Freud or Fraud
71Are the id and the ego both at an unconcious level?
If only the id is at an unconcious level and the ego is at a concious level then how is it possible for one to conciously fight against something that is unconcious? Suppose it were so, then it means that there must be a clear connection between the unconcious and the concious level that one can tap into at anytime. Yet no one knows what is happening at our unconcious level. If they are both at an unconcious level then it means that we do not ever make our own choices. Every choice would be governed by the id and the ego at an unconcious level. But if we do not make our own choices then who does? Is it the id and the ego? If that is the case then what governs them? There must be some other forces at the unconcious level governing the id and the ego. If Freud has assigned the id and the ego at an unconcious level then it is just as appropriate to assign another force (aside from the superego) governing the id and the ego. And it is just as appropriate to assign a thrid force governing the previous force. How do we know that there are not infinite forces at an unconcious level governing the id and the ego? Why stop at the id, the ego, and the superego?
Voices In Your Head
Have you ever been in a situation that might have produced some sort of anxiety in you because you had a choice to make? Or better yet, have you ever heard voices inside of your head where one says ‘do this’ and another saying ‘no do that’? I certainly have and I am confident others have as well including yourself. Assuming you have as well, then are these voices the id and the ego? If they are not the id and the ego then what are they? If it is the id and the ego then it is at a concious level because we can hear these voices and we are aware of them. Regardless of whatever these voices are, two things can be safely concluded. First, that they are at a concious level and second that they serve the same purpose of the id and the ego meaning that there is no need for the id and the ego at an unconcious level at the first place. Therefore, it can be concluded that the id and the ego or whatever you want to call them are both at a concious level.
What does it mean?
So, what does this all mean? Before we get into that, another question must be asked. Do you believe in God, a supreme Being?. I believe in One God, Allah. If you believe in God then another question must be asked. If you do not believe in God it should be remembered that this is not about proving the existence of God. Now, assuming you believe in God, the second question is that what is the purpose of your life? I believe that the purpose of my life is to get closer to my creator, God. To submit to God, to pray to God, to find God, God is our master and we are His servants. Now, if one believes in God then they most definitely believe in Heaven and Hell. So, how does God distinguish between who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell i.e. how does God distinguish between the righteous and the unrighteous servants of His? Not only do we have the Holy Books (Bible, Quran, Torah, etc.) and prophets of God (His messengers), but I believe that God has placed the id and the ego (the voices inside our head or in your heart) at a concious level in every human (after a certain age of maturity but ofcourse there are certain exceptions that may be due to brain illness etc.) so that when we are confronted with any situation, we are given two very clear-cut and distinct paths/choices to choose from. The id telling us to choose the bad path (leaning towards Satan) and the ego leaning towards the good (God). The choice we make is up to us and the path we choose is up to us. Hence, I believe that every man and woman will be accounted for on the Day of Judgement for their own deeds and no one can be a substitute or a scapegoat for another. In short, I believe that the id and the ego are a mechanism placed at everyone's concious level by God in order to distinguish the righteous from the unrighteous i.e. who goes to Hell and who goes to Heaven. Coincidently, we have the id and the ego and we have Hell and Heaven. This much about the id and the ego should suffice for now.
Purpose of Dreams
Freud also talks about dreams. According to him, when we are asleep, the id seemingly overpowers the ego or gains dominance and in response to this the mind initiates what Freud calls Dream Mechanisms (I think it may be Dream something else). This is what Freud believes to be the purpose of dreams. Allow me to explain what I believe is the main purpose of dreams. It should be remembered that God does not have a mouth meaning that he can not speak directly to His servants. So, how does God communicate with His people? Again it has already been mentioned that one may say we have the Holy Books that contain God’s decree (what He wants us to do and what He does not want us to do). However, how did these books come to be? The answer is through his righteous messengers, prophets of God. How was the information revealed to the prophets? Through visions or dreams. Hence the main purpose of dreams. God communicates to us through dreams. This can be proved by the numerous fulfillment of prophecies by the prophets and in the Holy Books (more about fulfillment of prophecies can be discussed later if you like to). Whereas, Freud’s theory can not be proved. How can one confidently say that the id at an unconcious level dominates the ego resulting in Dream Mechanisms and what not? How do you prove this? You don’t because you can’t. It is a totally absurd idea. Which brings me to my next and final point. I will now attempt to explain where Freud went wrong with his ideas and why people may have believed such absurd ideas of Freud.
