074 - Is the Unconscious Mind Real or Fantasy? - B.F. Skinner, Freud, & Hegel

The behaviorism of B.F. Skinner took the psychology world by storm.  His 1971 book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" was hailed as the most important psychological publication of the 20th century.  And this was from someone who denied mind and free will. 

It was an attempt to dignify psychology as a hard science, based on experiments and what can be observed, rather than what people think or feel, a direct contradiction to the root meaning of word psychology - "a study of mind."  He claimed that reason, values, concepts,  judgment, and purpose simply do not exist.  To him, all actions are based on conditioning. 

Hegel laid the groundwork for the unconscious, calling it soul, and saying it is from what consciousness itself comes.  Famed psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung built on this with their brilliant conceptions - the reality of the unconscious mind on Freud's part and the collective unconscious from Jung.  

This episode discusses all this as well as Novak's personal interactions with Skinnerism in the university setting of the early 1970s. 

Transcript

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Hello, this is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist episode 74. Welcome back. The purpose of this podcast is to explore philosophy. Psychology. And modern science for the concurrence that we as human beings have a mind, which is our greatest treasure and importantly that our minds give us our freedom. In this episode. I am once again, going to be talking about the unconscious mind. And we've already spent some time on this in previous episodes, particularly in episode 72. On Young's notion of the collective unconscious. But in this episode, I want to deal with the question of whether the unconscious mind is in fact, a reality, something that actually exists and look to see what evidence supports this notion. I believe that by addressing this question, head on. One can better understand the reality of our minds in general and in, so doing move one step away from the blind materialism. That pervades so much of the thinking. Of the world today. I plan to go over Freud and Young's breakthrough theories of the unconscious, and then move back in time to Hagle who in many ways, laid down the foundation for the reality of the unconscious mind with his philosophy. But first, I want to go back to my own time, so to speak and to my own personal history. Because I believe it is very relevant to this discussion. I was educated in public schools in America, and then went on to a new England university for my undergraduate degree. In high school, math was my best subject. And once in college, I saw it. I decided that my major would be mathematics because I was strong. And in that and that field. But during my sophomore year, however, I. I became a little bit disillusioned with the advanced mathematic classes that I was taking it. I couldn't seem to find how they related to anything outside the actual Mathematics class. And I wanted some exposure to new areas. New ideas, et cetera. I had taken psychology 1 0 1 class freshman year. And was now taking an abnormal psychology. Course during my sophomore year, I was doing well in both and found that to be fascinating. So I decided to switch my major from math to psychology. Mid-semester. I had always been interested in the human mind. And although they did not have any psychology classes in my high school. I was. Intrigued in the subject, even as a youngster, by the concept of the unconscious mind, or as I called it back then the subconscious mind. I recognize that it was almost like a second sense where intuition memories and our nightly dreams come from. I could even call upon it at times for help, such as telling me to, to remind me to wake up at a specific time the next morning. Good. Because I had to do something. I used to call it, setting my mind. Um, my mom, I remember my mother was a, do you want me to set the alarm clock early for you, Greg? And I'd go. No, no. Uh, I can set my own mind to wake up at that time and it always worked. Interesting. So psychology was a natural interest of mine, always. And it seemed to me once I was in college to be much more practical and useful than the higher level mathematics I was studying. So I switched majors. And I started taking all the psychology classes required. And I find them to be easy. Entertaining and fun. so I had a good education in psychology. And in terms of the foundations, upon which the discipline was based. But. An important point. This was the late 1960s, early 1970s. And there was a heavy behavioristic emphasis to the field of psychology back then. And by that, I mean, there was an emphasis totally on what people do and how they behave as opposed to what they think or how they feel. I want to spend some time in this because I think it was a major problem in the field at the time. And this has direct correspondence to the prominent materialistic paradigm that dominates so much today of science and philosophy with analytical. Philosophy. What is interesting is that when psychology adopts behaviorism. and it's supposed to be about studying the human mind. Well, this actually undercuts the very premise of psychology in the first place, which is the study of psyche or mind. When one analyzes behavior, only one is reducing a person, a subject to an object. to