An Introductiont -- And Overview -- To Gap-DGB Personality Theory (Part 2)


Just finished, January 23rd, 2011...


The personality -- just like the body, and just like the birth and death of life -- starts in chaos and ends in chaos.

The arc of life (see Part 1 of this essay) is generally one of 'no organization' to 'better and better organization' right to the 'top of the arc of life' and then a slow or fast downward process back to chaos -- and finally death.

Now this is not to say that 'supreme organization' is always the 'ultimate barometer' of 'success, health, and happiness in life' because 'over-organization' can be as much a 'life-killer' as 'no organization at all'.

Once again, there is a dialectic process going on between 'no organization at all' and 'supreme organization' -- the two needing and affecting each other.

Creativity demands the existence of chaos -- chaos is the 'birth unit' of all life  -- and the successful evolution of life from a lesser state to a higher state of evolution demands the dialectic interplay between chaos and organization, between Dionyssus (creative spontaneity) and Apollo (planned organization).

And so it is with the 'birth of the individual personality'...

The unconscious is the birthplace of the personality -- and the unconscious thrives in an environment of chaotic (creative) spontaneity, no distinctions initially, until the organism starts to feel the difference between 'narcissistic pleasure' and 'narcissistic pain' -- and based upon these two primary distinctions, all other resulting distinctions, start to fall in line...

At birth, and for the first little while, all 'ethics' is 'narcissistic ethics'. Even 'love' is built from narcissism: In order for me to 'love' you, you have to be 'narcissistically important to me'.

That might be putting it crudely, but, only slightly modified, put it this way: How can you love someone who is not important to you?

'Splits' in the personality start to arise in the personality for perhaps a varitey of reasons, three of which I can easily speak of and which often interact with each other:

1. Functional usefulness and 'the increasing specialization' of labour within the confines of the personality;

2. Traumacy -- and 'traumatic learning' -- which within the confines of Gap-DGB Personality Theory will often be called 'transference learning' (Freudian influence), 'lifestyle learning' (Adlerian influence), and/or 'transference-lifestyle learning' (Freudian-Adlerian dialectically integrative influence).

3. 'Social Learning' -- which may or may not 'fit' with 'personal, experiential learning'.  For example, if Victorian society taught people 'not to masturbate' (for fabricated and/or ignorant reasons such as 'you'll go insane' or 'your thing will fall off' or 'you'll develop neursosis like neurastenia' (see definition below)...and meanwhile, people -- both men and women -- are finding by personal experience that masturbation can be intensely pleasurable, then you are quite likely to see the beginning of a 'general split and dissociation (see definition below) in the individual and/or collective cultural personality between what society on the one  hand is teaching you is 'wrong' and what your body, on the other hand, is telling you is....oh, so 'right'...

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Neurasthenia

Neurasthenia is a psycho-pathological term first used by George Miller Beard[1] in 1869 to denote a condition with symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, headache, neuralgia and depressed mood.[footnotes 1][citation needed] It is currently a diagnosis in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (and in the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders, translated as 神经衰弱). However, it is no longer included as a diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Americans were supposed to be particularly prone to neurasthenia, which resulted in the nickname "Americanitis"[2] (popularized by William James). Today, the condition is still commonly diagnosed in Asia.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Dissociation

Dissociation is a partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s conscious or psychological functioning.[1] Dissociation can be a response to trauma or drugs and perhaps allows the mind to distance itself from experiences that are too much for the psyche to process at that time.[2] Dissociative disruptions can affect any aspect of a person’s functioning.[3][4][5][6] Although some dissociative disruptions involve amnesia, the vast majority of dissociative events do not.[7] Since dissociations are normally unanticipated, they are typically experienced as startling, autonomous intrusions into the person's usual ways of responding or functioning. Due to their unexpected and largely inexplicable nature, they tend to be quite unsettling.

Different dissociative disorders have different relationships to stress and trauma.[8] Dissociative amnesia and fugue states are often triggered by life stresses that fall far short of trauma.[9][10] Depersonalization disorder is sometimes triggered by trauma, but may be preceded only by stress, psychoactive substances, or no identifiable stress at all.[11]

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dgb...cont'd...

I call the 'Chaotic Unconscious (CU)' --  i.e., part of the initial birthplace of the personality -- by a second name -- the 'Undifferentiated Apeiron (UI)', in respect t how much influence the 2550 year old Greek dialectic philosopher -- Anaxamander -- has had on my work. However, there are also Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, and Gestalt influences in everything I have written above.

Next up in the evolutionary development of the personality is 'The Genetic Self (GS)'.
This concept of the GS incorprates two Jungian concepts together -- The Self, and The Collective Unconscious.

The first Jungian concept -- The Self -- pertains to what some might call a 'God-and/or Nature given template' in the personality -- a propensity for passion, energy, and/or ability in a certain direction...

With the birth of the organism and the unique individual personality within the organism, The Genetic -- Potential, Unactualized -- Self starts off as 'pure potential possibility' with a propensity for movement in a certain direction....

But this state of 'purest state of potential energy' is very short-lived, indeed, the baby is already conscious and moving in the womb, and then once it is born, the newborn baby emits its first 'outside world' movement, its first cry -- the first 'outer world transfer' of potential to kinetic energy in the newborn organism.

Ideally speaking, we all have the potential -- as we come into our new world -- to be the next 'Michael Jordan' in whatever the realm of our 'greatest potential energy, passion, and/or ability' may be.

Sometimes our energy, passion, and ability may not be ideally connected -- and/or they may become connected through some 'accident' or 'traumacy' in life -- the beginning of a 'transference-lifestyle complex' -- which then may steer our passion, energy, and ability down a certain path that may not have been 'figural' to us, and 'fixated' within us, before...

When our Genetic Self meets our 'Archetype Ideals' and/or 'Transference-Lifestyle Complexes', complete with unbelievable 'compensations' and 'overcompensations' of energy and passion -- at this point, huge things can start to happen, either good and/or bad, depending on either the path we end up taking through life, and/or the level of 'extremism' with which we take this path.  The seeds of greatness in a person are often also the seeds of self-destruction -- or some compromised mixture of both.

The path of a person's 'Transference-Lifestyle Complex (his or her 'TLC') is often the path of a 'Superman' or 'Superwoman' if it is passionate and energetic enough. Now in some cases, depending on individual circumstance, a TLC may also 'block personal growth'. This may be the path of the alienated person whose TLC may stand in the way as a 'blockage' between his Central Ego and his Genetic Self (GS). 

Everything is subject to individual case and circumstance  which is why such  Freudian overgeneralizations, or at least one-sided and tilted generalizations, as 'The Oedipal Complex', 'Childhood Sexuality', and 'Fantasy Theory' need to be integrated with his earlier 'Traumacy and/or Seduction Theory', not polarized against a theory that Freud once believed in as passionately as he later came to believe in The Oedipal Complex, Childhood Sexuality, and Fantasy Theory.

We will continue the development of this essay in Part 3.

-- dgb, Jan. 23rd, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

-- Are Still in Progress...

An Introduction -- and Overview -- To Gap-DGB Philosophy-Psychology and Personality Theory (Part 1)

There are a number of ideas that I would like to quickly summarize within the confines of this essay, at least one of which is brand new for me, others which have been with me for varying lengths of time -- 10, 20, 30, even 40 years.

Let's start with the brand new idea. I heard an NBA player on tv the other day talking about an 'arc' in a player's evolutionary development.

I said to myself, 'Now there is an idea that I like -- and well worthy of bringing into the creative mix of Hegel's Hotel.'

Being 55 years old, and partly in the midst of a 'post-mid-life crisis', also having battled the flu for going on 3 weeks now, one gets some personal insight into the idea of 'organismic efficiency and inefficiency'.

Facebook provides a rare insight in terms of 'the juxtaposition of different generations' all on the same social network, and often 'chatting' side by side in the same venue, fully illustrating some of the different 'subjective frames of interest' that go hand in hand with the different generations, the different age groups.

It's like the book 'Passages' for anyone who might remember and/or read that book when it first came out. Extrapolating from this book, we can distinguish between 'unique, individual mindsets', 'cultural mindsets', 'political mindsets', 'religious mindsets', 'economic mindsets -- and 'generaltional mindsets'.

Referring to the latter, I look at the lates 'profile picture' of my son and his new girlfriend, or a day or so previously, my son and his cousin, and they look like 'models off the cover of a magazine'. (For this oldtimer, I think of The Rolling Stones song, 'Little Queenie', written by Chuck Berry...

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Chuck Berry)

I got the lumps in my throat
When I saw her coming down the aisle
I gets the wiggles in my knees
When she looked at me and sweetly smiled
There she is again standing over by the record machine
Oooh, she's looking like a model on the cover of a magazine
Why she's too cute to be a minute over seventeen

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Juxtaposed beside these pictures are the generally much less flattering pictures (I will speak for myself primarily here because some of my friends look much better than I do, and after it is all said and done, it is the underlying relationship that still stands the test of time some 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years later and beyond that is a much better barometer of the relationship than the 'shock of the aging process' that we see in both ourselves and our friends who we may have known as far back as when we were kids in high school, or when we worked together at a time when the testosterone and estrogen was 'filling the air'... (and had pictures to rival the ones that we now see in our kids 20 or 30 years later).

You look back at some of the 'peak moments' in your life -- let's use the barometer of 'phsyical energy, skills, and achievement' here for the moment -- in my own case, back to a time when I ran-walked one of the early 'Miles for Millions' marathons that at the time was more than 30 miles (not kilometres), in about 6 hours, or 'led off a baseball game by hitting an 80 mile an hour fast ball for a homerun at a park that I still go by now and again at Islingtion and Bloor in the west end of Toronto... Or when I caught a softball in a company pick up game, racing straight back and catching it over my head like the 'famous Willie Mays World Series catch' (well, maybe I didn't travel quite that far back but I had a cup of beer in my other hand!)...

We all can do the same if we want to travel down memory lane...

But anyways, you may start to get the idea of what is meant by 'the arc of life (and death)' -- the idea that we start life in a more or less 'chaotic state', a bundle full of largely unorganized energy except relative to those 'needs' that are 'most pertinent' and 'figural' to a newborn baby who is trying to stay alive...

