Author Topic: Projection & Truth  (Read 32774 times)

Kafiri

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #15 on: March 14, 2008, 01:39:46 PM »
Quote from: sealchan

My question to you is this...what is being projected?  Is it something that the knower thinks is true?

What is being projected is an unconscious aspect of our personality.  The more intriguing question for me is:  where is it being projected?

Quote from: sealchan
My definition for 'truth' is in the everyday, "street" sense...it is any factual statement you might make with any amount of seriousness.  So when we project our unconscious maps something that is partly of an inner kind of truth onto something of an outer kind of truth and our consciousness does not properly distinguish between the two: the inner and the outer.
Apply this to person in an asylum who seriously "thinks" he is Napoleon. As Jung points out our consciousness convinces us that a relationship exists between the subject and the object, but, by definition, this is not true, it is an illusion. The basic problem is this:  our consciousness assumes that it is an expert on itself. But, this is another illusion.

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Philosopher Dan Dennett makes a compelling argument that not only don't we understand our own consciousness, but that half the time our brains are actively fooling us. As he puts it, our bodies are made up of 100 trillion little robots, none of them with an individual consciousness. So what makes us feel we have one? Or that we're in control of it? Dennett's hope is to show his audience that "Your consciousness is not quite as marvelous as you may have thought it is." He uses thought experiments and optical illusions to demonstrate to the TED audience that even very big brains are capable of playing tricks on their owners.

  Take a look at this educational little talk by Daniel Dennett about the nature of consciousness: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/102 




"We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves."
      -Eric Hoffer

Sealchan

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2008, 02:35:30 PM »
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My definition for 'truth' is in the everyday, "street" sense...it is any factual statement you might make with any amount of seriousness.  So when we project our unconscious maps something that is partly of an inner kind of truth onto something of an outer kind of truth and our consciousness does not properly distinguish between the two: the inner and the outer.

Apply this to person in an asylum who seriously "thinks" he is Napoleon. As Jung points out our consciousness convinces us that a relationship exists between the subject and the object, but, by definition, this is not true, it is an illusion. The basic problem is this:  our consciousness assumes that it is an expert on itself. But, this is another illusion.

The person in an asylum who seriously thinks he is Napolean is absolutely correct from his or her own subjective point of view.  And this is the value of subjective and objective truth, that we can acknowledge that our current perspectives can seem true even if later they are proven not to be true by some other context.  The experience of what is or is not true is a here and now experience, it does not wait for some supposed future objective context to come along no matter how obviously wrong the current here and now experience may seem.  This is the profound fact of subjective truth.

It is precisely by treating the subjective, delusional, illusory "truths" that we perceive as truth that we gain a better understanding of what truth is.  A magic trick that appears to be impossible is true.  An illusion is true.  A lie is true if you believe it and until you stop believing it, it is true.  For the knower whose scope is simply what they know at time x, what is true at time x + n is not yet relevant.

This is the essential nature of the "reality of the psyche" that is produces as much of the truth as it distinguishes in the world it knows.  Consider the phenomenon of color.  'Red' and 'blue' do not exist in the outer world.  They are creations of the brain in response to predictable electromagnetic phenomenon.  Yet would you give up the reality of blue and red if you were to find yourself on a planet of the colorblind?  You might have to to get along there.

And what if one of us is born with a heretofore unknown genetic mutation that allows you to see not a trichromatic color spectrum but a "quadchromatic" one that reduces to four and not three primary colors.  How would you indicate to others the objective truth of your unique visual perspective until they examined your unique neural architecture and found out that you were not crazy after all?

Your arguement above seems to suggest that you are comfortably in a priviledged position of being conscious but not having to concern yourself with such mistakes that the madman in the asylum might make.  The truth is that your own view of the world, my own view of the world, is based on assumptions every bit as unsupportable as the person who thinks they are Napoleon.  If you don't see this then you have not quite got what Dennett is telling us. 

Therefore, in all humility, to speak of truth and then point to the poor man in the asylum is not to consider how we might look to future generations who wonder how we could have gone along with our leaders through the Cold War and why we don't have enough common sense to get a good night sleep and avoid all the resulting emotional and health consequences of not doing so.  Surely we will all seem a bit crazy to some future generation.  Then you and I will be the man in the asylum.

When you engage with the psyche via dream work it is always a working assumption that you are in some vital, crucial and monumentally important way, highly deluded.  Yet, at the same time, you must act with an assumption of inner integrity.  Self-doubt is just as much a defense mechanism as self-centeredness and overconfidence.  You must balance both perspectives and find the optimal middle way between them it seems.




