Updated Dec. 19th-20th, 2010.
In DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis, there are no theoretical boundaries except to the extent that the subject matter, the clinical domain, and the case by case facts within this domain may dictate certain boundaries along the way...
Every generalization is always going to be partly wrong; otherwise it would not be called a generalization.
Since theories are made up of generalizations, no theory is ever going to be 100 per cent right. 'Counter-theories' are always going to spring up in the minds of men and women in those areas where a theory seems to, and/or does, come up weak, one-sided, or just plain wrong...
Every perspective, every theory, has its own particular strength or set of strengths...and likewise, at the same time, its own particular weakness or set of weaknesses...Oftentimes, the particular strength of a theory -- when played out too far -- becomes its inherent main weakness. The same general rule of thumb also applies to 'characteristics'.
If one of my main strengths is my boldness and my willingness to 'try something new', this may also be one of my potential main downfalls, one of my main weaknesses.
Indeed, we can see this in Freud's life. His boldness and willingness to 'try new things' largely opened up our study of the 'unconscious', dreams, sexuality, 'neurosis', jokes, the psychology of defenses...and so on... However, sometimes his boldness and willingness to try new things got him into serious ethical trouble such as a 'botched nasal surgery operation that should have never been conducted in the first place, and such as when Freud started 'experimenting' with cocaine around 1884 before he knew what its full chemical properties were, probably taking too much himself, giving it to his fiancee Martha, recommending it in 'glowing terms' to his fellow physicians and researchers, and its potential usage by their patients, giving it to a friend who was addicted to morphine, who subsequently became much more severely addicted to cocaine and eventually died (although he had a very serious and painful illness before he even became addicted to morphine).
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The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs
by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine, 1972
Chapter 35. Cocaine
The chief active ingredient in coca leaves, the alkaloid cocaine, was isolated in pure form in 1844. 1 Little use was made of it in Europe, however, until 1883, when a German army physician, Dr. Theodor Aschenbrandt, secured a supply of pure cocaine from the pharmaceutical firm of Merck and issued it to Bavarian soldiers during their autumn maneuvers. He reported beneficial effects on their ability to endure fatigue. 2
Among those who read Dr. Aschenbrandt's account with fascination was a poverty-stricken twenty-eight-year-old Viennese neurologist, Dr. Sigmund Freud (whose subsequent ordeal with nicotine was recounted in Chapter 24). Young Freud at the time was suffering from depression, chronic fatigue, and other neurotic symptoms. "I have been reading about cocaine, the essential constituent of coca leaves, which some Indian tribes chew to enable them to resist privations and hardships," Freud wrote to his fiancée, Martha Bernays, on April 21, 1884. "I am procuring some myself and will try it with cases of heart disease and also of nervous exhaustion. . . ." 3 The account of Freud's experiences which follows is drawn largely from the three-volume Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, by Ernest Jones.
Freud "tried the effect of a twentieth of a gram [50 milligrams] and found it turned the bad mood he was in into cheerfulness, giving him the feeling of having dined well 'so that there is nothing at all one need bother about,' but without robbing him of any energy for exercise or work." 4
In addition to taking cocaine himself, Freud offered some to his friend and associate, Dr. Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, who was suffering from an exceedingly painful disease of the nervous system (which was later to prove fatal), and who was addicted to morphine. Freud also prescribed cocaine for a patient with gastric catarrh. The initial results in all three cases were favorable. Freud decided cocaine was "a magical drug," and he wrote his fiancee, Martha:
If it goes well I will write an essay on it and I expect it will win its place in therapeutics by the side of morphium and superior to it. I have other hopes and intentions about it. I take very small doses of it regularly against depression and against indigestion, and with the most brilliant success.... In short it is only now that I feel I am a doctor, since I have helped one patient and hope to help more. If things go on in this way we need have no concern about being able to come together and to stay in Vienna. 5
Freud even sent some of his precious cocaine to Martha, "to make her strong and give her cheeks a red color." Indeed, Dr. Jones writes, "he pressed it on his friends and colleagues, both for themselves and their patients; he gave it to his sisters. In short, looked at from the vantage point of our present knowledge, he was rapidly becoming a public menace." 6
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Life is essentially 'multi-bi-polar' in its very evolutionary essense and the only type of theory that is going to 'capture' the essence of this multi-bi-polar quality of life, is a theory that is also 'multi-bi-polar'...