In tennis, I heard the other day, that a professional tennis player generally peaks around 24 years old -- this is generally the top of his or her 'tennis arc' -- and by 29 this arc is generally on a 'downward movement towards more energy inefficiency'' as younger, more 'energy efficient' players generally start to take their place at the 'top of the tennis arc'. Rafael Nadel is 24 years old right now and ranked the number 1 tennis player in the world; he took over 'the top of the arc' from the previous number 1 tennis player, Roger Federer, who is now ranked number 2 in the world, and who dominated the tennis scene in his younger 20s. He is 29 years old right now.

Now, there will always be those excpetions of people who somehow manage to defy the 'normal age barrriers' but usually they have to do it through 'extra hard work', or in some cases, partly with 'money'.

You take what I just said about the 'arc of life' -- and in some cases we may even be able to talk about 'two or more arcs of life' --  and now you go back to some of Freud's earliest influences from 'physics', laws that he learned about 'Thermogenics' -- primarily, 1. 'The Conservation of Energy'; and 2. 'Entropy' -- and you can see how these two laws affected/influenced his work throughout his life, even after he had long left the study of physics.

The idea that I have been discussing above pertaining to 'the arc of life' is associated with the law of entropy -- the idea 'that we come from the earth when we are born and we return to the earth when we die'. ('Dust unto dust...')

I don't profess to be any particular religious follower, other than for comparisons and contrasts in ideas, but in this case, science and religion at least partly meet...


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Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

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Entropy...From Wikipedia...

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that is a measure of the energy not available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when converting energy to work. During this work entropy accumulates in the system, but has to be removed by dissipation in the form of waste heat.


The concept of entropy is defined by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of a closed system always increases. Thus, entropy is also measure of the tendency of a process, such as a chemical reaction, to be entropically favored, or to proceed in a particular direction. It determines that thermal energy always flows spontaneously from regions of higher temperature to regions of lower temperature, in the form of heat. These processes reduce the state of order of the initial systems, and therefore entropy is an expression of disorder or randomness. This model is the basis of the microscopic interpretation of entropy in statistical mechanics describing the probability of the constituents of a thermodynamic system to be occupying accessible quantum mechanical states, a model directly related to the information entropy.




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dgb...

Unless you have studied physics seriously, I don't expect you to understand all of this -- I certainly don't -- but it gives you the gist of what 'entropy' is all about: the idea of energy being lost in an energy-producing system over time due to increasing inefficiency in the system -- and thus, an increase in the 'waste of incoming raw potential energy' that is less and less efficiently turned into 'work or kinetic energy'', due to such things as 'aging', 'oxidation', the breakdown of organ systems and their processes, decreases in cell production, changes in cell structure, and 'the arc of life'...

Ain't life peachy....If you are my age, or closing in on it, look what you have to look forward to....if you are my parents age, then you know by personal experience how much worse it can get...but I don't think I need to worry about getting to their age...I'm still skeptical that I will make 60.

So let us turn our attention away from 'physical energy' and into the realm of 'mental energy' -- like Freud did in his early professional years.

Fortunately, in the realm of 'mental energy', I think we all have the potential for a much longer 'arc of life'. The memory cells may be fewer and further between -- less efficient than they used to be in my best 'dispatching years' -- but still, in terms of mental energy, I stil feel like I am 'at the top of my game, the top of my arc', especially when you add the accumulation of valuable knowledge and experience that you potentially gain with every new day of life. As long as you can still do something with it...

Personally, I figure I have about 4 years to finish and publish Hegel's Hotel in book form, preferrably in just over 2 years, let me say, by my 58th birthday.

Nietzsche was dead and buried at 56. I'm optimistic that I can reach at least 57 or 58.

Enough of the morbid talk...let's get to some more -- hopefully more inspiring -- theory.

What dos 'Gap' mean in 'Gap-DGB' Psychology and Personality Theory?

It is a very important part of the equation here and can be associated to 'Nietzsche's Abyss' -- the abyss that separates 'being' from 'becoming'.

'Gap' also refers to the gap that separates 'potential energy' from 'kinetic energy'.

How efficient is my 'energy conversion'?

How efficient is your energy conversion?

I have a thought in my head. Consider my thought to be 'potential energy'.

As soon as my thought -- in the case of this essay -- has been comitted to paper in an organized and coherent fashion, then a 'bridge' has been built, and travelled over, between potential energy and kinetic energy, between being and becoming.

I have traversed over top of  Nietzsche's Abyss.

If my essay falls through,

And my thoughts don't travel clearly and efficiently,

From my mind to to this blogspot in Hegel's Hotel,

Then we can say,

That I fell...

Into Nietzsche's Abyss...

No 'Superman' here...

Now what does the 'DGB' stand for...
Aside from the initials of my name,

'DGB', as you can see at the bottom of most of my essays,

Stands for 'Dialectic-Gap-Bridging'...

In other words, it stands for traversing over top of Nietzsche's Abyss...

From converting potential energy to kinetic energy,

From converting being to becoming...

It stands for a measure of 'energy conversion efficiency'...

And defeating entropy...

And that is where I will leave you today...

At least in this essay,

-- dgb, Jan. 21st, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Another Dialectic Gap-Bridging Nietzschean Abyss...

-- Has, at least for the moment, 

-- Been Successfully, 

-- Traversed...

Notes on The Anaximander Essays...


The four essays on Anaximander that can be found below are meant to be provocative and controversial....but at the same time stimulating and partly new in their implications...

As a foundational base, I invite you  to read the notes on Anaximander that can be found on Wikipedia....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximander...

Or in any of the other articles that can be  found on the internet today that will give you a basic understanding of his philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/anaximan/

I have taken what was written in these articles, expanded on them, connected them to the evolutionary development of dialectic philosophy and psychology over some 2550 years, particular since Hegel published his famous philosophical treatise, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit (Mind) in 1807, and the developments that happened both in philosophy and then clinincal psychology from then to 2010 today.

Some readers might think that I have gone too far in stretching Anaximander's philosophical ideas to today's philosophy and psychology; others may see the associations I make quite easily and 'go with my flow'...

You can read the Anaximander essays either from top to bottom or bottom to top keeping in mind the dates they were written because the essays are not necessarily presented in chronological order. There is a certain overlap or redundancy in these essays as I strive to convey my message as simply and clearly as possible in slightly different ways. The redundancy may not necessarily be a bad thing as what I am not able to effectively communicate in one essay you may be able to pick up better in one of the other essays.

What I am trying to show above all else is that there is a 'geneological dialectical philosophy tree' that starts in Anaxamander's philosophy (even before that in ancient Greek mythology) and emphasizes the idea of 'bi-polar opposites' and this idea runs for about 2565 through both Western and Eastern philosophy to the present.

In clinical psychology diagnoses and circles, we hear the very common diagnostic term these days -- 'bi-polar disorder' which used to go by the previous name of 'manic-depression'.

It is this associative connection between ancient Greek mythology, Anaxamander's ancient pre-Socratic philosophy, and today's clinical psychology diagnostic terms, concepts, and the phenomena they are meant to represent that I am aiming to bridge in the four or more essays that you can read below.

This 'philosophical and psychological associative link' from Ancient Greece to the present will take us through the philosophies of Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida, as well as through the psychologies of Freud, Jung, Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Berne, Perls, Masson, and others...

It is a long road, a long geneological path...

And it starts in ancient Greek mythology,

And then branches out into the philosophy of Anaximander,

And those that follow him,

As I start to layout in the four Anaximander essays below...

I find it a fascinating, exciting journey...

I hope you will too...

-- dgb, Jan. 16th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

-- Are Still in Progress...

The Dialectic Evolution of 'Compartments' and 'Splits' in The Ego and The Personality-Psyche as a Whole


January 1st, 2011

Part 1

(I wrote Part 2 of this essay about a week before Part 1)

Happy New Year everyone...

There are those who believe that it is nonsensical and irrational to 'divide the personality up' into different so-called 'compartments' of which there is no physical, empirical evidence to support the case that any such 'compartments' actually exist.

You can't touch them, you can't see them, in the same way that you can touch a 'physical organ' is the way the 'emprical, behaviorist, anti-compartment' argument goes...and so why do we argue for the existence of something we can neither see nor touch...It is much like the atheist's argument against the existence of God...or the agnostic's 'I don't know' approach to the existence or non-existence of God...How can we ascertain the existence of something that we can neither see nor touch?

I have taken up the 'existence of God' argument before in other essays and likely will tackle it again. I entertain all aspects of the argument -- the religious person's position, the pantheist's position, the agnostic's position, the atheist's position -- and am working towards a 'multi-dialectic-wholistic' position to partly include all positions -- or at least not to completely dismiss those I don't fully invest in, which is probably all of them.

As a rational empiricist, I do not subscribe to the idea of 'faith' -- particularly in today's narcissistic capitalist world where 'money changes everything'.

I am partly an optimist, partly a skeptic, partly a pessimist, partly a cynic -- another 'multi-dialectic wholistic' position that I am working towards aimed at neither getting 'completely stuck inside' nor 'fully investing in' one particular position -- to the absolute exclusion of all others -- understanding that the context of the situation is important, and that in Heraclitus/General Semantics/Gestalt language: 'Everything is subject to change'.
Which brings us back to the present subject matter -- the idea of 'invisible compartments -- and/or ego states -- in the personality'.

The behaviorists are right when they say that we 'infer backwards' --  that we see a person or a group of people engaging in the same type of behavior over and over again -- and then we 'invent' an 'internal or external causal agent' to explain the repetititive behavior. Thus, we invent such concepts as 'characteristic' and 'character' and 'ego' and 'id' and 'superego' and 'ego-state' -- and even 'self' or 'Self' -- David Hume, the ultimate empiricist, actually argued that we have no 'Self' -- that it is just a 'self-invention', a concept without any substance to it other than a pattern of particular behaviors. David Hume was a 'behaviorist' before the term was invented, just as G.W. Hegel was an 'existentialist' -- or at least partly one -- before existentialism was invented.
The behaviorist argues that we look for 'internal causal agents' just like the ancient Greeks (and all other ancient cultures) looked for 'external causal agents' -- and called them 'Gods', or other 'mythological figures'.