an animal, if you will. And by so doing. It ignores. The one thing that makes us unique from the animals in this is a strange paradox that it's psychology find itself. And it wasn't, it wasn't aware of it at the time, but I sensed it a little bit. Now, But even though I sensed that this was a problem, I was still young. And I went along with the program. I thought maybe it's just because I haven't learned enough yet. And this is, they're saying this is based on all this new research and et cetera. And so I said, okay, I'll, I'll stay with it for a while. It was just a study of how people move about it. Had nothing to do. With, uh, what they're thinking. It was only what they were doing. And I was being taught that this is all you need to know. I was taught the mental illness itself was, was, uh, An illusion that people only behave badly and. They behave out of line. You lock them up and put them in jail. That's it. And the story. Now there was a patron Saint behind the soul movement, and that was. named. BF Skinner. And I want to talk about him for a bit. Skinner is considered the father of behaviorism in psychology. He was a Harvard professor of psychology from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. He did not believe in free will and considered it an illusion. Skinner saw all actions is based on reward and punishment. Positive and negative reinforcers, if you will. He emphasized an experimental approach. And this was certainly the emphasis of the psychology department and my school. the central premise was how behavior could be conditioned. This could be done either through associative or operant conditioning. Associative conditioning is best shown by Pavlovian response where Pavlovian. Ring a bell before giving his dogs food and after repeated pairings, the sound and that food. Just the sound of the bell. With trigger the dog's mouth to water. And opera and conditioning is where rewards are given to increase learning. This is how animals are taught to do tricks in the circus. A certain movement is rewarded with a food treat and then as repeated and reinforced, repeated and reinforced. And then when that is learned, new movements are added in. And eventually you get things like bears, riding bicycles and things like that. And this is. Basically all we did with our experiments in. Uh, as a psych major back then was we train half starve, rats, how to do tricks. Now. The disturbing thing about this behaviorism is that. In it, humans are viewed no differently than dancing bears. And I believe that behavior is a miss, a terrible dehumanizing discipline that gets rid of mind and spirit all together. I'm looking back. It's hard to believe that the psychological community bought into it. Hook, line and sinker, and I'm not exaggerating here. A 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. And just as a reminder, the 20th century also included Freud in you. And Skinner's most famous book beyond freedom and dignity published in 1971. It landed him on the cover of time magazine. And time. If you're old enough. I can remember was a hugely important cultural forest during that period. Let me read you some of the praise for Skinner in his book. Quote Skinner is the most influential of living American psychologist. And quote says time 1971, quote Skinner has remained a highly influential figure among us college students for well over a decade and quote Newsweek 1971. And also Newsweek was a highly cultural, significant publication at the time. Just like time. And this quote from science news in 1971 also speaks to this adoration of Skinner. Let me quote it. Quote, burrs. Frederick Skinner is the most influential psychologist alive today. And he is second only to Freud as the most important psychologist of all time. This at least is the feeling of 56% of the members of the American psychological association who were pulled in this question. And it should be reason enough to make Dr. Skinner's new book beyond freedom and dignity. One of the most important happenings in 20th century, psychology and quote. And that was published in 1971. Now you get the point. Skinner and his auntie remind behaviorism was the new paradigm for psychology. And just, what was jettisoned was such a theory? Is this well, mind? It was made to be a fiction. Skin or even calls this atonomous man. Let me read a quote from Skinner on what he means by the term autonomous man quote. Autonomous man is a device used to explain. Well, we cannot explain in any other way. He has been constructed from our ignorance. And as our understanding increases the very stuff of which he is composed vanishes science does not dehumanize, man. It de homonculus. Is this him? And it must do. So if it is to prevent the abolition of the human species, To man CWA, man, we readily say good riddance. Only by this possessing him. Can we turn to the real causes of human behavior only then can we turn from the inferred to the observed from the miraculous to the natural, from the inaccessible to the manipulatable and quote. That's what. Uh, BF Skinner had to say about human beings. You can not be more clear. This is not just the death of mine. Mine never existed in the first place for him. And now it seems very clear. In hindsight, what's what's going to be doing here. He is turning the field of psychology into pure scientific determinism. He's turning it into a hard science. And it can only be concerned itself with what can be measured and