Mythology is a reality

[modernPrimitive2]

Campbell's work tells us more about the post war west and it's values than any ancient traditions. He's been widely discredited by now. A lot of his work is based on Jungian ideas. Complete nonsense.

How are Jung's ideas "complete nonsense"?

What Campbell proves is that if we look hard enough we can see patterns anywhere.

Yeah, like physics. We look hard, really hard, like "building a whole LHC hard", and then we see patterns. It's the same with the "soft sciences" like psychology, except the systems we are studying are far more complex.

 

[Juma]

Yes like maths and physics are also "ideas in brains".

Only if we ignore what they are about: They model something that we have evidens of. Unlike gods.

 

[Juma]

How are Jung's ideas "complete nonsense"?

Archetypes, synchronicity, personalitytypes.

Etc.

 

[Juma]

How are Jung's ideas "complete nonsense"?

What Campbell proves is that if we look hard enough we can see patterns anywhere.

Yeah, like physics. We look hard, really hard, like "building a whole LHC hard", and then we see patterns. It's the same with the "soft sciences" like psychology, except the systems we are studying are far more complex.

And unlike psychology physics has a well developed filter for false positives.

 

[DrZoidberg]

How are Jung's ideas "complete nonsense"?

Archetypes, synchronicity, personalitytypes.

Etc.

Thanks for saving me the effort. The big one that Campbell picked up on was the ancient mother goddess. The idea that before paganism there was a widespread worship of a female goddess. The feminine was sacred and society was more equal. The idea is that settlement and farming brought with it the patriarchy. Too bad it's not backed up by anything other than Jung's fantasies. There's not a shred of support for it. On the contrary all available research on hunter gatherer cultures suggest that farming life was less patriarchal than before. Which certainly makes the mother goddess theory unlikely.

This is just one example. It's all like this. Campbell is great at Western mythical traditions. He's really an expert. His comparisons between ancient Greek and modern western myths is fantastic. But there his expertise ends. As soon as he ventures beyond these he starts making claims that don't hold water. Compared to Indian scholars his grasp of Hindu myths were always superficial. His is full of this. He finds a pattern between Greek and Christian myths, and then proceeds to find a corollary in Hindu myth. Which he finds, but misreads the context and ends up making a fool of himself. He just didn't have access to that type of expertise back when he wrote his works. Now with the Internet it's easy for researchers to reach out to one another and review each others work. He would have needed that.

There's also the issue of research. Egyptology made leaps and bounds in the 20'th century. Especially in the latter half. There's plenty of things that we thought back in the day that we don't any longer. I had a specific example in mind, but it escapes me for some reason. I'll post it if I remember it. Anyhoo... that's a stark reminder that context is always important. I think Hero of a Thousand Faces tells us more about the post war west than it does ancient stories, and his monomyth theories don't work any more.

If I come across as a Campbell hater, I'm sorry. I'm not. I love Joseph Campbell. I enjoyed a Hero with a Thousand Faces a lot. But it needs to be read with the correct frame of mind. I see his work as nothing than a fun mental experiment. It's to social studies as the Da Vinci Code is to Biblical studies. You're going to learn fuck all about today's world by reading Joe Campbell.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

How are Jung's ideas "complete nonsense"?

Archetypes, synchronicity, personalitytypes.

Etc.

LOL. You obviously haven't thought this through and just accept pseudo-skeptic dogma.

Archetypes
Most people understand what "7" means and what "father" means. Neither of these are actual objects of sense perception in the world, rather they are "ideas" or "descriptors" of the kinds of objects or grouping of objects of sense perception that exist in the world. In Jung's system numbers would be considered as archetypal, as would instinctive, intuitive "ideas" like "father" or "mother" or "castrating father" or "all-consuming mother". They are not physical objects of sense-perception and Jung never said they were.

Synchronicity
Why is this considered "woo woo"? Because some New Agers latched onto the idea and they interpret it in a magical sense? That's was not Jung's idea and he never made metaphysical claims about it. Rather, we know that the human mind tends to perform some kind of pattern matching and you don't need to believe in a metaphysical collective unconscious "out there" to realize that you brain is going to do a whole lot of pattern matching based on what it's currently pre-occupied with. Hence "synchronicity". eg: I have the birth of my child on my mind and it just so happens that I now see a lot of pregnant mother and adverts for "baby stuff" that I never noticed before.

