Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!actnyc!gcf
From: gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: superego/ego/id : some general questions
Message-ID: <817@actnyc.UUCP>
Date: 15 Apr 88 17:20:05 GMT
References: <6171@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <14830006@hpisod2.HP.COM>
Reply-To: gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Organization: InterACT Corporation
Lines: 35

[ Dave Decot: ]
}> )I use the term "good" to mean "aiding in survival", of whatever...
[ Invisible Man: ] 
}> Survival of one's body, family, groups (newsgroups?), race, etc. may require
}> opposite actions thus one may have to give up ones body to save a member of
}> ones family.
[ Decot: ]
}Granted.  One's personality determines which of these "dynamics" has priority
}over which others.
[ I.M.: ]
}>"Good" is a value word and thus cannot be derived solely from
}> facts (else someone with a competing value accepting your definition could
}> rightly say "why do what's good?".)
[ Decot: ]
}I was attempting to remove the subjective (or "value") nature from the word
}and nail it down a little better.  I have no answer for the question.
}What's good for one dynamic can be bad for another.  Why do what's good?
}Depends on whether you want the various dynamics to survive.  It's
}perfectly imaginable to not want them to survive, although most such
}people are classified as "insane" by the society.

"Depends on whether you want..."  It seems to me that, far from removing
the subjective nature from the word "good" you have made it entirely
subjective.  I would suggest that it is subjective because its value
derives from non-logical, non-analytical mental processes, e.g. emotion,
intuition, conditioning.  If the good could be determined through 
analysis, it would be merely a matter of using the right language
to find it, and it would be "objective".  Not everyone thinks survival
is the ultimate good: allegedly, Buddhists believe the ultimate good
is _nirvana_, Sanksrit for "blown out [like a candle]", i.e. annihilation.
Can they prove it to you?  

I think this gets back to my original point about whether the superego
and the unconscious are vital parts of one's mind or just vestigial
excrescences.