[7/28/26 4:33 PM] Igor: “Childhood trauma” is very often used not as a description of reality, but as an explanatory placeholder. A person behaves in a certain way, therefore “it comes from childhood.” Why exactly? In what way is the past present now? What specifically was learned? These questions are no longer asked: the word trauma creates the illusion that causality has been discovered.
We do not observe a separate entity called “childhood trauma” sitting inside a person and controlling them. That is already a model, and often an extremely crude one.
Between the event and the present action, the subject themselves disappears. What disappears is precisely how the person understood what happened, what distinctions they made, what rules they derived, and how many times they subsequently confirmed or reconstructed those rules.
[7/28/26 4:49 PM] Yevhen Vlasov in reply to Igor:
We do not observe a separate entity called “childhood trauma” sitting inside a person and controlling them.
My own empirical experience does not confirm this, and I address you with a refutation on behalf of my own crude model.
Learning to play the violin in childhood almost made me Jewish, but it was solfège in particular that left me with an indelible trauma. So I don’t know what the AI expert on human souls told you about the absence of a separate entity, but life proves otherwise 😀
[7/28/26 4:54 PM] Igor in reply to Yevhen Vlasov:
Your own empirical experience does not confirm this, and you address…
Your account confirms only that you now call your experience with solfège an “indelible trauma.” It does not confirm the existence of a separate causal object called “childhood trauma.”
You imperceptibly merge three different assertions:
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You found studying solfège unpleasant as a child.
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You retain a negative attitude toward that experience now.
-
Therefore, a “trauma” left by solfège exists inside you.
The first two points may be entirely real. The third is already an interpretation that you are presenting as an empirical observation.
[7/28/26 4:56 PM] Yevhen Vlasov in reply to Igor:
Your account confirms only that…
But the trauma was sustained in childhood. That’s the first point.
Are you going to tell me about my own trauma? What is the world coming to, and what has happened to manners? That’s the second point 😀
[7/28/26 4:56 PM] Igor in reply to Yevhen Vlasov:
But the trauma was sustained in childhood. That’s the first point…
The scheme is this:
I call it trauma → therefore trauma exists → my account proves that traumas exist.
[7/28/26 4:57 PM] Hungry Hare in reply to Igor:
“Childhood trauma” is very often used not as a description…
Do you believe that the subject consists of the conscious and the unconscious?
According to my hypothesis, almost all information falls into some kind of saucepan (I meant to say cauldron) inside us,
where it turns into something resembling a multicomponent broth and then rises from that saucepan (there I go again, mixing up the saucepan and the cauldron) in the form of complex aromas of broth.
[7/28/26 5:00 PM] Igor in reply to Hungry Hare:
Do you believe that the subject consists of the conscious and the unconscious…
There you have the answer. “According to my hypothesis.”
Nobody is stopping you from observing your own thoughts and not behaving reactively toward them.
[7/28/26 5:02 PM] Hungry Hare in reply to Igor:
There you have the answer. “According to my hypothesis”…
But the scheme about childhood trauma really existing isn’t mine.
[7/28/26 5:07 PM] Igor in reply to Hungry Hare:
But the scheme about childhood trauma really existing isn’t mine…
The fact that it is propagated by popularizers and psychological literature does not make it true. It merely makes it convenient.
[7/28/26 5:18 PM] Elena Takaya in reply to Igor:
The scheme is this. I call it trauma → therefore…
What if a thirteen-year-old child was hit by a tram and lost a limb, survived, and went on living without that limb for decades… does childhood trauma exist?
[7/28/26 5:20 PM] Igor in reply to Elena Takaya:
What if a thirteen-year-old child was hit by a tram and…
Then ask the child whether thoughts about it keep going around in their head.
We are not robots that can be programmed in a particular way by certain events.
Otherwise, you turn a human being into a mere reactive agent responding to external events.
[7/28/26 5:21 PM] Igor: As though we were computers executing a program written into us by external reality. And that’s it, there is no subject anymore. Just an NPC.
[7/28/26 5:23 PM] Hungry Hare in reply to Igor:
As though we were computers executing a program written into us…
By trauma (when accompanied by an indication of time), I mean any unresolved Gestalt.
A trauma about “being born too late” is most likely to emerge in childhood, as the age most sensitive to that kind of trauma.
(Whereas “being born too early” would emerge in middle age.)
(Both assertions are products of my imagination.)
That’s why I called this trauma a childhood trauma.
