The Blackberry Walk

AI in the form of neural networks is the closest approximation of the brain that has ever been achieved. To the extent to which in modern cognitive science, neural networks are commonly used as predictors for how the actually brain works. In such a vein, I'd like to show how Jung's system of archetypes fits snugly into such a model. The tabula rasa model of the mind is dead. Dead as a door nail. The very idea that the mind is a 'blank slate' onto which everything can be written, coming into this world without knowledge nor skills, is unsustainable when scrutinised beneath the modern scientific lens. Acetophenone experiments in rats, for instance, have demonstrated that memories can even be passed on to their offspring. Besides, it is plainly obvious that the newborn has some tricks up its sleeve - it can cry, suckle, etc. All of that is brain function - a priori knowledge. Going forward, it's important to note, as Jung writes time and time again, that archetypes aren't ideas - they are potentialities for ideas. They are the empty containers into which ideas find their structure. A good example of this would be in language. Children pick up language freakishly easily - they hear people talking around them and all of a sudden begin to speak themselves. Such a bonkers ability to pick up the syntactic complexity of language must originate in a hidden potential for language acquisition as part of our hardware from birth. Another point to make is not one Jung made directly but is rather one which is a natural implication. Jung's idea of individuation - the ongoing maturing force of the psyche - presupposes that some collective (built-in) content of the psyche lies dormant, awaiting activation by maturity, by individuation. For example, the potentiality for puberty exists from birth. All of the genomic codes for the pubic revolution are programmed into you from birth. You just need to reach a certain save-point in individuation (maturity/age) in order to activate it. Now onto the meat of the article. Here's an image of how a neural network networks: The fancy symbols can be ignored, but we should focus on what on earth is going on here. We have input nodes, which are essentially senses - smell, sight, sound, and we have output nodes like muscular movements and speech. Simple enough so far. But what about these intermediary nodes? What are they for? Essentially they make the neural network run smoothly. They are abstractions, of sorts, to which neurons can link to instead of going straight to the output. Undoubtedly, evolution wouldn't be unaware of this major efficiency boost. When survival is involved, evolution never fails to find a way to find the best option. And so, just like in the AI, where hidden nodes are utilised, so too are they used in the mind. Jung would call these archetypes - potentialities for ideas, waiting to be wired to. Although, as we have said above, some wiring is already present from birth. After all, most people want a computer with an operating system. What can a computer do without an operating system? Hidden nodes in the network can also be created dynamically. There is an old adage in neuroscience which follows thus: neurons which fire together wire together. Essentially if you keep having the same stimulus, like smelling acetophenone in the mouse example, whilst being given another stimulus, like an electric shock, the two ideas will wire together in your mind. For this process to occur in a more efficient way, hidden layers are produced to create receptacles for neural hubs to develop. We can think of these like Jungian complexes - a posteriori notions produced atop the a priori archetypal layer. The final arch-complex, the ego, would exist at the rightmost side of the hidden nodes, however it is not as if all output is mediated through it. Only conscious, intentful action passes through the ego. Complexes, hidden nodes deeper down than the ego, can wire directly with output nodes, producing phenomena like unconscious artistic symbolism, Freudian slips, neuro-linguistic programming, and whatever else. This effect can also be pathological in psycho-somatic illnesses like Alien Hand Syndrome. Jung's model of the psyche, of autonomous nodes known as archetypes and complexes, appears to be the crystal slipper to the question of the mind's model. People often get caught up with the idea of archetype. They often agree that there's preconfigured data in the mind but struggle to swallow the idea of archetypes as the mind's building blocks. It seems way too woowoo and out there for there to be these sub-personalities in the mind. But this distributed cognition across nodes appears to be far more effective than a single nodal nous and, however much it flies in the face of Judeo-Christian common sense, is evidenced by the researches into AI.