Today we'll be dissecting, so to speak, the
structure of the human psyche, A.k.a. the
mind.
But first, it should be clear to everyone
that the term brain and mind are very dissimilar.
Mind and brain are used interchangeably in
our daily interactions.
However, in terms of studies & research, it
is of the utmost importance to differentiate
the former from the latter.
The brain is constructed of physical matter.
I.E. blood vessels, nerves and layers intertwined,
shielded by a skull.
When we say brain, we speak of what is physiological,
organic.
On the other hand, the mind corresponds to
what is psychic(I.E Psychology).
Picture the mind as an intangible veil of
eletrical impulses generated by the brain.
It is a seperate entity, even from the soul.
As we go through the book, I'll be using the
term psyche as referance to the mind, seeying
that psyche and mind relatively mean the same
thing.
With this basic overview at hand, we could
now proceed to the main premise of this book.
(the structure of the psyche).
Oftentimes, people wish they could die instead
of getting constantly tormented by that annoying
chatter box lurking inside their heads.
But, if we look closely, objectively, you'll
realize that your psyche, doesn't want to
shut up, because that stream of nonsense serves
a great purpose.
A constant assessing, judging & classifying
of people & things into certain categories.
I think, It does so to help you better grasp
this chaotic world by converting what is unknown
& uncertain into something further intelligible.
Look around your room and distinguish one
object that you do not yet know its name or
nature.
Undoubtedly none.
Whether you like it or not, the psyche's fate
is to function daily, consciously or subconsciously
to break down what's going on around you.
The psyche's spontaneous reactivity to the
external is not meant to make you miserable.
It is merely a natural tendency to search
& explore the unknown.
The psyche does not interpret reality as it
is but always in relation to us.
Everything you perceive from the outside world
passes through your sensory devices.
Processed by the brain, the mind then weaves
it with your memories, thoughts and feelings,
hence project a quote on quote subjective
reality.
Imagine You and I contemplating the ocean
at the moment.
The scenery might elicit joyfulness in you,
whereas it might trigger sadness for me.
You see, the reality, the image was the same
but our concept of it differed, seeying that
the view evoked dissimilar memories for both
of us.
We experience not the external as a whole
as much as a mere distorted subjective conception
of it.
In other words, the psyche's not a reflection
of reality in actuality, but of man's position
projected onto the world.
Consciousness is more or less the same in
every individual.
Every person, however, streams the world from
his personal angle.
Hearing this concept, you might have grasped
it one way, whereas another person on the
other side of the world, who's watching the
same video, might've grasped it a totally
different way.
Consciousness operates in an inward motion.
It seems to pour the world into us through
our sensory-devices.
Sense-perception signals that something pertains
infront of us.
But its job is limited only to generating
a field of awareness.
it cannot describe the nature or name of the
things perceived.
The mechanism that tells us what things are
elaborately is called apperception.
Sense-perception is classified more as physiological,
connected to the brain.
Apperception on the other hand is sorted as
a psychic process.
And unlike sense-perception whose function
is quite obvious, Apperception has a more
intricate structure, in that its workings
involve a harmonuous cooperation between other
sub-processeses.
To name a few, recognition, evaluation, the
intuitive processes, the instinctual processes,
etc.
Now we're going to comment on each one of
these apperceptive sub-processes individually.
Imagine, you're hiking a great mountain.
On your way upward, there were numerous plants
of various peculiarities.
Suddently, you hear strange noises.
You look up and spot a bird hovering in the
skies.
Your sense-perception has captured it.
But, how is it that you've recognized & named
this object as a bird and not as a flying
car, a tree or a shampoo?
This is where the process of recognition comes
into play, and it functions as follows:
Everytime you direct attention towards an
object, your mind quickly dives into your
memory searching for old memory-images that
may help you recognize the novel stimulus.
You didn't think of the bird as a tree because
you already have past stored information justifying
what a bird should look like.
In contrast, a three-year old baby, who sees
a bird for the first time, will surely be
able to see, to become aware of the flying
bird(as an object) but he won't be able to
recognize it as a bird or animal because it's
a new experience for him.
He will probably assume that it's just another
kind of humans flying up in the air, owing
to the fact that his life up until this point
revolved only around living indoors with people,
unexposed to outdoor objects.
Hence recognition (of new objects) is a psychic
process.
It happens only when you do have at least
a faint memory-image identical to the new
image perceived, or any other memory fragment
containing some information that could help
you identify the object.
Here's an easier example:
Let's say you're a guitar player & a friend
of yours is a pianist.
Let's assume also, that you have never seen
a piano in your entire life.
You have zero memory-image of it, nor do you
have the word piano in your vocabulary yet.
One day, your friend invites you in to see
it.
He knows what a piano is but you, the first
thing that came to mind is a load of questions
concerning this new object.
As he played a few notes on it, you might've
been able to guess correct that it's just
another musical instrument like your guitar
since it produces similar melodies, however,
the name of the object will remain a mystery
until your friend names it for you.
Now, after aqcuiring this experience, the
next time you see a piano, you'll be able
to name it as such, and recognize its purpose.
If, we suppose that you haven't gone through
that first experience, the object(aka piano)
will remain unintelligeable until someone
explains it to you.
The fact of the matter is, you cannot recognize
the nature or name of new oncoming objects
unless you do have already a pre-established
memory-image of them or until someone else
explains to you what that thing is, aka, through
second hand experience.
Recognition can also be referenced as thinking.
A mental process that helps distinguish the
nature of novel stimulus based on what the
person has seen before.
As a side note, next time you're onto reading
a book, notice how your mind understands new
ideas.
