In seeming contradiction to my very psychologized
post above, I'd like to look closer at the possibility that there is something material behind the Self. The Self as we might perceive it in images, symbols, dreams, etc. is (like everything we perceive) colored by our egos. I think we tend to perceive these Self figures in terms of how we can see them potentially embodying us or influencing us. And to a significant degree, we cannot see them in any other way, since our perception/cognition is anthropomorphic.
But science provides us with a method of trying to see non-anthropomorphically. For instance, when we perceive ourselves through the eyes of evolution. Darwin and Freud were so upsetting (and revolutionary), because they seemingly de-humanized humans. They tried to look at humans as evolved animals who operate by the principles of nature and instinct rather than trying to see humanity through the human ego only. In other words, instead of seeing how animals are like us, these thinkers demanded we see ourselves like animals. It's a movement toward a non-ego perspective.
Jung contributed a much richer array of archetypes (i.e., human instincts) to the severely "chimpanzeeistic" reductionism of Freud. We may relate to these archetypes anthropomorphically . . . but do they have substance beyond the relativism of ego perception?
I believe they do. But of course, this "substance" is difficult to pin down . . . just as all instincts are. What we know about instincts is that they are adaptive . . . which means they evolved, and they evolved in response to environmental conditions. Therefore, logically.
I think there is potential in the relatively new science of evolutionary biology/psychology of fleshing out the instincts that generate our perception of the archetypes. Jungians might resist this, because they will likely find it "reductive". The ego always finds reality that is not based on ego-perception reductive. And, in a sense, this is a valid evaluation. The egoic way of seeing is very narrative and embellished. Everything we perceive is storied into a meaningful condensate that is both more and less than "reality". These stories are always in flux, accumulating associations, chiseling away, adding on, and (if we are psychologically healthy or not "neurotic" or stuck in a complex, which is a kind of concretized narrative)
adapting.
It doesn't take much digging to come to the conclusion that archetypes, archetypal figures, are personified
processes . . . more so than beings or deposits of animated consciousness. Their relationship to us (say, in dreams) is effectual. They are parts of a force that means to move us in some way. They are manifestations of a will (but of a will that feels Other to us). There is no deviation from the idea of instinct in this description.
And instinct means biology. Instincts, although "non-local", are accepted as entirely biological elements of behavior.
What then of the Self? Is the materiality behind the Self biological? That's my current hypothesis. I'm thinking that the Self is the archetype based on the entire thinking, perceiving biological organism. On one hand, this thinking and perceiving is divided among numerous organs and "modules". On the other hand, there is a "greater than the sum of its parts" quality to the organism, a sense that many of its governing processes and self-regulatory systems point toward a goal which might be seen as the functionality of the organism in its environment. Or, perhaps, a "skill at living". The Self (with its satchel of instincts and autonomous, self-regulatory processes) wills the organism toward effective living. Which might commonly include adaptability and drives toward socializing and reproducing.
Therefore we have the dual nature of the archetype as 1) the sum of all coordinated organs (i.e., the unconscious), and 2) the principle of coordination that governs the parts (i.e., the divine "personality" or God consciousness). The later nature of the Self is perhaps the primal model for ego consciousness (and therefore also the aspect of the Self that the ego most relates to and most confuses with itself).
To test such a hypothesis would require more scientific means. Perhaps no scientific test could ever be satisfactory. I am personally basing the hypothesis on a combination of "naturalistic common sense" (in accord with my understanding of biology and evolution) and personal experience. By which I mean personal experience in the self-analysis of my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors . . . with special attention to my dreams and other "inspired" creations (i.e., creations in which both the ego and some Other seems to be involved).
In these endeavors, I have yet to experience anything in the archetypal unconscious (the Self) that has other than a biological/instinctual/libidinous "intention" on the ego. In my opinion, the Self (in my experience of it) has always "behaved" in accordance with what might be called Nature . . . specifically in accordance with life instinct/libido. It has (I believe) pushed me toward adaptability and has demonstrated a "desire" to channel libido through the ego and into the task of living in the world as efficiently as possible.
But this libido process should not, I think, be underestimated. It is enormously complex . . . much more so than the current writers in the field of evolutionary psychology seem to recognize. We may possess instincts "left over" from our chimpanzee ancestors . . . but we also possess many instincts that appear to be largely unique to our species (as should not be at all surprising). These species-specific instincts (in my opinion) are primarily those that have evolved around the relationship between the ego and the Self.