Kafiri

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #17 on: March 19, 2008, 11:39:25 AM »
Quote from: Sealchan

Your arguement above seems to suggest that you are comfortably in a priviledged position of being conscious but not having to concern yourself with such mistakes that the madman in the asylum might make.  The truth is that your own view of the world, my own view of the world, is based on assumptions every bit as unsupportable as the person who thinks they are Napoleon.  If you don't see this then you have not quite got what Dennett is telling us. 

Therefore, in all humility, to speak of truth and then point to the poor man in the asylum is not to consider how we might look to future generations who wonder how we could have gone along with our leaders through the Cold War and why we don't have enough common sense to get a good night sleep and avoid all the resulting emotional and health consequences of not doing so.  Surely we will all seem a bit crazy to some future generation.  Then you and I will be the man in the asylum.

When you engage with the psyche via dream work it is always a working assumption that you are in some vital, crucial and monumentally important way, highly deluded.  Yet, at the same time, you must act with an assumption of inner integrity.  Self-doubt is just as much a defense mechanism as self-centeredness and overconfidence.  You must balance both perspectives and find the optimal middle way between them it seems.


Sealchan,
My position is very far from "priviledged."  I feel the, at times, overwhelming burden of my consciousness. 
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. . . For consciousness is now called upon to do that which nature has always done for her children-namely, to give a certain, unquestionable, and unequivocal decision.  And here we are beset by an all-to-human fear that consciousness-our Promethean conquest-may in the end not be able to serve us as well as nature.
C. G. Jung, The Stages of Life, found in "The Portable Jung," p. 4.

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. . . A higher level of consciousness is like a burden of guilt. . .
C. G. JUng, The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man, found in "Modern Man in Search of a Soul," p. 198.

The truth issue here, Sealchan, for me is: to distinguish what is me, and what is not me.  To try to see and find my place in this world as clear as I can without the blinding projections.  If I am to know myself, I must know what is me, and what is not.  My safest passage through the hall of mirrors that illusions and delusions create is by knowing, as best as I possibly can, who I really am, evil and good, dark and light.  I must, for my own well-being own and take responsibility for what is mine, not what is someone else's.  And likewise I cannot ask others to be responsible for what is mine.  For my own well-being I cannot any longer demand that dark-skinned people carry my Shadow, I cannot any longer demand that other cultures carry my evil, I cannot demand that women carry my Anima.  These are the "truths" I must seek from projection.
"We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves."
      -Eric Hoffer

Sealchan

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #18 on: March 19, 2008, 02:16:32 PM »
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The truth issue here, Sealchan, for me is: to distinguish what is me, and what is not me.  To try to see and find my place in this world as clear as I can without the blinding projections.  If I am to know myself, I must know what is me, and what is not.  My safest passage through the hall of mirrors that illusions and delusions create is by knowing, as best as I possibly can, who I really am, evil and good, dark and light.  I must, for my own well-being own and take responsibility for what is mine, not what is someone else's.  And likewise I cannot ask others to be responsible for what is mine.  For my own well-being I cannot any longer demand that dark-skinned people carry my Shadow, I cannot any longer demand that other cultures carry my evil, I cannot demand that women carry my Anima.  These are the "truths" I must seek from projection.

Perhaps, the only real difference then in our views is that there is more truth in my world than you would care to claim in yours, but I am more comfortable calling my current unknown projections a truth that will change later but is still a truth now.  On your side, you seem to rather to favor staking a smaller claim to truth now with the hope that in your future will find your current "claim" to be in less dispute by virtue of your claim being less extensive and more carefully owned. 

In any case, I think our values are in the same orientation (it is important to identify and reduce projections that we necessarily start with for greater development of consciousness), but we have different ways of drawing boundaries regarding what we consider a "truth".  For me truth happens when a person makes a statement that they have any small degree of seriousness about no matter how little they have consciously studied or considered it.  I sense that you would find this a great over-extension of the application of the use of the word "truth".

Kafiri

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #19 on: March 19, 2008, 03:44:52 PM »
Sealchan,
In some ways you might be correct.  From my perspective, what you choose to designate as "truth," I am more inclined to call, to use Jung's frame of reference, "reality."  To Jung a psychic occurrence was "real."  He makes no claim to truth.