[7/28/26 5:24 PM] Elena Takaya in reply to Igor:
Then ask the child whether thoughts about it keep going around…
They do. It’s hard to imagine how they couldn’t.
Another question is how that person goes on living with those thoughts. Even if those thoughts aren’t expressed using the word “trauma.”
[7/28/26 5:25 PM] Igor in reply to Hungry Hare:
By trauma (when accompanied by an indication of time), I mean any…
You have every right to call an experience trauma. But turning it into an entity that subsequently pulls the strings and controls the subject is strange.
[7/28/26 5:27 PM] Elena Takaya in reply to Igor:
You have every right to call an experience trauma…
When an experience is turned into an entity, that’s no longer trauma but a psychiatric illness, and psychiatrists should determine what is controlling the subject.
[7/28/26 5:30 PM] Hungry Hare in reply to Igor:
You have every right to call an experience trauma…
And I find it strange to deny it the possibility of having that influence.
What concerns you about the assertion that our unconscious exerts an uncontrollable influence over us (by pulling strings)?
[7/28/26 5:36 PM] Igor in reply to Igor:
You have every right to call an experience trauma…
This reminds me of an old priestly arrangement.
In the past, people were told which invisible gods and spirits governed their lives. Now they may be told which invisible psychic entities, “childhood trauma,” “the unconscious,” or “the inner child,” govern their behavior.
And in both cases, people are expected to do one thing: accept an external interpretation because it was pronounced by someone possessing a special status.
But where exactly does a psychiatrist obtain the truth about a person? They can observe behavior, listen to an account, compare signs against a diagnostic classification, and propose treatment. None of this gives them direct access to hidden entities inside the subject.
Appealing to a psychiatrist does not resolve the ontological question. It merely changes the person whom one is asked to believe.
[7/28/26 5:40 PM] Igor in reply to Hungry Hare:
And I find it strange to deny it the possibility of having that influence…
Nothing about that assertion concerns me. To become concerned, I would first have to accept it as a prima facie plausible explanation and then discover a problem with it.
But for me, the assertion that “the unconscious uncontrollably pulls our strings” is not a neutral starting point. It is already a substantive hypothesis about the structure of the subject and a causal force operating within them.
Why should I accept this as my starting point?
[7/28/26 5:41 PM] Hungry Hare in reply to Igor:
Nothing about that assertion concerns me…
Name another starting point.
[7/28/26 5:43 PM] Elena Takaya in reply to Igor:
But where exactly does a psychiatrist obtain the truth about a person?
From roughly the same place a dentist, ophthalmologist, or oncologist obtains it…
[7/28/26 5:44 PM] Igor in reply to Elena Takaya:
From roughly the same place a dentist, ophthalmologist, or oncologist…
How conveniently you’ve collapsed everything into a single category, and apparently the question is settled. 😀
[7/28/26 5:48 PM] Ala in reply to Igor:
This reminds me of an old priestly arrangement…
And who told you that a psychiatrist is supposed to know the truth about a person? And what do you mean by truth? 😁
[7/28/26 5:48 PM] Igor in reply to Hungry Hare:
Name another starting point.
Let’s examine the hidden axiom contained in your question, “Name a starting point.”
You assume in advance that there is some fixed starting point everyone must take into account, from which the subject supposedly begins.
But I reject even the existence of such a starting point, because I have no grounds for believing it exists.
[7/28/26 5:49 PM] Igor in reply to Ala:
And who told you that a psychiatrist is supposed to know the truth about a person?…
Elena said that. I was replying to her.
She said psychiatrists should deal with it. Why they should, I still don’t understand.
[7/28/26 5:51 PM] Ala in reply to Igor:
Elena said that. I was replying to her…
Yes, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and psychologists work with this. But they do not know the truth, much less the ultimate truth.
[7/28/26 5:51 PM] Igor in reply to Ala:
Yes, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and psychologists work with this…
Let them work. They don’t know the truth. 🤝
[7/28/26 5:52 PM] Ala in reply to Igor:
Let them work. They don’t know the truth. 🤝
How nice of you to give us permission. This is what I work with, after all. 😁
[7/28/26 6:00 PM] Igor in reply to Igor:
Let’s examine the hidden axiom contained in your question…
The starting point is a distinction made by consciousness. Not yet an explanation, an interpretation, or a theory about the unconscious, but a primary distinction: this is not that.
The subject does not begin with a preinstalled entity. The subject begins with their own act of distinction.