These are also (not surprisingly) the very instincts that we have enormous trouble recognizing as instincts (i.e., as biological, evolutionary adaptations). We might easily surmise, though, that this is precisely the area in which we are most inclined to be unconscious (i.e., instinctual) . . . although it seems we are by no means "damned" to such unconsciousness. The human ego is a queer and fascinating evolutionary development. It seems to be a unique adaptation (and we are often either disinclined to see the ego as an adaptation or at least very puzzled as to the cause of this adaptation). Unique, primarily for the accentuated and detached "sense of self" it affords us. In other animals, this sense of self seems much more integrated with the organism's biological instincts . . . perhaps undifferentiable.
But in our species, we appear to have evolved a nearly autonomous sense of self . . . and therefore, in effect, a dual consciousness. When we move to the question of why this is (a very big question about the "meaning" of human life), we must (if we are to retain a scientific method of inquiry) first inspect the specific environment in which humans (or proto-humans) evolved what we see as our humanness, i.e., we must locate our "evolutionary niche".
The problem is that we are not entirely certain of what our evolutionary niche was . . . and even less certain of how this environment could have produced our uniquely divided consciousness.
My favorite answer to this mystery (i.e., the theory I find most logical) is the theory of the cognitive niche [Cosmides and Tooby]. Although I advocate an interpretation of this theory that its originators don't accept. They find the interpretation I prefer, "Machiavellian". But the general idea is that our evolutionary niche is so difficult to pin down because it is not material. The theory holds that we evolved our "consciousness" in an environment of abstract information. To the best of my understanding, Cosmides' and Tooby's conservative approach is to try to relate this information to hunting and gathering information (e.g., what are the characteristic behaviors of prey, what kind of berries are edible, etc.). I have no reason to disagree, but many animals that we consider non-conscious also seem to know how to track prey and avoid poisonous vegetation.
We are actually quite different from such animals in that we have very limited instincts regarding such things . . . we have to learn these things from experience
*. I'm not sure if the value of such information could have really been enough to kick us into evolutionary overdrive and produce the ego.
* This leads to another fascinating subject that I won't go into here. Namely, the notion that the development of the ego as non-local, abstract information sorter aided our evolutionary success because by "abstracting" instinctuality that would normally have to develop at the slow pace of evolution, our egos could effectively "evolve" based on cultural learnings and adaptation, which can allow for great leaps forward in "evolution" (i.e., adaptation) even within the span of one human life time.
Therefore, part of our "instinctuality" is actually transmitted through collective, "historical" information. This is similar to Richard Dawkins meme theory . . . although his formulation of that this idea is not entirely satisfactory to me.
But if we did evolve so that we could "delegate" some of our evolutionary adaptation to our acculturation, it is no wonder we have come to dominate this planet so thoroughly. It would make us immensely accelerated adapters . . . although we should consider that we are arguably only the runner up to viruses.
Machiavellian or not, I think it is much more logical to hypothesize that our ego-development was largely an adaptation to more human-specific (rather than basic, material survival-specific) information. In other words, "culture". The ability to comprehend and utilize information about other human beings (through "projective deduction") seems to me a very useful trait for our large-brained, hunter-gatherer ancestors. How will this other person act or react in a situation? And what strategy might I employ, with the benefit of such information, that could increase my chances of survival and reproductive success?
Cosmides and Tooby don't seem to like the notion of humans competing against humans in their own evolutionary environment . . . but (at least in what I read), they don't seem to give an adequate explanation for why they don't accept this as part of the theory. All they say is that such an idea is too "Machiavellian". Hardly, to my mind, a scientific conclusion. It seems more like it offended their sensibilities (of course other evolutionary biologists do champion the idea of inter-human strategic competition as a catalyst for our development of consciousness).
But if the projective deduction (part "intuition", part reasoning/extrapolation) that I propose above did account for our adaptation to the cognitive niche, it would not be at all surprising that we would have developed a dual (self/Other) consciousness. After all, the way we "intuit" other people's cognition is by downloading the information into our own psychic model. If I were X, I would do Y. The more effectively we can do this, the better our chances of gaining and even controlling resources (food, status, reproductive, etc.). That is, we are already set up to think in terms of self and Other, even as we introspect.
To me, this seems pretty logical, but the real kicker comes in the next stage, the development of social morality. The "Machiavellian" scenario I'm proposing leads to two contrary adaptations: 1) Those who are the most manipulative, clever, and deceptive will succeed, and 2) those who are best at cooperating and sharing resources will succeed. If it is the case that we developed with both of these instincts, then we truly do have a "devil" inside us. It would seem to lend credence to Jung's notion of the shadow and of the human potential for evil (which lies in each of us).