Typology
I think it's pretty self evident that some people are more extraverted and others are more introverted. You don't need complex algorithms or neuroscience to observe that as a psycho-social reality, you just look at a few different humans and it's obvious. Granted typology gets more complex than that but it's the basis of it.

Do you need me to demystify any more of his ideas for you?

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Archetypes, synchronicity, personalitytypes.

Etc.

Thanks for saving me the effort. The big one that Campbell picked up on was the ancient mother goddess. The idea that before paganism there was a widespread worship of a female goddess. The feminine was sacred and society was more equal. The idea is that settlement and farming brought with it the patriarchy. Too bad it's not backed up by anything other than Jung's fantasies. There's not a shred of support for it. On the contrary all available research on hunter gatherer cultures suggest that farming life was less patriarchal than before. Which certainly makes the mother goddess theory unlikely.

This is just one example. It's all like this. Campbell is great at Western mythical traditions. He's really an expert. His comparisons between ancient Greek and modern western myths is fantastic. But there his expertise ends. As soon as he ventures beyond these he starts making claims that don't hold water. Compared to Indian scholars his grasp of Hindu myths were always superficial. His is full of this. He finds a pattern between Greek and Christian myths, and then proceeds to find a corollary in Hindu myth. Which he finds, but misreads the context and ends up making a fool of himself. He just didn't have access to that type of expertise back when he wrote his works. Now with the Internet it's easy for researchers to reach out to one another and review each others work. He would have needed that.

There's also the issue of research. Egyptology made leaps and bounds in the 20'th century. Especially in the latter half. There's plenty of things that we thought back in the day that we don't any longer. I had a specific example in mind, but it escapes me for some reason. I'll post it if I remember it. Anyhoo... that's a stark reminder that context is always important. I think Hero of a Thousand Faces tells us more about the post war west than it does ancient stories, and his monomyth theories don't work any more.

If I come across as a Campbell hater, I'm sorry. I'm not. I love Joseph Campbell. I enjoyed a Hero with a Thousand Faces a lot. But it needs to be read with the correct frame of mind. I see his work as nothing than a fun mental experiment. It's to social studies as the Da Vinci Code is to Biblical studies. You're going to learn fuck all about today's world by reading Joe Campbell.

You make some fair points there. Projection (another one of Jung's concepts - the idea that we interpret things according to our own internal references and life experiences) will always get in the way of a truly objective interpretation of anything and I would agree that Campbell was guilty of it, but we all are to a greater or lesser degree and it's not something that can be entirely eliminated.

I'm sure that Jung came to many erroneous conclusions and made a whole lot of wrong guesses about history when it comes to the mythological aspects of the psyche, because, well the psyche is a very strange place. However, his fundamental models had a strong empirical basis.

 

[Juma]

Archetypes, synchronicity, personalitytypes.

Etc.

LOL. You obviously haven't thought this through and just accept pseudo-skeptic dogma.

Archetypes
Most people understand what "7" means and what "father" means. Neither of these are actual objects of sense perception in the world, rather they are "ideas" or "descriptors" of the kinds of objects or grouping of objects of sense perception that exist in the world. In Jung's system numbers would be considered as archetypal, as would instinctive, intuitive "ideas" like "father" or "mother" or "castrating father" or "all-consuming mother". They are not physical objects of sense-perception and Jung never said they were.

Lol. And yet the whole "archetype" hogwash has been silently deemed out of date.

Synchronicity
Why is this considered "woo woo"? Because some New Agers latched onto the idea and they interpret it in a magical sense? That's was not Jung's idea and he never made metaphysical claims about it. Rather, we know that the human mind tends to perform some kind of pattern matching and you don't need to believe in a metaphysical collective unconscious "out there" to realize that you brain is going to do a whole lot of pattern matching based on what it's currently pre-occupied with. Hence "synchronicity". eg: I have the birth of my child on my mind and it just so happens that I now see a lot of pregnant mother and adverts for "baby stuff" that I never noticed before.

Jung's belief was that, just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of causality. This contradicts the Axiom of Causality in specific cases but not generally.

