Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
FrancoAngeli Journals

Articoli

No. 55 (2022)

A 3+1 Storey House. Jung’s dream and archetypal brain-mind homologies in an evolutionary perspective

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/jun55-2022oa14057
Submitted
luglio 5, 2022
Published
2022-08-02

Abstract

On the ship taking him to the Clark lectures in the United States, Jung told Freud about a dream, which became famous, in which a four-story house, or levels, seemed to represent the structure of a psyche based on the archetypal unconscious. Although the idea of archetype has been repeatedly criticized, since the second half of the 1900s scientific studies on the organization of the human brain have confirmed the hypothesis of a stratification of mental functions and a predominantly instinctual and hereditary determination of the first and earliest layer of neuropsychic evolution. Therefore, taking up the structure of the house dreamed up by Jung, in this article we propose the idea of a psycho-neuro-archaeological stratification divided into 3+1 overlapping layers, which constitutes an elaboration of the ternary neuro-archaeological model elaborated first by Paul MacLean and then by Jaak Panksepp, in which affectivity represents the fundamental organizing factor of the brain-mind. The most evolved layer, characteristic of the human species, is that of reflective self-consciousness. Immediately below is the layer of intersubjective consciousness, characteristic of homeothermic species (mammals and birds) and related to the evolution of a complex of medial cortical structures called Default-Mode-Network. Still below is the layer of cognitive-imaginative consciousness, which evolved in vertebrates equipped with cerebral cortex. Finally, the first and oldest layer, is that of affective awareness, related to the functioning of medial subcortical structures (core-Self), where the instinctual and archetypal circuits identified in Panksepp's neuro-ethological studies reside.

