Consciousness
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Is Neuroscience proving Freud right?
At the start of his career, Freud hoped to develop a science of the mind that would explain psychological phenomena in terms of physiological processes taking place in the brain. But at that time the tools and techniques necessary to explore the functioning of the brain simply did not exist. So, Freud had to rely Continue reading
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What is the mind? What is consciousness?
Philosophers, scientists and psychologists have puzzled over the mind for centuries. This is surprising. How can what defines us be such a mystery to us? How is it that we have a better picture of what goes on inside an atom than what goes on inside our heads? We have made progress in relation to Continue reading
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Freud’s Struggle with the Mind/Body Problem (1)
Freud’s patients suffered from many symptoms, but there was nothing wrong with their bodies. The problem was their minds. But how could the mind cause changes in the body or were the real causal factors events in the nervous system? This puzzle was one of the biggest medico-scientific challenges of the time, and Freud was Continue reading
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Ogden and the Problem of Inner Objects
Object relations theorists use the concept of internal objects to provide insights into human action, but what exactly are these internal objects? Where are they located and how are they able to play such a role in our lives? In his 1983 paper The Concept of Internal Object Relations, U.S. psychoanalyst, Thomas Ogden, sketches the Continue reading
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Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: A Difficult Relationship
Freud was attracted to philosophy, but also irritated by it. Not only did it never seem to get anywhere, but it treated human beings as essentially rational, which was in stark contrast to the way people actually behaved. This approach was clearly not the way forward. As with everything else, the way to establish the Continue reading
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Is Psychoanalysis a Science?
Freud saw psychoanalysis as a natural science, but his critics deny that it is scientific. This is a complex issue, but it is worth exploring in detail. Two points seem hard to dispute. Firstly, it is clear that psychoanalysis aims to be a truth-focused undertaking. It puts forward explanations of why people do what they Continue reading
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Is Science Providing Evidence for Freud’s Concept of the Unconscious?
In the face of attacks on the validity of psychoanalysis, it is tempting to argue that science and especially neurology is providing empirical evidence that Freud was right. Scientific evidence for unconscious processes includes research demonstrating that individuals process information, make decisions, and change their behaviour based on stimuli that are below conscious awareness. For Continue reading
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How will we know when the Singularity occurs?
Elon Musk has predicted that the Singularity – the moment when computers become more intelligent than humans – could occur as soon as 2029. But how will we know that this has happened? What would make us conclude that computers had surpassed us? There is no doubt that they can do lots of things better Continue reading
Wittgenstein and Freud 