Jung used the concept to try to justify the paranormal.[6]

Typology
I think it's pretty self evident that some people are more extraverted and others are more introverted. You don't need complex algorithms or neuroscience to observe that as a psycho-social reality, you just look at a few different humans and it's obvious. Granted typology gets more complex than that but it's the basis of it.

And as usual you fail on the details: of course we are different and looking on one property we can be more or less of that. That is not the same as saying we can be divided into clearly defined groups. And even lesser: there is no evidens that we can be divided into the groups specified by jung or that those groups say anytjing significant about us.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Lol. And yet the whole "archetype" hogwash has been silently deemed out of date.

What do you mean out of date? What has replaced the concept then?

You wouldn't be able to survive or function without archetypes. If your ancestors didn't have the genetically-inherited pre-conscious archetypal "imago" (image) of "snarling tiger" you would not exist today. If you didn't have the conditioned pre-conscious archetypal image of "chair" you would have to figure out the function and utility every time you came across an actual physical instance of "chair". You don't seem to really understand what an archetype is.

The concept of an archetype /ˈɑːrkɪtaɪp/ is found in areas relating to behavior, modern psychological theory, and literary analysis. An archetype can be:
1) a statement, pattern of behavior, or prototype which other statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy or emulate;
2) a Platonic philosophical idea referring to pure forms which embody the fundamental characteristics of a thing;
3) a collectively-inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., that is universally present in individual psyches, as in Jungian psychology;
4) or a constantly recurring symbol or motif in literature, painting, or mythology (this usage of the term draws from both comparative anthropology and Jungian archetypal theory).

Jung's belief was that, just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of causality. This contradicts the Axiom of Causality in specific cases but not generally.

Jung used the concept to try to justify the paranormal.[6]

Sure. Jung's idea obviously took into account the individual's subjective relation to the event / object..hence "objects / events connected through meaning". Just because some people interpret that in a magical sense doesn't mean the concept is invalidated. We find modern parallels in concepts like cognitive bias, confirmation bias and so on. The fact that Jung and Pauli unsuccessfully tried to prove that it was evidence of the paranormal does not invalidate the basic concept. He was a pioneer and came up with the concept long before confirmation bias was explored. Jung also made mistakes, again it doesn't invalidate all of his work.

And as usual you fail on the details: of course we are different and looking on one property we can be more or less of that. That is not the same as saying we can be divided into clearly defined groups. And even lesser: there is no evidens that we can be divided into the groups specified by jung or that those groups say anytjing significant about us.

The concept is founded on archetypal theory and is simply Jung's attempt to categorize human personality into broad archetypal categories. You don't need neuroscience to see that some people are extraverted and other introverted or that some people are "thinkers" or that others are more in touch with and expressive of their feelings and are able to empathize more easily. What more evidence do you need other than to simply observe people and their behaviour? One kind of person likes to sit in the corner quietly and another likes to be the life of a party. It's self-evident.

 

[Juma]

What do you mean out of date? What has replaced the concept then?

You wouldn't be able to survive or function without archetypes. If your ancestors didn't have the genetically-inherited pre-conscious archetypal "imago" (image) of "snarling tiger" you would not exist today. If you didn't have the conditioned pre-conscious archetypal image of "chair" you would have to figure out the function and utility every time you came across an actual physical instance of "chair". You don't seem to really understand what an archetype is.

The concept of an archetype /ˈɑːrkɪtaɪp/ is found in areas relating to behavior, modern psychological theory, and literary analysis. An archetype can be:
1) a statement, pattern of behavior, or prototype which other statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy or emulate;
2) a Platonic philosophical idea referring to pure forms which embody the fundamental characteristics of a thing;
3) a collectively-inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., that is universally present in individual psyches, as in Jungian psychology;
4) or a constantly recurring symbol or motif in literature, painting, or mythology (this usage of the term draws from both comparative anthropology and Jungian archetypal theory).

Jung's belief was that, just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of causality. This contradicts the Axiom of Causality in specific cases but not generally.

Jung used the concept to try to justify the paranormal.[6]

Sure. Jung's idea obviously took into account the individual's subjective relation to the event / object..hence "objects / events connected through meaning". Just because some people interpret that in a magical sense doesn't mean the concept is invalidated. We find modern parallels in concepts like cognitive bias, confirmation bias and so on. The fact that Jung and Pauli unsuccessfully tried to prove that it was evidence of the paranormal does not invalidate the basic concept. He was a pioneer and came up with the concept long before confirmation bias was explored.

