and views are very likely to conform with the understandings we have developed as a result of our experiences.
Politics is largely about society, and our social views are based on our social experiences and that these social experiences are reflected on our brain architecture. It would not be any great leap to expect that our brain architecture would be closely related to our political viewpoints.
The problem with the research report is that it misses this out and it could be implied that political opinions are somehow hard wired into our brains and that they cannot be changed.
An excellent and moving play/musical, I would recommend any one going to see it if it is on in the local area,
Ironically the main lyricist (Alex Glasgow) was a Trotskyist, so according to Leninist theory the miners he eulogised were part of the Labour Aristocracy who were benefitting from the “super profits” of imperial exploitation.
That said, Alex Glasgow produced some wonderful songs
The result that Putin originally envisioned is clearly not where he is now. Ukrainian has not been a walkover and rather than intimidating Sweden, Finland, NATO, et al, it has made the the Scandinavians more western facing and NATO more bullish.
To make an comparison Stalin under estimated Finland and this influenced Hitler to attack the USSR. I hope the U.S. and the Europeans don’t make the same assumptions.
I think the rest of the world knows that Boorish and his mates are effectively the Tory Party 3rd 11, after the failure of Cameron et al, May et al, left the Tory party in the hands of the back woodsmen and small business faction of UK capitalism.
