Consciousness

Development of Consciousness

This topic contains 20 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by  Reg the Fronkey Farmer 5 years ago.

Viewing 6 posts - 16 through 21 (of 21 total)
1 2
  • Author
    Posts
  • January 22, 2020 at 3:28 am #29808

    _Robert_
    Participant

    If we compare our probable survival duration to that of sharks or roaches I would venture to say that consciousness and frontal lobe development will prove to be a detriment to survival. In fact as self aware beings with wants and desires we have diminished ability to avoid changing the very environment we evolved to live in.

    January 22, 2020 at 7:43 am #29809

    Simon Paynton
    Participant

    You could say we’re too clever for our own good.  It may be that consciousness – awareness, intelligence, language and moral guidance, among other things – are there to use for cooperating, and doing complex things, in a social world.

    January 22, 2020 at 8:00 am #29810

    Simon Paynton
    Participant

    What I find fascinating is the way that the pressure to thrive/survive/reproduce combines with consciousness to produe the ego – that “machine for looking after you”.

    If you think about it, the ego is constantly monitoring one’s environment, ferreting out opportunities and, especially, threats.

    January 22, 2020 at 3:36 pm #29811

    Simon Paynton
    Participant

    In fact, Freud might have said that the ego is that part of consciousness that looks after you in the short and long term.

    January 22, 2020 at 9:38 pm #29814

    Simon Paynton
    Participant

    Freud said that part of the ego exists in the unconscious.  I think this is true, i.e., there is a part of consciousness that is “unconscious”, and part of the ego operates within it.

    What is the unconscious?  I think it contains things that are known to the mind but not to conscious awareness.  Those things might be dynamic manoeuvres like subconscious ego defenses (things we do in order to cope).  Subconscious ego defences are generally maladaptive for some reason.  Conscious ego defenses are generally adaptive (thought through, reasonable, and constructive).

    The subconscious might also contain facts, opinions, desires.  Freud (or maybe it was Jung) must have been right when he said those things constitute the Shadow or the repressed side of ourselves we do not find consciously acceptable.

    January 23, 2020 at 11:42 am #29815

    Reg the Fronkey Farmer
    Moderator

    It was Jung who wrote about the Shadow Self.

    (Your much too Jung to be aFreud).

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 6 posts - 16 through 21 (of 21 total)
1 2

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.