And as usual you fail on the details: of course we are different and looking on one property we can be more or less of that. That is not the same as saying we can be divided into clearly defined groups. And even lesser: there is no evidens that we can be divided into the groups specified by jung or that those groups say anytjing significant about us.

The concept is founded on archetypal theory and is simply Jung's attempt to categorize human personality into broad archetypal categories. You don't need neuroscience to see that some people are extraverted and other introverted or that some people are "thinkers" or that others are more in touch with and expressive of their feelings and are able to empathize more easily. What more evidence do you need other than to simply observe people and their behaviour? One kind of person likes to sit in the corner quietly and another likes to be the life of a party. It's self-evident.

You have obviously no clue what Jung actually wrote, instead you give sir to your own home brewn pet ideas.

I stop wasting my time on you now. Bye.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

You have obviously no clue what Jung actually wrote, instead you give sir to your own home brewn pet ideas.

I stop wasting my time on you now. Bye.

LOL. I suppose the fact that I have a MA in Depth Psychology and that I work for a centre of applied Jungian studies doesn't count? Yeah, you obviously know better than I do.

 

[Juma]

You have obviously no clue what Jung actually wrote, instead you give sir to your own home brewn pet ideas.

I stop wasting my time on you now. Bye.

LOL. I suppose the fact that I have a MA in Depth Psychology and that I work for a centre of applied Jungian studies doesn't count? Yeah, you obviously know better than I do.

Applied jungian studies? They obviously do not have any high standards.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You make some fair points there. Projection (another one of Jung's concepts - the idea that we interpret things according to our own internal references and life experiences) will always get in the way of a truly objective interpretation of anything and I would agree that Campbell was guilty of it, but we all are to a greater or lesser degree and it's not something that can be entirely eliminated.

Not always true. We can measure. Ancient writing, above all, was used to keep records. In year such and such fifty jars of olive oil were kept in such and such warehouse. That's pretty objective knowledge. Were subjectivity comes in is interpreting why they had, for example olive oil.

I think postmodernist interpretations have it's place. Especially when it comes to literary critique. But for interpreting history I think it's a waste of ink.

I'm sure that Jung came to many erroneous conclusions and made a whole lot of wrong guesses about history when it comes to the mythological aspects of the psyche, because, well the psyche is a very strange place. However, his fundamental models had a strong empirical basis.

How do you mean?

 

[modernPrimitive2]

LOL. I suppose the fact that I have a MA in Depth Psychology and that I work for a centre of applied Jungian studies doesn't count? Yeah, you obviously know better than I do.

Applied jungian studies? They obviously do not have any high standards.

Seriously Juma? You have no decent way to respond to what I posted so now you resort to name calling?

 

[modernPrimitive2]

I'm sure that Jung came to many erroneous conclusions and made a whole lot of wrong guesses about history when it comes to the mythological aspects of the psyche, because, well the psyche is a very strange place. However, his fundamental models had a strong empirical basis.

How do you mean?

I mean what I said. There is a strong empirical basis to his theories. He observed and treated literally thousands of patients, identified patterns in their behaviour, psychoses, dream content and so on and used that to formulate his theories. Like I posted earlier to Juma, there are popularist New Agey misconceptions about what Jung actually wrote and what he actually meant. Yes he definitely explored the limits and went into areas like mysticism, astrology, alchemy and so on, but he also often backed down from making paranormal claims unless he had some good evidence for it. The Post-Jungian movement have tended to tone down a lot of his work and interpret it in light of more recent scientific endevours. For example more modern views on the collective unconscious hold that it's mechanism is merely genetic and memetic transfer. Jung never actually implied that it was an objective mass of thought forms independent of human minds as most people seem to think he meant.

 

[Malintent]

The "fertility" myth you speak of is, indeed, a means to explain... It "answers" (as in, "responds to") the question, "Why do women only sometimes get pregnant after having sex"? The menstruation cycle, and the generally low odds of fertilization due to the mechanics of the reproductive process is something not sufficiently understood by them.. so when something so important (generating offspring) is happening "randomly", the desire (the human NEED) to take control, to understand it, is to make up stories about it that originate from superstition (if I blow on the dice, I'll get double fours - Boxcars!)... if I kill a rabbit with a shiny stone, a baby will come (because it happened that way for someone else once..)