[7/28/26 6:04 PM] Elena Takaya in reply to Igor:
How conveniently you’ve collapsed everything into a single category, and apparently…
In my view, quite the opposite: a considerable oversimplification lies in unpacking the thought that what matters in a person’s life is not what happens to them or what they do, but how they themselves relate to it.
[7/28/26 6:06 PM] Ala in reply to Elena Takaya:
In my view, quite the opposite, a considerable oversimplification…
We all react differently: to some people, what happened is an absolute catastrophe of cosmic proportions; to others, it is a minor thing. Everyone has a different level of stress resilience. 🤷♀️
[7/28/26 6:11 PM] Hungry Hare in reply to Igor:
The starting point is a distinction made by consciousness…
I don’t know about you, but speaking for my own consciousness, I would say that the distinction I’m prepared to declare is:
“consciousness is asleep (or half asleep) most of the time.”
There are at least two states of consciousness: “sleep” and “not-sleep.”
[7/28/26 6:15 PM] Igor in reply to Hungry Hare:
I don’t know about you, but speaking for my own consciousness…
Yes. And the subject decides when their consciousness will sleep, that is, act reactively, and when to make decisions consciously.
When you monitor your own thoughts and distinguish them, you are not asleep. When you reactively submit to them, you are asleep.
[7/28/26 6:17 PM] Elena Takaya in reply to Ala:
We all react differently: to some people, what happened is an absolute catastrophe…
And for someone else, it works through accumulation, and at a certain moment virtually any seemingly trivial thing can become a trigger.
[7/28/26 6:18 PM] Ala in reply to Elena Takaya:
And for someone else, it works through accumulation, and at a certain moment…
Elena, I have no desire to delve any further into this quasi-psychological discussion, sorry. 😊
[7/28/26 6:20 PM] Hungry Hare in reply to Igor:
Yes. And the subject decides when their consciousness will sleep…
Not for me.
It isn’t the subject who decides.
This is exactly the problem that preoccupies me more than any other.
The “I” somehow wakes up without an alarm clock at the right time.
And consciousness somehow wakes up on its own.
I take no part in it.
Although I can think I do.
The problem: how to learn to wake up my own consciousness.
Simply refusing to let it sleep isn’t an option.
Consciousness will fall asleep anyway.
And rightly so.
I’m no tyrant: sleep as much as you yourself think necessary.
But if and when I need you, you’d better wake up on demand.
[7/28/26 6:21 PM] Elena Takaya in reply to Ala:
Elena, I have no desire to delve any further into this quasi-psychological…
That’s exactly the point: it gets “simplified and collapsed” into philosophy and worldview.)))
[7/28/26 6:25 PM] Igor in reply to Hungry Hare:
Not for me. It isn’t the subject who decides…
You are codependent with your own internal forms. This is precisely your “both-and”: both you and the internal system you created are acting.
That system, too, is created by you at some point, but then begins to operate through inertia. That is why it seems to you that consciousness falls asleep “by itself” and wakes up “by itself,” while you have no part in it.
The task is not to learn to awaken something separate from yourself, but to stop mistaking the inertial action of your own forms for the action of an independent entity.
[7/28/26 6:26 PM] Ala in reply to Elena Takaya:
That’s exactly the point: it gets “simplified and collapsed” into philosophy…
Exactly, and both biochemistry and genetics are individual for everyone.
[7/28/26 6:30 PM] Igor in reply to Elena Takaya:
That’s exactly the point: it gets “simplified and collapsed” into philosophy…
Philosophy and worldview are the foundation. Everything rests on a hidden philosophy. For example, Ala reduced everything to biochemistry and genetics not because this is the truth, but because modern science rests on a hidden philosophical doctrine. It is called methodological naturalism.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BC
[7/28/26 6:31 PM] Ala in reply to Igor:
Philosophy and worldview are the foundation…
Where did Ala reduce everything only to biochemistry and genetics? I merely pointed out that these are two significant components. 😜
[7/28/26 6:32 PM] Igor in reply to Ala:
Where did Ala reduce everything only to biochemistry and genetics?…
Okay =)
[7/28/26 6:45 PM] Hungry Hare in reply to Igor:
You are codependent with your own internal forms…
Two voices inside me said no (“you haven’t given birth to anyone”).
One voice said yes (“you might not remember doing so”).
The score is 2:1 in favor of my not having given birth to anyone.
All right, it’s all jokes.
I’ll use stamped official paper until ordinary paper becomes available.
For now, I’ll stay at the assemblage point I articulated above.