Once we got to the earliest Greek (and other cultural) philosophers, the style of thinking, rather than reflecting the 'symbolic style of thinking' of the pre-philosophical Greeks (which in essence was a type of 'mythological' or 'religious philosophy'), started to become more 'rational-empirical' and 'scientific'...more empirically grounded in their thinking, and yet still, 'abstract philosophical assumptions and/or conclusions' were being drawn that we would likely call pretty 'archaic' today. And yet not entirely as there is a level of 'ancient wisdom and intuitive sophistication' that these earliest Greek philosophers were reaching...that still stands the test of time today.
Such is the case when Anaxamander -- academically viewed as the second oldest Greek and Western philosopher (610 BC-546 BC) --  invented the concept of 'The Apeiron'.

Looked at superficially, The Apeiron seems to be a very archaic concept, and is easily dismissed and forgotten in the tombs of time.

However, lately, as in the last few years, Anaxamander is attracting more academic attention and so too is his concept of The Apeiron. Historically, Anaxamander has attracted some spurts of attention, perhaps most notably, Heidegger who in turn influenced Derrida. Derrida can also be viewed as a post-Hegelian, as well as a post-Anaxamanderian. How so?

It is probably no coincidence that Derrida's Deconstruction Philosophy reads like a modern day version of Anaxamander's philosophy of 'multiple competing opposites' breaking loose into the world from 'The Shadows of The Undifferentiated, Chaotic Apeiron, wage war with each other, with the 'loser' returning to the Shadows of The Apeiron to 're-engergize' while the 'winner' basks in the limelight of 'having the power of the world on its side' until the tide reverses, the loser gains enough power to re-enter the world, 'win', and become the focus of attention, with the loser retreating back into the Shadows of the Apeiron to lick its wounds, and regain energy to re-enter the world, fight another day, fight another round with its bi-polar opposite, and if victorious reclaim the power of the worldly attention that it once owned previously.
Such is the 'cycle of power' in Anaxamander's bi-polar, dialectic philosophy which is captured in his famous 'Fragment' which I have included in other earlier essays about Anaxamander.

Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity;
For they give to each other justice and recompense
For their injustice
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.


As I have also stated in earlier essays, amazingly, the Chinese, around the same time or before, were developing a similar 'bi-polar philosophy' captured by the English translations of 'yin' (feminine energy) and 'yang' (masculine energy) which like Heraclitus (535 BC - 475 BC) would argue, after Anaxamander was dead, needed to be both in the world together to balance with each other, and to help movement towards a general overall world balance, world unity, world harmony.
Stated simplisticly,

Anaxamander basically argued that,
Opposites repel and fight with each other for power.
Whereas Heraclitus and The Chinese were arguing that,

Opposites attract each other and need each other in order to better survive and promote 'worldly unified wholism and harmony'.

Using classic Hegelian dialectic logic, 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis', or an example of Hegelian logic leading to huge developments in the study of physics, on the subject of 'matter' and 'energy', 'particle theory' (thesis) led to 'wavelength theory' (anti-thesis) which in turn led to 'quantum physics' (synthesis).

Similarly pertaining to the subject of 'bi-polar opposites',

A closer theory of the 'dialectical truth of the matter' -- as in 'matter', 'physics', 'energy', and 'contradictory human motivation' can perhaps be better expressed as...
Opposites both attract and repel each other, co-operate and compete with each other, live harmoniously together at times and fight narcissistically and righteously much more often for individual and/or group special interests...

Now doesn't that sound more like a 'modern marriage'...whether that 'marriage' is built solidly or unsolidly on love, sex, friendship, money, business, economics, politics, religion, philosophy, psychology, science, medicine...you name it...

<b>To differ is human...the always operative question becomes 'How do we handle these differences...constructively or destructively...by impasse or integration...by staying together or breaking apart?<i></i></b>

Integrate Anaxamander's 'bi-polar power philosophy' with Heraclitus' and Lao Tse's 'bi-polar balance (opposites attract and need each other) philosophy, and you have the foundation for modern marriage psychotherapy.

Some philosophical wisdom embraces the test of time -- even 2500 years.   If you take the combination of Anaxamander's dialectic philosophy and Heraclitus' dialectic philosophy, you have the essence of Hegelian dialectic philosophy and logic -- separated by about 2300 years.

I would argue that if you take the combined dialectic philosophy of Anaxamander and Heraclitus, you would have a better foundation of the essence of both Western and Eastern philosophy and evolution theory as a whole, than you would if you took, for example, the combined philosophy of Plato and Aristotle who together provided the foundation for much of modern religious (Plato) and scientific (Aristotle) philosophy. What do I mean by this?

Well, from the combined work of Anaxamander and Heraclitus, as stated above, you get the idea of 'existential dichotomies' such as individuation vs union, co-operation vs. competition, dictatorship vs. democracy, freedom vs. slavery, inclusion vs exclusion, Apollonianism vs. Dionysianism, Christianity vs. the Anti-Christ, Constructionism vs. Deconstructionism, rootedness (the earth) vs. creative transcendence (the sky), fire (yang) vs. water (yin)...

You can get these ideas -- in their most basic form -- from the combined Pre-Socratic philosophy of Anaxamander and Heraclitus -- supplemented by the Eastern philosophy of Lao Tse, Confucious, The Han Philosophers -- and the 2500 year plus dialectic concepts of <b>'yin' and 'yang'. 

<i></i></b>The closest Plato came to the type of ideas that I am trumpeting in Pre-Socratic Dialectic Philosophy and Ancient Chinese Dialectic Philosophy was when he stated that man has basically three main energy sources -- <b>the mind, the heart, and the loins.<i></i></b> 

Personally, I think that was one of the most poignant things that Plato ever wrote, along with the various speeches in The Symposium on the purpose and nature of love, some of these which touched on the 'dialectic nature of love'...

However, as Nietzsche argued in 'The Birth of Tragedy(BT)', after the Pre-Socratics (and ancient Greek Mythology), Western Philosophy became fixated on either 'rational idealism' (Plato, Descartes, Spinoza), religion (The Scholastic Period of Religious Philosophy -- Augustine, Aquinas...) and/or the beginning of science, medicine, and empiricism...for almost 2000 years!

It was only in The 'Romantic Period' of Western philosophy, starting mainly with Rousseau around 1750, and moving on to Goethe, Schelling, and the rest of The English and German Romantics that, philosophically speaking, man's passions were 're-awakened'...

Most of the philosphical work in the preceding 2000 years leading up to the Romantic Period, between Socrates and Rousseau, was mainly focused on 'restraining' and 'putting a lid on' man's 'irrational passions'... How many millions have tried and failed?

As Nietzsche distinguished in BT, man is essentially a 'house divided' -- and torn apart, often in resulting tragedy -- between his 'Dionysian' (sensual, hedonistic, narcissistic) impulses and his more rational Apollonian 'self and social restraints'.

At least that was until Nietzsche abandoned 'Apollo' all together and rode his Dionsysian Horse for the rest of philosophical life. So much for the idea of 'equilibrium or homeostatic (dialectic) balance and between two equally viable internal forces in the personality as Freud would come to articulate in Psychoanalysis in 1923 as being between the 'superego' and the 'id' with the 'ego' trying successfully or unsuccessfully to 'negotiate' their primal vs. civil differences. Likewise with Jung, when Jung came to articulate the potential internal separation in man between his 'Social Personna' and his more covert, secretive, primal 'Shadow'... It was perhaps Pierre Janet, even before both Freud and Jung, who was the first to articulate the idea of 'dissociated states' or 'splits' in the ego or psyche...Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, anyone?

Both Object Relations (a division of Psychoanalysis) and Transactional Analysis would continue with this line of thinking, as would almost every other school of psychology and psychotherapy, with a few exceptions such as Adlerian Psychology, perhaps Cognitve Therapy that doesn't really go into much 'Personality Theory' but which distinguishes between 'rational' and 'irrational' beliefs...and Behaviorism that tries to stay out of man's head as much as it can altogether...

Thus, the 'dialectic philosphers' influenced and/or became 'dialectic psychologists' -- articulating different proposed 'splits' and/or 'compartments' in the personality, each with different 'functions' and 'goals'.
....................................................................................

Part 2

We all like something we can 'visualize' while we are learning...even if it is 'just a model or map or theory' that we should not necessarily take too seriously, too narcissistically, too personally...to the point where we can only think within our own 'self-created set of boxes' and not entertain other possible approaches, models, theories, and/or sets of 'compartments'...

Flexibility, tolerance of differences, and an openess to hearing or seeing other approaches is just as important in the realm of personality theory as it is in say...the realm of religion...
When this doesn't happen and you have an 'egotistic clash of titans' -- theorists at the top of their profession -- then you invariably are likely to have 'splits' -- not only in the personality, but ironically, between different personality theorists...

Instead of entertaining the possibility of an element of 'separation and inclusionism' at the same time -- such as might be differentiated and also associated in the names 'Freudian Psychoanalysis' vs. 'Adlerian Psychoanalysis' vs. 'Jungian' Psychoanalysis' -- in that all three of the partly similar, partly different personality theories originated out of the same 'father' -- Freud -- rather, you get this 'narcissistic tug of war' within the context of an 'Aristotlean two-valued, bi-polar, never the two should touch and meet' type of thinking style -- an 'either/or' type of thinking -- that basically precludes and elminates the possibility of a different type of 'post-Hegelian, post Korzybskian, multi-dialectic-multi-valued-integrative thinking' where different philosophers and psychologists perhaps come back together, figuratively or metaphorically, under less stressfuly, egotistic (narcissistic) circumstances -- or their respective students do, perhaps many years later when the main creators and protagonists relative to the different personality theories and psychotherapies are dead, and therefore can no longer lift their respective egotistic heads...to say 'boo'...

It is this latter attitude of 'multi-dialectic, multi-valued integration' spear-headed by yours truly, that is the driving force and the essence of Hegel's Hotel...