Again, I think you are assuming that primitive cultures had the same level of rational function as that which we have inherited from the height of Greek civilization. Mythological images and narratives exist as a kind of "pre-conscious idea". When we encounter a tiger in the jungle there's no need to "explain rationally" - the images of snarls and fangs are "instinctively understood".

and the understanding of that instinct.. where it came from, how it works, and why it works, is pretty much the only difference... It is still there, despite not having the benefit of the metadata around it. And it still does what it does... drive superstition and the encompassing mythos.

We, in modern society, don't pay much attention to the possibility of a tiger strike... it's ISIS, the current political candidate, and the next scapegoat for Cancer that catches our attention at that primitive level. Our hippocampus works the same on the tundra as on the subway.

 

[DrZoidberg]

How do you mean?

I mean what I said. There is a strong empirical basis to his theories. He observed and treated literally thousands of patients, identified patterns in their behaviour, psychoses, dream content and so on and used that to formulate his theories. Like I posted earlier to Juma, there are popularist New Agey misconceptions about what Jung actually wrote and what he actually meant. Yes he definitely explored the limits and went into areas like mysticism, astrology, alchemy and so on, but he also often backed down from making paranormal claims unless he had some good evidence for it. The Post-Jungian movement have tended to tone down a lot of his work and interpret it in light of more recent scientific endevours. For example more modern views on the collective unconscious hold that it's mechanism is merely genetic and memetic transfer. Jung never actually implied that it was an objective mass of thought forms independent of human minds as most people seem to think he meant.

Empiricism certainly beats fantasising freely. But domain matters. We know very little about the mind and brain still. And what we have learned though modern neurology hasen't been kind to Freud and Jung. Today we know that dreams are just noise. They mean nothing. The track record of psychoanalysis for curing mental problems is not good. It's worthless. Which was both Jung's and Freud's major focus in their practices.

I think you're being overly kind to Jung. I do think he was a New Agey type. What I take from Jung is that if we look hard enough we can see patterns and meanings in anything. The constant bane of postmodernism. On that topic, I see Jung mostly as a philosophic stepping stone of postmodernism. There's other more interesting philosophers who came after him. An interesting historical figure. But not one that is relevant any longer. His moment of glory was in the 70'ies. Today, not so much.

I think that the fact that Jung's work is internally consistent and logical is in itself a cause for caution. There's lots of theology that similarly is internally logic, yet complete bullshit. Logic = garbage in, garbage out.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Empiricism certainly beats fantasising freely. But domain matters. We know very little about the mind and brain still. And what we have learned though modern neurology hasen't been kind to Freud and Jung.

Do you know in what way? My understanding is that the concept of the unconscious is generally accepted.

Today we know that dreams are just noise. They mean nothing.

How do they know that though?

The track record of psychoanalysis for curing mental problems is not good. It's worthless. Which was both Jung's and Freud's major focus in their practices.

I think that's debatable and depends on what one means by "cure". For example CBT (which grew more out of the Adlerian school) has shown some good clinic results in alleviating anxiety and depression but the results seem to be restricted to the short term. Psychoanalysis and analytical psychology are more about coming to terms with unconscious material over the long term (often in excess of 10 years), so it's less about "curing" and more about cultivating something of a more harmonious relationship between the conscious and unconscious. Patients will often still suffer symptoms such as depression or anxiety but their relatedness to these seems to change to one where it is less of a problem. The idea is that the conscious ego attains some autonomy from unconscious influences rather than a "cure", since anxiety and depression can be in many respects normal human responses to certain situations. It's more about ego autonomy, self-acceptance and emotional relatedness than the removal of symptoms.

I think you're being overly kind to Jung. I do think he was a New Agey type. What I take from Jung is that if we look hard enough we can see patterns and meanings in anything. The constant bane of postmodernism. On that topic, I see Jung mostly as a philosophic stepping stone of postmodernism. There's other more interesting philosophers who came after him. An interesting historical figure. But not one that is relevant any longer. His moment of glory was in the 70'ies. Today, not so much.

I think that the fact that Jung's work is internally consistent and logical is in itself a cause for caution. There's lots of theology that similarly is internally logic, yet complete bullshit. Logic = garbage in, garbage out.

