Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

As such, when we look at the innate aspects of the human mind
that have come down to us from our ancestors, what we see is a
connectedness to the Earth and to all of the plants and animals we
when we return to nature.
A hypothesis of ecopsychology is that our neurological wiring is
such that we are a connected part of the natural world, and threats to
The ecological damage we see around us should affect us on a
and that sustainability is crucial on a planet with an increasing
human presence.
Although this cognitive level is important, ecopsychologists
also argue that damaging the environment has a deeper,
precognitive effect on. We harm ourselves when we harm
the Earth, and this harm is manifested both physically and
psychologically. We become mentally less stable; we suffer
from a malaise that suffocates the spirit when we allow our
belief in human and technological progress to overshadow our
connection to the Earth.
Ecopsychology is to evolutionary psychology as Jung was to Freud.
Freud and evolutionary psychology both rely on a subconscious,
but where Freud creates the id and locates it in a nonobservable
place below consciousness, the evolutionary psychologist makes
use only of the brain science coming out of neurological research.
Where Jung takes Freud’s notion and expands it in a holistic sense,
creating a collective consciousness and endowing it with a spiritual
element, so, too, we observe ecopsychology expanding the line of
argument from evolutionary psychology and applying it in a holistic
way that also has a spiritual element.
We can see the distinction between these two views by
Planet of the Apes and James Cameron’s 2009 epic, .
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