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The modern psychologist occupies neither the one position nor the other, but finds himself between the two, dangerously committed to “this as well as that” — a situation which invitingly opens the way to a shallow opportunism. This is undoubtedly the danger of the coincidentia oppositorum — of intellectual liberation from the opposites. How should anything but a formless and aimless uncertainty result from giving equal value to contradictory postulates? In contrast to this, we can readily appreciate the advantage of an explanatory principle that is unequivocal. It allows of a standpoint which can serve as a point of reference. Undoubtedly we are confronted here with a very difficult problem. We must be able to appeal to an explanatory principle founded on reality, and yet it is no longer possible for the modern psychologist to believe exclusively in the physical aspect of reality when once he has given the spiritual aspect its due. Nor will he be able to put weight on the latter alone, for he cannot ignore the relative validity of a physical interpretation.(p. 189)

. . .

If we go more deeply into the meaning of this concept, it seems to us that certain psychic contents or images are derived from a material environment to which our bodies also belong, while others, which are in no way less real, seem to come from a mental source which appears to be very different from the physical environment. Whether I picture to myself the car I wish to buy, or try to imagine the state in which the soul of my dead father now is — whether it is an external fact or a thought that occupies me — both happenings are psychic reality. The only difference is that one psychic happening refers to the physical world, and the other to the mental world. If I change my concept of reality in such a way as to admit that all psychic happenings are real — and no other use of the concept is valid — this puts an end to the conflict of matter and mind as contradictory explanatory principles. Each becomes a mere designation for the particular source of the psychic contents that crowd into my field of consciousness. If a fire burns me I do not question the reality of the fire, whereas if I am beset by the fear that a ghost will appear, I take refuge behind the thought that it is only an illusion. But just as the fire is the psychic image of a physical process whose nature is unknown so my fear of the ghost is a psychic image from a mental source; it is just as real as the fire, for my fear is as real as the pain caused by the fire. As for the mental process that finally underlies my fear of the ghost — it is as unknown to me as the ultimate nature of matter. And just as it never occurs to me to account for the nature of fire except by the concepts of chemistry and physics, so I would never think of trying to explain my fear of ghosts except in terms of mental processes.(p. 190)
C. G. Jung. The Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology, found in "Modern Man in Search of a Soul."
"We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves."
      -Eric Hoffer

Matt Koeske

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #20 on: March 20, 2008, 05:19:09 PM »

My question to you is this...what is being projected?  Is it something that the knower thinks is true?

My definition for 'truth' is in the everyday, "street" sense...it is any factual statement you might make with any amount of seriousness.  So when we project our unconscious maps something that is partly of an inner kind of truth onto something of an outer kind of truth and our consciousness does not properly distinguish between the two: the inner and the outer.

Also, when I think of Jung's four functions of consciousness I think of them as four functions of 'truth'.  There are perceptive truths and judging truths.

Sensation: I saw that basketball, it was not out of bounds!
Intuition: I think the referee has it in for that player and that is why he called it out of bounds.
Feeling: That ref needs to get a life.
Thinking: Isn't it true that if the ball doesn't touch the ground, then it isn't considered out of bounds?

Each of these statements implies what I would call a sense of the truth although I would argue that each statement derives its fundamental sense of truth from a different cognitive function.  It is from this belief that I derive the idea that our truth isn't a capital 'T' truth but four 't' truths (the four conscious functions).  Each function is a non-perfect system of its own for determining truth and these systems may produce conflicting truths within or between individual knowers.  Even one function can entertain a paradox or contradiction within its own scope.  But between modes conflicting opinions aren't so much paradoxical as they are mutually incomprehensible as they are constructed with different building blocks (conscious functions).

Chris, I don't think it is useful, though, to map "truths" to functions like this (ignoring for the moment that I still resist the Jungian notion of functions).  The only way that the Jungian functions can have a "cognitive" or naturalistic meaning and not a purely metaphorical and symbolic meaning is as something like "cognitive nodes".  By which I mean, they do not have "truths" (fully constructed perceptions or ideas) to offer, only partial ways of perceiving meant to be combined into a construct of perception.

If (for the sake of argument) it is possible to categorize people into personality types based on which functions they favor as data-providers for their constructions, we should still remember that all these cognitive functions are being used to construct a perception, but they are being filtered with a specific bias.  In reality, of course, our bias filters are very personal and complex, having been constructed by more than merely four functions.