Where did freud go Wrong?
Freud was correct to say that there are two forces that are contradictory to on another (he called it the id and the ego). I believe that people accepted this idea because they had themselves experienced it at a concious level (the voices in their heads). Since they experienced it they began to accept this idea (even though Freud believed this at an unconcious level). So, people accepted Freud because they experienced the id and the ego at a concious level but Freud talked about it at an unconcious level and perhaps people did not pay much attention to this (or maybe they did but it does not matter anyways). I believe that the id and the ego (the voices or what not) are a natural phenonmenon (a mechanism placed by God to distinguish between the good and bad) and Freud simply coined the term ‘id’ and ‘ego’ for this natural phenonmenon. Freud, after realizing that people are accepting his idea, appears to have gotten carried away with it. He made his own little world of id and ego and tried to explain other natural occurring phenonmenon by the id and the ego since people accepted that idea so well. He began to explain dreams using id and ego (which has already been discussed). If dreams were the id gaining dominance over the ego then he surely must have had something to explain for the ego gaining dominance over the id and what if the battle was a dead draw? What happens then? As mentioned before, I believe he went into his own little world of id and ego. For example, bloopers in our everyday life such as saying one thing where you meant another thing he would call a Freudian slip (again most likely relating it back to the id and the ego). Is it not more reasonable to say that one said something else while meaning to say something different simply because they were multi tasking (thinking about one thing writing about another and focusing on something else), again a natural phenonmenon. But Freud insisted on using the id and the ego to explain not only this natural phenonmenon but others as well. This is where he went wrong. In short, people accepted Freud’s idea of the id and the ego because they experienced it since it was something normal to them, a natural phenonmenon. But as soon as Freud started to apply the idea of the id and the ego to other natural phenonmenon that were indeed not associated with the id and ego at all, people deviated from Freud’s beliefs. For example, more people will believe in the id and the ego rather than believing that it was a Freudian slip that caused them to say something while another thing was intended. Most people would just say that they were thinking about something else while they were talking or that they were not paying attention as to what they were saying and something else slipped out.
Conclusion
Lastly, I would like to extend
my gratitude to you for taking some time out of your schedule to read what I
have to say, it is highly appreciated. I am curious to know what you think of
this and what your thoughts are of Freud and his ideas. If there is anything else that you would like to have discussed such
as proving the existence of God, Jesus Christ, Trinity, Crucifixion, Atonement,
Prophecies, etc. I would be happy to discuss with you.Links to some of my hubs regarding these issues is below.
Other Hubs of Interest
- Jesus Christ and Atonement : The Truth
The concept of atonement revolves directly around the 'notion' that as a result of Adam commiting sin, his progeny became sinful (through inheritance). Therefore, it is further believed that Jesus, being Son... - The Triune God Disproved: A Challenge For The Christians
The following are sound proofs that the concept of Biblical Trinity is a myth. Extensive references have been used from the Bible to back up this claim. Arguments in support of Trinity have also been...
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I refuse to believe religion is anything more than a fabricated human interpretation of what all of humanity will experience in it's lifetime, subsequently giving weight to religions goal of lasting forever in as many people as possible. Our ego, id and superego will always exist, therefore religion will always hold weight for those who refuse to dig deeper for a greater understanding. Heaven did not come before man, man created heaven. Man created god to explain the presence of the light in our lives that allows us to navigate our conscious mind. This light is the secret of humanity - the reason which we cannot explain and never will be able to. Our ego is depicted as Purgatory - where the musings of both the righteous and wicked exist - governed by the super-ego, which is the unwritten laws of humanity - morals and ethics. Finally, if you can't see where I'm going with this, our id has long been depicted as hell. We do not go to either of these places after death as they exist only in our minds. They are our minds.










David Bain 22 months ago
How willing are you to listen to a whole different set of philosophical assumptions and/or conclusions? Are you open-minded? Or are you set in your conclusions?
1. Freud was an atheist. I'm not saying this is necessarily good or bad. But basically, he believed that 'God' is an 'external projection' of our own 'internal psychological forces' -- and particularly, one force, one wish, one choice, to believe in a Creator and an 'Ultimate Force' that is either behind our own individual choices, and/or is so great, so important, that we become willing to 'submit' to what we believe 'God wants us to do'? But how do we know what God wants us to do except through our own choices of what we want to believe God wants us to do? One person might choose to believe that God wants us to go out and be 'kind to all people'...While another person may choose to believe that 'God wants us to go out and kill anybody and everybody who does not believe in the same God that we do'...
