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Title: The Unconscious as Infinite Sets: An Essay in Bi-logic (Maresfield Library)
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Manufacturer: Karnac Books
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| The Unconscious as Infinite Sets: An Essay in Bi-logic (Maresfield Library) by Karnac Books PARADOX and REALITY. | As you read THE UNCONSCIOUS AS INFINITE SETS: AN ESSAY IN BI-LOGIC by MATTE BLANCO you are propelled into the depths and hell of the unconscious. Matte Blanco writes from the inside out; this is why it is so hard to focus on the material. The words are infused with primitive affect, energy spews, lava everywhere, the words richochet off the pages.
Matte Blanco showed great insight to connect infinite sets with the unconscious. Matte Blanco equates the power of the unconscious to the power of the continuum. However, I was not able to discern in the book the idea of the "hierarchy" of infinite sets, although the author tries to say something about the infinity of infinities. To keep the book's idea in line with Cantor's theory of infinite sets, the title would have to be "The Unconscious as a Hierarchy of Infinite Sets." As you can see by the entire title of the book Matte Blanco is trying to capture the essence of the two forms of logic in our mind, the "Bi-logic." "Bi-" meaning two not biologic. Like in Bi-sexual, two entities into one.
He splits the mind into two realms, the unconscious and the conscious mind. The author basically says that the conscious mind has as its operating machinery the logic of science or the logic of Aristotle, which Freud already described as the Secondary Process. The secondary process has at its aim a one-to-one correspondence with the reality principle. Secondary process logic is the logic that is necessary to fulfill the requirements of external reality. Secondary process mechanisms involve logic that is based on reality and facts.
Primary process, on the other hand, involves the logic that underlies the language of poetry, dreams, jokes, propaganda, racism, advertisement, religion, figures of speech, and other forms of trops through the use of the mechanisms of condensation, displacement, symbolization, concretization and hallucinations.
Matte Blanco refers to the term "Bi-logic," simply to the idea that there are these two modes of thought: Secondary and the Primary, two types of logic, Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian. Matte Blanco refers to this dichotomy as "BI-LOGIC." I don't think this neologism penetrates anything more underlying than Freud already illuminated; and in fact, I think it adds confusion, it doesn't simplify, it amplifies, then on the other hand, this is a characteristic of primary process thinking. The unconscious mind has a logic that is depended on similarities being equal; a part is equal to the whole. Von Domarus called it "predicate identification." Matte Blanco uses the term "symmetry" but this boils down to the idea that a part is equal to a whole or a whole is equal to a part. Matte Blanco uses the definition of infinity from mathematics. A set is infinite if subsets of itself can be put to a one to one correspondence. This is also another way of saying a part is equal to a whole, which is predicate identification. Matte Blanco was trying to incorporate in his groundbreaking work the idea of infinities being smaller or bigger than other infinities. In another words, not all infinities are equal, some are larger some are smaller than other infinities. This is counter-intuitive but nevertheless, in transfinite mathematics it is perfectly logical, scientific and Aristotelian. In the unconscious nothing is felt as counter- intuitive, everything is symmetrical, anything goes. There are no boundaries.
Matte Blanco was not successful incorporating the idea of hierarchical infinities. The idea that infinities may be unequal. This is where the book seems to stall. If Matte Blanco were successful in this regard, the title of the book would be: THE UNCONSCIOUS AS A HIERACHY OF INFINITE SETS. HOW DIFFERENT INFINITIES DESCRIBE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF AFFECT AND THOUGHT.
The book's weakness and strength is in its repetive, perseverative, circumstantial, tangential, and non-goal directed hammering of his quirky connection between the Unconcsious and the Infinite.
Grapple with this book and you will ride a wild stallion, you fall, then you get kicked merciless while you try to mount the wild beast. It's a book to be ripped apart and eaten by psychiatrists. The mathematics is elementary but it does require some degree of the ability to abstract.
To get to the essence of the book you have to suspend all your logical processes. To not drown in your Unconscious it is necessary to have a secondary process rescue raft at your disposal.
___________________________ | | The Unconscious as Infinite Sets: An Essay in Bi-logic (Maresfield Library) by Karnac Books Product Description | | A systematic effort to rethink Freud's theory of the unconscious, aiming to separate out the different forms of unconsciousness. The logico-mathematical treatment of the subject is made easy because every concept used is simple and simply explained from first principles. Each renewed explanation of the facts brings the emergence of new knowledge from old material of truly great importance to the clinician and the theorist alike. A highly original book that ought to be read by everyone interested in psychiatry or in Freudian psychology. |
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