Is Scientology a closed system?

[Mimsey Borogrove]

I never thought about this before, but I was watching a video and the speaker mentioned these following points, and was referring to a book by Iain McGilchrist called The divided brain and the search for meaning.

In the book, which I plan to get and read, he discussed the difference between the halves of the brain which are not identical, but are more in competition with each other. One half looks out of the organism and is concerned with survival, while the other is concerned with detail. The example he gives is the right half of a chicken's brain is looking for seeds in the dirt and the left is looking out to make sure the chicken isn't someone lunch.

When the left half is dominate, the person tends to only see what he expects to see, and gets stuck in a certain way of thinking, and thus you have a closed system. And so it is IMO with the Scientologist's brain, he sees only what he expects to see, and so is categorically unable to see and thus denies criticism or faults within Scientology's perfect world.

The right half, he says, meaning comes from understanding the whole, and is comfortable with not trying to grasp everything. Further, happiness comes from understanding and engaging your consecutiveness with the world. That is the polar opposite of the Scientologist's approach with dealing with the world which is cutting communication with people that disagree with their world view.

So! It explains a lot about cognitive dissonance which I guess is simply left brain thought, IE, ignoring those things that don't fit your closed system.

Here is a link to his Ebook - the divided brain and the search for meaning.
https://www.amazon.com/Divided-Brain-Search-Meaning-ebook/dp/B008JE7I2M
Mimsey

Contemporary definitions for closed system
noun
a complete and seemingly unchangeable set of doctrines, ideas, or things; a self-contained system that is unaffected by outside influences

closed system in Science
closed system
A physical system that does not interact with other systems. A closed system obeys the conservation laws in its physical description. Also called isolated system. Compare open system.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary

 

[uncover]

Is Scientology a closet system?

I have no doubts that Hubbardism/Scientology is a closet system....

 

[WildKat]

'Happiness comes from understanding and engaging your "consecutiveness" with the world'?

Am I the only one who can't make heads or tails out of that sentence?

I'd sure like to understand what my happiness hinges on, LOL

 

[Dulloldfart]

'Happiness comes from understanding and engaging your "consecutiveness" with the world'?

Sounds like some uphold-the-status-quo Establishment bollocks to me.

Paul

 

[Gizmo]

On one hand, there is a middle finger & on the other hand, there is a middle finger.

Did that help ?

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

'Happiness comes from understanding and engaging your "consecutiveness" with the world'?

Am I the only one who can't make heads or tails out of that sentence?

I'd sure like to understand what my happiness hinges on, LOL

If you are disconnected from those around you and everything is compartmentalized, there is no understanding the world as a whole. You are thus living in a bubble.

If, you are trying to engage with those around you, and understand them, and are living with a sense of purpose beyond the immediate ( thursday at 2 pm for instance) you will have a happier life.

It's the right brain thinking of trying to grasp the whole, while being comfortable with not having to understand it all. It is about being socially connected.

To a large extent, you could posit that Scientology is not a social organism, in that it only seeks to extract the rich and gullible from the society around it to milk them of any usable resources, to aid it's own survival to the detriment of the whole, and further it exchanges nothing valuable to the surrounding society. Essentially - it is a parasite.

A real example is the relation ship of Scientology to Clearwater FL. It has bought up a lot of real estate, pays no taxes to the city, it's customers & staff spend little or no money in the city's stores, and the empty buildings and streets are a blight on the city's landscape.

Like I said, I need to read his book, but the above is what I gleaned from the lecture by another person.

There are several youtube videos I plan to watch which may explain it better than I can. Here are two of them.

Mimsey

[video=youtube;U2mSl7ee8DI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2mSl7ee8DI[/video]

[video=youtube;DiPrM0DNI8w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiPrM0DNI8w[/video]

 

[pineapple]

- snip -

I'd sure like to understand what my happiness hinges on, LOL

Last time someone tried to explain that to me it didn't end well ...

 

[Gib]

To answer your title question, yes, scientology is a closed system. One only has to look at the allegory of the cave, were the shadows on the wall become reality for people in scientology, and those people were us who studied scientology only and were not allowed to mix practices, or study other ideas, as that would be PTS, and most important "open minded", plus policies later on, on no talking about "case" or "tech", no verbal tech which correlates with no critical thinking allowed.

Scientology is not only a closed system but has a feedback loop introduced to it via success stories (Qual in an org and all it's policy's) and the PTS/SP tech (ethics). Hubbard mentions in one of his lectures about cypernetics in 1950's, which is about feedback in a closed system. Only Hubbard used it to entrap. Very smart of Hubbard.

