Sigmund Freud - Dream Theories

In my readings from the great Gutenberg Project press, I found a good summary of some of Freud's fundemental theories on dreams.  Each of the following quotes come from here.

"Five facts of first magnitude were made obvious to the world by his interpretation of dreams."

"First of all, Freud pointed out a constant connection between some part of every dream and some detail of the dreamer's life during the previous waking state. This positively establishes a relation between sleeping states and waking states and disposes of the widely prevalent view that dreams are purely nonsensical phenomena coming from nowhere and leading nowhere."

I find this statement so true.  On my mission I had one companion who would tell his dreams every morning.  As he continued to do it he was able to draw upon more and more details of what happened and was able to recall the dreams far longer.  And although they seemed to take all different types of themes and subjects, it always had some connection back to the previous week in some way.

"Secondly, Freud, after studying the dreamer's life and modes of thought, after noting down all his mannerisms and the apparently insignificant details of his conduct which reveal his secret thoughts, came to the conclusion that there was in every dream the attempted or successful gratification of some wish, conscious or unconscious."

I am not sure I fully agree with this statement.  How do nightmares fall under this statement?   I don't find it a reasonable conclusion to say that people wish to have nightmares nor do I find them gratifying in any form.  But often they do have some connection to our higher desires and, well, dreams.


"Thirdly, he proved that many of our dream visions are symbolical, which causes us to consider them as absurd and unintelligible; the universality of those symbols, however, makes them very transparent to the trained observer."

I feel this is pushing off into that whole arena of horoscope.  I am pretty sure the Chinese have spent centuries on this subject and have come off with few concrete conclusions.


"Fourthly, Freud showed that sexual desires play an enormous part in our unconscious, a part which puritanical hypocrisy has always tried to minimize, if not to ignore entirely."

I think there is a reason that the puritans have left it alone.  And I will follow their example and leave it quietly behind.


Finally, Freud established a direct connection between dreams and insanity, between the symbolic visions of our sleep and the symbolic actions of the mentally deranged."


I am pretty sure this is why people consider those who study crazy people to be half crazy themselves.  If you surround yourself with two much instability you will soon find yourself instable.

Modern Education and Global Competition

I was reading a post by Trevor Cox when I found an image that really caught my attention...

The image just shouts the global educational battle of our day.  In one of my classes a few weeks ago my professor showed us a video that talked about how many people where in China and India and how many people were being born in both of those countries each day.   It then went on to divide up the populations into different division and basically said that the population of the smartest 10 percentile of those two countries have a larger population than the entire USA.  So basically we are not just competing against India.  But we are competing against the top percentiles that out number us in the millions.  Great.  Such is life!

The NEW LDS.org

The new LDS.org is amazing!

As one who is pretty tech savvy and who has been involved in a lot of different aspects of church service, I have been using the online LDS.org Ward and Stake Website for just under 5 years now.  Over the years I have seen a lot of progression.  The online LDS ward websites have gone from simple unorganized unique sites to a set clear worldwide format, and now to a completely revamped site.

The Divinity in Natural Selection

In Chapter IV of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species he discuses the process of Natural Selection.
In the opening paragraphs he defines Natural Selection as the "preservation of favorable variations and the rejection of injurious variations" (Page 131).  He goes on to explain that this process is as natural and ongoing process.

Over the course of the chapter he brings up case after case of different personal observations and observations of others.  As a side thought, its so amazing to see the impact of mass communication in his day.  He frequently refers to other scientist who have studied plants and animals and he uses multiple examples across a whole variety of fields to support his thesis (everything from birds and bees to green peas.)

Anyhow back to the chapter. He brings up a lot of interesting points, such as Sexual Selection or the tendencies to greater reproduction and inter-crossing of individuals or plants.  However, the insight that stood out the most to me was that of human interference in this process of natural selection.

Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations

After reading through parts of The Wealth of Nations there was one section that particularly caught my interest.  In Chapter IV he begins to discuss the systems of Political Economy in a free market setting.  There were two main concepts that stood out to me.  The first was in consideration of wealth, and the second was taking a critical look at barriers to international trade.

