Hello friends! Reading Carl Jung's Man and his symbols lead me to think about human consciousness, mainly because he seems to think them as two manifestations of the same thing, not two different (though interacting) entities, and so one might think that the conscious self is build on the subconscious. While history doesn't cover the whole development of consciousness, it might give some light to most recent events of it. I came to think three examples:
1. The Dreamtime of Australian Aboriginals, which hints that they were some how closer to the unconscious parts of their mind, or maybe more open to accept it as a part of them.
2. Expert of Arab world Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila wrote somewhere that metaphors and allusions are much more important among Arabs than western people. Maybe this suggests that they have a different value for "logic" and "rationality".
3. Thought in medieval times and antiques seemed to be more "magical" than today. When "rational" thinking got the status it now has? What kind of events influenced it? I have also noticed while teaching mathematics that even modern adults are much less free from this "magical" thinking that western people like to think, and note that maths (including logic) is thought to be the heart of rationality. Or as an another example the concept of justice seems to be purely magical, and yet it is thought to be major part of societies. It seems that "rationality" is very recent part of human thought and people don't adhere it very consistently.
As you might have already noticed I'm no expert in history or psychology and my understanding of those examples is probably very shallow and wrong. That is the reason I'm asking your thoughts about them and the subject. Also I'm not saying that some cultures were better or more developed (in terms odf consciousness) than another, and even if they were, I don't think it should have any political implications. The reason words like "rationality" &c are in quotations is their vagueness, not that I would have some contempt towards the concepts. And yeah, please note that validity of Jung's thoughts isn't so important, I mentioned him just as a background story.
After all this blabbering: How do you think human consciousness has developed during the known history? Is there any evidence (hopefully from historcal era) speaking for different kind of conciousness than modern western? What events do you think are the most important in the development of consciousness?
1. The Dreamtime of Australian Aboriginals, which hints that they were some how closer to the unconscious parts of their mind, or maybe more open to accept it as a part of them.
2. Expert of Arab world Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila wrote somewhere that metaphors and allusions are much more important among Arabs than western people. Maybe this suggests that they have a different value for "logic" and "rationality".
3. Thought in medieval times and antiques seemed to be more "magical" than today. When "rational" thinking got the status it now has? What kind of events influenced it? I have also noticed while teaching mathematics that even modern adults are much less free from this "magical" thinking that western people like to think, and note that maths (including logic) is thought to be the heart of rationality. Or as an another example the concept of justice seems to be purely magical, and yet it is thought to be major part of societies. It seems that "rationality" is very recent part of human thought and people don't adhere it very consistently.
As you might have already noticed I'm no expert in history or psychology and my understanding of those examples is probably very shallow and wrong. That is the reason I'm asking your thoughts about them and the subject. Also I'm not saying that some cultures were better or more developed (in terms odf consciousness) than another, and even if they were, I don't think it should have any political implications. The reason words like "rationality" &c are in quotations is their vagueness, not that I would have some contempt towards the concepts. And yeah, please note that validity of Jung's thoughts isn't so important, I mentioned him just as a background story.
After all this blabbering: How do you think human consciousness has developed during the known history? Is there any evidence (hopefully from historcal era) speaking for different kind of conciousness than modern western? What events do you think are the most important in the development of consciousness?