Where protagonists and narcissitic rivals lay dead and buried, yours truly, DGB, comes in to tell everybody over their respective grave stones to 'rest in peace' -- or at least rest in peace with their own cherished 'psychological pieces of the more wholistic psychological puzzle' -- and in their aftermath, I look to re-arrange some of those different 'pieces' from different 'conflicting protagonists' and actually put them back together again -- like Humpty Dumpty -- only wholisticially different, valuing the idea of integrating good ideas from different theories and theorists...

I am not saying that this is a perfect idea or that it always works perfectly to everyone's egotistic satisfaction -- this has never happened in the history of man, and most certainly never will...

When you have so called 'perfect agreement' between different people in a group, that is probably a good time to start looking for things like 'collusion', 'internal intimidation', 'bribery', 'black mail', 'an underlying reading of the riot act', etc..

Perfect agreement between different people is more likely to be an expression of a 'social persona' -- 'See, look how united we are!' -- rather than any expression of an 'underlying group Shadow' -- although this can happen to in certain social group phenomena, where everyone loses their reason and goes into some 'primal mode of thinking and/or feeling', perhaps, if sufficiently pathological, launching into a group killing spree, such as in different acts of genecide, and/or ideological terrorism: egs., 'The Spanish Inquisition', 'The French Reign of Terror', 'Nazi, Germany, The Holocaust, and World War 11', 'Darfur'....and so on...Charles Manson...

Anyway, it is on the note and project-goal of a 'massive philosophical and psychological integration over the whole of Western history and culture' that inspired the birth of Hegel's Hotel and that takes us on a long historical trip backwards into time, and then back to the present again: back to Greek Mythology, through Ancient Greek Philosophy, some Ancient Asian Philosophy (primarily Lao Tse and the birth of Daoism), through Roman Philosophy and the beginning of Roman Religious Philosophy, through the birth and beginning of Modern Science, Rationalism, Empiricism, Rational-Empiricism, The Enlightenment, Romanticism, German Idealism, the birth of Humanism, Existentialism, and Humanistic-Existentialism, Post-Modernism and Deconstructionism (Nietzsche to Derrida), Power Philosophy (Foucault), Structuralism and anti-Structuralism, and the birth of Modern Clinical Psychology from Mesmer and the birth of Hypnotism, Charcot, Breuer, Janet, and Freud to Wilhelm and Theodor Reich, Steckel, Karl Abraham, Ferenczi, Jones, Adler, Jung, all the post and neo-Freudians (Adler, Fromm, Horney...), Object Relations (Melanie Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip...), Self Psychology (Kohut...) Transactional Analysis (Berne), Cognitive Therapy, General Semantics, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (Korzybski and his classic book 'Science and Sanity', S.I., Hayakawa and his main book, 'Language in Thought and Action', Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, George Kelly, Maxwell Maltz and his best-seller, 'Psycho-Cybernetics', Nathaniel Branden and his main book, 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem', right up to my sponsoring professor for my Honours Thesis at the University of Waterloo -- Donald Meichenbalm, and his first main book, 'Cogntive-Behavior Therapy...), the birth of Gestalt Psychology and then Gestalt Therapy in the 1940s and 50s (Perls, Goodman, and Hefferline)...and other important Humanistic Psychologists around this same time period, most notably, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, and the Humanistic-Existentialists such as Victor Frankl and Rollo May...And let me not forget -- even though I have largely been at philosophical and psychological odds with them over my intellectual history -- Pavlov, B.F. Skinner, and the rest of the Behaviorist Psychologists...And the controversial Psychoanalytic Scandal prompted by Jeffrey Masson in the 1980s around Freud's still controversial post-1896 'abandoment' of his pre-1897 'traumacy-seduction' theory in favor of his later evolving 'childhood sexuality, screen memory, fantasy, and Oedipal Theories'...


In Hegel's Hotel, I have tried to the best of my ability to embrace the individual and collective spirit of all these different philosophers and psychologists over the history of Western and Eastern Philosophy, and Western Clinical Psychology...


And bring them all together under one metaphorical roof, in one metaphorical hotel -- 'Hegel's Hotel'.

Furthermore, the main philosophical-psychological project within Hegel's Hotel is the new formation of a massive, integrative 're-building' of 'Psychoanalysis' -- with all these different people mentioned above playing bigger and lesser roles in the creation of the final project: what I am calling in long form, 'DGB (Multi-Dialectic, Multi-Bi-Polar) Quantum Integrative Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalysis'...
Wow! That was a mouthful!!

This is an extension of my earlier project in the 1980s which I called 'GAP Psychology' -- comprised mainly of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis, until Transactional Analysis and Jungian Psychology were later added into the mix...and then different elements of the whole of Western Psychology and Philosophy...stemming right back to Greek Mythology and then the second oldest Western Philosopher -- Anaxamander -- as well as one of the earliest known Chinese Philosophers -- Lao Tse... 

Lao Tse, to my way of dialectic thinking, was basically the Eastern equivalent of Anaxamander and Heraclitus back in Greece around the same time... The birth of 'Dialectic Philosophy' -- the philosophy of engaging opposites -- was taking place in both Greece and China at roughly the same time...Coincidence? An unknown communicative connection? Or just a similar style of Western and Eastern dialectic thinking developing across the world from each other in about the same ancient time period...

I begin my story of the birth of Quantum Psychoanalysis with the 'multi-dialectic philosophy' of Anaxamander, the second oldest Greek Philosopher...

Anaxamander's most important concept was his concept of 'The Apeiron'...which could or can be construed as being similar to our present day concept of 'The Universe', and/or 'Chaos'...or 'The Universal Shadows'...with one very important 'dialectical addition' to our present concepts...With Anaxamander, the Apeiron can be viewed as an 'exploding Universe of undifferentiated opposites that spring from the Chaotic Shadows of Life'...

Now some 2560 years later, I am about to do something that, to my knowledge, no psychologist or philosopher has done before me... It starts with the principle of 're-owning projections'...

It is a psychological generalization and at least partial truism, that philosphers and psychologists -- just like the rest of us -- tend to 'invent' concepts, beliefs, values, structures, myths, Gods, 'external realities'...that are either a 'mistaken' and/or an additional reflection of our own 'internal realities'...

Most psychologists are familiar with -- athough the rest of us may not be -- the idea that we all tend to 'project our introjections' and 'introject our projections'; these are two mainly unconsious or subconscious cognitive processes going on constantly within the minds of men and women, both individually and collectively such as in the forms of 'Gods' and 'myths' and 'heroes' and 'demons'...

And so, in going back to the ancient dialectic philosophy of Anaxmander, I say to myself: Let us imagine Anaxamander's concept of 'The Apeiron' as an 'internal human psychological reality' as well as a 'universal external evolutionary reality'....and then ask ourselves: 'Where does this take us to?'

It brings us to 'Concept 1' -- if we are starting from the bottom of the unconcious psyche and working upwards towards the conscious psyche -- and that is the concept of 'The Apeiron': an infinite world of undifferentiated, exploding and then separating opposites at the very bottom of our unconscious psyche...'Functional multi-dialectic evolution' -- in the same spirit as the rest of the universe -- has stqrted its mighty process at the bottom, and the birthplace, of the human psyche...

Concept 2: 'The Genetic Self or Self-God':  Once again, we need to 're-own or introject (internalize) our projections'....In this case, one of man's most famous and most common projections is 'God'...our speculated Creator, and Creator of The Universe...The main Greek God was 'Zeus', the main Roman God was 'Jupitor', and upon the birth of Christianity, 'Zeus' and 'Jupitor' basically got condensed into simply -- 'God'.

I have no trouble with anyone calling our 'Genetic Self or Self-God' the work of Zeus, Jupitor, and/or God...Metaphorically, religously, spiritually, mythologically, pantheistically...whatever word you wish to describe this process, our Self and Self-God is in essence our Spirit, our Soul, our connection to the creative work of God....within us...our own personal God if you will...and we better pay attention to our 'Self-God' if we wish to live a happy, healthy life, because the more we become 'estranged' from our Self-God, a stranger to our Self-God, the more we are going to alienate ourselves from ourselves, and in so doing, bow to the world -- and ourselves -- in worldly and self defeat...

This idea above is very akin to Jung's mythological work in the area of 'The Self'...Jung was probably my last major influence in the development of my model of the personality that I am putting forward here. However, I at least partly reject Jung's concept of 'The Collective Unconcious' in favor of my own preferred concept of 'The Self and Self-God' as articulated here.

This differerence may be construed as 'negligible' or it may be construed as 'significant' -- I think it is partly both: our Genetic Self is partly a very individual and partly a 'genetic, family' concept that traces the presence of most of our main, innate self-skills and talents along genetic (DNA) lines...that obviously if you go right back to beginning of man will eventually include the whole 'family or collectivity of man' stemming back and forth in its 'genetic-historical-cultural-mythological-symbolic transference process'...

From here, we start to move into the 'dividing and differentiating of the God and Archetype Symbols' within the personality stemming from 'The Undifferentiated Chaos of the Internal Apeiron' and eventually ending up as different and often opposing 'ego-states and ego-state functions' within the realm of the personality....
Some of these 'Differentiated and Opposing Archetype Forces and/or Auxilliary Ego States' that I will develop can be differentiated as:

1. The Light vs. Dark (Apollonian vs. Narcissistic) Forces Man;
2. The Narcissistic vs. Altruistic Forces in Man;
3. The Masculine ('yang') vs. Feminine ('yin') Force in Man;
4. The Apollonian vs. Dionysian Force in Man;
5. The Enlightenment-Apollonian vs. Romantic-Aphroditian (Venus, Cupid) Force in Man;
6. The Nurturing Feminine (Gaia, Hera) vs. Righteous, Critical (Apollonian) Force in Man;
7.  The Righteous, Constructive (Apollonian) vs. The Rebellious, Deconstructive (Counter-Apollonian) Force in Man;
8. The Dominant (Authoritarian, Sadistic) vs. Rebellious, Righteous Apollonian Force in Man;
9. The Co-operative vs. Rebellious Forces in Man;
10. The 'Inclusive' vs. 'Exclusive' Forces in Man

We will get to these on another day as we move our way up through the 'unconscious personality' and into the domain of 'The Central Ego' and its various 'Partisan, Auxillary Ego-States' (metaphorically speaking, 'Parliament' in The Personality)...
Suffice is to say for now that our 'Central Ego' needs to be fully dialectically engaged and a 'successful negotiator' with all of these internal partisan factions in our personality...i.e., including our 'Genetic Self-(God)' and all our main bi-polar functional and dysfunctional partisan factions and their various derrivatives into 'ego states'...

