While science has traditionally regarded the observer's/
thinker's subjectivity contingent, has excluded him from
observation and failed to consider him vivid incarnation
of absolute truth, the complexity sciences have
postulated a theory in clear opposition to the model of
Aristotelic thought and have proposed to bridge
transdisciplinary gaps.
We know that disorder instead of order stamped early
times in history and that this history was conceived
like a Shakespearean story. Shakespeare's fool was not
an idiot. He disclosed truth sealed by "sound and
fury" …Life is a tale told by an idiot full of
sound and fury, signifying nothing… (Shakespeare, W.,
Macbeth).
On including this section on Complexity in our site, it
is our aim to outline the ways to protect us from the
subjective poverty man has used the objective
possibilities facilitated by technology. To this
purpose, as psychoanalists, we adhere to listening and
transdisciplinary interpretation. Interpreting means
bestowing some subjectivity to what has been objectively
provided.
Reading, researching, discussing and debating in a
responsible manner is also interpreting because when we
give up such interpretation and we opt for literality,
when dogmas are favored instead of reflection that gives
access to a virtual or possible sense, man has given up
part of his own essence. Such essence is a dimension
that enables him to have some responsibility for what he
has access to. Taking responsibility does not mean
aspiring to a better truth than others, but
understanding that it is in the interpretation thast
lies the sole destiny of truth. If truth is not subject
to interpretation, dogma imposes fate.
Our objective is the research, testing and demonstration
of the inevitable articulation between the unconscious
and the different operative ways of complex thought.
Focussing on complex thought implies a particular way of
reflection within a transdisciplinary framewok in which
a paradoxical logic postulates that knowledge is
ambiguous, uncertain, imprecise and incomplete due to
its intrinsic subjective nature. Furthermore, according
to non-linear systems, the whole is more than the sum
total of its parts. Non linear systems can only be
understood by a careful examination of the global
behaviour together with a detailed study of the
corresponding individual agents.
Even if the complexity sciences do not provide
completely satisfactory solutions, they offer a new
opportunity to return to a point of departure, thus
generating some kind of re-creation that facilitates the
crossing of transdisciplinary borders. This is a
necessary tension that sets desire into motion, just as
Freud dis-covered more than a century ago. (Freud, S.,
Project of Psychology for Neurologists, (1950 [1895]).
Complexity thought tries to recover the empiric, the
uncertain, the incapacity to reach certainties and thus
conceive an absolute order. From such perspective, a
paradoxical logic does not imply error signals but an
encounter with deeper levels of reality. Such logic has
been widely known since the origins of Psychoanalysis,
when Freud formulated the logic of the unconscious .
It is essential to make a difference between complexity
and completeness. Complexity requires some acceptance of
the inexorability of uncertainty. The Cartesian paradigm
of simplification, disjunction and reduction has been
the result of the modern historical and cultural
development. At the heart of the complexity paradigm,
thought operates with other principles: distinction,
conjunction and implication.
We are interested in researching on complexity and its
articulation with Psychoanalysis and in showing the
unavoidable existent interconnections -though silenced
and not yet made completely evident- between early
Freudian formulations about the unconscious and the
development of a pseudo new science: complexity. Our
challenge lies in making the necessary articulations
with seemingly different disciplines from Psychoanalysis
such as Medicine and its branches: Chemistry, Physics,
Molecular Biology, Neurobiology. Although these
disciplines have their our developments, they also
maintain strong connections with Freudian postulates,
for they are all productions of "human
thought", subject to unconscious reality and
"affective effects", that unfold in the
intimacy of a soma and are related to an environment
that contains it.
Researching on the borders of complexity requires a
"demand to work" in order to establish a
particular dialogue and to foster an encounter among
disciplines. It means trying to reach some proximity in
which the distance among scientific formalities
dissolves without dilluting, in favor of
interpenetration and reciprocal interdependence.
The strong fascination exerted by the scientific belief
of "possessing all knowledge" urges
Psychoanalysis to enter these territories to discuss
these issues since the illimited progress made by a
highly industrialized techno-science may very well lead
humanity to the annulment of our very essence and
replace us by "substitute-clones". Just as
Ilya Prigogine's theory on dissipative structures of
matter is supported by Bergson's vitalist philosophy and
fuzzy thinking is based on the "multivalence"
concept, this particular moment of history calls for an
active dialogue between sciences and arts together with
transdisciplinary work.
