CofS critique part 4
Jeff Jacobsen
PART 4
by Jeff Jacobsen
PO Box 3541
Scottsdale, AZ 85271
copyright 1992 by Jeff Jacobsen
may be reprinted so long as it is kept in its entirety and not
edited.
PROBLEMS WITH THE ENGRAM THEORY
1. CONDITIONING
Conditioning is an alternative explanation of people's
behavior to Hubbard's engram theory. I wondered why Hubbard
argued that there was no such thing as conditioning35 until I
realized that if conditioning exists, then many activities
attributed to engrams could more rationally be attributed to
conditioning, and thus, people could receive help elsewhere than
from dianetics.
Hubbard even unwittingly provides a good example of
conditioning himself. A small fish in shallow, stale waters is
bumped and hurt by a larger fish trying to eat him. The small
fish got an engram from this occurrence (pain and momentary
unconsciousness being present). The small fish is attacked again
later in a quite similar manner, and the first engram is "keyed
in", thus reinforcing the first engram. From then on, whenever
the fish enters stale, shallow waters, he panics and heads
elsewhere, even when there is no danger present.36 This is very
similar to Pavlov's experiments with dogs who drooled at the
sound of a bell that normally rang only when food was provided.
Yet Hubbard claims that Pavlov's dogs "might be trained to do
this or that. But it was not conditioning. The dogs went mad
because they were given engrams."37
From Hubbard's own example of the fish, we can see that some
things described as engrams can in fact be better attributed to
conditioning. The fish story could work just as well without
pain and unconsciousness even being present, thus negating
engrams. Were we to continue following the fish around, he may
at a later time figure out that stale, shallow waters do not
always include dangers, and thus may return to those areas to
feed. Conditioning can thus be unlearned, whereas engrams remain
until audited out.
This is much more than a game of semantics. Conditioning is a
learned pattern of responsive behavior acquired from repetitive
stimulation of a certain type. Pavlov's dogs learned that
whenever they heard a bell that food became accessible to them.
They became accustomed to anticipating food at the sound of the
bell, so naturally they salivated at the sound of the bell after
a time, even when food did not always thereafter accompany the
sound (this works with humans, also). Hubbard's engram theory
applied to this case cannot account for such behavior, since
there was no pain or unconsciousness present during these
experiences, and thus no engrams were created. Conditioning is a
danger to Hubbard's engram theory because it is an alternative
explanation for certain behaviors. The fish in Hubbard's above
example need not have been knocked unconscious or even been in
pain to learn to avoid certain areas where it regularly came in
contact with an enemy. Pavlov's dogs did not have engrams that
made them salivate. Where engrams don't exist, there is no need
for dianetics.
Habits are also caused by engrams, according to Hubbard.
Habits "can only be changed by those things which change
engrams."38 Habits may be considered a simple form of
conditioning where a person unconsciously trains him or herself
to perform a certain activity at certain times. A girl, for
example, may twirl her hair when she gets nervous. A grownup
might bite his nails when he is under stress. If habits are
engramic, as Hubbard states, then the only way to stop a habit
would be through dianetic auditing. But certainly common sense
and life experience teach that this is not the case at all. The
girl generally outgrows her hair twirling, and the man can train
himself not to bite his nails. There is no need for the engram
theory to explain habits, and in fact the engram theory is
weakened by the constant experience of people stopping habits
without dianetic auditing.
2. THE INTELLIGENT MORON
The reactive mind, says Hubbard, is moronic. It considers
everything in an engram to be identical to everything else in the
engram. "Recall that the reactive mind can think only on this
equation - A=A=A, where the three A's may be respectively a
horse, a swear word, and the verb to spit. Spitting is the same
as horses is the same as God."39 Remember this example, where
the reactive mind cannot differentiate between a verb, an animal,
the deity, and an expletive.
Remember also that the reason engrams cause problems is that
they replay past memories where someone is stating something, and
then the reactive mind literally interprets the statement and
causes the person to act on that statement. I have previously
mentioned the example of a child whose engram stated "You've got
to take it." This child grew up to be a kleptomaniac because the
reactive mind literally interpreted this statement in the engram,
although it was actually the father yelling at the mother while
raping her.