Who's right? Who's making the choice? God or us?
I say we are all 'accountable' for our own choices, our own beliefs, our own values, our own actions...
And anyone who chooses to believe anything else other than 'self-accountability for one's own actions' is 'choosing to run away from, avoid, escape from, bury his or her own head in the sand from, his or her own individual freedom to make choices...
That goes for 'choosing to give God responsibility for making us choose what we ourselves choose', and it also goes for any Freudian theory of determinism which is cloaked in self-deception as well.
Most of us are fully aware of the type of thinking that comes out of our 'id'. First, understand that 'the id' is only a concept and a label that Freud invented in order to help us understand how the personality works. Look at 'the id' as a 'teaching device'. It is a 'classification device'. Anything to do with 'sexuality, sensuality, pleasure, hedonism, aggression, violence, evil, immoralism...' we lump into our teaching device, our classification device, that we then say is 'responsible' for these types of thoughts, feelings, and/or impulses. They may start in our 'unconscious' but here again we have a 'troublesome word' that seeks to avoid self-responsibility, self-accountability...'The devil made me do it'. The 'id' made me think of it'...Same idea...different starting point, different name...people have lots of different names and different 'starting-points' for basically the same ideas...The 'id' at least recognizes that the thought, the feeling, the impulse -- of a possibly 'diabolical' nature -- is coming from us. When we use words like 'the devil' or 'Satan' or 'Hell'...we are usually taking one further step away from self-responsibility, self-accountability. Because now we no longer even acknowledge that the thought, the feeling, the impulse...is coming from 'inside us'...Rather we have to 'project' and 'eject' our thought/feeling/impulse/action out into the world and onto someone else's shoulders -- the 'Devil's shoulders' -- let us all make 'the Devil' responsible for our 'immorality', our 'sexual desires', our 'evilness'. If we say that the 'Devil made me do it'...then I don't have to take responsibility for looking at my own potential for 'sexual thoughts', or 'violent thoughts' or plain downright 'evilness'....Because the Devil -- Satan, Dionysus -- is not inside me, or if he or she is, The Devil is certainly not a part of me -- not a part of my own personality and character that I have 'ostracized', 'marginalized', 'alienated' from the rest of my personality. No sir...because once again to recognize the 'id' and/or the 'devil' (same thing, different name) as a part of 'Me' would mean that I would have to be accountable for, and responsible for, a part of me that I might not view as being very 'ethical', 'moral', 'nice', or 'good'. I might not like this part of my personality...
So, in classical Freudian and/or post-Freudian theory, I 'split this disowned part of my personality' off from the rest of myself, from the rest of my personality...and say it 'doesn't belong to me', 'I don't take responsibility' for this part of my personality...'I throw this part of my personality into the 'garbage of my psyche' -- my 'unconscious' or my 'subconscious' or my 'out of awareness'...Do we know that it is there? Yeah, usually we know that it is there...Will it always stay there -- in the 'garbage' or the 'files' of the conscious psyche -- i.e., the 'unconscious or subconscious psyche'? No, this is one of the first things that Freud and Breuer learned about the unconscious -- or in Freud's later language -- the 'repressed'...'The repressed will always return to haunt you until the day that you can look at your own repressed material square in the eye -- look at your 'id' square in the eye -- and say, 'Id, you are me, and I am you...and we have to learn to live together as harmoniously as we possibly can because we live in the same house, the same psyche, and isolated from each other, alienated from each other -- without proper mutual self-acceptance and self-integration -- we will tear each other apart, bring each other down to our knees, and destroy each other, as we both seek 'to win power over the same personality domain' when, by ourselves, separate from each other -- our 'id' alienated from our 'ego' if you wish, or alternatively our 'impulsive, sensual Dionysian Ego' alienated from our 'righteous, ethical, restrained Apollonian Ego' -- neither of us can win. We both only can lose in self destruction.
Together we win. Separate and alienated from each other, we both lose and/or we all lose.
This was Freud's most essential message to the world.
And even though Freud might have been an atheist, it is probably also the most essential message from the Bible, or the Quran, etc.
Together, we flourish. Divided, we fall.
Both inside and/or outside our own Integrated and/or Divided Selves...
This is the most important message of Freud, The Bible, the Quran...