observed pure behavior. And he was pronounced the king of psychology for doing this. And this was the fever that had taken over the psychology department and my university. And I'm sure it colleges all over the world. Now. I am an interesting quote by author iron Rand, whom we discussed in the last episode. And she sums up what Skinner's actually saying very well. Let me read a quote of hers referring to Skinner's autonomous man quote. Autonomous man is the term used by Mr. Skinner to denote man's consciousness. And all those aspects, which distinguish it from the sensory level of an animal's consciousness, specifically reason, mind. Values concepts thought judgment, volition, purpose, memory, independence. Self-esteem. These he asserts do not exist. They are an illusion, a myth. Uh, pre-scientific superstition. His term may be taken to include everything we call man's inner world, except that Mr. Skinner would never allow such an expression. Whenever he has to refer to man's inner world, he says, inside your skin and quote. Iron ran, summarizes the book premise. With w but the following court that I'm going to read this. Kind of summarizes the book to her. Let me begin, quote. Inside a skin man is totally determined by his environment and by his genetic endowment, which was determined by his ancestors and fireman and quote. And, and this is what she's saying. Skinner asserts and quote. And therefore is totally malleable and quote. And she goes on. Bye. By controlling the environment behavioral technologists could and should control men inside out. If people were brought to give up individual autonomy and to join Mr. Skinner, but gaming to man quad, man, we readily say good riddance. The behavioral technologists would create a new species in a perfect world. This is the book's thesis and quote. Now, this was the education I was getting in psychology at my university. And to further drive home this point, let me relate a story about my senior thesis. At the university. I wanted to do it on the unconscious mind. I'd prepared a little brief and presented it to my advisor. And. This was a topic that really wasn't being addressed at all. And I thought it was important to deal with it. So I presented it. My advisor said, no. That I can not choose this as such for my paper. He said there was no evidence that the unconscious mind exists and further, he said, This brings up the question of whether a third mind is needed to determine what is the conscious mind and what is the unconscious mind. So I kind of just stood there with my mouth open. I didn't really know what to say. I was pretty much in shock. So I. Ditch that paper and why not to a different subject. But I knew at the time that this left a bad taste in my mouth, I did not. I knew I did not want to pursue a master's degree in psychology or a PhD because this was the paradigm I. I didn't really want to have anything to do with it. I just felt in my gut that it was incorrect. So there you have it. Now, what I want to do here in this episode is something I was not allowed to do in college. And that is to provide a rational basis for the unconscious mind, which is the foundation, the platform for the conscious mind itself. First some background. Concepts regarding a part of the mind that resembles the unconscious have been around for millennia, including the Hindu Vedas. But the actual term unconscious mind was. Coined by the 18th century German philosopher, Friedrich shelling, who by chance was Hegel's roommate at the university of to begin. However, the concept of the unconscious mind was really broadened into general awareness. So we all know by Sigmund Freud at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th. As a physician, he recognized that some patients were suffering from hysterical illnesses. Meaning having physical symptoms, which had no underlying physical causes that he could find. This led into his theory that certain thoughts, memories, and feelings were buried were being buried in the mind below the conscious level, into the unconscious. And these repressed thoughts and feelings were actually causing the symptoms of the disease. They were buried because they were unacceptable to the conscious mind. And this could include socially unacceptable thoughts, anxiety. Per inducing ideas, traumatic memories, more primitive instincts. And they were buried by process of repression. And these repressed thoughts were often then projected onto others as ways to sort of get getting them out of themselves. Unconsciously. Or they were projected onto themselves in different ways, which caused the. The hysterical diseases. And the unconscious thoughts and feelings can become manifest in dreams. And, and neurotic. Symptoms and in verbal slips, which are now known as 40 and slips. Freud in fact called dreams, the Royal road to the unconscious. And this was a profound discovery that made Freud, a household word and gave birth to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. His handpicked successor. Carl Young took the concept of the unconscious even deeper. For young, it did not end with the individual, but actually it went to a new transpersonal level, connecting us all in one collective unconscious. I'm not going to spend any more time on this because I really covered the collective unconscious and its archetypes and that this whole schematic of young fully in episode 72. So. If you miss that, or you want to refresh or go back to that. but