Archetypes

[Wolf]

Hey guys, it's been a while since I last posted, but school and work have been vicious, as usual.

In any case, I read something fairly recently that caught my interest. A guy doing a review for the new "Battlestar Galactica" TV series talked about how the robots fighting the humans mimic human forms. More interestingly, however, it said that there are only twelve different "models" of Cylon-human copies. This is because the Cylons believe that there are only twelve different "types" of humans in the first place; twelve different archetypes. That, when you boil down a human being's essential characteristics, that person will inevitably fit into one of these twelve models.

Now, that's fairly controversial -- which I think should please Edric after noting his recent request -- I don't think that there are exactly twelve specific models per se. But, at the same time, are there archetypal models that we either consciously or unconsciously utilize every day in our lives? More than stereotypes, these models are based on every interchangable aspect of the human psyche. If I said that someone is wealthy-white-American-conservative-male and call him a WASP, how likely is it that I'm wrong? But what about someone that is wealthy-white-American-conservative-male-Jewish? That changes the equation quite a bit. Ultimately, whether we like it or not, it seems that at times we are forced to treat people as being representative of their archetypal qualities rather than being representative of their individual ones. Whether we do this because it's easy -- it expediates the time it takes for us to operate on the levels we need to with them, in the workplace or whatever -- or whether we do it because it's actually true are completely different things.

Let's see what the opinions of the group are.

[jros83]

archetypes have nothing to do with religion, race, nationality, or anything else that is basically superfiscial and secondary. Archetypes are fundemental ways of going about your goals. Archetypes are very real but when you connect them to race or religion or nationality that is when the concept of archetypes seems superfiscial and dereogative and ignorant when in fact an archetype is just a very simple thing that has nothing to do with polotics or race, religion, nationality, what have you.

[jros83]

as a follow-up, do a search on a man named Carl Jung. He dealt a lot with archetypes.

[Caid Ivik]

Archetype isn't a very suitable word. We can point out similarities in cognitive ontogenesis, also find some grounds how they did emerge; but there is no idea which determines it as itself, no "arche" of why you are such a...person  ;D  Archetypes are, in fact, mere derivations of statistics.

[Dunenewt]

Carl Jung was an influence on Dune.

[Dude_Doc]

The way I see it, is that we develop over time. Go back to the stone-age and you find male and female-like beings. Except some "basic duties" (males hunting, females feeding etc) we were not so different.

But as time passed, new things appeared, and like a tree others grew. I think information-genes, or memes, play a part in this, because all of our ideas that we all have on this board developed from previous knowledge. So as time goes on, as we (hopefully) explore the universe and colonize other planets, our "types" will grow and change too.

Well, just an idea... (I'm probably wrong :D )...