An interesting point in Freud - about the notion of the double

[Kyriakos]

One of the points that Freud makes in an article i am reading, is that the idea of the Double may be primarily tied to states and not living things. Eg he refers to his own experience when he was visiting a small italian city, and got lost, so he had to end up again and again in the same part of town, while trying to find his way back to his hotel. He goes on to claim that the double may involve some kind of repetition in deeper mental processes, which usually are not conscious.

This point doesn't have to be correct - i mean, largely or usually non-conscious mental goings-on are by nature difficult to argue conclusively about, and moreover one has to assume that the bulk of the processes will remain non-conscious and thus out of reach. But i liked the idea of the double itself (something usually meant as a double of a person or other living thing) as referring to a doubled object or situation.

Freud refers to all that as arguably linked to the notion of the uncanny, and the creation of an uncanny sense. Do you agree with the double being primarily linked to uncanniness?

I would tend to be of the view that itself the double (including Freud's mention of states or external objects) seems to be a property which functions more as a basis for the thing which will trigger an uncanny sense. Afterall, repetition is near-constant, if one refers to mostly non-conscious/rarely conscious things.

 

[warpus]

Haven't Freud's theories been for the most part discredited? Or was it just a subset of his theories involving mothers, or something similar?

I think you are going to have to define "The double"

 

[Kyriakos]

Haven't Freud's theories been for the most part discredited? Or was it just a subset of his theories involving mothers, or something similar?

I think you are going to have to define "The double"

Afaik they have. Yet this is just about his view on the double; it isn't by itself having to be tied to theories on more conscious-heavy subjects such as the split images of the parents, or libido, or - in this case - the psychoanalytic premise that any repressed impression can return in an uncanny double of itself. The double here is a largely non-conscious collection of traits which can be manifested in objects at times.

The double is what the term usually means in common use; the copy of a person (or, in the case of the note i referred to, of a place, or even a mental procedure). Freud mentions this while alluding to a study by one of his associates (Otto Rank; aka Al Franken, top-left in the photo).

 

[warpus]

any repressed impression can return in an uncanny double of itself. The double here is a largely non-conscious collection of traits which can be manifested in objects at times.

That sounds vague enough to probably be true. Humans are pattern recognition machines, so we will see things and patterns in objects influenced by our past memories and experiences. So if you've experienced something in the past, I'm not surprised it's possible for the experience to manifest again in some way at some later point in your life.

 

[Kyriakos]

That sounds vague enough to probably be true. Humans are pattern recognition machines, so we will see things and patterns in objects influenced by our past memories and experiences. So if you've experienced something in the past, I'm not surprised it's possible for the experience to manifest again in some way at some later point in your life.

Also, at least in context, the premise is that while the original object the impression was about was not readily identified as uncanny, due to the resulting (due to whatever reason) trauma and subsequent repression of memory, the object now assumes uncanny aspects. A bit like a double, but a double which has a twisted side.