Alexis de Tocquerville - American Gender Roles

In Alexis de Tocquerville's great work Democracy in America, he goes off to explain the societal structure in the Americas.  Part of the structure that he fragments and analyzes is that of the societal norms and standards between the sexes.

What personally peaks my interests so much about this work is that he underpins the foundational concept that is echoed today in the LDS faith as stated in The Family a Proclamation to the world.  His understanding of the American social structure is that women in their unique roles are raised to their unique form of superiority.  That in two divers and unique roles they are able to come together to support a family for the frontier.

As we look back at the foundational values that made up American society it is interesting to note the change that has taken place over the decades.  

Henry David Thoreau the Hacker

As I have just finished reading a clip of Walden by Henery David Thoreau I have found him to be what, according to Daniel Zappala, MIT would consider a hacker.  He is someone who doesn't like society so he goes off and creates or lives in his own little world.  He builds up his biases and arguments against society until he has in one form or another isolated himself, for better and worse, from humanity.

The downside of isolation and denial of established norms is that you are less able to build up the synergies of established norms and customs.  But on the positive side their is a lot of room for self innovation and novel ideas.  Unsettle and unestablished by conservative values, one may go off and tackles the challenges of the world.

Book Sampler List

New Scientific Method

Sir Francis Bacon: “Novum Organum” This book is the foundation of the Scientific Method.  We read a few clips out of this book for class, but it would be interesting to go in deeper and read more.

Charles Darwin: “The Origin of Species” Although this jumps ahead about 200 years past Bacon I feel like it pulls off a lot of the same thought process that Bacon started.  I have always learned about evolution in school, but have never had a chance to read about the roots of how it all came about.

John Locke: “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” This is another book that looks pretty interesting.  Locke breaks down the traditional ideas of the nature and builds up a framework of thought based off of more of the idea of nurture or experiences.

If I can, Should I?

"When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it. Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organisation; but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an undertaking; but I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect: yet, when I considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hinderance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature; that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this determination, and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began." (From the text of Frankenstein)

The dilemma is ever present in the text of Frankenstein.  The internal battle rages of the questions between if I can, should I?  If we have the ability, does that in itself give us right to act?  This same ethical dilemma seems to continue on ever present in so many faucets of society today.  Genetic Research, Cloning, and Euthanasia all stand out as paramount ethical dilemmas that tend to take the forefront of discussion.  But yet there seems to be even more countless smaller and at first sight seemingly insignificant frontiers.  Questions on development of Surreal Societies, Artificial Intelligence in all forms, and creating remote weapons that continue to separate more and more the inflicter and the inflicted.

Who decides these and other ethical issues of our day?

If I can, should I?

Google Outage!

Google is down!

I am disconnected!

The behemoth has fallen...

and I am left without connection.

Just as discused by Gideon Burton we are all becoming more and more pulled in by the monstrous Google; and happily so!  But what happens when our jolly green giant of a friend trips and stumbles?  We have all become so interconnected that we have troubles figuring out how to do what has become so natural as walking.

When I first got online and my homepage Google wouldn't work, I jumped to the obvious conclusion that the internet must completely be down.  However, after playing around with my network connections and having it tell me multiply times that all was well with the connection I finally began to investigate the impossible.  My first reaction was to Google "Google Outage," but that obviously didn't work.  I wandered off to Bing and Yahoo and at last looked it up on twitter.  Ironically enough others had twittered about how they had tried to Google the same situation.  Google has really pulled us in.  We are inseparably dependent.

The Human as a commodity

The Industrial Revolution
Charles Dickens "Hard Times"

I was reading through Charles Dickens description of the Industrial Revolution in his work "Hard Times" when I came across an interesting but incomplete idea.

Dickens speaks of humans being and how in these huge factory situations become a commodity.  Interesting Idea, but has its holes.  Although there was a time where it seemed that machinery would lead all human involvement to be simpler and simpler in creating a robotic role, that only covers part of the story.  In truth computers have led to more and more specialized tasks and areas of work.  And as for all those tasks where humans were used doing menial tasks, they have completely been replaced by their robotic colleagues.