What we should be cautious of when contemplating individuals' personal truths, opinions, and beliefs is the relativization of what is.  Yes, we all have limitations to our perception of the actual, but we shouldn't confuse this with there being no actual . . . even in matters of psychology.  The actual Truth may be more complex than our capacity to deal with it can handle, but constructing the actual is not a matter of either/or.  The accuracy of our constructions is a matter of degree.  If we don't acknowledge that some constructions or opinions are more accurate than others, than we flirt with intellectualist nihilism . . . a denial of the real.  That kind of college-age philosophical play that urges us to ask things like, "If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound?"

This sort of relativizing is more indicative of the adolescent ego wallowing in the illusion of its own power.  That which is not perceived does not exist.  Egotism, anthropomorphism.  "Perception creates the world . . . not the perceiver's world, but THE world."

Of course there is a high degree of relativism in the worlds we construct and live in . . . but these constructions have to have some degree of accuracy, or they cannot help the organism survive the material environment.  The more accurate an individual's constructions of world and other, (generally speaking) the more adaptable they will be.  There are numerous exceptions to this, but not enough to negate it by any means.  That is, some degree of self-deception and rationalization can serve as a useful buffer against despair . . . and there is no doubt that our species' believing has a lot of arbitrary rationalization to it . . . while still often being adaptable (depending on the environment being adapted to).  So, if we are trying to survive in Antarctica and it's 30 below zero, believing that the moon will warm and sustain us is not going to result in very effective reproduction.  But if an arbitrary or inaccurate belief is either not harmful to survival and fitness or actually (albeit indirectly) promotes survival and fitness, then we can believe away unimpeded and without concern for the actual.

My guess is that perceptual accuracy in our species is also greatly stimulated by the complexity and importance of our sociality.  As I discussed extensively in my previous post, our projective consciousness is a peacock's tail of a trait . . . and this indicates that the development of the trait was enormously important to our evolutionary fitness.  It seems reasonable to me to guess that this evolutionary arms race was created more or less entirely within human societies.  That is, there are many ways to reinforce your reproductive success if you are a human . . . and having a strong and accurate theory of mind is undoubtedly one of those.  Big muscles and nice curves go a long way, but the individuals who get to mate the most are the ones who can appeal to the other's psychology (whether honestly or dishonestly).  Such appeals would be easier to achieve the more accurate one's theory of mind or construction of the other's thought process is (again, generally speaking).  Just think of how hapless we can be in romance when our understanding of the opposite sex is very limited.  And the goal of sex (evolutionarily speaking) is not pleasure, but reproduction.  We are not only driven to reproduce, but to reproduce children who also stand a good chance of reproductive success.

So we are driven to perceive with a significant degree of accuracy if not with perfect accuracy.  I would argue that the degree of accuracy with which we need to perceive and construct the actual is greatly affected and determined by our specific environment.  The tribal, pre-modern environment didn't require "positivistic science" for survival.  But the modern, diverse, global environment places a much, much greater demand on information evaluation and discrimination.  Information is effectively discriminated and evaluated with a more accurate theory of mind.  We must be able to determine whether the other is trying to manipulate us (or maybe doing so unconsciously).  Theory of mind is all about motive perception in the other.  Know the motive, know/predict the behavior.  All of our relationships and social transactions are dependent upon this.

This is in no way relative.  It not Your Truth/My Truth or Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.  Accuracy matters, the actual and our ability to perceive it accurately are extremely important to our survival.


I suspect that projection mainly operates via the less developed conscious functions for the individual in question.  The person who has developed a given conscious function for which the knower has inferior functioning, may be prone to an unconscious identification as that person invigorates the knower's unconscious via that undeveloped function.

. . .

If one uses one or more conscious functions in a focused, self-consistent way one can probably start to differentiate the outer fact from the inner one.  If one develops the inferior function that is "carrying" the projection then it may drain the projection of its energy.

My feeling is that it is less a matter of functions or typologies and more a matter of specific complexes.  More personal, less categorical.  We can all construct a "type" of person (even an opposite type) reasonably well . . . and sometimes this is the very problem.  Real personalities are much more complex.  But we resort to greater and greater degrees of typing as the other being perceived seems increasingly alien to us.  The more general (and generally alien) our constructions, the more the flood gates of our shadow projection open up.  We lose discrimination and the complex subtlety of intuition.  To construct an Other as a type is to fail to construct them as a human being.  A type of person has a simplistic and fairly linear thought process that can be easily predicted using generic causality.  When we project shadow, we always assume that the recipient of the projection is thinking or behaving in a causal way.  X motivates Y.  And often enough, we all behave within the confines of simple logic (even if that logic is also "irrational" or maladaptive).