References

  1. Alcaro A. (2019). Il soffio della consapevolezza ed il taglio della coscienza. Rivista di Psicologia Analitica, 48: 119-137.
  2. Alcaro A., Carta S. (2019). The “Instinct” of Imagination. A Neuro-Ethological Approach to the Evolution of the Reflective Mind and Its Application to Psychotherapy. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 12: 522. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00522.
  3. Alcaro A., Carta S., Panksepp J. (2017). The affective core of the self: a neuro-archetypical perspective on the foundations of human (and animal) subjectivity. Front. Psychol., 8: 1424. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01424.
  4. Allen C., Trestman M. (2016). Animal consciousness. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford: Zalta E.N. (Winter Edition).
  5. Balduzzi D., Tononi G. (2009). Qualia: the geometry of integrated information. PLoS Comput Biol., 5,8: e1000462. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000462.
  6. Barkow J., Cosmides L., Tooby J. (1992). The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
  7. Bergson H. (2002). The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics. New York: Citadel Press.
  8. Bergson H. (1998). Matter and Memory. New York: Zone Books.
  9. Bernard C. (1961). An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. New York: Collier Books.
  10. Bion W. R. (1962). Learning from Experience. New York: Basic Books (trad. it. Apprendere dall’esperienza. Roma: Armando, 1972).
  11. Bohm D. (1980). Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Great Britain: Routledge.
  12. Brown D.E. (1991). Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  13. Brown J.W. (2002). The Self-Embodying Mind. Process, Brain Dynamics and the Conscious Present. New York: Barrytown.
  14. Calabretta R. (2001). Natural Selection and the origin of modules. In: Callebaut W. e Rasskin-Gutman D., a cura di, Modularity. Understanding the development and evolution of complex natural systems. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  15. Calabretta R. (2002). Connessionismo evolutivo e origine della modularità. In: Borghi A. e Iachini T., a cura di, Scienze della Mente. Bologna: il Mulino.
  16. Cosmides L., Tooby J. (1994). Origins of domain specificity: The evolution of functional organization. In: Hirschfeld L.A. and Gelman S.A., editors, Mapping the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  17. Dehaene S. (2014). Consciousness and the brain: Deciphering how the brain codes our thoughts. New York: Viking Penguin.
  18. Denton D.A. (2006). The Primordial Emotions: The Dawning of Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press.
  19. Edelman G.M., Tononi G. (2000). Un universo di coscienza. Come la materia diventa immaginazione. Milano: Einaudi.
  20. Edelman D.B., Baars B.J., Seth A.K. (2005). Identifying hallmarks of consciousness in nonmammalian species. Conscious Cogn., 14: 169-87. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2004.09.001.
  21. Edelman G.M. (1989). The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness. New York: Basic Books.
  22. Edelman G.M. (1992). Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind. New York: Basic Books.
  23. Fabbro F., Aglioti S.M., Bergamasco M., Clarici A. and Panksepp J. (2015). Evolutionary aspects of self-and world consciousness in vertebrates. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 26, 9: 157. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00157.
  24. Fodor J. (1983). The modularity of mind. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  25. Freeman W.J. (1999). How Brains Make-up Their Minds. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
  26. Freud S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams. In: Strachey J., editor, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  27. Gallagher S. (2000). Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 1: 14-21.
  28. Griffin D. (1985). Animal Thinking. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  29. Griffin D.R. (1981). The Question of Animal Awareness: evolutionary continuity of mental experience (revised and expanded edition). Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann.
  30. Johnson M.H., Karmiloff-Smith A., Parisi D. and Plunkett K. (1996), Rethinking innateness. A connectionist perspective on development. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  31. Jouvet M. (1975). The function of dreaming: a neurophysiologist’s point of view. In: Gazzaniga M.S. and Blakemore C., editors, Handbook of Psychobiology. New York: Academic Press. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-278656-3.X5001-7.
  32. Jung C.G. (1937-1942). Psychological factors in human behavior. In: The Collected Works, Vol. 8. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  33. Jung C.G. (1947-1954). Theoretische Überlegungen zum Wesen des Psychischen (trad. it.: Riflessioni teoriche sull’essenza della psiche. In: Opere, vol. 8. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1976).
  34. Jung C.G. (1955). Synchronicity: an acausal connecting principle. In: The Collected Works, 2nd Edn, Vol. 8. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  35. Karmiloff-Smith A. (1995). Beyond Modularity - A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  36. Kihlstrom J.F. (1987). The cognitive unconscious. Science, 237: 1445-52. DOI: 10.1126/science.3629249.
  37. Knox J. (2004). From archetypes to reflective function. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 49: 1-19 DOI: 10.1111/j.0021-8774.2004.0437.x.
  38. Krieger N.M. (2014). Bridges to Consciousness. Complexes and Complexity. New York: Routledge.
  39. Kuhn T.S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
  40. Lakatos I. (1970). Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. In: Lakatos I. and Musgrave A., editors, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  41. Lakoff G., Núñez R. (2000). Where Mathematics Comes From. New York: Basic Books.