This is before and during the time that our Central Ego also has to deal with the stimuli, stressors, antagonistic and nurturing forces in our external environment...

When things go wrong, modern day psychologists and psychiatrists often call this 'bi-polar disorder' which is fine to a point but too abstract when we could be talking about any of 10 or more different types of 'bi-polar disorder'. And not all of them -- perhaps not even <b>any<i></i></b> of them -- require drugs, although it is so easy to look for that 'magic bullet' that will 'just make us feel better' without any internal or external work involved.

Neurosis and psychopathology essentially requires the work of a better 'integrating Central Ego' -- which is on our own shoulders, within our own mind, and a therapist who best knows how to help a person get to this point of better integration.

The 'multi-bi-polar model', by the way, is just as relevant and applicable to physical medical disorders as well as 'psychological disorders'. High and low blood pressure, high and low blood sugar, hypo-thyroidism and hyper-thyroidism, nutritional excesses and nutritional deficiencies, too low and too high immune system function...all of these physical disorders work on a 'bi-polar model' -- too much or too little of a good thing usually becomes a bad thing -- in the same way that we are applying the same bi-polar model idea here to psychological health and illness (dysfunction, disorder, ailment, pathology, neurosis, psychosis...)

Extreme thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can usually be associated with psychological dysfunction, depending partly on the context and context of the 'extremism', and even more so, if it reflects a chronic state of existence...

The Hegelian dialectic formula of, 1. thesis; 2. anti-or-counter-thesis; 3. synthesis reflects this 'bi-polar model' as does W.B. Cannon's famous medical principle of 'homeostatic (or in philosophical terms, dialectic) balance'.
All of the psychological models listed above, also reflect the principle of homeostatic balance as its 'guiding, idealistic health principle'.  So does Maxwell Maltz's guiding principle in his 1960s best-seller, 'Psycho-Cybernetics'. We steer too far to the left, and we generally, or ideally, have a cognitive feedback mechanism by which to bring us back to the right; and visa versa if we steer too far to the right.


We are all looking, in one way or another, for that 'Ideal Place of Homeostatic/Dialectic Balance' -- also called 'Equillibrium'.
Gestalt Therapy calls it 'Organismic Self-Regulation'. No, I didn't write 'Orgasmic Self-Regulation' although even that is a more specific part of the whole overall process. (Read Wilhelm Reich if you are interested in that line of thought)

Our time is likely to be very fleeting indeed at that very special 'Central Spot of Healthy, Happy Equillibrium' that we are all looking for -- and this 'Sweet Homeostatic Balance Spot' is partly different for every separate individual which complicates things immensely -- but regardless, it is generally only for a very brief time, if any time at all, that we hit this Sweet Spot' -- like a hitter who hits the baseball on the 'Sweet Spot' of the bat -- before something either in our inside and/or outside world 'sets us off' again, and then we are no longer in 'Homeostatic Balance' anymore, and we are looking for a way -- through problem solving and/or conflict-resolving -- to get us back there -- to Internal Utopia -- again.

It is like 'The Myth of The Golden Fleece' -- or a 'Gold or God Rush'....We all have our own indivdiual, partly similar, partly different version of this myth...chasing our 'Magic Bullet' or 'Magic Pill'...

Adler, in more secular, less mythological and symbolic, terms, called this our 'lifestyle goal'....or an often 'obsessive-compulsive'  desired line of movement -- and resulting 'chase' -- from a certain type of individualized 'Inferiority Feeling (IF)' to a certain type of individualized 'superiority striving (SS)'.

I call this same process a combination of our 'Traumacy-Transference Memory (TTM)' which crystalizes into our more generalized 'inferiority feeling' before we creatively compensated for this inferiority or insecurity feeling by chasing our 'Transference Mastery Compulsion (TMC)'...with our TMC functioning as our obsessive-compulsive transference-lifestyle goal of 'denying', 'minimizing', overcoming, defeating, and/or mastering our leftover Inferiority Feeling (IF) from our Traumacy-Transference Memory (TTM).

Did you follow all that?  If you didn't, and you are intrigued, you are going to have to read a combination of past and future essays right here in Hegel's Hotel.
A 'myth' does not have to be false. It can be true, false, or anywhere in between. More appropriately here, a myth can be defined as a 'symbolic ideal'.

My myth that I am chasing...or at least my main one...is 'Hegel's Hotel'...
When Hegel's Hotel is perfect...then, and only then, will I be perfect...or at least as close to perfect philosophically as I will ever get in this lifetime....or so my 'transference-lifestyle' thinking in this area goes...

When I write what I think is a good philosophical-psychological essay, for a few moments afterward, I am as close to 'homeostatic balance' as I can get...at least in this area...but the moment I step up from my computer, other 'life imbalances' take over my focus of attention, which quite frankly, I am much less 'geared' to properly solving...or so it seems to be the case at this time...

We all have our different areas of strength and weakness....what I call 'transference lifestyle strengths and weaknesses'...if it is connected to childhood past memories, experiences, and their derrivative 'mastery compensations'...
Every idea, every characteristic carries within it the seeds to its own self-destruction, if or whenpushed too far. This is one of the most important ideas that Hegel ever wrote.

Again, the principle of 'homeostatic/dialectic balance'. 
We all chase different forms of 'extremism' and 'perfection' at different points in time in our life, but generally, there is a counter-urge -- and propulsion -- to come back to centre field. Not always. But generally.

'DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis is a derrivative or a subset of Hegel's Hotel...Quantum Psychoanalysis is my internalized, introjected, 'intra-psychic' version of Hegel's Hotel (and alternatively, Hegel's Hotel is my external philosophical projection of Quantum Psychoanalysis).

My Quantum Psychoanalysis model is an extrapolation of Freud's triadic 'ego-id-superego' model but probably closer in actual proximity to Jung's 'Self, Archetype, Shadow, and Persona' model...with a partial Object Relations ('ego-splitting') and Transactional Analysis ('ego-state') influence as well.

Overly complicated models can be dysfunctional, particularly if people cannot understand and/or use them properly, and/or a lot of attention is drawn to things or processes that just may not be important enough to warrant their inclusion in the model.

However, overly simplistic models can also have their drawbacks, their limitations...
This is the case with Aristotle's 'either/or', 'black or white' model of logic:
If 'A' has properties that are different than 'B' and 'B' has properties that are different than 'A', then 'A' cannot be 'B' and 'B' cannot be 'A'....That works fine until 'A' and 'B' according to evolutionary life processes decide to 'copulate' or 'mutate' or 'integrate' in which case, you now have both 'A' and 'B' as well as neither 'A' nor 'B'; rather you have a 'new evolutionary entity' that we can rightly call 'AB'.

The simplist dialectic model of the personality is probably Perls' 'topdog-underdog' Gestalt model...or alternatively his 'I and Thou, Here and Now' model. Either version of this Gestalt model -- the former a more 'authoritarian' model; the latter a more 'democratic' model -- can be expanded in a wide variety of ways to include almost any and every possible 'dialectic derrivative' of the 'topdog-underdog' or 'I and Thou' generic template...

In other words, one of the two models can be 'customized' to suit practically any and every individual's particular therapeutic/self-actualization needs...
However, the DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis model, as complicated as it may be, at least until it is learned properly, allows us to explore various different types of psychological phenomena and dynamics in a partly different type of intimate detail that won't be captured by other schools of clinical psychology.

Elements of Freudian Psychoanalysis, Object Relations, Adlerian Psychology, Jungian Psychology, Transactional Analysis, Gestalt Therapy, Existential Analysis, Cognitive Therapy, and Self-Esteem Psychology are all there....and put together in one package that extrapolates on each and everyone of the schools of psychology mentioned above in a way that is -- on a 'wholistic' level -- distinctly different than each of the schools of psychology taken individually.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, as does our Central Ego every waking and working day...

I have written more than enough in this essay.

-- dgb, Dec. 25th-26th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...

Part 1: An Internalization of Anaximander's Ancient Greek Philosophy -- Into Man's Psyche!

October 26th, 2010...



I have reached a point in my self studies in philosophy where I have at least a pretty solid basic overall knowledge of most of the history and evolution of Western philosophy...


And one thing, one point, keeps coming back to me over and over again...


The second oldest recognized philosopher in Western history -- one Mr. (or shall I give him the post-humous respect that he deserves and say 'Dr.') Anaxamander who philosophized in the late 500 BC years -- in my opinion is still not given his rightful due respect as one of the greatest philosophers in Western history....comparable to Lao Tse or Confucous in Eastern Philosophy, and even though his work is very sparse, vague, and fragmented, what remains of it, if interpreted in the right light -- and of course I have 'the right light' -- is in essence a philosophical masterpiece, both a precursor of, and the philosophical equivalent for such an early age, of Hegel's much, much more fully recognized and honoured 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1804).


In short, Anaxamander's philosophy was a 500 BC 'roughly construed' template or archetype of 'The Phenomemology of Spirit' some 2300 years plus before the 'real Hegelian thing' came into published existence in 1804.


In fact, it is quite possible that Anaxamander invented the word 'arche' (see....http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Bios/Anaximander.html) which means basically 'first principle' as in the word 'archetype' which would become an indispensible word in Jungian Psychology some 2400 years plus... (more on the connection between Anaxamander and Jungian Psychology below...)

Anaxamander has been connected to 'evolutionary theory' and has been called the first 'evolutionist' because he believed that men evolved from fish. Not bad for someone thinking some 2550 years ago!

Here is how Anaxamander was smarter than all the other Pre-Socratic philosophers, most of whome were looking for the 'ultimate primordial archetype substance of life'...

Thales said 'water' was the first primal 'cause' of life...

Anaxamenes said 'air' was the first primal 'cause' of life...

Heraclitus said 'fire' was the first primal 'cause' of life....