As one who has been on the receiving end of more than his fair share of shadow projections, I feel I can pretty accurately and honestly say that the most consistent thing about these projections is that they never came anywhere near grasping my real motivations.  They always, very drastically reduced the complexity of my motivations, my mind or intentionality . . . sometimes even to the degree than some behavior or expression of mine that was perceived as alien was simply reduced to "bad" or malicious.  The fact that, although not lacking in common human maliciousness, my "type" of personality is far too inclined to feel terribly guilty and fall into self-punishment rather than actually turning wholly and overtly malicious, never seems to occur to others inclined toward the torches and pitchforks approach.

Although my personality is constructed with a special and very complicated relationship to shadow projection (scapegoat complex) compared to the average person, I think it's worth using my experience as an example, because I have always been an "equal opportunity offender".  Intuitives, sensates, thinkers, feelers . . . poets, engineers, anal-rententives, anal-expulsives, men, women, marmosets . . . it makes no difference.  I've bugged them all.  And I didn't bug them all because I am a highly developed intuitive.  There are many, more-subtle ways to be "different".

One of the key aggravations of my personality is simply a common effect of doing a lot of shadow work.  In shadow work, we don't so much "develop our inferior functions" as begin to relate to parts of ourselves that at first seemed (and maybe are/were) dangerous and unseemly.  An individual may not want to relate much to another individual who, let's say, performs autopsies or prepares corpses for funerals.  It's a taboo for some people . . . and it used to be much more severe.  Just as women menstruating were once considered taboo (by men) or "rebuking the gods" was tabooed, or ten thousand other things.  Many of these things are tabooed because cultures and individuals have projected mana into them, "stranger mana".  With that projection, we agree not to look below the surface of the other.  We see only an act, a behavior, a costume.

Sometimes these stranger mana projections have biological motivators (incest, murder, etc.) . . . but many times these taboos cluster around the totemic lies we tell ourselves in order to continue believing in our sense of self, in our validity (or in the validity of our tribe's dogmas), in our gods and protectors and beautiful defenses.  We could say that these things also have biological motivations behind them (albeit much more arbitrary ones) . . . the primary motivation being tribal cohesion.  But often enough, the things we are most afraid of are those things that can radically challenge our constructions of selfhood (whether positively or negatively, it doesn't matter).  Fairly often, we will refuse to relate to other people who do not construct or perceive us within a pretty close range of the way we want to be perceived and constructed.  And much of the time this is necessary.

But it also means (to the extent we do this) that we may have little chance of growing.  People who don't construct us the way we would like to be constructed can disturb us, but they are also the only ones who can expand our worlds.  Their constructions may even be "wrong" or pretty far off . . . but they still can be useful to us, because they help us realize that there are other ways of being, that we are, the sense of self that we maintain is, arbitrary and plastic.  The people that can deeply affect us are the ones that acknowledge our plasticity.  Such people say to us, "You can be this or you can be that, and I will relate to you in a way that accepts either or both."

But we can fall in love with fantasies of our selfhood in which we imagine that we "are what we are", that we are strictly defined, that we are such and such a type of person.  This fantasy may even include the feeling that one's ego is not constructed or in a constant process of forming and revising itself . . . but is "the Truth", a definite thing.  Whether it is others who project shadow onto us or others who have managed to construct or intuit our potential to be more than what we are, ultimately makes no difference.  We are equally bothered by both most of the time.  In fact, in my experience, I've come to feel that people are more bothered and afraid of their potentials to grow and evolve than they are of projections that reduce them to less than what they know they are.

Whether we project onto the other who constructs us differently than we construct ourselves an initiator or healer (i.e., one who is willing to accompany us in a process of rebuilding ourselves) or a violator and villain is sometimes merely a matter of our attitudes toward change.  We can even reformulate our identities in (often, but not always, opposing) relationship to an antagonist.  We tend to think it is generally a good thing to "love others for who they are" . . . but sometimes such love is too strict and can be imprisoning when we are ready to change.  To love the whole person is to love or accept them for themselves with a high degree of plasticity thrown in.  That is, we are all more than fixed ego alone.  The more fixity we hold to, the more life and otherness seems to be threatening.  Or, as an old poem of mine once put it: "Things that just lie around have a way of vanishing."