But there is a contradiction here. On the one hand, Hubbard
states that the reactive mind thinks in identities, A=A=A. On
the other hand, the reactive mind understands a most complex
concept unique to man, language. In order to understand
language, you must be able to differentiate between sounds, such
as "ch" and "th". You must be able to differentiate between
verbs and nouns. As anyone who has learned a second language can
attest, understanding a language is an enormous analytical
challenge, yet this is what is required of the moronic reactive
mind in Hubbard's theory.
Hubbard does not grasp this contradiction at all. He skirts
the issue to some degree, stating for example that you should
never name your son a junior (George, Jr. etc.) since any engrams
with"George" in them will be interpreted by the reactive mind to
apply to the junior when he grows up (although, surprisingly,
Hubbard named his son L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.). "I hate George", for
example, is incorrectly interpreted and applied to the junior,
"though Mother meant Father".40 But one can see in this case
that the reactive mind could not tell one George from another,
although it could differentiate between the "I" sound and the "G"
sound, and also understood which sound was the noun, which the
verb, and which the pronoun. It could not only differentiate the
sounds into the three words, it could comprehend that "I" meant
the mother, "hate" meant dislike intensely, and "George" meant
the junior.
Now, let us remember the previous statement of Hubbard where a
horse equals a swear word equals a deity. Consider also this
other example, where "The reactive mind says 'NO!' Arthritis is a
baby is a pig grunt is a prayer to God."41 In this case a pig
grunt cannot be differentiated between a prayer, nor an animate
object, for that matter.
According to Hubbard's theories there is a great gulf between
the analytical mind and the reactive mind. They are in fact in
different areas of the body, where the analytical mind is in the
brain and the reactive mind is "cellular". The analytical mind
is said to be a perfect computer, making no mistakes and able to
compute difficult items in split seconds. The reactive mind is
moronic and thinks that everything equals everything else. If it
could be shown that there was really little difference between
the two or that they were so thoroughly connected that there was
essentially no differentiation between the two, then dianetics
theory collapses because its two major competitive components are
revealed as in fact one. And this in fact is the case:
* As has been shown already, the reactive mind understands
language, which is perhaps the shining triumph of analytical
thinking.
* The reactive mind also makes decisions. It must decide one of
five types of reaction to an engram that it will command the body
to perform.42
* It distinguishes in an engram between the ally and the enemy,
if there are two or more people present.43
* It chooses which valence, or which role, to dramatize from the
engram.44
* It decides which engram to restimulate if there is more than
one engram with the same sensual recording being restimulated.
For Hubbard to call the reactive mind moronic, and yet declare
that it can perform all these functions, seems to be
contradictory. Since Hubbard did not seem to perceive this
contradiction, he of course offered no explanation, so I offer
two possible ones that could be presented to try to save the
theory.
1) The reactive mind connects with the analytical mind and
utilizes some of its abilities.
2) The reactive mind is actually a part of the analytical mind.
Either of these solutions is, however, actually a death blow
to dianetics. The whole point of dianetics is that these two
minds cannot communicate and are completely separate. Dianetic
auditing, where one spends hundreds of hours searching out
memories in the reactive mind, is touted as the only way that
memories in the reactive mind can be transferred to the
analytical mind and erased from the reactive mind. If #1 or #2
above were true, then this roundabout trip into the reactive mind
would not be necessary, since the two minds are already on
speaking terms.
I understand that this point is perhaps hard to follow, but I
have elaborated on it because I believe that if I am right, then
the dianetic theory collapses right at the beginning of its
explanation of how the mind works. If there is no gulf between
the reactive and analytical mind (if this dichotomy even exists
in reality), as dianetics posits, then there is no reason for
dianetics to exist, as there would be no need for auditing.
35 DIANETICS, p.193
36 DIANETICS, pp. 88-9
37 DIANETICS, p.193
38 DIANETICS, p.56
39 DIANETICS, p.243
40 DIANETICS, p.405
41 DIANETICS, p.323
42 DIANETICS, p.197-200
43 DIANETICS, p.463
44 DIANETICS, p.155
--
cult...@indirect.com
Jeff Jacobsen
PO Box 3541
Scottsdale, AZ 85271 Here I stand - I can do no more.