In the evolution of human morality, the evolutionary psychologists often turn to game theory and the notion of reciprocal altruism. [Pardon me for not having the source of this game experiment with me while I wrote this]. Through computer simulations, this experiment tested to determine which attitude leads to the most cultural (and therefore evolutionary) success: 1) Always trusting another person during an exchange, 2) never trusting another person during an exchange, and 3) trusting those others who have demonstrated trustworthiness and not trusting those who have demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness [again, I could be botching this a bit since I am working from memory, but this is the gist of it]. The simulations showed that the third option, "reciprocal altruism" proved the most successful long-term strategy.
We might gather that it is then quite possible that we would develop an instinct for altruism. That is, since it is adaptive, altruism could have become abstracted to some degree, disconnected from reciprocity almost entirely.
Reciprocal altruism requires consciousness, rationality, we might say. An ability to be aware of the options and the weigh them on a detached scale of judgment. Rationality as we know it appears to be a much later cultural development. This is purely speculative, of course.
One can debate the actual usefulness of the reciprocal altruism experiment, but the result it produced was really completely logical.
So, perhaps with the favoring of reciprocal altruism, we evolved into creatures that have a sense of morality. An ability to not just strategically interact with others, but to actually value them . . . as we can extrapolate that they have mostly the same concerns, needs, and desires (and therefore essential worth) that we do via projection. Although it is often hard to see it, it appears we came out more moral than immoral. But the immoral strategist can still "work the system" to his or her advantage. This is primarily achieved by being so skillfully deceptive (and perhaps lacking the degree of moral conscience that less deceitful people have) that the others being manipulated are not really aware of the manipulation (at least until it's too late).
Evolution, under these terms, would have to produce both. Today, we call these super-deceivers, psychopaths. Many of the evolutionary psychologists believe that psychopathy is largely determined by heredity. In the larger world, we still seem to be locked into a battle between communal morality and ambitious psychopathy. Especially in our corporate, capitalist system we can see that psychopathy can often lead to social and monetary success. And in many less developed countries, we even frequently see rule by dictators and/or gangs. These scenarios are often tolerated and even encouraged by the more developed countries that possess most of the wealth and wield the most global power. "Psychopathy" abroad is considered good for business at home insomuch as it guarantees that foreign markets serve the interests of the powerful colonialists who can "detach" from their psychopathy in this way.
Part of this system is the corporation, and if anyone has seen the documentary
The Corporation, they have seen how the empowered corporate "identity" can be described as fundamentally psychopathic . . . and even
legally detached from moral responsibilities (especially as corporations are increasingly deregulated).
So where in this mess is the Self? Can we honestly say the Self (if it is biologically founded) is "good" if our biology seems to include elements of both morality and psychopathy/immorality? Also, if there is a strong genetic factor in psychopathy, does this perhaps indicate that the Self of the psychopath is somehow damaged or missing some essential ingredients?
It's definitely a question that needs to be asked . . . but it isn't one I feel fit to posit a guess for. There's not enough data.
Arriving at this mire, I can only turn inward toward the observation of my own adaptational dynamic (i.e., my work with increasing consciousness, or individuation). What I have found personally is that as I become more conscious of the contents of my psyche, I recognize more darkness, more potential to do harm . . . but insomuch as I can learn to accept these things, they tend to compel me less and less. I develop an increasingly conscious attitude toward morality and an increasing desire or even need to accept responsibility for my actions and beliefs. As I learn how to better distinguish and differentiate the Self-as-Other, I come to increasingly value the Other and all forms of Otherness.
But if I were a true psychopath, would I be unable to do this . . . or entirely disinterested? I really don't know.
This is the current limitation of what I feel is sensical and can be supported with data and logic. But beyond this, I have intuitions that I do not yet understand.
For instance, I intuit that the will of the Self as I perceive it is ethical. That ethics are not merely arbitrary. I feel that as one continues to pursue the Self and the individuation process, the process becomes increasingly ethical . . . and that consciousness and morality (the acceptance of moral responsibilities) are ultimately indistinguishable. One can only pursue consciousness for the sake of personal "betterment" or even healing up to a certain point . . . beyond which the pursuit of individuation is done, in effect, for others and for the Other/Self.
How to weave this into a theory of the Self's substance I don't yet understand. I only know that consciousness seems to lead to a perspective that holds that any harm we do to others is harm done equally to ourselves.
But is this uncertain territory a cause for the adoption of a religious belief system? I don't personally think so. What we can know is that the Golden Rule (do nothing to others that you would not have them do to you) is the oldest, most fundamental, and most universal "law" of human morality. Can it really be a purely cultural development? Or is it based in an instinct or archetype?
I hope to keep exploring and investigating this, but I think it is best to end here for now.
-Matt