That poem is actually nicely pertinent, is all about projection, ego fixity, and the shadow . . . so I will leave off with it.


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Nightlife

Dear whoever you are,
I’m writing this letter because . . .
I really just don’t know anymore,
maybe I just shouldn’t get up in the middle of the night
and sit back on my recliner in total darkness
not watching but listening
to things going on on my porch, to noises outside my house.
It all starts out very quiet, and it really is late,
but with time things start happening,
poppings and crackings and a scratching and muffled voices
from the dark bedrooms of neighbors.
I imagine I know what they look like inside, those bedrooms.
They are all red, I’m sure—
red velvet drapes
deep violent red carpets.
I don’t know,
the children must have awakened them.
Those children.
All day I’ll sit on my porch
and the children are misbehaving,
have found something sharp and are cutting things—
furniture in the house or the curtains or bed sheets or something,
cutting into tree trunks, into table legs, into door jambs . . .
always the act of cutting engineering itself
into a mind inside the mind.
Those children won’t be good.
I’ve been living alone for a while now,
I don’t know.
All day I’ll sit on my porch in my chair and my hands
must have something,
something to clutch or tap fingers on . . .
or else I can’t be out there.

Dear acquaintance,
I don’t know how you’ve been, but as for me,
well, things here are the same.
I can’t seem to get going—
so what else is new?
At night I sit in my chair most of the time,
it’s a recliner, I got it used and put it by the front window
where all the light comes in in the morning.
Recently I went to a flea market and got an old straight-edged razor for two bucks.
Just to hold one of those things,
I don’t know.
It seems sinister in a weird way.
What if I’m holding a murder weapon?
For that and for other reasons
I haven’t been able to put it down.
I feel compelled, mysteriously,
to keep my eye on it.
If a razor has a mind it has a purpose.
Such things need someone to watch over them.
Sharp things have a way of vanishing.

Dear concerned listener,
Please rest assured,
immediately after this letter is finished
it will all be over, and then we can simply go back home.
I feel like I’m not making sense. I feel . . .
is that difficult for you? It seems to me somehow sinister.
I don’t know.
Out on the porch, out there, and something is scratching
out there, out there on the porch with my razor.
I believe I left it there, purely by accident, all through the night.
It’s been sitting there on the arm of the chair on the porch waiting,
the night, I’m afraid, will not be good, it won’t be good,
has been known to use it to cut things, the night
has been misbehaving, won’t be good,
is a wicked child, cuts things . . .
put it away!
And really, when you look into it, deep into the blade,
there it is, the night, already cutting—
and children harm things with sharp blades
children know better than we do that sharp things cut
and do not just lie around.
Things that just lie around have a way of vanishing.

Dear friend,
Do not be alarmed,
I have borrowed your razor.
I say borrowed, but it seemed . . . I do not wish
to be presumptuous . . .
that it was left there for me,
that you wished me to have it.
If I am mistaken
just please tell me
and I will return it to you
with my sincerest apologies.

Love, me

PS
The thing you said was missing has been found.
Go back to bed now,
we’ll discuss this in the morning.


You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way.

   [Bob Dylan,"Mississippi]

Malcolm Timbers

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #21 on: March 21, 2008, 02:06:05 PM »
Not everthing of this sort is projection. Most of the time it is a matter of applying the principles of the belief system that one conformed to. And, quite often what one conforms to does not necessarly agree with one's unconscious, so it is not a matter of projection in the usual sense of the terminology. However, it still might be considered to be a form of projection because quite often the unconscious operates in a contrary fashion in order to play the role of a trickster. This fact gives one the wrong impression that the unconscious is in accord with one's opinions.

Sealchan

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #22 on: March 24, 2008, 03:26:39 PM »
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Sealchan,
In some ways you might be correct.  From my perspective, what you choose to designate as "truth," I am more inclined to call, to use Jung's frame of reference, "reality."  To Jung a psychic occurrence was "real."  He makes no claim to truth.

I also like the distinction Jung made regarding rational (thinking/feeling) and irrational (sensation/intuition) functions.  I translate this into rational and irrational "truths".  So a simple perception of a bus as being "yellow" is a truth.  Or, as in a movie I just saw called In The Valley of Elah there was this car that was believed to be green, but it was actually a blue car that had been illuminated by a yellow street light at night.  I would still say that the perception of the car as green is "true".  But, of course, if the person stood there until the night passed and the street light went off and the sunlight had a chance to illuminate it with a fuller spectrum then that person would change their sense of the truth...  And because the fact of the car's color carried burden because it could be a factor in a criminal investigation, this makes its "truth-weight" greater and the sense of responsibility for claiming that truth (that the car was green) more of a burden to the knower.

