Back to the past....riffing on THE PRESERVED

[Ian Livingston]

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 10:04 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 10:17 PM, Keith <keithsz at mac.com> wrote:
>>Personally, I think the concept of "the unconscious" due to it being defined as all that is outside awareness, becomes a catch-all for whatever one wants to make up about it, and is uroboric anyway. If it is outside awareness, how can we be aware of anything it contains or not.
>
> Exodus 33:20-23
> Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
> And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt
> stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth
> by, that I will put theein a clift of the rock, and will cover thee
> with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou
> shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
>

Yes.

I feel like I should apologize (especially to Mark) for phrasing my
question so poorly back at the start of this thread, but it seems to
have spawned some lively debate, so the apology might be useless. My
intention in bringing up the sea as a symbol of the unconscious and
then asking whether the Preserved / Golden Fang carried the cargo that
might possess inherent vice was to, yes, point toward the old image of
the little rudderless boat of consciousness; but, more important to
the way I read it is the relationship to M&D and Ben Frank's inability
to insure his armonium for the crossing from England to the Colonies
because of the "inherent vice of glass." Maybe our capacity for
interpreting experience is especially fragile, or our innocence in
investigating the unknown.

As I understand Jung, the unconscious is everything outside of
consciousness. In my current case, that includes whatever it was I had
for lunch on Saturday. There is no call to go giving it anything like
shape or form or limits of any sort, especially valuative ones. As
Morrison said, "It just is." Or not, which is another way of speaking
of it. What is not in my consciousness, as far as I'm concerned,
doesn't exist until I notice it. Now, for the idealists out there,
does that mean the stone you throw at me doesn't exist until it cracks
my skull? No? Then I think one can say somewhat of the unconscious
does exist in some way. I think it is very likely China exists when
I'm not thinking about it, though I could be wrong. Atoms really scare
me. If they cease to exist when I am not conscious of them...
well.....

As to the "collective unconscious," which is a separate term, the jury
is out on that one. I am unwilling to speculate on such an unformed
idea. Jung seems to have dived in and out of the term trying to figure
out what he meant by it. He never answered the question adequately to
my tastes. It seems possible there are elements of mythology that
shape the way we think and that are outside our consciousness
.9999999% of the time, but does that qualify as a collective
unconscious? Or, if it is about shadow, might it, for instance, refer
to the America the rest of the world sees that we just cannot
comprehend? I dunno. It may depend in part on the veracity of
intersubjectivity. Is there a hermeneutic of the shadow?



On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 10:04 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 10:17 PM, Keith <keithsz at mac.com> wrote:
>>Personally, I think the concept of "the unconscious" due to it being defined as all that is outside awareness, becomes a catch-all for whatever one wants to make up about it, and is uroboric anyway. If it is outside awareness, how can we be aware of anything it contains or not.
>
> Exodus 33:20-23
> Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
> And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt
> stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth
> by, that I will put theein a clift of the rock, and will cover thee
> with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou
> shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
>
> One cannot see the entirety of "the unconscious," only small bits at a
> time, as it reveals itself to the extent one is able to see it, in the
> course of an entire life's journey.
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."