But Anaxamander -- who fit in there historically right after Thales -- was sharper than all the other Pre-Socratics when he argued that each one of these so-called (in my words, not theirs) 'primordial, archetypal life substances' was in essence 'restricted by its particular molecular structure and boundaries' (again, my 21st century words, not in Anaxamander's 500 BC vocabulary ) that precluded the evolutionary existence and/or development of all the others...thus, none of these particular substances in themselves ('water', 'air', or 'fire') could be the 'primordial, archetypal life substance' that they were all looking for...

There had to be some larger, over-riding principle and/or 'structure' that contained them all, and in particular, 'contained all of the opposites' that Anaxamander saw around him in life...

Anaxamander conceptualized and named this 'over-riding, infinite storage structure' of all of 'life's (and death's) chaotic, unorganized, undifferentiated opposite structural and dynamic pieces' -- 'The Apeiron'...

Now I will argue right here and now -- and I will argue in front of any other philosopher -- that 'The Apeiron' -- as archaic as the concept may appear to us at first glance now -- was, and is, the most important concept that was ever invented in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy. More important than any concept that Socrates or Plato or Aristotle created...We will come back to Lao Tse, Heraclitus, and Spinoza because they had some important conceptual insights into this same 'life mystery' that Anaxamander was shining his philosophical light on...


What Anaxamander had his conceptual finger on was an idea that was superior to Darwin's theory of evolution and far superior to his own idea that 'man evolved from fishes'....

I will give Anaxamander's philosophical and cosmological theory a 21st century name and call it 'binary evolution theory' or 'multi-dialectic theory'.

Anaxamander, in essence, was the 'Hegel' of Pre-Socratic times...Hegel some 2300 years plus before the real Hegel published 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'...and Heraclitus, like Lao Tse in The East, added one more essential piece to Anaxamander's 'binary theory of evolution' that was indispensible to Anaxamander's 'binary evolution theory' that he didn't get to -- and that was/is the theory of 'homeostasis' or 'homeostatic balance' or 'equilibrium'...which Walter Bradford Cannon would 'formalize' some 2500 years later in modern medicine in his classic book called 'The Wisdom of The Body' (1932)...


We could almost say that Heraclitus' philosophical relationship to his (indirect?) teacher, Anaxamander, was similar to Marx's philosophical relationship to his main (indirect) teacher -- Hegel. Except the relationships were essentially different. Marx turned Hegel's idealistic dialectic philosophy upside down and made it both 'materialistic' and 'one-sided towards the political left' whereas Heraclitus both learned from Anaxamander, indeed, added an essential component to Anaxamander's theory of binary evolution (homeostasis or equilibrium) but Heraclitus was not as 'visionary' a philosopher as Anaxamander was. Anaxamander had a 'better overall philosophical world picture' of how everything in life and death came together -- and blew apart -- Anaxamander saw the 'competition of opposites' and their 'will to defeat each other' whereas Heraclitus saw the 'attraction of opposites', how they needed each other to survive and evolve which is the one part of Anaxamander's binary evolution theory that he missed -- i.e., the 'attraction and need of opposites for each other'...


Anaxamander saw only how opposites tried to conquer and destroy each other like 'Sparta' and 'Athens' continually tried to conquer and destroy each other. Anaxamander didn't see how Sparta and Athens 'needed each other' to fend of 'outside threats'...like 'the Persian Army'.

Which brings us to another important Western philosophical, psychological, and political concept that has taken thousands of years to develop -- another essential part of DGB Multi-Dialectic Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...just like the concept of 'binary or dialectic evolution' -- and that is the concept of 'binary or dialectic negotiation, integration -- and unity'. A totally Hegelian concept (with the name being added here within the confines of 'Hegel's Hotel').


So Anaxamander saw the 'competition of opposites' whereas Heraclitus saw the 'co-operation of opposites' -- both essential ideas in 'the geneological conceptual tree' that branches from Anaxamander (the main 'tree trunk'), to Heraclitus, to Spinoza, to Kant, to Fichte, to Schelling, to Hegel, to Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy) to Freud, to Jung, to Perls, to Foucault, to Derrida, ...and all the way up to 21st century philosophy -- and DGB 'Multi-Dialectic or Binary Evolution and Homeostatic Theory'...

Schelling is basically a 'dialectic' version of Spinoza. I love them both for what they accomplished philosophically -- and spiritually. Spinoza was a 'philosophical bridge' between religion and science -- but nobody, even in 'the philosophically liberal' country of Holland at the time, could see Spinoza's integrative brilliance. All they could 'smell' in Spinoza's spiritual brand of 'wholistic philosophy and religious-scientific pantheism' was a 'sneaky form of atheism'. And Spinoza is lucky that that 'particular Church judged perspective' of his philosophy at the time didn't get him killed. It did get him 'ex-communicated' from both the Judist Church and his community. Spinoza was not the first or the last philosophical genius to be rejected by his community.


Creative brilliance is the birth child of three things:


1. An unusual -- and sometimes shocking -- organization of The 'Apeiron-Chaotic-Shadow Self';

2. An unusual integration of the ideas of others before you who you have learned from;


3. 'Thinking outside the box' in both the above respects...


Either some people have it and some people don't, and/or we all potentially 'have it' except some people are more 'suppressed' and 'repressed' by 'the philosophy of the herd'...


What was Spinoza's religious crime?


I partly cry for the man who had the courage in the 1600s to say...'God is in everything'...(and everyone)...God is both our Creator and our Creation...The two are mutually indispensible parts of each other...Spinoza was Heraclitus partly reincarnated except Spinoza was a far gentler man than Heraclitus was and Heraclitus was a 'dialectic philosopher' whereas Spinoza wasn't...They were both 'pantheists' in that they both 'saw God in everything'...all of life's Creations...)


Wow! What a brilliant concept! But how do we bring this concept back to Anaxamander?


By means of the psychological concepts of 'introjection' and 'projection'...


Man is the Ultimate Projector...He (and she) projects him and herself into EVERYTHING!!

Into 'God'...into other 'people'...into 'structures' and 'statues'...into 'animals'...into 'art'...into 'philosophy' and 'psychology' and 'politics' and 'architecture' and 'culture' and 'religion'...Wherever man goes, whatever he sees, he 'projects him/herself into his outer environment'....

In this regard, man also is 'the Ultimate Narcissist' -- man is the legend of Narcissus -- he looks into the pond and sees his reflection, he looks into everything and everyone and sees a reflection of him or herself...he or she just doesn't always know that they are doing this -- about 80 or 90 percent of the time (unless you teach yourself how to 'catch your projections' -- this 'cognitive process' is carried out almost entirely un(sub)consciously...

Now, how can all of this -- Spinoza, Schelling, pantheism, projection and introjection, archetypes, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Foucault, Derrida... -- be tied and integrated back to Anaxamander?

You've got to think outside the box...or perhaps, rather, 'inside the box' where all others are 'thinking outside the box'...

The 'Apeiron' can be defined as 'Primordial, Archetypal Undifferentiated Binary Chaos'...in the process of becoming differentiated -- and then 'shot into the world'...


And this 'Primordial, Archetypal, Undifferentiated Binary Chaos differentiating into binary opposition'...Is Not Only Outside of Us...It Is Also Inside of Us!!!
Freud called 'it' -- i.e., our 'Internal Apeiron' -- 'The Id'...

Jung called 'it' -- again, our 'Internal Apeiron' -- 'The Shadow'...


And the 'Id-Shadow-Primordial Binary Self' is an 'Internal Mass of Undifferentiated, Disorganized, Opposing, Social and/or Anti-Social, Loving and/or Hating, Kind and/or Evil Thoughts, Ideas, Impulses, Feelings, Talents, Skills, Potentials...Waiting to be differentiated, expressed, rise to the surface of the personality, and/or stay underneath and manipulate the personality from underneath...'Satan', 'Dionysus', 'Hell', 'Hades', all different concepts, ideas, Gods, myths, mythologies, symbols, projections...aimed at describing our darkest, inner primordial selves...and the clash between 'God' and 'Satan' -- our inner most beautiful and most evil selves...Satan evicted from God's Kingdom...and forever alienated, disavoved, always looking to strike back at the God, the man, the part of his Dialectical Binary Self that rejected him and kicked him out of 'Heaven'....which is the 'Spirit and The Soul of The Self in Dialectical Unity, Wholism, and Peace with him or herself...which is then 'projected' out into the 'community', or conversely, the 'disavowed and rejected internal Shadow of ourselves -- whether it be the metaphorical, symbolic, mythological 'Dionysus' or 'Satan' or whoever....'projects' his rejected, sad, mad, and/or blatantly evil Satanic Self back out into the World, The Heaven, that rejected him...
And this, my dear readers, is the essential 'geneological tree' that connects Anaxamander to me...through all the rest of the philosophers who I may or may not have mention along the way...


Regardless of whether my 'lofty, unorthodox vision' of man, life, and evolution is viewed as 'creatively brilliant' or 'outrageously stupid', I could not have developed this vision without all of the philosophers and psychologists who I have read and who I hold the greatest of respect for...


I love my parents and their 'Protestant religious beliefs' -- and how they apply them in their day to day lives...


But my interpretration of 'The Bible' changed in university -- decades ago, in the 1970s, if only in its initial percolating form -- the day I opened Erich Fromm's 'The Forgotten Language' (1951) and read how he interpreted The Bible 'metaphorically' and 'mythologically' rather than 'literally'.


It is the 'Fromm-Jung-Freud-Schelling-Spinoza-Heraclitus-Anaxamander' Connection that has just a few minutes ago resulted in my creation of perhaps one of the most  unorthodox, shocking interpretations of 'The Cross' that you may ever get...and it is not meant to offend anyone, regardless of your religious or non-religious mindset...


In this DGB 'Dialectical-Humanistic-Existential-Pantheist' interpretation of The Cross...


1. You have 'God' at the top of The Cross...symbolizing both the 'highest of man's rational, sane, humane, self and social ideals' as well as the 'highest of man's creative and humanistic-existential potentials'....paradoxically and ironically representative in this regard also of Nietzsche's (paraphrased) 'Will To Creative Self-Empowerment'...