For me the word "reality" is laden with epistemological weight but, perhaps, for Jung it was more a sense of the nature of perception, an irrational quality that I do not "authenticate" what I experience but merely have these perceptions.  If they are not true perceptions later then we don't feel that we are wrong so much as we were tricked or, we are not "responsible" for the truth of our senses or our fanciful imagination.

Then when we have these inner others who we do not know as such we find ourselves relating to them via people in our sensory lives.  Without consciousness, so probably, properly without resort to a conscious function, we project our inner other onto an outer other and then relate inaccurately to the other to some degree.

Yet, at the same time, relating to that outer other with that added inner "necessity" is an extremely important part of our psychological experience.  Even if it is problematic and, in the long run, done in error, it is, I believe, unavoidable and the context in which we find our development occuring in its most significant aspects.

I like to keep a sense of the common usage of terms when I "philosophize" but all of this presupposes a sense of self divided into multiple inner others that is not "common sense" for most people.  My hope is that some sense of the multiplicity of the inner personalities gains some more ground in popular culture so that it is not so awkward to speak of projections and differentiating one's shadow or anima/us from outer individuals casually to most people.  That, for me, makes Jungian thought a frustratingly isolating belief system.


scienceative

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #23 on: March 24, 2008, 10:05:26 PM »
we also have our definite refreance point from which we are always seen in life and experiance our lives i hope that clears up that question (-)howdy(-) (-)idea(-) (-)monkbggrn(-) (-)scold(-) (-)smblsh(-) (-)dogma(-) (-).?!.(-) (-)cheers(-) (-)cheers(-) ??? ::) :P :-* :'(

Malcolm Timbers

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #24 on: March 26, 2008, 04:25:12 PM »
scienceative said, "we also have our definite refreance point from which we are always seen in life and experiance our lives."

Humans largerly experience life through their fantasies. Many people have a fantasy belief system that they defend with their live, so that their belief system means more to them than their life!

Richy

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #25 on: April 23, 2009, 05:25:12 AM »
I think that the only thing that we can,personally,absolutely know as the truth,are things about ourselves,what the knower inside knows about the knower.Everything else is once removed from the centre.I know if I am happy,sad,worried,etc.These are all internal things.To know that my name isn't true,because it is removed,acquired "knowledge",external from the knower.It would be true,though,to say that I think that my name is Richy,that maybe it is Richy.Isn't this what Socrates was on about?

I think that this is the purpose of the psyche,to learn truths about ourselves,to know ourselves,something immediate,and it is the function of the archetypes to guide us to the truths,first,personal truths,which can then be followed to a wider,collective,universal context,using truth and Jung's methods "hand in glove".I know that it is a contradiction to say that evolutionary psychology has a goal,but maybe goal is the wrong word.Maybe it should be the function or purpose of the archetypes rather than goal.

I think that the unconscious is composed of truths,at the shallow end,personal truths,then at the deeper end,archetypal and universal truths. . .and then I have this "intuition" that right at the bottom,beyond even the archetypes,is the ultimate truth-whatever that is.I say that the unconscious consists of truths,because you can only repress something that is true.Why would you repress something that isn't true?Well,that is how it seems to me.

That would imply that if the unconscious consists of truth,then it is truth that is projected,internal truths about the knower that have escaped the knower's attention.First,personal truths,then when "widened",collective universal truths-a single piece in the bigger "jigsaw puzzle" picture of the universal,and perhaps,ultimate truth.Self knowledge,the knower knowing the knower. . .the truth about the knower has to be the greatest,most fundamental knowledge,doesn't it?And when you do realise it,the truth is in the knower,and the knower is in the truth,reflecting each other.

Sealchan

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #26 on: May 01, 2009, 05:40:35 PM »
I think that the only thing that we can,personally,absolutely know as the truth,are things about ourselves,what the knower inside knows about the knower.Everything else is once removed from the centre.I know if I am happy,sad,worried,etc.These are all internal things.To know that my name isn't true,because it is removed,acquired "knowledge",external from the knower.It would be true,though,to say that I think that my name is Richy,that maybe it is Richy.Isn't this what Socrates was on about?

