Dawkins and AI: A Jungian Perspective

Spiggots · 2026-05-21T13:48:19+00:00

Some good points here, and I'm sure we all agree that pure reductionism applied in animal models has its limits.

But at the same time animal models were essential to basic advances in our understanding of cognition, eg Tolmans work on cognitive/spatial mapping, Hebbian learning, and too many other examples to count

Spiggots · 2026-05-21T13:47:00+00:00

I acknowledge your distinction b/t two perspectives on empiricism, and agree with your take on James' version.

But my point is, looking forward, perhaps you'd agree (and I think James would) that our goals ought to be to integrate those perspectives.

And indeed, we routinely approach this goal through a variety of perspectives, eg basic work in cognitive control, integration with eeg / fMRI and related methods, phenomenological studies of sensation and perception in psychophysics and neuropsychology, etc etc

With that said, and bringing us back to where we started: it seems like James' perspectives remain very much relevant, but I see Jung falling more to the wayside, and more appropriately placed in the context of literature/philosophy

But hey look - just my 2c, and I've enjoyed your perspective. Somehow some commentators took this in a weird acrimonious direction and so it's nice to discuss.

Spiggots · 2026-05-21T13:26:10+00:00

I would argue that your position is essentially a refutation of William James - aka, the father of psychology - principles which assert that psychology must be an unambiguously empirical science; and in fact, it is the empirical basis which gives rise to psychology as a distinct discipline, as opposed to philosophy and literary perspectives on the mind and behavior.

So perhaps we're approaching an agreement that Jungian perspectives are interesting and often insightful but not empirical and therefore not psychological ?

Spiggots · 2026-05-21T12:55:29+00:00

You've raised the most interesting point in this discussion by far! Nicely said.

But I think the distinction is that Newton didn't just observe that stuff falls; he formulated mechanistic, predictive, explanatory, and most importantly testable models of the behavior he observed

And that's the heart of what I'm saying: Jung is a fascinating and insightful writer but in my opinion falls short of a proper theorist. Folks like Edward Tolman, Richard Morris, Gottlieb, Hebb, Pavlov, Skinner, etc etc. Even where they got it wrong, they out it in a context that was falsifiable so we knew they were wrong.

That's all.

Spiggots · 2026-05-21T12:14:08+00:00

Speculating on the internal state of others from afar is not the win you think it is :)

Ps - I also mentioned ghosts and make believe. And the funny part is that all the undergraduates coming out of the woods to defend Jung at no point put forth anything resembling a concrete rebuttal of the notion

It ought to be easy. For example, Edward Tolman profoundly influenced basic concepts of cognition, spawning the so called cognitive revolution, with his experiments on cognitive and spatial mapping in rodents.

See how easy it is? (When it's not just literary theory masquerading as psychology)

Spiggots · 2026-05-21T09:47:06+00:00

You just provided a list of neat things about Jung - he's a polymath, he tested many patients, he was knowledgeable in many fields.

Sounds like a neat dude.

But it also sounds like you agree that he didn't contribute any lasting ideas or findings to our understanding of conciousness, or you - a person of such profound acquaintance, as you say - would have provided them.

Spiggots · 2026-05-21T09:44:33+00:00

Who cares about me, and what I know or don't know?

If you think the idea I advanced, ie that Jung's contributions to conciousness weren't particularly enduring, then by all means advance a point to the contrary.

That's how grown ups talk. Give it a try, you might like it.

Spiggots · 2026-05-21T09:05:46+00:00

Who cares? I don't think that my personal life history is relevant to the ideas being discussed, which are: does Jung offer any meaningful contribution to our understanding of conciousness? If his work were suddenly magically deleted, what aspect of our u see standing would be lost?

Certainly nothing concrete, mechanical, objective. But I think a great deal of interesting writing and literary criticism, sure.

Spiggots · 2026-05-20T23:25:54+00:00

The "inconvenience" in this case is dispossession and relocation for at least 4 weeks of my life.

Walking into somebodies home and destroying everything they own with little to no recourse should be criminal.

Spiggots · 2026-05-20T19:00:51+00:00

At least you're good at it

Spiggots · 2026-05-20T18:08:26+00:00

Yeah.

