Individuality: Creation versus Adaptation

Creation/Adaptation—Meaning/Biology—creation is to adaptation as meaning is to biology.

Our species is a great experiment by Mother Nature—can a species of animals with self-consciousness survive quick extinction?

We might usefully consider our species as like the first water creatures to colonize the land. This water/land creature is presently an unknown species to science. That is to say that the human species might well represent the same kind of giant evolutionary step because we humans are the first animal to have creative as well as adaptive qualities.

Otto Rank’s will psychology throws meaningful light on the psychological foundation of epistemology and ethics—leading to a philosophy of the psychic—the creation of individuality in “rebirth experience” as being the actual creative act—in this act the psychic ego is born out of the biological corporal ego thus moving from creature to creator—i.e. creator of his own personality.

There is movement from competition with nature to artistic creation of reality which we call civilization—his competition becomes with himself—the inner world becomes an independent power which seeks to alter the external world to more correspond to the inner—this is more creation than adaptation and can be comprehended as will phenomena.

“In this sense civilized man, even if he fights the outside world, is no longer opposed to a natural enemy but at bottom to himself, to his own creation, as he finds himself mirrored, particularly in manners and customs, morality and conventions, social and cultural institutions.”

This idea is based upon the assumption that our inner world, in our creation of it, slowly becomes a power independent of the outer world, which we constantly try to modify to suit our inner reality. This is not adaption but is creation, which can be called ‘will phenomena’.

This is movement from Freudian id which is subject to natural laws under guise of “repetition compulsion” while personality “consists of identifications which form the basis of the parental super-ego”—to move beyond the super-ego morality to an ideal formation to a personality that guides—he evolves the ego ideal from self-chosen factors consciously strived for.

Quickie from Wiki: “Repetition compulsion is psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats a traumatic event or its circumstances over and over again. This includes reenacting the event or putting oneself in situations that have a high probability of the event occurring again. This "re-living" can also take the form of dreams, repeating the story of what happened, and even hallucination.”

This concept, “repetition compulsion”, was noted formally by Sigmund Freud in his 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle in which he observed a child throw his favorite toy from his crib, become upset at the loss, then reel the toy back, only to repeat this action again.

Quotes from Truth and Reality by Otto Rank

Good topic...I admit, I haven't read my share of Otto Rank to consider myself learned in his philosophy of psychology, but i'm very intrigued...

[This idea is based upon the assumption that our inner world, in our creation of it, slowly becomes a power independent of the outer world, which we constantly try to modify to suit our inner reality. This is not adaption but is creation, which can be called ‘will phenomena’.

]

This sheds light on to the dualistic reality of our perception of our 'selves'...I'm not sure what is meant exactly by 'will phenomena', but i assume it is in regards to the will of the self giving meaning to the inner reality created for the self...which provides meaning and purpose for its motives...our experience with the 'outer world' reflects our sensory/motor perceptions with space/time...but with the evolutionary advent of the 'self' we are able to create an inner dimension of perception which can manipulate that which is external in order provide us with some sort of context in which our own intentions can interact...this concept of 'will', which seems well validated by our subjective experience, may be no more than our minds recognition of its own consciousness...

From an evolutionary perspective, one can see the significance of possessing a mechanism in which the mind is able to create hypothetical situation to anticipate the future...

But I think the main purpose is to recognize the fact that we are not merely biological organisms adapting to an environment, but rather a conscious creature creating the reality in which we are perceiving...this blends in perfectly to the postmodern perspective of subjectivity which makes us all feel unique and special in a common world. We do possess a 'will' that provides us with intention to predict/anticipate future events and to interact therein...I'm not sure yet if I yield the same enthusiasm, although i would certainly like to because i do feel that human consciousness is beyond the grasp of scientific materialism

Objectivism, the traditional philosophy of western civilization, is based upon the assumptions that truth and reality rests out there in the world and that through our senses we can know this truth and reality unmodified by our cognition.

A new understanding of reality and truth as being embodied reality rejects the ideas of objective tradition and concludes that truth and reality are constructs of the human body-mind.

Objectivity is our shared subjectivity. That is to say that objectivity, i.e. that which we all “see” as reality and truth, is dependent upon the cognitive processes that we all share.

Ok sorry I was a little drunk last night, now I understand what you mean by 'will phenomena' and its very interesting how Rank constructs the concept in terms of the psyche rising from the basic Freudian psychological mechanisms. Whereas Freud's depiction of the psyche was largely dictated by the id vs. super-ego conflicts with the ego, here Rank frees humanity in a sense by saying that the formation of the ego ideal allows us creates an inner world based on the strivings of our own idiosyncratic conglomerations of identifications in which the psyche is an active, organizing, creative agent in creating a correspondence between internal and external reality.

[Objectivism, the traditional philosophy of western civilization, is based upon the assumptions that truth and reality rests out there in the world and that through our senses we can know this truth and reality unmodified by our cognition.

A new understanding of reality and truth as being embodied reality rejects the ideas of objective tradition and concludes that truth and reality are constructs of the human body-mind.

Objectivity is our shared subjectivity. That is to say that objectivity, i.e. that which we all “see” as reality and truth, is dependent upon the cognitive processes that we all share.
]

And here we've reached the postmodern perspective. Relativity. But yes, as you eluded, it is quite strange just how relative our minds our to each others. Of course it is difficult to determine what reality (internal or external) is creating the other. I may have to disagree with Rank in the sense that I believe that the structures of our individual minds are based in or modeled after a socially constructed reality. "Objectivity is our shared subjectivity" is one of my favorite quotes that describes our minds relation to each others, and in it reveals how dependent our minds are to being interconnected to other minds put their own thoughts in context.