we, that, that was covered in, in very specifically back in episode 72. Now what I want to address. Is Hegel's role in preparing the intellectual soil, so to speak for what Freud and young would later develop. Our Hagle addresses, individual psychology and third section of encyclopedia. The section called the subjective spirit. Here Hagle identifies three levels of the subjective mind, the immediate or implicit would he call soul the spirit in nature. The second is the meaty mediated or explicit, which is consciousness itself. And third is the mind defining itself, examining itself, looking inward, which he called actually called psychology. He claims that the soul is the awakening of consciousness. Consciousness setting itself up as reason. He sees this as a development step forward. If you can see the soul to which Hagle refers corresponds directly to the collective unconscious of Carl Young. Regarding the soul Hagle states quote. The soul is no separate entity. Wherever there is nature. The soul is its universal immaterialism it's simple idea, life and quote. And Hagle puts it this way. Quote, nature in its own self realizes its untruth and sets itself aside. It means that mine presupposes itself as a universality, which is one at such a stage is not yet mine, but soul and quote. And this finally quote. It is in the soul. The mind finds the material on which its characters, rot, and the soul remains the pervading identical idea. Of it all the soul is only the sleep of the mind and quote. So then you have it. That's a perfect description. Of the collective unconscious. And that's why I believe young said that. if psychology is a discipline was around in handles to Hagle probably would have been a psychologist rather than a great philosopher. The soul or the collective unconscious is the truth of nature. The reality of nature. And as such, it serves as a midway between nature and our consciousness. This is what Hagle is saying. That the unconscious, the soul, if you will, is real, it gives birth to consciousness. As we discussed in episode 71. Under memory. And it's not only the memory of our own lives, but it's the memory of our ancestors. These memories become archetypes, which I mentioned was covered in episode 72. So as Hagle says, the truth emerges out of nature. When nature realizes its own untruth, that it has no real existence without mind. And likewise, the single says mind is not separate from matter, but emerges from this unconscious state. to one of consciousness in matter. It was one process, the historical evolution of spirit within nature, as we've discussed so often in the podcast. And for more on Hagle in the unconscious, I refer you to two works the book. Quoting unconscious abyss. Hegel's. Wriggles anticipation of cycle analysis in quote. By John Mills published in 2002 and the paper Hagen's account of the unconscious and why it matters by Richard Eldridge. Published in 2014. Now, regarding this historical evolution, my psychology advisor in college did not realize that this process was going on. And that is why he thought. The existence of the unconscious mind, because the third mind to decide what is conscious and what is not. He could not comprehend the emergence of consciousness itself from the unconscious. Uh, you know, a plant grows out of the ground. It does not require a third plan to decide, which is part of the plan is above ground, which is below the ground. The seed, which is underground. Eventually emerges, grows. Springs forth from the seed. Breaks through the ground and sees the light of day. And in the same way, consciousness emerges into the light of the day from the darkness of the unconscious. Now, thankfully. Psychology has moved past the BF Skinner behaviorism in the 1970s. But I should point out in fairness, many of Skinner's contributions do remain if they should in teaching. Uh, and in therapy itself, um, cognitive behavioral therapy. But while the extreme behaviorism of scanners no longer the paradigm in psychology, the modern materialist conception still remains is the fundamental belief system. Of the world today. And this is what I'm trying to argue against in this podcast. So. To summarize. The unconscious mind undoubtedly exists. It is the creative director of our dreams each night. It flashes us intuitive insights. It shapes our consciousness towards perceiving specific archetypal images around us. And yes, it is even the source of our neuroses. so. That is a wrap for this episode. Thank you once again for listening. As always, I will be posting references on the podcast Facebook page in a few days. And be sure to like, and follow that page, add cutting of Geist on Facebook because I post there now usually every day and I respond to all comments. We often have great discussions there. And I do refer to other traditions and other philosophies. Other psychologies that reinforce and concurred with the subject of the current episode. So please check that out and like it. And also. If you enjoy and find meaning in these episodes, please tell your like-minded friends about it. Help spread the word. And be sure to share links to the podcast episodes and my posts on your own social media counseling. If you think it's worthy. I'm also on Twitter. at cutting of Geist and I'm also now on LinkedIn Gregory Nowak. So you can follow me there as well. So that's it for now. This is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist. See you next time.