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> Now, I finally understand where you are coming from, but I believe it is misconceived. While the mind is indeed a complex construct, cognitive psychology does

by lutusp 2y ago

> Now, I finally understand where you are coming from, but I believe it is misconceived. While the mind is indeed a complex construct, cognitive psychology does not treat it as separate from empirical reality. It doesn't matter what psychologists believe, it is all about what can be proven scientifically. The reason for the central role of the mind-body problem in philosophy is because scientists and thinkers know them to be distinct -- the mind and the body lie in separate, non-overlapping domains. The mind is not a physical organ, it is a philosophical construct, therefore it cannot be studied scientifically. Were this not true, there would be no "mind-body problem." But there is, and it is central to psychology's problems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem : "It is not obvious how the concept of the mind and the concept of the body relate." That's true, and this issue would need to be conclusively resolved to turn psychology into a science. -------------------------------------------------- Every scientifically trained person, from Freud to the present, who has studied human psychology, has reluctantly come to the conclusion that psychology is not a science. In his book "Entwurf einer Psychologie" (1895), Freud said, “Why I cannot fit it together [the organic and the psychological] I have not even begun to fathom.” Knowing that this book would ruin his relations with therapists, Freud ordered that the book not be published during his life. The published views of many other scientists are available to you if you were curious, all of whom come to the same conclusion. Under contract to the APA, Sigmund Koch created a six-volume tome (1963) meant to evaluate psychology's scientific standing. Koch concluded, "The hope of a psychological science became indistinguishable from the fact of psychological science. The entire subsequent history of psychology can be seen as a ritualistic endeavor to emulate the forms of science in order to sustain the delusion that it already is a science. The truth is that psychological statements which describe human behavior or which report results from tested research can be scientific. However, when there is a move from describing human behavior to explaining it there is also a move from science to opinion." In case that quote was lost to you, Koch is saying that psychological measurements follow scientific standards, until it's time to craft a theory, then things fall apart. This is why so many psychologists think psychology is a science -- its has a superficial similarity to science, until it's time to try to explain, to craft a theory. In a now-famous lecture (1974), Nobel Prizewinner Richard P. Feynman said, "I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call Cargo Cult Science. In the South Seas there is a Cargo Cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he’s the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. *So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.*" Feynman's point is that the appearance of science isn't enough, there must be testable, falsifiable theories, but that is not possible when the thing being studied is not part of nature. Former APA president Ronald F. Levant (2005) began a campaign to move psychologists toward evidence-based practice, saying, "Some APA members have asked me why I have chosen to sponsor an APA Presidential Initiative on Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) in Psychology, expressing fears that the results might be used against psychologists by managed-care companies and malpractice lawyers." His proposal fell flat on the ground that psychology couldn't possibly adopt EBP -- no scientific evidence, because no science. Theodore Insel, director of the NIMH for 13 years, regularly exhorted psychologists to adopt science-based standards, finally giving up and resigning in 2015. Insel later wrote an article for Psychology Today in which he explained how 20 billion dollars of science funds were wasted, because ... wait for it ... psychology is not a science. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sacramento-street-psychiatry/202208/former-mental-health-czar-scorns-traditional-psychotherapy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sacramento-street-ps...) All this information -- and much more -- would be available to you if you were willing to critically test your own views ... like a scientist.