Yeah, difficult to argue that I agree. I think Jung's basic theories hold water - complex theory, archetypes, synchronicity (perhaps a fore-runner to confirmation bias), typology, projection etc, but the further down he rabbit hole one goes the more of an art form and less of a science it becomes.

 

[atrib]

No, space-time as we know it is a property of sense and cognition.

Think about a 3D first person game. As a player it appears as though we're walking through a 3D world, we can shoot things, bump into things, maybe drive some vehicles and so on. Now say we code an AI scientist as a character in this 3D world and give him the task of figuring out the reality of the world. He goes about and measures some things, figures out that there is "physics" involved when you bump into 3D objects and knock them over and so on. Then he starts exploring the boundaries of the map. He goes up to the very edge where the mountains and sky are and he finds out the mountain isn't actually a 3D object, it's just a flat image mapped onto a sphere to appear that way from a distance. When he gets really really close to the textures (images) mapped onto any of the 3D geometry he sees they start to become pixellated and really fuzzy. The naive 3D reality that he assumed at the beginning starts to break down and what he sees contradicts his original notions.

As humans we know that the fundamental nature of the AI scientist's reality is actually just some electrical signals passing through a CPU but that knowledge is completely inaccessible to the AI scientist. In the same way as humans we're in the very same predicament. We start with a naive notion of 3D space and as we explore the extremes things start to break down. At the QM level things get "fuzzy" just like the pixelated textures in the game world, at the cosmological scale we find that space is relatively flat and curved like the sphere surrounding the game world and cracks begin to appear - we can't reconcile what we see at the extremes with our original cognition and sense perception.

You are like the AI scientist in our game that is in the position of not ever being able to know the fundamental nature of reality but still you claim that it's a "thing out there" in-itself, it's "real". Yes, in a practical sense it is useful to consider that it is "real" because from an anthropocentric perspective it seems that way, so it is extremely useful to us to be able to predict behaviours and so on, but to make the leap to metaphysical materialism is a mistake epistemologically and by doing so you make assumptions that skew your understanding of other areas of human knowledge....such as mythology.

Spacetime and the chair both exist, irrespective of whether we are around to perceive their existence through our sensory organs. Our models of spacetime and the chair are simply approximations of their state, derived for our convenience. On the other hand, gods do not exist outside of the neural network patterns in the brains of theists, that we know of. Big difference.

There is more to gods and archetypal mythical figures than being merely ideas in the brains of theists. They are metaphorical descriptions of human behaviour and our psycho-social reality. The problem is that you are taking space-time to be an actual thing in itself, which it isn't and comparing that to mythology and using that as a basis to dismiss mythology.

And when you are able to demonstrate that we are all AI's programmed to act a certain way within a sandbox/universe simulation, presumably for the purposes of research and/or entertainment by some supernatural entity outside this sandbox, I will be happy to listen to you. Until that time I will continue to hold that spacetime is real and exists independently of our ability to recognize its existence.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Again, I think you are assuming that primitive cultures had the same level of rational function as that which we have inherited from the height of Greek civilization. Mythological images and narratives exist as a kind of "pre-conscious idea". When we encounter a tiger in the jungle there's no need to "explain rationally" - the images of snarls and fangs are "instinctively understood".

and the understanding of that instinct.. where it came from, how it works, and why it works, is pretty much the only difference... It is still there, despite not having the benefit of the metadata around it. And it still does what it does... drive superstition and the encompassing mythos.

We, in modern society, don't pay much attention to the possibility of a tiger strike... it's ISIS, the current political candidate, and the next scapegoat for Cancer that catches our attention at that primitive level. Our hippocampus works the same on the tundra as on the subway.

Agreed. I would go further and say that even if you discard irrational thinking a part of your brain still "thinks" that way. It's no good to simply try and be rational, because then the function becomes unconscious and one is unaware of it's existence. A good example of this is when people are having a supposed "rational argument" that becomes extraordinarily heated, the inference is at least in terms of psychodynamics that there is a deeper, unconscious, "irrational" reason that is veiled from conscious awareness (usually due to psychic discomfort). So the only way to attain some sort of autonomy from the irrational function is to become conscious of it. This is perhaps "why" mythology is useful - because a part of our brain still works that way. It's why we enjoy good stories and movies.