And of course, Hubbard's own allegory is the fish story who encounter pain and react, as he states in the dianetics book. And that is the reality Hubbard created in dianetics which is engrams, secondary's and locks, and later on in Scientology the OT levels became reality and of course the so called reality of BT's. And what is this reality but simply getting people to agree, all along the whole bridge to freedom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RWOpQXTltA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWlUKJIMge4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

^^^^^ reminds me of Hubbard's apparency vs. actuality discussion in the book Fundamentals of thought.

What was the ultimate truth Plato saw? That there is a basic undelying truth or form? That reminds me of Jung's archetypes.

Mimsey

 

[Lavalyte]

All these tedious sophomoric attempts to intellectualise scientology.
The philosophical underpinnings of scientology are actually overpinnings.
The real meat of scientology is the delivery of the standard set of cultic behaviour control mechanisms.
In scientology's case they come wrapped in a sci-fi/self-help coating as befits the 1950s.
Be assured the cult members that try go down this route have expended a thousand times more thought on it than Hubbard did.

 

[Gib]

All these tedious sophomoric attempts to intellectualise scientology.
The philosophical underpinnings of scientology are actually overpinnings.
The real meat of scientology is the delivery of the standard set of cultic behaviour control mechanisms.
In scientology's case they come wrapped in a sci-fi/self-help coating as befits the 1950s.
Be assured the cult members that try go down this route have expended a thousand times more thought on it than Hubbard did.

I think hubbard expended a lot of thought into it. Afterall the joint is still going.

Myself, not trying to intellectualize scientology, but more on the side of providing real philosophy as a comparison to hubbard's bullshit sugar coated crap and hyperbole about abilities to be gained.

 

[guanoloco]

To answer your title question, yes, scientology is a closed system. One only has to look at the allegory of the cave, were the shadows on the wall become reality for people in scientology, and those people were us who studied scientology only and were not allowed to mix practices, or study other ideas, as that would be PTS, and most important "open minded", plus policies later on, on no talking about "case" or "tech", no verbal tech which correlates with no critical thinking allowed.

Scientology is not only a closed system but has a feedback loop introduced to it via success stories (Qual in an org and all it's policy's) and the PTS/SP tech (ethics). Hubbard mentions in one of his lectures about cypernetics in 1950's, which is about feedback in a closed system. Only Hubbard used it to entrap. Very smart of Hubbard.

And of course, Hubbard's own allegory is the fish story who encounter pain and react, as he states in the dianetics book. And that is the reality Hubbard created in dianetics which is engrams, secondary's and locks, and later on in Scientology the OT levels became reality and of course the so called reality of BT's. And what is this reality but simply getting people to agree, all along the whole bridge to freedom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RWOpQXTltA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWlUKJIMge4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback

Remember Hubbard talking about fish being corralled by floating blocks that cast shadows into the water? As these blocks were drawn together the fish grouped to avoid the shadows and, oh, how Hubbard rejoiced when he removed the shadows from someone's life.

The entire time he was laying floating blocks around these very someones.

 

[Gizmo]

I think hubbard expended a lot of thought into it. Afterall the joint is still going.

Myself, not trying to intellectualize scientology, but more on the side of providing real philosophy as a comparison to hubbard's bullshit sugar coated crap and hyperbole about abilities to be gained.

Good. There is nothing intellectual about scientology.

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

'Happiness comes from understanding and engaging your "consecutiveness" with the world'?

Am I the only one who can't make heads or tails out of that sentence?

I'd sure like to understand what my happiness hinges on, LOL

LOL! Exactly, did someone just try to sneak by some New Age speak on us?

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

LOL! Exactly, did someone just try to sneak by some New Age speak on us?

No - it stems from his research into the differences between the two halves of the brain and their different functions. Mimsey

 

[WildKat]

LOL! Exactly, did someone just try to sneak by some New Age speak on us?

I think they just got the concepts of connectedness and consecutiveness mixed up. But I didn't pursue it, not interested enough, LOL.

 

[Helena Handbasket]

Is Scientology a closet system?

I have no doubts that Hubbardism/Scientology is a closet system....

Uncover, please don't quote someone and change what they said like that -- without making it clear that you have made a change.

Helena

 

[Gib]

Uncover, please don't quote someone and change what they said like that -- without making it clear that you have made a change.

Helena

uncover got it wrong, he forgot a word, allow me

scientology is a water closet.

 

[Francois Tremblay]

Any neurobiologist can tell you that this is just pseudo-science...the two halves of the brain are not two completely separate entities that each do completely different things. The brain is plastic and (literally) sculpts its structure based on our experiences. There is no half of the brain dedicated to "survival" or "detail." I think what you're talking about is the "lizard brain," which is a real thing (but actually refers to our brain stem, not an actual brain that a lizard would have). You could say metaphorically, but only metaphorically, that it's a part of the brain dedicated to "survival." But it has nothing to do with left/right hemispheres.

