(no subject)

[hexpiritus.livejournal.com]

"The style of resolution of inner conflicts is one of the strongest features of personality.

It is a common myth that each person is a unity, a kind of unitary organization with a will of its own. Quite the contrary, a person is an amalgamation of many subpersons, all with wills of their own. The "subpeople" are considerably less complex than the overall person, and consequently they have much less of a problem with internal discipline. If they are themselves split, probably their component parts are so simple that they are of a single mind-- and if not, you can continue down the line. This hierarchical organization of personality is something that does not much please our sense of dignity, but there is much evidence for it."

-from Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul, specifically in a section written by Douglas Hofstadter (physicist, and professor of Cognitive Science, Computer Science, History, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, and Psychology)

(x-posted)

Comments

[hexpiritus.livejournal.com]

A rehash? I was unaware that this theory was discussed prior to the late 1970's, and early 1980's. Where can I find more information on "the person as a gestalt entity"? Perhaps I was wrong, and I'm not multiple after all. Hrmmm.

Gestalt Entities

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

The idea that a person consists of a gestalt is an idea that's been present in Jungs ideas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung), such as the Shadow Self (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung#The_shadow) and the Anima & Animus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung#Anima_and_Animus). It is also present in Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego). You can also find this idea in some religious systems. The christian god is a gestalt entity consisting of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They are all, however, supposed to be the same person. A lot of these theories only sometimes acknowledge the concept of liminal communication between these pieces, at least, without extensive work.

That should be differentiated from a system in which the persons in a body aren't conflicting subpersons in a gestalt person's collective "self". As he points out, there is a simplification, and down the line the people become more and more simplified, perhaps to a single emotion or motivation. Some systems don't operate this way, and the members are as complex as anyone in a single body. They are separate beings, in a single location. Although these terms are subjective, the differences can be very real in a practical sense. Of course, since people are content to allow themselves to be shaped by the limitations placed upon them, by society, and the psychiatric profession, it doesn't always happen. In other systems, fragments, or subpersons are allowed to grow and develop themselves so they are no longer simplified "parts" of some nebulous "whole". Still other systems, however, may operate within this paradigm, even while considering themselves entirely separate beings, for reasons all their own.

There's a lot of room for movement.

I wouldn't know whether or not you guys are multiple. Even if I had the secret to all multiplicity, I could only work from the information that you present, which is, by the very nature of our communication, grossly inadequate.

--Me

Re: Gestalt Entities

[echoesnspectres.livejournal.com]

The christian god is a gestalt entity consisting of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They are all, however, supposed to be the same person.

The same being (or "substance", in a non-physics-related sense), not the same person; three persons, one being. It's odd, and ironic, that many christians are opposed to, or uncomfortable with, the idea of natural or healthy plurality, while their own theologians wrote up that gloriously impossible affirmation (http://www.ccel.org/creeds/athanasian.creed.html) of something beyond the paradigm of one person per being.

(I'm not saying this in any theological capacity, but merely to clear up the terminology.)

Re: Gestalt Entities

[echoesnspectres.livejournal.com]

Hm, to reply to our last comment, of course plenty of multiples interpret themselves in terms of "more than one being per body", which may go further than that.