Affront to Sense - Jung's 'Psychoid'

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LeccathuFurvicael's avatar
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Written at 1:30am this morning after watching this video , and my need for things to make empirical sense made my brain crack after watching it.
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I personally must refute Jung's concept of the Psychoid, and the concept of organisms having 'intelligence' on a cellular, multi-generational level, or at least how it is explained by this gentleman in the video above. What is being described, which I am somewhat frustrated by as a student of zoology, is more of the concept of basic cellular programming, and larger instinctual animal behaviors in case of the infant staring longer at 'challenges to established norms' such as floating objects and items seemingly passing through other objects. To say that the intestinal sheep parasite has thought 'I am going to make myself and my eggs attractive to slugs, therefore making ants eat me so I can make them climb to the tops of grasses to get back into the guts of sheep to procreate' is a flawed argument, similar to the teleological argument. A famous example of the teleological argument is of a giraffe stretching its neck, so that its offspring is born with longer necks, and onward. It is an absurd assertion, and one that should be discarded. I am mostly unhappy with the fact that this theory is still being touted as something plausible, as there are far more efficient and demonstrable evidence-based theories out there that one should be paying attention to. Jungian psychology should remain as a historical piece of trivia, and not something to base one's world belief in.
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YemaYema's avatar
Noooo a one hour video? Can't afford watching that.... I think it is great that people share their thoughts and hypotheses, but should always make a clear remark on what sort of evidence they have to call their ideas beliefs, thoughts, or actual hypothesis or anything inbetween. If evidence is substantial, you can have a theory. And if your theory is proven, you can speak of facts.

I love science (esp. zoology too) though I have not studied it as a career. I also find psychology deeply interesting as well. I think one has to acknowledge that psychology (and neuroscience too) are new, relatively speaking. Most other sciences are centuries older, and we do know how much we change our ideas about the world as our knowledge increases. We have very little knowledge of both psychology, neurology, and DNA to talk much about 'cellular intelligence'. So sadly, you see lots of things like these going on around, people sayin' things that make no sense at all, using wrong terms in the wrong contexts and if you really pay attention you may even notice trends. About 15 years ago, everything unexplained/ any paraphernalia/all things paranormal were magically explained through ''quantum physics''. ''Cellular intelligence'' is the fad of the moment. Now I am not an academic reader, so take this as my personal observation: Mass media echoes blabberish on research with 20 years difference or more.

Now... on the other hand... Personally, I find  people in the zoology/paleontology areas a bit too close-minded dismissing hypotheses and theories about evolutionary behaviour and perception because 'they are just ideas you know'. Now, of course sheep parasites didn't gather in a meeting to discuss the best way to regulate their life cycle. But to say Jung's work is a piece of trivia... now, he was a pioneer on his own, and a lot of his concepts still influence modern psychology, and even though a lot of what he (and many others) said is arguable or even nonsensical, other concepts are more solid and respectable.