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

Any neurobiologist can tell you that this is just pseudo-science...the two halves of the brain are not two completely separate entities that each do completely different things. The brain is plastic and (literally) sculpts its structure based on our experiences. There is no half of the brain dedicated to "survival" or "detail." I think what you're talking about is the "lizard brain," which is a real thing (but actually refers to our brain stem, not an actual brain that a lizard would have). You could say metaphorically, but only metaphorically, that it's a part of the brain dedicated to "survival." But it has nothing to do with left/right hemispheres.

I don't know if what you say is correct or not - he does appear to be well studied and well respected. His assertions may be perfectly valid. What he espouses is not exactly new - here's a video you mght watch.

[video=youtube;TD88g6v0zHI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD88g6v0zHI[/video][video=youtube;UyyjU8fzEYU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU[/video]

Here is a copy of something he wrote:

John Cutting is among the most interesting minds writing in psychiatry today. He has, with a rare combination of erudition and imagination, forged links between aspects of reality as delineated by philosophy and those that come into being through the workings of the two hemispheres of the brain.

In Principles of Psychopathology, Cutting (1997) introduced the concept of the hemispheres as underwriting two separate versions of the world. This was taken further in subsequent work Psychopathology and Modern Philosophy (1999), and The Living, the Dead, and the Never-Alive (2002). The relationship between different aspects of reality as conceived by philosophy, especially modern philosophy, is explored not only as reflected in the part-worlds delivered by the two hemispheres, but further in the experiences of schizophrenia (left hemisphere) and psychotic depression (right hemisphere). Latterly, Cutting has drawn on the works of Max Scheler, and in doing so identified the hemispheres with a further duality—that of Scheler’s Geist (left hemisphere) and Drang (right hemisphere).Once one has one dichotomy well-established, that within the human brain, it would be natural to line up any further fault lines in experience with it and see what comes of that. Nonetheless, I have some misgivings about the way schizophrenia and depression are mapped onto the first, robust, dichotomy, that of the hemispheres; and graver ones about Geist and Drang, being overlaid on the other two.

The intuition to assent is understandable, and derives from the appearance of symmetry. I start, however, from the opposite intuition, derived from what we know about the relationship between the hemispheres, which is that there are oppositional pairings here that are likely to prove profoundly asymmetrical. This asymmetrical relationship of the hemispheres in relation to cultural history I have explored at length in The Master and his Emissary (2009). I can allude to it only briefly here.

Neuropsychological research has confirmed that almost all brain ‘functions’ are subserved not by one hemisphere, but by both. However, that is to see only the ‘what,’ not the ‘how.’ Each hemisphere deals with these so-called functions in a consistently different way, leading to two apparently complete, entirely coherent, but phenomenologically distinct, versions of the experiential world. The focus of neuroscientific research is inevitably on what are seen as ever more finely discriminated aspects of a mechanism’s functioning; but an integrative analysis of the findings at the neuropsychological level points to clear differences in the realm of experience, which bear directly on philosophical and cultural divisions, as well as on the world experiences of those with psychiatric disorders

There is more at this link: http://muse.jhu.edu/article/363168 or you can get his books at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Master-His-E...d=1483296654&sr=8-1&keywords=Iain+McGilchrist

Review

"A landmark new book... It tells a story you need to hear, of where we live now." (Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times) "A very remarkable book... McGilchrist, who is both an experienced psychiatrist and a shrewd philosopher, looks at the relation between our two brain-hemispheres in a new light, not just as an interesting neurological problem but as a crucial shaping factor in our culture... splendidly thought-provoking... I couldn't put it down." (Mary Midgley, The Guardian) "A giant in his vital field shows convincingly that the degeneracy of the West springs from our failure to manage the binary division of our brains." (Book of the Year choice, David Cox, Evening Standard) "A beautifully written, erudite, fascinating, and adventurous book. It goes from the microstructure of the brain to great epochs of Western civilisation, confidently and readably. One turns its five hundred pages... as if it were an adventure story." (A. C. Grayling, Literary Review) "To call Iain McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary... an account of brain hemispheres is to woefully misrepresent its range. McGilchrist persuasively argues that our society is suffering from the consequences of an over-dominant left hemisphere losing touch with its natural regulative 'master', the right." (Salley Vicker, The Guardian) "McGilchrist, for whom certainty is the greatest of illusions, has produced an absolutely convincing narrative of who we are." (Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph) Named one of the best books of 2010 by (The Guardian)"

Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, doctor, writer, and former Oxford literary scholar.[1] McGilchrist came to prominence after the publication of his book The Master and His Emissary, subtitled The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.[1]

McGilchrist read English at New College, Oxford, but having published Against Criticism in 1982,[2] he later retrained in medicine and has been a neuroimaging researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in south London.[2] McGilchrist is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and has three times been elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.[2]

According to his web site, McGilchrist currently works privately as a consultant psychiatrist in London, and otherwise lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of Scotland.[3]