A reading of Freud's Outline of a Scientific Psychology - Part.1
Commentators of Sigmund Freud's Outline make notice that, at the very opening of its introduction, Freud seems to allude to another Outline (Outline for a Psychology of Psychic Phenomena) by a Sigmund Exner who wrote : "All quantity and quality of conscious phenomena as sensation, perception and representation, can be reduced to quantitative stimulations varying on a variety of places." (Exner expressed that there were no need to theorize the existence of special neurons for various brain phenomena but a system of quantity - e.g, Thermodynamics)
One knows what this does
also mean :
"mobile data at various
places" defines the Art of Memory.
So Freud begins
(as far as the Outline is really the beginning
of his career) in mentioning the principle of the Art of Memory
(though, as we know, Freud never referred definitely to
an ancient Art of Memory, nor
Trismegistus and all
that corpus of knowledge which he seems to have ignored,
yet re-enacted
intuitively).
It is especially interesting,
since further in his text, he represses and contradicts Exner's reduction
idea (as if, mirroring Sigmund's title - Outline - Sigmund
casts his assent in the negative).
It is this repression that
I shall first examine herein.
Before
manifesting this symptom, Freud completes his introduction with a very clear
and major principle of inertia. According to this principle of
inertia, a living system would try to avoid incoming Energy from
the outside
Incoming Energy from Exterior : :Life escaping perturbation
Life shows also that, in order to escape damaging influx of Energy [E], it develops internal needs (soma - respiration, feeding, muscular activity etc...), so that the organism itself will store and emit within itself, an influx that can be called Force [F] (i.e., internal source of Energy or life storage of Energy - that Freud writes Qn).
Here is the static graph of Freud's Primary
System
It can
be imagined as Cosmic Energy [red] surrounding
Earth [blue] which develops an internal industrial
Force
At that point, we can begin to evoke what repressed by S.Freud.
Following this introductive
Thermodynamics, Freud writes, in Chapter 7 : " lets have courage to admit
that a certain type of neurons supports consciousness and perception "
- that is in absolute contradiction with Exner's introductive quote (re:above).
Freud calls these neurons of his invention,
"" neurons -
and later he will invent another so-called 'key' neurons.
Looking twice to this blatant contradiction, we can find in Chapter 3, the premise of the repression of Exner's notion - but at that point, I must give more explicit details/comments :
A third schema illustrates
the effects of this secondary energy called
Force, that the nervous system tries
again to avoid (as it primarly managed to avoid the
Energy from the exterior). Freud
makes two notations there : first, with an internal differentiation, a system
of membranes must now separate cells - second, the nervous system
will now resist (instead of escape), building its membranes
as barriers (whom we call today 'synapses').
Therefore Freud initially
described two types of neurons
( &
) - one of them ,
, being specially
defended by barriers, while
is permeable (as
allowing Force for evacuating, in a reflex
action).
which
differentiates from somatic cells. builds on a system of
barriers (resistance) that allows storage and organization of
Force
As stimulations persist and/or smash down the barriers,
one can see
neurons gradually becoming permeable,
(so creating a "path" which clears way to the
Force).
So can we model
as a
variable state of cell which
oscillates
between a somatic state of cell, unable to transmit anything,
and
, a pure conductive cell for bioenergetic quanta.
Yet, if we take a close look at Freud's description of the barriers (the intercellular/chemical space which is called today 'synapse') we make a remarkable observation : as freud 'invents' (in 1895) the notion of 'membrane, - in order to avoid a notion of 'resistant,' i.e. charged, neuron - the barrier he describes simply matches the definition of... a charged neuron! As if simply giving another name to it.
If Freud displaces the
name of a 'neuron' to call a 'membrane' (chap.3) before inventing a neuron
(chap.7) where, according to Exner, there is none, one can ask: what is
he hiding?
It is not difficult to
bring forth the hypothesis that what is repressed there, is the data regarding
cocaine (that Freud uses at the time he writes his Outline), for this
drug calls for the notion of chemical mediator that characterize today's
synapses.
To find the place
of his drug in the text of a psychologist who invents a scientific
psychology under its influence is not a shocking discovery (since the significand
of this drug is expected in the text) - what is more shocking is to realize
how many - from pious to dubious - commentators did not even evoke such a
necessited presence. It suggests that Freud's repression was due to a deeper
structural motive that the simple mundane censorship.
So it may be relevant to mention here, the current advanced linguistics that theorize or depict impossibilities in naming a certain contact zone in between two similar life units (for example the existential relation/reflection between me and me, that would form a 'meme').
Freud, like Aaron, like Dawkins, slip on the name to which their discovery points. It is at this point that we ourselves try to stand; as I claim that an ecological - global - reference will bring us the support to ground an elucidation of the fading meme... To tackle this challenge a schema to sum up the situation will probably be useful.
One can illustrate Freud's idea with a
schema which shows
a first type of neuron
- which simply leaves the
Energy passing,
plus a second type, he calls
, which intervenes
as a barrier
within a somatic reserve which process the energy as a
Force
(this opposes a barrier
to the Force until
pressure may break it down as a
- re:above)
This graph may appears similar with
Freud's ulterior graph
(of the
Crowd).
Should we be surprised ? Certainly not; it is, on the contrary,
most probable that a schematization of one's early thinking
would match a later schema of a researcher.
We shall be especially
comforted in this illustration if, continuing to read Freud, we find even
more of the 1895 Outline to match the later Model of the Crowd (Group Psychology
and the Analysis of the Ego). After this interpretation of chap.3 (the
premise of the repression), let us thus examine the chap.7 (the
repression), where Freud covers, with a neuron, Exner's idea
that there is none. Then after we shall continue with further
chapters:
"Since the
quality of influx (of 'E') cannot be discriminated, either
by nor by
(which
deal both with quantity), there must be" - Freud say - "a third
type of neuron" [we know that, in saying so, he contradicts
the opening of his own essay - re: Exner sus] - and he insists
with his deny, saying that these neurons must be sensible to the
period which makes the quality [that is
just giving another name for the same problem].
At that point, it is very
easy for me to suggest something instead of this intellectual catastrophe
- for I have been studying for a long time a notion of
Code - aka
seriality (J.P.Sartre-R.D.Laing) - which tallies
Exner's notion of a variety of places (that suffices to represent
the quality).
I suggest that the system
of perception (system of consciousness) - that Freud invents as
- can be identified
by the sole arrangement of regular neurons in a Code Series
[that is a improve version of Exner's conception].
In all my modelization, over the years, I have designated
this
'' is
not a neuron, but the specific serial relation which |
||
En cliquant sur l'image on trouve |
||
I pause in my presentation
at this point. Again I will build it gradually - leaving for the following
chapters to prove or contradict, confirm or dismiss the illustration I am
composing step by step. For the moment, Chap.7 has also shown how it fits
to the ulterior model of the Crowd.
I shall continue the matching test in the
NEXT PAGE.