From: cultxprt@indirect.com (Jeff Jacobsen)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: CofS critique part 4
Date: 24 May 1994 23:42:17 GMT
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                           THE HUBBARD IS BARE        
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
     
     
     

--
cultxprt@indirect.com
Jeff Jacobsen
PO Box 3541
Scottsdale, AZ  85271      Here I stand - I can do no more.