2. You have 'Satan' at the bottom of The Cross...symbolizing both man's inherent potential for 'assertive, unorthodox opinions, perspectives, and lifestyles' (which may not necessarily be bad but still perceived as 'bad enough' to be 'disavowed, dissociated, alienatated from society') and for what Satan is usually most symbolized for -- mans' potential for Evil against both himself and/or others which is usually arrived at through some radical internal combination of 'trauma', 'rejection', 'abandonment', 'betrayal', 'alienation', 'disavowal', 'internal dissociation', 'righteousness', and 'narcisissm'...

3. On the 'right' side of The Cross, you have 'Apollo' symbolizing man's 'most Logical, Rational, Just and Fair, Equal Rights and Democracy Oriented, Enlightened Self'...

4. On the 'left' side of The Cross you have 'Dionysus' symbolizing man's most 'Sensual, Sexual, Romantic, Creative, Irrational, Unpredictable, Romantic Self'...

5. Finally, in the middle of The Cross, you have 'Jesus' who can represent either of two things: 1. 'the Integrative, Harmonious, Peaceful, Dialectically Unified Self'; and/or 2. 'The Crucified, Internal, Strife and Conflict-Ridden, Alienated, Disavowed Self', the Ultimate Symbol of Man's Internal and External Propensity for Fear, Anger, Rage, Violence, War...When The Personality Is Not Dialectically Connected and At Peace and Harmony With Itself...


The first symbolization of Jesus is probably closer to a 'Christian' symbolization of Jesus (introjected and integrated into the personality and the Self); the second symbolization is a symbolization of Jesus' victimization by his fellow man (and/or by Himself)' when He failed at His -- which is now 'our' -- task of integrating peacefully both within ourselves and within our community of others...


I will let you chew on this essay for a while...


-- dgb, Oct. 26th, 2010,


-- David Gordon Bain,


-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

Part 2: An Internalization of Anaximander's Ancient Greek Philosophy -- Into Man's Psyche

Most students of philosophy do not appreciate just how brilliant -- Anaxamander -- the second oldest known philosopher in both Greek and Western Civilization, and his dialectic conception of the cosmic world, was -- and still is.

Anaxamander was the king of the Pre-Socratic philosophers....In fact, I will be very bold and go one step further. Anaxamander's cosmic philosophy -- as primitive, archaic, and symbolic as it may have been -- is a more important conception of the cosmic world -- and the psychology of man -- than every part of Platonic philosophy except that part which indirectly builds from the multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar philosophy that Anaxamander laid down before him. Is that bold enough? Let me support my case.



We hear the words 'bi-polar this' and 'bi-polar that' these days...as in 'bi-polar, manic-depression' which used to be simply 'manic-depression' before psychiatrists and other mental health workers started to add the 'bi-polar personality' tag to it...


We hear this 'bi-polar personality' tag as a type of 'mental health pathology' and yet most of us -- including many if not most mental health workers do not properly understand....Man is full of 'multi-bi-polarities' and this is a normal part of healthy mental and physical and physiological and bio-chemical and organic and cosmic, natural processes...Protons (positive charges) and electrons (negative charges) coming together, and/or splitting apart, according to different positive or negative or neutral electrical charges...

....................................................................................................


Atom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Atom (disambiguation).


The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense, central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons (except in the case of hydrogen-1, which is the only stable nuclide with no neutrons). The electrons of an atom are bound to the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. Likewise, a group of atoms can remain bound to each other, forming a molecule. An atom containing an equal number of protons and electrons is electrically neutral, otherwise it has a positive or negative charge and is an ion. An atom is classified according to the number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus: the number of protons determines the chemical element, and the number of neutrons determines the isotope of the element.[1]

The name atom comes from the Greek "ἄτομος"—átomos (from α-, "un-" + τέμνω - temno, "to cut"[2]), which means uncuttable, or indivisible, something that cannot be divided further.[3] The concept of an atom as an indivisible component of matter was first proposed by early Indian and Greek philosophers. In the 17th and 18th centuries, chemists provided a physical basis for this idea by showing that certain substances could not be further broken down by chemical methods. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, physicists discovered subatomic components and structure inside the atom, thereby demonstrating that the 'atom' was divisible. The principles of quantum mechanics were used to successfully model the atom.[4][5]

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dgb continued...

Medical conditions like high and low blood pressure, high and low blood sugar levels, hyper and hypothyroidism, acidic and alkaline blood levels...indicate that any and all body functions are based on the floating, ranging principle of a 'homeostatic, bi-polarity spectrum' where 'health' is usually found in 'the balanced middle'...

The same 'homeostatic priniciple' can easily be extended and applied to any and all life functions whether they be cognitive-mental-psychological functions on the inside looking out, or extending outwards into the respective and overlapping realms of the philosophical, the economic, the legal, the political and/or the aforementioned medical...Everything in the universe is based on the principle of 'bi-polarity'...In the realm of language, a word would not mean anything unless we could partly define it by contrasting it with its opposite word and concept...

The word and concept of 'light' would have no meaning if we did not understand, having directly experienced, the meaning of the concept of and the word 'dark'...

In summary, the world we live in is a world of 'multiple bi-polarities'...

In this regard, Anaxamander was the first Western philosopher to describe the world as a world of multiple bi-polarities competing against, and essentially trying to overpower each other...one dominating and the other sliding back into the Shadow, the undifferentiated Chaos of the 'Apeiron'...until the 'suppressed' polarity becomes 're-charged' and comes out of The Shadow to 're-compete' against the 'dominant-in-the-limelight' polarity that bring the two opposites together...Heraclitus, an indirect student of Anaxamander, would later add that 'opposites attract as well as repel each other'...

This dialectic cosmic philosophy of Anaxamander's was very, very modern -- and still is -- just as ancient Eastern philosophy would build from the twin dialectic or bi-polar concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' which would become one of the central features, if not the central feature, of much Eastern philosophy today -- particularly Taoism/Daoism. Again, the central feature here was one of 'homeostatic balance' between the 'masculine' characteristic of 'yang' and the 'feminine' concept of 'yin'....applied even to Eastern Medicine...which would become the central feature of the current North American 'Natural Health' industry...

Can you start to see how brilliant a concept -- or conceptuology or cosmology or cosmic philosophy -- that Anaxamander had latched onto and started to describe...some 2550 years ago!!!

It was so brilliant a cosmic philosophy that it contained the seeds of the brilliant philosophies and psychologies of Heraclitus, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, W.B. Cannon, Perls, Berne, Foucault, and Derrida hundreds and even thousands of years later...And that is just quickly off the top of my head...

The conceptuology and cosmic mythology-philosophy is so brilliant that it has been perculating in the depths of my subconscious for a number of years now and is about to become the focus of my mythological-philosophical model of the the human psyche...


Call this conceptuology 'Anaxamander's Multi-Bi-Polar (or Multi-Dialectic) Power-Drama' played out both inside and outside the human psyche...

-- dgb, November 22nd, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain

Part 3: An Internalization of Anaximander's Ancient Dialectic Philosophy -- Into Man's Psyche


A concept in Anaximander's ancient philosophical system -- 'The Apeiron' -- that has largely been ignored for 2500 years, is suddenly starting to capture more present-day attention, and for good reason. It is an important evolutionary idea, and also has some important connections to present-day personality theory.


Think of Darwin for a minute and his idea that 'functionally extreme' genes -- like a giraffe's long neck -- will become the 'norm' after generations and generations of breeding because the 'giraffes with the longest necks' will be the giraffes that can get to the furthest leaves in the highest trees and thus have an evolutionary advantage over giraffes with smaller necks.

As appealing as this Darwinian idea may seem for some of us on the surface of things, it does not stand up to tests of either deeper logic or observation -- i.e., particularly, the actual observed evolutionary history of giraffes.

A nice little essay that you can find here, http://www.natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic10/giraffe.htm

pretty well kills the speculative Darwinian notion of how giraffes actually came to have long necks.

Evolutionary theory -- to the extent that it actually 'fits' with the way the world works both inside and outside of us -- is much more complicated and wholistic than any argument that Darwin presented to us. And it is not limited to strictly 'genes'.

Anaximander can be viewed as an 'evolutionary theorist' -- the first in known Western history -- in a number of different ways. For example, Anaxamander believed that man evolved from 'fish' which is probably every bit as true as Darwin's belief that man evolves from 'apes'. In fact, man probably evolved from 'amoeba' -- the simplest known organism on earth. Indeed, it would seem that every more highly complex organism has evolved from less complex organisms 'below' it in the evolutionary chain of life.

However, we have to be careful how we define 'evolutionary intelligence' because in the end it may turn out that even 'cockroaches' and 'viruses' may have more evolutionary intelligence than man.

The degree of 'complexity' of an organism does not necessarily increase its likelihood of survival. Sometimes more 'complex' organisms can be defeated, taken down, by less complicated organisms such as a man or woman dying to a virus.

Having said this, Anaximander offered us some very primitive but at the same time sophisticated ideas about evolutionary theory that still have relevance today.

Anaximander gave us our first primitive -- but sophisticated -- look at 'Chaos Theory'.

Let us imagine a theatre that has both a 'main, front stage' and a 'behind the curtains, back stage'.

So it is with life, argued Anaxamander. Life originited out of 'The Shadows' -- 'the back stage of life' -- which Anaxamander called 'The Apeiron'.

The Apeiron is a swirling mass of 'undifferentiated opposites' that eventually start to become 'differentiated', particularly into 'opposites' that make their way onto the main stage of life -- which is what we now call 'The Universe'.

Now I am not saying that this was all laid out clearly by Anaximander in the exact same manner that I am trying to lay it out clearly here, but Anaximander certainly laid down the foundation for this type of 'dualistic and dialectic evolutionay theorizing'.

So let us imagine that the Universe (the main stage of life) has as its backdrop -- The Apeiron (the backstage of life).

The Apeiron -- the Chaotic Shadows of Life -- send into the Universe a swirling mass of 'differentiated opposites' that 'compete' with each other for time and energy on 'The Main Stage of Life'.