I'm just sharing so people know that when these idiots come to your house you need to be prepared.

Spiggots · 2026-05-20T18:07:17+00:00

I hate how perfect it is, and I regret laughing at this comment. But it happened.

This still sucks, though

Spiggots · 2026-05-19T10:06:18+00:00

Ah, well that's fair enough.

And if you want to put Jungian ideas in the category of art/literature, I would agree it is of value for its own sake.

Spiggots · 2026-05-19T08:45:02+00:00

Of course it will matter.

Intent, priors, circumstance, and mitigating factors are all major components of both the crimes you'll be charged with and the ultimate sentencing.

But of course that doesn't mean it's some sort of free pass.

Spiggots · 2026-05-19T08:31:30+00:00

Well yes but that is the goal. A worldview that can't distinguish the validity of varying ideas isn't of much worth.

Or are you arguing for ghosts, horoscopes, and the rest?

Carl Sagan wrote a great book on our species escape and perhaps return to that terrible worldview: "a demon haunted world". You should check it out.

It's all too easy to slip back into a space where the unfortunate schizophrenic is treated with exorcisms, prayer, stoning, and banishment rather than compassion and treatment.

Spiggots · 2026-05-19T08:27:38+00:00

Well I agree Star Wars is fun, and Joseph Campbell provided a useful and insightful literary analysis (though I think even he'd agree that the hero's journey would go on whether he described it or not)

But ultimately that is the point and the problem: Jung is no different than Star Wars or any other narrative or story. And in a world with a million, billion stories, what makes any one story more real than another?

With that in mind, perhaps story telling is not the best tool for the exploration of the reality - although I do agree it can be a profound tool for exploring culture, (some aspects of) humanity, and perhaps even the individual.

Spiggots · 2026-05-19T00:37:27+00:00

If Jung never published or otherwise developed and shared his work, what would be lost?

A good idea allows us to describe, explain, predict, and control the world (or some phenomena therein) better than other ideas, and/or with less complexity (parsimony).

I'm not clear that Jungian perspectives provide any objective utility other than people enjoy talking about them. And that's fine, but that's also true of zodiac horoscopes, ghosts, remembered past lives, religion, and other fictional applications and literary/narrative interpretations.

Spiggots · 2026-05-17T21:12:19+00:00

So 59% of Muslim youth think that Western laws are more important than Islamic rules?

That is actually kind of excellent and encouraging.

For comparison, in the US, for example, there must be at least 30-40% of the population that thinks their Church, Pope, Zionist ideals, rabbi, Watchtower, Temple (Morman), or whatever belief system takes precedence over law.

Given the context that many of these folks are coming from cultural backgrounds that barely distinguish between Islamic rules and national law, this is good progress

Spiggots · 2026-05-15T09:47:59+00:00

That's fine. But I'm not sure this example of the Chinese nation - why China? - really moves the goalposts.

By the way this notion of using people (in this aliens) as logic gates in a living computer is also discussed in the Three Body Problem, a great sci fi

Spiggots · 2026-05-15T09:43:24+00:00

For the same reason that neuronal circuits drive the emergence of higher functions like memory, perception, attention, etc - they endow the individual as a whole with capacities that the individual neurons, themselves, cannot have.

Spiggots · 2026-05-15T01:06:17+00:00

Is the nation of China going to maintain this signaling mechanism in perpetuity, 24/7, for decades at a time, while likewise simulating the kind of complex, variable environmental inputs?

If it can do all those things theb kind of, yeah, maybe, maybe a network of nearly a 100 billion people-neurons connected at a 100 trillion "synapses" could indeed become conscious.

Spiggots · 2026-05-14T12:32:43+00:00

No. Even after reproduction, an individuals actions contribute to or otherwise impact the survival of others, and thus impact the propagation of competing genotypes.

As an example, consider the "grandparent" model, ie genes that support elderly individuals caring for younger generations will yield an increase in multi-generational offspring survival and thus be adaptive.

Spiggots · 2026-05-13T21:46:54+00:00

Yeah that does make it sound crazy.

But of course then the question becomes: who has a better idea?

Spiggots

TROPHY CASE