The most recent research on the Neurosciences fails to
penetrate the essence of affects. Even if these
questions (smiles, cries, laughter, tears) rule their
development, their axis passes through merely
quantifiable issues and looses the depth and wealth of
subjectivity together, with the differences marked by
each culture. Laughter and tears are violent,
convulsive, spasmodic states easily intermingled and
exchanged. Just as a baby can switch from desperate
cries to beatific smiles, an adult can very well
suppress tears and laughter but he/she will never be
able to dissolve the feelings and sensations, promoted
by the quantitative intensity that could make him break
into tears or start laughing. This should be linked to
other psycho-affective characteristics, curiously
denied-repressed in present Neurobiological research:
the capacity for pleasure, enthusiasm, rage, wrath,
fury, hatred.
It is important to point out that truth is also a
historic and cultural construction, thus coexistent
styles prevail. Our group adheres to Paul Feyeraband's
conceptualizations for the line of work to be developed.
It is our intention to question contemporary "foul
play" and conceptual melange as undesirable effects
of present eclecticism.
-Dra. Nize Maria Campos Pellanda University
of Santa Cruz do Sul,
Brasil
-Dr. Luiz Ernesto Cabral Pellanda Porto Alegre, Brasil
This paper centers around the Cartesian paradigmatic
transition processes towards the autoorganized system
ideas. These reflections and the privileged status of
Psychoanalysis and Quantum Physics have produced a real
conmotion in the roots of Cartesian thinking. The system
and cibernetic theories imply the concept of
autoorganization, that promotes the emergence of a new
non-linear logic, in order to manage the complex
phenomena. Maturana and Varela elaborated the concept of
Autopoiesis, to express the autonomy-conectivity in
living creatures.
Starting from this point, we are placed in a reflection
about the way in which Psychoanalysis opposed that
epistemological perspective, through Klein's, Bion's and
Matte-Blanco's work. Many hypothesis have been
constructed fom the perspective of establishing
frontiers among disciplines and constituting, from the
nuclear human actions, the subject-knowledge.
The paper points to evidences of a need to up-date
Psychoanalysis in its theory and method, trying to make
it more competitive with other scientific disciplines
which stand side by side whith it.
The author identifies in these trends the same movements
of recuperation wich was largely present in the
seventies and eighties and meant to adapt several human
disciplines to the frame-work of prevailing ideologies.
He states his opinion that Psychoanalysis doesn't have
to modernize its conceptual basis, nor adapt its method
to the demands of the market. Besides, it doesn't enter
in disfavouring epistemological and methodological
conditions in the interdisciplinary dialogue. What it
needs is to reinforce its identity based on the
confidence that its basic discoveries - such as those
concerning the unconscious - and its method, go on being
valid and fruitful.
Palabras clave:
epistemology-interdisciplinarity-crisis of
Psychoanalysis -neutrality -subjectivity- analytical
method
The History of science is a history of
discontinuities and ruptures, promoted by debate and
disagreement. This is the reason why it is necessary
"to look at history" as something more than a
simple accumulation of chronologies and anecdotes. While
this occurrs, this post-modern world mistakes identity,
theory and politics. The conceptual exchange is in order
to insist on and defend complex thinking rigorousness.
So, it is necessary to sustain scientific discussions on
the concepts of "paradigms" (Kuhn) and not
only the "paradigm changes" but also "the
functional", "the effective" and the
paradoxical logics to maintain in order to maintain the
subversive foundational condition of Psychoanalysis.
Key words: history of
science-paradigms-debates-complex thinking-paradoxical
logical- foundational subversive condition of
Psychoanalysis
Dra. Carolina dos Santos Rocha-Porto
Alegre-Brasil
The advancement of Physics and its practical
application in quantic technologies
has led to crucial transformations in the way categories
of time and space are now interpreted and comprehended,
that is, the way we face reality has changed. The
techniques modifies human action regimes of time. The
latest telecommunication electrical-magnetic waves
technologies have caused an impact on human action: the
light speed in accelerating the world, has accelerated
us! This tecnological instrumentalization by means of
different engines of speed has turned unreal what was
before taken to be real. How can my metabolic velocity
be matched to that of infographics, which is not
individualized? We are obliged by the contraction of
time to face the energy transfer accident presented in
new world games offered by the videocomputation active
optics. Consequently, so that new dromocratic vectors be
rendered explicit, a new contemporary politics of
velocity must be worked out.
Key words: space/time-reality-regimes of
time-technology-velocity