I would say that is an introverted sense of truth, like Descartes' "I think, therefore, I am."  One could also proceed from a sense of doubt in internal knowledge and an axiomatic confidence in the reality of the external world.  I think these are two separate, but equal, "centers" for truth and that one's personal preference in this regard is an indicator of the attitude of the personality (introverted or extroverted function) of the knower in question.  Perhaps your observation and that of Descartes could be seen as a supreme introverted intuition about being.

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I think that this is the purpose of the psyche,to learn truths about ourselves,to know ourselves,something immediate,and it is the function of the archetypes to guide us to the truths,first,personal truths,which can then be followed to a wider,collective,universal context,using truth and Jung's methods "hand in glove".I know that it is a contradiction to say that evolutionary psychology has a goal,but maybe goal is the wrong word.Maybe it should be the function or purpose of the archetypes rather than goal.

I see this as one goal, the order which the archetypes supply, but also, in that, a balance of psychic energies.  In like compliment to this is the need of the individual to adapt to the world as a physical and social center.  The inner and outer centers provide a dual goal for personal growth/adaptation.  These two goals overlap but often do not share common paths in my view.  Evolutionary psychology would prefer to see how the biological need shapes the psychological function.  But I also think it is valid to say that the psychological also can shape the biological, at least in theory, and that there can be mind over matter so to speak.  Maybe the archetypes reflect a dual reality, one which honors the instincts and the ways of the body and the world and another which brings order to that world through how the brain, the physical home of the psyche, is constructed.  So one part of the archetypal is how the psyche is based on a brain shaped by years of evolution but another part is how the structure of the brain shapes our very perceptions of that world which we come to realize we were evolved out of. 

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I think that the unconscious is composed of truths,at the shallow end,personal truths,then at the deeper end,archetypal and universal truths. . .and then I have this "intuition" that right at the bottom,beyond even the archetypes,is the ultimate truth-whatever that is.I say that the unconscious consists of truths,because you can only repress something that is true.Why would you repress something that isn't true?Well,that is how it seems to me.

I think that the cognitive function "intuition" is the perception of the inner landscape.  Phenomenologically the intuitive function itself has a kind of numinous center, an irrational core, which gives one the sense that all meaning is one and yet manifest in a diverse array of complexity in the sensual world.  The archetypal within us is expressed when we become unbalanced in our conscious egoic attitudes.  But I would add that the ego is the final arbiter of truth in that the unconscious may present an counter-truth, but there is a sense that we have free will to choose our unique biased path.  Just as strength in our musculature is built up through the opposition of muscle to physical force, so is our ego developed through a process of psychic opposition (a force and an equal and opposite force or a conscious belief and an effort to suppress its equally valid opposite from the unconscious).  Not that we are to become an extreme bias and fight the rest of the psyche, but that we are to engage in the inevitable process of differentiation and integration, separation and connection between inner psychic truths. 

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That would imply that if the unconscious consists of truth,then it is truth that is projected,internal truths about the knower that have escaped the knower's attention.First,personal truths,then when "widened",collective universal truths-a single piece in the bigger "jigsaw puzzle" picture of the universal,and perhaps,ultimate truth.Self knowledge,the knower knowing the knower. . .the truth about the knower has to be the greatest,most fundamental knowledge,doesn't it?And when you do realise it,the truth is in the knower,and the knower is in the truth,reflecting each other.

I think I would agree with this.  One could look at a projection in only a negative light as it often is, but one could also embrace it as a natural expression of one's self in a form not integrated into one's conscious ego.   In an effort to include such non-egoic, yet personally relevant aspects of reality, one's projections can be seen as a unique, particular expression of the greater universal order removing, in that view, the primacy of a sense of subjective self.  Then you become just the whole looking at a part of which you are associated.  This might be an extroverted intuition in that one identifies one's own being with a sense of a universal being.  The intuitive function has the ability to orient one's subjective truths into either an inner or outer orientation.  This sort of talk qualifies as a contemplation of what is mystical or metaphysical.

Richy

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #27 on: May 04, 2009, 02:59:45 PM »
What I was thinking was that the truth and the transcendent function are the same thing,and can be found in each other.

Sealchan

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Re: Projection & Truth
« Reply #28 on: March 01, 2011, 07:00:15 PM »
In rereading my thoughts in this thread I can see more clearly how I struggle to make my thoughts clear and seem to try to preserve thoughts that I probably should throw out and reformulate after some additional study.  I get deep into my subjective intuitions and think them out loud.  My apologies for dragging you all threw this!