It processes a new insight, then scans memory-images
for relevant clues, facts, past experiences
that may help you grasp this new piece of
information.
In case where you couldn't comprehend it,
you're left intruiged, troubled or frustrated
as the insight remains an unfathomable mystery.
This is why the more experiences & knowledge
you gain, the further you can link things
together & the better able you are at decoding
the world.
Having touched a rough surface (of wood for
example), here the word "rough" conveys the
feeling-tone the stimulus carries that was
then sensed by me.
And thus prompted me to mentally judge & classify
the material into a certain category (i.e.
among things that are rough)
Evaluation is the process of feeling.
After recognizing the object, the psyche evaluates
its feeling-tone, and then shocks the body
to conceive emotions based on that assessment.
I'd guess that this process could be triggered
after recognition, or function simultaneously
parallel to it.
Recognition scans the nature & name of the
item, evaluation helps you feel the item.
Some people might question, "why do I need
evaluation if I have recognized the thing
already?"
I personally think, evaluation is a mechanism
by wich the mind is able to further identify
novel stimulus.
We understand people and things better especially
when we feel emotionally connected to them.
Intuition is usually conceived as something
somewhat esoteric.
But, in our day to day interactions, all of
us inadvertantly verbalize at times what we
feel intuitively.
Allow me to clarify with a basic example:
- At the sight of an unidentified flying object,
three people conveyed the following statements
The first one said "guys, I guess I saw a
spaceship!"
The second said "I have a feeling that there's
a rocket coming towards us"
And the last one "calm down, I Think it's
just a bird"
These three statements convey an intuitive
guessing of what the object might be.
The first person said he saw something.
He refered to his intuition as sense-perception,
aka, the act of seeying.
The second however, engulfed by strong emotion,
illustrated his intuitive guess as
a process of feeling.
And the third as rational thinking.
The problem here is not in whether or not
they have made a guess, it's in the words
they used to verbalize their intuitive guess.
The intuitive process is not intertwined with
sense-perception, and furthermore has nothing
to do with thinking nor with feeling.
Thinking is quite often slow, it takes time
to ponder.
Conversely, Intuitive guesses, as I shall
call them, are evoked instantaneously & spontaneously
at the sight of a novel occurence.
Intuition is some sort of clairvoyant mental
ability that helps us guess or count the possible
outcomes of an event.
The reason why we confuse intuition with thinking
& feeling is owing to the insufficient development
of our languages as Carl jung cited.
In addition, I would personally guess(intuitively
guess), we confuse intuition with other mental
functions merely out of lazyness, or perhaps
because the processes of intuitive guessing,
thinking, and feeling occur quite often simultaneously,
leaving no time for us to differentiate between
each of them.
Volitional processes correspond to voluntary
actions, emerging from free-will.
Volition is contrasted with instinctual reflexes
that happen involuntarily, wich we're going
to see in a second.
This mechanism encompasses not only the ability
to think up intentions within the psychic
realm, but also a second function that thrusts
you to voluntarily act upon your willing to
crystallize it into the physical world.
When you deliberately intend to do something,
and then willfully act upon that decision,
that is a display of volition or free will.
The opposite are actions originating from
your instincts, like the fight or flight response
for instance.
Instead of you voluntarily choosing a course
of action, the instinctual physiological response(a.k.a.
fight or flight) decides on your behalf and
forces your body to react in a defined direction.
Imagine you're visiting in a graveyard.
And suddenly, you spot a creepy ghost walking
by.
In such high pressure situations, Your survival
instinct kicks in without delay and constrains
you to act thoughtlessly, either by screaming
for help, sprinting, or getting paralyzed
altogether and fainting.
Instincts are primitive behavioral reactions
innate in each and everyone of us.
Some of them of are inborn compulsive drives,
like sexual drives for example.
Arguably, Although our instincts could be
harnessed to some extent, for the most part,
when activated, they send signals to the brain
that we cannot easily ignore.
And these electrical impulses are so strong
that they oftentimes overwhelm the thinking
mind.
The author denoted that it's difficult to
count a definite number of the instincts.
Neither do we have a distinct definition of
them at the moment.
But, the only thing that's ascertained is
that the instincts fall among physiological
functions.I.E. generated from the body & not
the psyche.
But, nonethless they are connected to it in
some ways as we will see in further videos.
So keep mind, volitional processes are psychological,
instincts are more so physiological.
There exists two types of apperceptive processes.
Directed and undirected.
Both are contents of consciousness.
Directed conscious processes are named as
such for they are rational, and can be consciously
diverted by attention.
like thinking & volition.
You could, most of the time, direct and freely
chose your thoughts.
On the other hand, undirected conscious processes
are irrational, and are unconfined by attention,
like dreams and fantasies for instance.
Conscious choices are the product of rational
reasoning.
Dreams are the polar opposite, in that they're
often arbitrary, uncontrolable, disorganized
visions.
Some people may exclaim: "aren't dreams considered
unconscious?!"
To a fair extent, the answer is yes and no.
For the sake of conciseness, I can't further
elaborate on this point as it will prompt
us a very long digression.
But, I will in the next video.
For now, a superficial definition should be
sufficient.
The author considers dreams among conscious
processes.
Here's why
He depicted dreams indeed as manifestation
of unconscious psychic activity yet emerging
to the surface of consciousness.
And whatever passes into the realm of consciousness
is hence considered one of its contents.
So, their origin is unconscious but their
display is conscious.
As promised in the next one, we'll dive deeper
into the nature & purpose of dreams & especially
the unconscious psyche.
Thanks for watching and see you real soon.