  42. Llinas R. (2002). I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  43. Lorenz K.Z. (1935). Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels; Der Artgenosse als auslösendes Moment sozialer Verhaltungsweisen. Journal für Ornithologie, 83: pt. 2-3 (trad. engl.: The Companion in the Bird’s World; the fellow-member of the species as a releasing factor of social behavior. The Auk, 54,3, 1937).
  44. Mandler J.M. (2004). The Foundations of Mind: Origins of Conceptual Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  45. Marr D. (1982). Vision. San Francisco: Walter Freeman and Co.
  46. McFadden J. (2013). The CEMI field theory: Closing the loop. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20, 1, 2: 153-168.
  47. MacLean P.D. (1982). On the Origin and Progressive Evolution of the Triune Brain. In: Armstrong E. and Falk D., editors, Primate Brain Evolution. Boston, MA: Springer.
  48. Minelli A. (2007). Forme del divenire. Evo-devo: la biologia evoluzionistica dello sviluppo. Milano: Einaudi.
  49. Nagarjuna G. (2005a, July). From folklore to science. Paper presented at the International History, Philosophy, Sociology & Science Teaching Conference, Leeds.
  50. Narayanan S. (1997). KARMA: knowledge-based active representations for metaphor and aspect. PhD dissertation, Computer Science Division. Berkeley, USA: University of California https://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~snarayan/thesis.pdf.
  51. Nunn C. (2016). New Directions in Consciousness Studies: SoS Theory and the Nature of Time. London: Routledge.
  52. Panksepp J. (1998). Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.
  53. Panksepp J., Biven L. (2012). The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotion. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
  54. Pauli W. (2006). Psiche e Natura. Milano: Adelphi.
  55. Pavlov I.P. (1927). Conditioned reflexes: an investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex (translated and edited by Anrep G.V.). London: Oxford University Press.
  56. Penrose R. (1989). The Emperor’s New Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
  57. Pereira Jr. A., Furlan F.A. (2010). Astrocytes and Human Cognition: modeling information integration and modulation of neuronal activity. Progress in Neurobiology, 92,3: 405-20. DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2010.07.001.
  58. Pereira Jr. A. (2017). Astroglial hydro-ionic waves guided by the extracellular matrix: an exploratory model. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, 16: 1-16. DOI: 10.3233/JIN-160003.
  59. Pinker S. (1997). How the Mind Works. New York: Norton.
  60. Reiter S., Liaw H.P., Yamawaki T.M., Naumann R.K. and Lauren G. (2017). On the value of reptilian brains to map the evolution of the hippocampal formation. Brain Behav. Evol, 90: 41-52. DOI: 10.1159/000478693.
  61. Rumelhart D., McClelland J. and the PDP Research Group (1986). Parallel Distributed Processing: explorations in the microstructure of cognition. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  62. Sander L. (2008). Living Systems, Evolving Consciousness, and the Emerging Person A Selection of Papers from the Life Work of Louis Sander (Amadei G. e Bianchi I., a cura di). London: Routledge.
  63. Seth A., Suzuki K. and Critchley H. (2012). An Interoceptive Predictive Coding Model of Conscious Presence. Frontiers in Psychology, 2: 395. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00395.
  64. Shein-Idelson M., Ondracek J.M., Liaw H.P., Reitere S. and Laurent G. (2016). Slow waves, sharp waves, ripples, and REM in sleeping dragons. Science, 352: 590-95. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf3621.
  65. Skinner B.F. (1935). Two types of conditioned reflex and a pseudo-type. Journal of General Psychology, 12: 66-77. DOI: 10.1080/00221309.1935.9920088.
  66. Sloman A. (2020). Biological evolution’s use of representational redescription. In: Taking Development Seriously: A festschrifts for Annette Karmiloff-Smith. London: Routledge.
  67. Solms K., Solms M. (2000). Clinical Studies in Neuro-Psychoanalysis. London: Karnac Books (trad. it.: Neuropsicoanalisi. Un’introduzione clinica alla neuropsicologia del profondo. Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 2002).
  68. Solms M., Panksepp, J. (2012). The “Id” knows more than the “Ego” admits: neuropsychoanalytic and primal consciousness perspectives on the interface between affective and cognitive neuroscience. Brain Sci, 2: 147-175. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci2020147.
  69. Stern D. (1985). The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books (trad. it.: Il mondo interpersonale del bambino. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987).
  70. Tinbergen N. (1951). The study of instinct. London and New York: Oxford University Press (trad. it.: Lo studio dell’istinto. Milano: Adelphi, 1994).
  71. Tulving E. (1985). Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology., 26: 1-12. DOI: 10.1037/h0080017.
  72. Vandekerckhove M., Panksepp, J. (2009). The flow of anoetic to noetic and autonoetic consciousness: a vision of unknowing (anoetic) and knowing (noetic) consciousness in the remembrance of things past and imagined futures. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal, 18, 4: 1018-1028. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2009.08.002.
  73. Vandekerckhove M., Panksepp J. (2011). A neurocognitive theory of higher mental emergence: from anoetic affective experiences to noetic knowledge and autonoetic awareness. Neurosci Biobehav Rev., 35, 9: 2017‐2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.04.001.
  74. Weir A.A.S., Chappel J., Kacelnik A. (2002). Shaping of hooks in New Caledonian crows. Science, 297: 981. DOI: 10.1126/science.1073433.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...