Bi-polar theories of life can also be called 'dualistic' and/or 'dialectic' theories of life...philosophical theories like those espoused by Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Lao Tse, to a certain extent Plato, to a certain extent Kant, Schelling, and the 'Super-Philosopher' of all 'dialectic theories' -- G.W. Hegel. That is why this philosophical treatise is called 'Hegel's Hotel' because no theory of life addresses the contradictions, paradoxes, dichotomies, and bi-polarities in life better than Hegel's dialectic theory which is generally summarized in the endless cycle of 1. theory; 2. 'anti-or counter-theory'; 3. 'synthesis', or 'integration', or 'synergy'; and 4. start all over again...at a 'better' or 'worse' stage of evolution...
No one has the final word on whether or not a 'movement' in life is to a 'better' or 'worse' stage of evolution although we all have the freedom to pipe in and pipe up with our own editorial conclusions...
Certainly, Hegel's dialectic theory has received arguably more than its full share of criticism over the many years since he published his classic work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind(Spirit)' in 1807.
But still, Hegel's dialectic theory is probably the only theory out there that paradoxically explains the inherent weakness in each and every theory...
Every theory, every characteristic, carries the seeds of its own self-destruction...is a slightly paraphrased Hegelian quote that I cannot find at this exact minute...
Here are some Hegelian quotes (not all of them that I agree with) that I did find:
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Quotes
Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Education is the art of making man ethical.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
I'm not ugly, but my beauty is a total creation.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Mark this well, you proud men of action! you are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Too fair to worship, too divine to love.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
We do not need to be shoemakers to know if our shoes fit, and just as little have we any need to be professionals to acquire knowledge of matters of universal interest.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
World history is a court of judgment.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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Why should we limit ourselves to the inevitable weakness of every one-sided theory?
Like a good husband and wife team working in harmony with each other,
Opposing theories can be used harmoniously and integratively to supplement each other's weakness...
To provide a more balanced, wholistic perspective...
When it comes to theories,
The only boundaries that should dictate,
Are those governed by subject-matter, ethics, and integrity...
And even here there is going to be ambiguity and plenty of room for debate,
For example, the subject matter is going to be influenced by 'outside factors',
That can change the nature of the discussion,
Or the boundaries of the subject matter,
Thus, we get 'bio-chemistry', and 'bio-physics',
And an essay like Freud's 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' (1894).
Some boundaries are inherent to the subject-matter under investigation,
But many are simply 'made-made' conceptual and label boundaries,
That are meant to make thinking and understanding easier,
And oftentimes, these can come back to haunt us,
And cause us endless grief,
Until we finally figure out that we have created a man-made conceptual-semantic trap.
Boundaries are meant to be broken...(especially when we make them in the first place).
Giving proper respect to ethical and legal boundaries that are there for good reason.
This aside, we need to keep thinking 'inside and outside the box'.
Ascertaining how inside and outside factors influence each other,
Co-determine each other,
This is what Hegel called 'dialectic thinking'.
I sometimes call it 'dialectic-democratic thinking'.
Or the 'dialectic-integrative evolution of theories'...
Which constantly looks for 'win-win solutions and conflict resolutions'...
To seemingly unsolvable and unresolvable paradoxes, dichotomies, impasses, and riddles...
When a theory becomes too self-limiting by the constriction of its own self-boundaries...
Think outside the boundary...
And then come back to integrate...
What is inside and outside the boundary...
You might be amazed at where it takes you, and what it gets you!
-- dgb, Feb. 26th, 2010; updated March 19th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
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