SubiculumCode 2y ago
If we cannot agree that the mind is materialistic then there is no way forward for us, except to note that since you earlier stated that you think basic neuroscience has a chance, then the mind body problem is not that important after all.
- lutusp 2y ago
  > If we cannot agree that the mind is materialistic then there is no way forward for us, except to note that since you earlier stated that you think basic neuroscience has a chance, then the mind body problem is not that important after all. On the contrary, aware of the importance of the mind-body problem, neuroscience disregards the concept of a mind, focusing instead on the brain and the nervous system. This doesn't address the mind-body problem, it ignores it as a pointless digression and a waste of time. To the extent that neuroscience addresses the idea of a mind, it is as an obstacle to progress. When I first studied neuroscience, as a young student I would sometimes refer to the mind, at which point my professor would reply, "The what? Please explain." His goal was to address and dismiss the mind as soon and as conclusively as possible, so we could move on to more productive topics. You and I have exactly the same problem, for the same reason. This is not to disparage the productive activities of psychological therapists -- I think I've made that clear in this conversation -- only to say it's not science. Consider this example -- let's say I perform a study of astrology. I create a reliable survey quantifying the various astrological signs. My article accurately tells the reader how many Geminis and Tauruses there are in the population, with much interviewing and an impressive P-factor, sufficient to assure publication. It's a solid scientific result by any measure. Now the question -- does my entirely valid, scientific, astrology survey make astrology itself science? The answer is no, because my astrology result doesn't test or potentially falsify astrology's foundational theories. Astrologers will insist that this valid, fully scientific astrology study means astrology is itself scientific -- never mind that it doesn't test astrology's foundational theories and claims. But this is obviously false -- only successful tests of those foundational theories could raise astrology to the status of science. Psychology has the same problem as astrology, with the important difference that, unlike astrology, psychology doesn't have testable, falsifiable foundational theories. There are plenty of valid, scientific psychology studies with impressive P-factors ... but they do not, and cannot, address testable, falsifiable foundational psychology theories, because the latter do not exist. Its easy to show that astrology's basic claims -- that our lives are ruled by the positions of stars and planets -- fail any objective tests, and therefore astrology is pseudoscience. But this is not possible for psychology, only because psychologists know better than to make testable, falsifiable claims about how and why the mind affects the body. There are any number of studies that show a mind stimulus and a body response -- reliable and repeatable -- but no explanation for the connection between the two. That would require falsifiable, empirical psychological theories that explain how the mind affects the body, and more important, why. Indeed, a psychologist who offered such a theory would be expelled from the profession. This is why neuroscience is the way forward.

by lutusp 2y ago

SubiculumCode 2y ago

If we cannot agree that the mind is materialistic then there is no way forward for us, except to note that since you earlier stated that you think basic neuroscience has a chance, then the mind body problem is not that important after all.

lutusp 2y ago
> If we cannot agree that the mind is materialistic then there is no way forward for us, except to note that since you earlier stated that you think basic neuroscience has a chance, then the mind body problem is not that important after all. On the contrary, aware of the importance of the mind-body problem, neuroscience disregards the concept of a mind, focusing instead on the brain and the nervous system. This doesn't address the mind-body problem, it ignores it as a pointless digression and a waste of time. To the extent that neuroscience addresses the idea of a mind, it is as an obstacle to progress. When I first studied neuroscience, as a young student I would sometimes refer to the mind, at which point my professor would reply, "The what? Please explain." His goal was to address and dismiss the mind as soon and as conclusively as possible, so we could move on to more productive topics. You and I have exactly the same problem, for the same reason. This is not to disparage the productive activities of psychological therapists -- I think I've made that clear in this conversation -- only to say it's not science. Consider this example -- let's say I perform a study of astrology. I create a reliable survey quantifying the various astrological signs. My article accurately tells the reader how many Geminis and Tauruses there are in the population, with much interviewing and an impressive P-factor, sufficient to assure publication. It's a solid scientific result by any measure. Now the question -- does my entirely valid, scientific, astrology survey make astrology itself science? The answer is no, because my astrology result doesn't test or potentially falsify astrology's foundational theories. Astrologers will insist that this valid, fully scientific astrology study means astrology is itself scientific -- never mind that it doesn't test astrology's foundational theories and claims. But this is obviously false -- only successful tests of those foundational theories could raise astrology to the status of science. Psychology has the same problem as astrology, with the important difference that, unlike astrology, psychology doesn't have testable, falsifiable foundational theories. There are plenty of valid, scientific psychology studies with impressive P-factors ... but they do not, and cannot, address testable, falsifiable foundational psychology theories, because the latter do not exist. Its easy to show that astrology's basic claims -- that our lives are ruled by the positions of stars and planets -- fail any objective tests, and therefore astrology is pseudoscience. But this is not possible for psychology, only because psychologists know better than to make testable, falsifiable claims about how and why the mind affects the body. There are any number of studies that show a mind stimulus and a body response -- reliable and repeatable -- but no explanation for the connection between the two. That would require falsifiable, empirical psychological theories that explain how the mind affects the body, and more important, why. Indeed, a psychologist who offered such a theory would be expelled from the profession. This is why neuroscience is the way forward.