From these 'competitions' for time, energy, and attention in The Universe emerge 'winners' and 'losers'. The winners stay on The Main Stage of Life; and the losers retreat back to The Apeiron -- the background Shadows of Life to 're-energize' looking for new ways to 'mutate' and 'evolve' so that when they come back onto the Main Stage of Life again, they do so with 'increased power, intelligence, and energy' -- with the goal of 'overcoming' their 'opposite nemesis' -- the opposite characteristic that 'defeated it in battle' the first time the two appeared together competing for energy, time, and attention on The Main Stage of Life.

And when the previously 'losing entity or characteristic' gathers enough energy and power in The Apeiron to 'overcome' and 'defeat' its opposite entity or characteristic on The Main Stage of Life -- the same entity or characteristic that defeated it before, well, a that point in time, you have a 'reversal of fortunes' and the previous winner now becomes the loser and has to retreat back into The Shadows of The Apeiron looking for new ways to find more 'intelligence', 'power', and 'energy'.

In the poetic words of Anaxamander,

.....................................................................................


From Wikipedia, Anaximander


Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity;
For they give to each other justice and recompense
For their injustice
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.


Simplicius mentions that Anaximander said all these "in poetic terms", meaning that he used the old mythical language. The goddess Justice (Dike) keeps the cosmic order. This concept of returning to the element of origin was often revisited afterwards, notably by Aristotle,[20] and by the Greek tragedian Euripides: "what comes from earth must return to earth."[21] Friedrich Nietzsche, in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, stated that Anaximander viewed "...all coming-to-be as though it were an illegitimate emancipation from eternal being, a wrong for which destruction is the only penance."[22] (Wikipedia, Anaximander)




..........................................................................................................

This is an exciting -- 'modern' -- way of looking at both evolutionary theory and energy theory.

From a mythological and/or religous perspective, it as if our Creator -- 'God' or 'The Gods' -- were bored with their life, took all the 'harmonious, wholistic' pieces of life, and started 'chopping them up' into 'opposite pieces'. It was like a 'Humpty Dumpty' board game in which The Gods chopped Humpty Dumpty into a practically infinite number of 'opposite and opposing pieces' -- and sent them into the Universe in 'fragments' and in 'disarray'. It was like a game of 'Scrambles' in which The Gods sent 'trillions of little opposing pieces of life' swirling into The Universe with the purpose of 'finding' each other and 'regaining wholism, unity, and harmony'. To which we now give the name 'homeostatic balance'.


Now according to this 'Multi-Dialectic Theory of Evolution and Energy' to which I am now extrapolating from Anaximander's foundational roots, in a mythological sort of way, we can distinguish between both different types of 'evolution' and different types of 'energy'.

For example, we can differentiate between 'unionized evolution' and 'individuated evolution', as well as between 'constructive evolution' and 'deconstructive evolution'.

Molecules come together and tear apart. Molecules 'construct' and 'deconstruct'. So too do people. And so too do ideas, lifestyles, theories, philosophies....


Energy is conserved and it is recycled. It is 're-distributed'.


Energy begins in The Apeiron 'spilling out into the world' in different forms and entities, and then it comes back to The Apeiron. worn out and 'less energized' to be 're-energized' and sent back out into the world again in greater strength.

'Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity'.


This idea, introjected into the birth of the personality can be stated thus: Energy starts in the Unconscious Personality, surfaces into the Conscious Personality in various forms and entities. and then goes back into the Unconscious depleted, to be re-cycled and re-energized, and then shot back up into the Conscious Personality again.  

The life of one organism is often dependent on the death of another, and its consumption -- so that energy, in this way too, can be 're-cycled'.

This sets up an evolutionary game of 'cat and mouse', 'predator and prey' game of life and death, each species, and sometimes different members of the same species, trying to defeat each other and 'hang onto their own little corner of life'.

'Energy' can be divided in a 'trillion different ways' -- dialectically -- the splitting of  practically an infinite number of potential and actual molecules and atoms, on every microscopic and macroscopic level.

Energy can be 'created' or 'transformed' (under the thermogenic rules of the conservation of energy) either by splitting different types of entities (individuation) or by unionizing different typs of entities (synergy).
We can distinguish between 'positive energy' and 'negative energy';


'Constructive energy' vs.'deconstructive energy';


'Masculine energy' (testosterone, 'yang') vs. 'feminine energy' (estrogen, 'yin');


'Orderly energy' vs. 'disorderly, chaotic energy';


'Narcissistic energy' vs. 'altruistic energy';


'Rational (mental) energy' vs. 'romantic (heart) energy' vs. 'sensual-sexual (loin) energy' (Plato's intriguing distinction);

'Apollonian energy' vs. 'Dionysian enegy' (another way of distinguishing between mental and sensual-sexual energy);

'Christian or Muslim or Judaist energy' vs. 'anti-Christian or anti-Muslim or anti-Judaist energy' (or any other type of religious or anti-religious energy);


The energy of the 'id' vs. the energy of 'the superego' (A Freudian distinction similar to the Apollonian vs. Dionysian distinction);


The energy of the 'Nurturing Superego' vs. the energy of the 'Righteous-Rejecting Superego';

The energy of the 'Persona ' (The Self-Energy we show society) vs the energy of 'The Shadow' (the Self-Energy we hide from society);


And on and on we could continue to go...ad infinitum...


The universe has been laid out in front of us in terms of a whole host of swirling, competing and co-operating, attracting and repelling -- opposites.

And man's personality -- man's psyche and soul -- can be laid out in exactly this same manner as reflecting just a very small but significant part of the collossal, overall structure and dynamics of the universe.


Man is essentially a mass of swirling potential and actual, dominant and submerged (suppressed, repressed, disowned, disengaged, alienated, dissociated...), opposite characteristics, energies, and ideas moving up and down in the personality -- and out of the personality into action.

Now Anaxamander's 'Chaos and Competing Opposite Powers' Theory is starting to take on an exciting modern day existence.


For example,


Anaximander meets Nietzsche...in The Birth of Tragedy...


According to Nietzsche, the ancient Greeks had an appreciative awareness of the potential 'tragedy' in man due to man's inability to 'harmonize' his competing 'Dionsyian' and 'Apollonian' energies within him, and the inherent outcome of the battle usually ending in one form of self-destruction or another... This idea would later become central to Classic Freudian Theory.


Anaximander meets Freud...in The Superego vs. The Id and between The 'Life' vs. 'Death' Instinct...


Anaximander's concept of 'The Apeiron' is amazingly similar to Freud's concept of 'The Id' with the only distinction being that Freud limited the id to 'biological impulses' -- meaning mainly 'life' and 'death', 'sexual' and 'aggressive' impulses...but in the end was that any limitation at all if it was meant to describe all of man's life and death impulses, energies, and movements...


For example, we could say that 'oxygenation' is a 'life force' whereas 'oxidation' is a 'death force' and they both originate in the confines of 'The Id-Apeiron', eventually to both make their presence known on 'The Main Stage' in the body and the personality of man, wrestling for superiority until one day 'oxidation, disease, and death' eventually win the battle over man's life -- and returns man's life back to 'The Apeiron'.


Anaxamander meets Jung...


Jung argued that 'The Unconscious was compensation for The Conscious' -- in other words, whatever did not exist in our conscious personality, our 'personna' if you will, the side of our personality that we show to society, did exist in our Unconcious or 'Shadow' as a 'submerged or suppressed or repressed potential opposite characteristic and capability'.

Thus, in Jungian theory, we have the existence of what might be called 'The Shadow-Apeiron' (or SA -- which could alternatively stand for 'Secret Appeal'. If we include Freudian Theory and call it 'The Shadow-Id-Apeiron', then 'SIA' might alternatively stand for 'Secret Interests Accumulating').

For example, we could say that if a person is 'dominantly heterosexual', then within the confines of 'The SIA', he or she has the opposing latent capability for 'homosexuality'.  Likewise for extraversion vs. introversion or visa versa, and any other possible dialectic bi-polarity in life ('mania' vs. 'depression' being another example).


If a person is 'bisexual', then he or she has the capability of easily bringing either heterosexuality or homosexuality up from the SIA to The Central Ego and onto his or her 'Main Stage of Life'...

At this point, we have evolved from Anaxamander's Theory through Nietzsche's 'BT' (Birth of Tragedy) Theory through classic Freudian Theory, through Jungian Theory, and into 'DGB Multi-Dialectic Integrative Personality Theory'.

In DGB Theory, the evolution of the personality can be seen to take the following format, from bottom (unconscious) to top (conscious):


The Structure of The Psyche:

The Unconscious/Subcnscious Personality

1. The Undifferentiated, Chaotic Apeiron (UA):


2. In Jungian terminology, The (Unconscious) Self (or Soul) (otherwise described here as the Unique (God-Given) Talent Apeiron (UTA):

3. The Mythological-Symbolic Apeiron (MSA) (In Jungian terminology, The Collective Unconscious):


4. The Personal Past Apeiron (PPA) (The Personal Unconscious and Transference Template):


5. The Shadow-Id Apeiron (SIA) (otherwise described as 'Secret Interests Accumulating'):


6. The Dream and Nightmare Weaver (DNW):

The Conscious Personality


7. The Righteous (Rebellious) Apollonian Underego (RAU):


8. The Narcissistic-Dionysian Underego (NDU):


9. The Altruistic-Co-operative Underego (ACU):


10. The Altruistic-Nurturing Superego (ANS):


11. The Narcissistic-Dionysian Superego (NDS):


12. The Righteous-(Rejecting/Exciting) Apollonian Superego (RAS):


13. The Central Mediating Ego (CME):



And there -- without further explanation and discourse yet -- you have the foundational structure of DGB Integrative Personality Theory.



Let me just finish by saying, that with the birth of each new personality, each new individual, you have the potential birth of a new 'Superman' or 'Superwoman'. But you also have the potential for a new 'Birth of Tragedy'.

The life course of each individual person, and man as a collective whole depends very much on whether our Central Mediating Ego is able to maintain control and harmonious balance over internal and external supportive and non-supportive influences on the ongoing evolution of the personality. Or whether The CME is overwhelmed and/or undermined and sabotaged by either, or both, of these same set of internal or external influences.


That is where I will leave you today.


-- dgb, Jan. 9th, updated Jan. 11th 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...