Transcript Toward the Modern Consciousness

Toward the Modern
Consciousness
Intellectual and Cultural
Developments
The Emergence of the
New Physics
• By the end of the nineteenth
century, after more than two
thousand years of intellectual
struggle that began with the
Greek philosophers, physical
scientists had reason to
believe that they were
beginning to understand the
universe.
• Their theories of matter and energy, of
electricity and magnetism, of heat and
sound and light were confirmed in
laboratories throughout the world with
increasing precision.
• "Everything that can be invented has
been invented.".
- Charles Durrell 1899
• “Most of the underline principles of
physics have been firmly established.”
- The University of Chicago 1893
• Experimentation
was the method,
and mathematics
the language, of
a powerful,
coherent body of
knowledge called
classical physics.
• For a few years before and after the turn
of the century, the monumental
achievements of science, technology,
and industry inspired hopes for a
peaceful and prosperous future.
• But beneath the calm surface, in
politics as well as in science, the
roots of future turmoil were quietly
gathering strength.
• Even the sturdy foundations of
classical physics were developing
alarming cracks.
X - RAYS
• On November 8, 1895 the German
physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
stumbled upon a way to make
strange rays with the power to
penetrate black paper, and even
living flesh.
• Since x is the unknown in algebra Röntgen called them X rays.
Radioactivity
• The chance discovery of
radioactivity finally signaled the
beginning of a new era in physics.
As the element polonium, identified
by Polish-born Marie Curie in
1898, emits radiation, it changes
spontaneously into lead.
• This discovery shattered the belief
inherited from the Greeks that the
elements are immutable and their
atoms indestructible.
The quantum of energy is
discovered.
• To explain the colors of
hot, glowing matter, the
German physicist Max
Planck assumes that
emission and absorption
of radiation occur in
discrete, quantized
amounts of energy.
• His idea initiates the
quantum theory of matter
and of light.
The Theory of Relativity redefines
time and space
• Albert Einstein
publishes his Special
Theory of Relativity,
which postulates that
nothing can move
faster than light, that
time and space are
not absolute, and that
matter and energy are
equivalent (e=mc2).
According to Einstein's General
Relativity, gravity warps space and
deflects light beams.
Quantum theory explains
the spectrum of hydrogen.
• The Danish physicist
Niels Bohr uses the
idea of the quantum to
predict the
wavelengths of light
emitted by glowing
hydrogen, which
classical physics
could not do.
Schrödinger's Cat
A cat is penned up in a steel chamber,
along with the following device (which
must be secured against direct
interference by the cat): in a Geiger
counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive
substance, so small, that perhaps in the
course of the hour one of the atoms
decays, but also, with equal probability,
perhaps none; if it happens, the counter
tube discharges and through a relay
releases a hammer which shatters a small
flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left
this entire system to itself for an hour,
one would say that the cat still lives if
meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psifunction of the entire system would
express this by having in it the living and
dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed
or smeared out in equal parts.
Friedrich Nietzsche
• Prussian born philosopher At 24 years of age, he
earned a professorship at
Basel
• His most productive years
were after he left Basel,
with the culmination of his
work (not to mention
notoriety) coming with the
writing of Thus Spoke
Zarathustra.
• For many years, Nietzsche had been
closely associated with the German
composer, Richard Wagner.
• The extent of their relationship is
speculation at best, but at some point
around 1887-1888, there was a deep
rift wedged between the two men.
• In 1889, less than two weeks after
the completion of Nietzsche contra
Wagner, he broke down, insane.
• Accounts tell of a frail Nietzsche
draping himself around the neck of
an old horse which was being
brutally beaten in the street.
Sigmund Freud
• 1885 Studied under Jean
Charcot in Paris who was
using hypnosis to treat
hysteria.
• 1900 - Published The
Interpretation of Dreams
• 1923 - presented
structural model of id,
ego, & superego
Freud's theory of normal
personality:
• Id : instinctive
energy - primitive,
impulsive, operates
by pleasure
principle, unable to
distinguish fantasy
from reality,
unconscious.
• Ego: reality
principle, needs to
contain and delay
the id's
impulsiveness,
channels libido
through cathexis
(object choice),
partly conscious,
partly unconscious.
Libido =
{a Freudian term for sexual urge or desire}
• Superego :
"Internalized parent,"
social rewards and
punishments,
irrational, absolutistic,
made up of
conscience and egoideal. Anticipates
social response to
ego's cathexes,
unconscious.
• CATHEXES - The libido's
charge of energy. He often
described the libido as the
producer of energies that, if
blocked, required release in other
ways.
• If an individual is frustrated in his
or her desires, Freud often
represented that frustration as a
blockage of energies that would
then build up and require release
in other ways: for example, by
way of regression and the wishes
to repress such desires.