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> We understand gravity to staggering levels of precision. If I understood the parent correctly, the argument was that the brain was still a 'black box' in tha

> We understand gravity to staggering levels of precision. If I understood the parent correctly, the argument was that the brain was still a 'black box' in that we don't understand how/why exactly it works, therefore it's sketchy to use it without the public knowing that it's 'just a model'. The point is not that gravity is anything like psychology, but that they both seem to share the same predicament with regards to their origins. It'd be naive to say that we don't know much about it, but if I'm behind on some findings that detail what gravity is, that would be helpful feedback. > This is partly because psychology is such a young science in comparison Exactly. This is why discrediting it as a legitimate science when it needs all the cross-disciplinary help it can get is so unnerving. We aren't gonna make inroads into understanding ourselves too quickly if we raise a generation of people to dismiss it like that. >I am not sure if it's psychology/neurology or relativity/QM you lack a firm grasp of but it appears to be at least one or the other. Both my good sir! (academically speaking anyway). The point I was emphasizing was the relationship, not either science -- thus, unless I'm wrong and we're convinced the effects of relativity are not emergent from QM, I'm not sure how it makes a difference? What seems to be disingenuous is dismissing the metaphor (read: literary analogy) for not being in complete 1:1 correspondence in practice -- it was a conceptual point. I was talking about forests, and you seem to be talking about trees. But if you feel I lack some critical knowledge about said trees, please do try to clarify your point, because I've received a fair number of upvotes for that comment so I think a good number of us 'laypeople' would benefit from such an analysis.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
I think I understand where you're coming from: an apple hit Newton on the head because "gravity", students chose cake after memorizing a long number because "brain". The difference is that you can measure the force gravity exerts and quantify it directly, but with psychology (as opposed to behavioral biology) you have to ask the brain to tell you what is going on in English and then make guesses about the circuitry inside of this complex system that you have no way of verifying (e.g. "why did you choose the cake?"). Anyway, just to clarify, psychology is valuable without being science, and it has been for thousands of years. It's our society's insistence that science is the only valid way of understanding the world that is the problem.
- oblique63 13y ago
  > you have to ask the brain to tell you what is going on in English and then make guesses about the circuitry inside of this complex system that you have no way of verifying Ah, but this is where neurology steps in (when possible), no? There are ways of objectively observing the physical phenomena that are associated with such abstract actions after all, we just don't quite know what they mean or how exactly they fit together yet -- but that shouldn't matter because everything will still be just as correct, since we're speaking in terms of macro-level abstractions. Not knowing about atoms didn't hinder our development of insight into classical mechanics after all. > psychology is valuable without being science... It's our society's insistence that science is the only valid way of understanding the world that is the problem. See, this is odd. I think it would help a lot of people if you explained your definition of "science" a bit instead of just giving us your conclusions, because to me it feels like we're speaking different languages right now. As far as I've understood it, Science is a process (adhering to the Scientific Method), and I recognize that there exists good science and poor science, and that results can be qualitative or quantitative, but your definition of "science" seems to convolute all these different concepts into a set of arbitrarily rigid conditions. Science can be of totally bad quality + with no quantitative measurements and still be "Science". But your definition of "Science" seems to be based around the exclusion of such endeavors (hence getting reactions that link it to a negative connotation). I'm confused. I think it would be beneficial to see an elaboration on what you mean here.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Science is the simply the process of stating testable hypotheses and testing them. "Memorizing a long number makes people want to eat cake" is a testable hypothesis, but the concluding hypothesis "we have the same pool of resources allocated to cognitive processing and willpower" is not, because we have no way to measure those things. Yes, advances in neurology might make such claims testable, at which point they'll become falsifiable, but until then the brain essentially remains a black box for which much of the speculation about its workings is outside the realm of science. As our experimental techniques get better, the number of things that we can include under the umbrella of science grows. In the end, science literally means objective (i.e. agreed upon) knowledge, and at this point we are unable to generate much objective knowledge about the inside of our heads. Subjective, experiential, and personal inquiry, via psychology, into the workings of our minds is however tremendously valuable, and it yields a different and complementary kind of knowledge. It will be interesting to see the extent to which neuroscience bridges the gap in our lifetimes.
richardjordan 13y ago
Thanks for the reply. I think the thing to appreciate is not whether or not relativity emerges from QM, as they're not examining the same aspects of the science - though of course it is hoped by many that some underlying theory might one day help us appreciate where the nuance is in each theory that allows them to reflect the same reality. This is very different than the relationship neurology claims to psychology. At risk of spinning off a complete tangent, as you appear interested in the topic from a lay perspective (I'm a physicist myself by training) there are also some very interesting, and thorny, challenges when understanding brain science in general, and many of them (surprisingly to many scientists who often shun it) are really questions of philosophy, understanding the questions themselves and what can/cannot follow logically from our observations and reasoning on the topic. For a great blog on, and introduction to this angle of it I'd recommend http://www.consciousentities.com/ http://www.consciousentities.com/ I agree that the brain/mind sciences should not be dismissed, as they're very important, and increasingly we see that cross-disciplinary approaches are essential to more and more areas of science. I guess I was nit-picking with the appropriateness of the analogy as the specific one you chose isn't a good fit for the point you were making.
- oblique63 13y ago
  Indeed. I just finished my undergrad degree in CS, so going 'in depth' into either field is still on the horizon for myself personally, but I am admittedly a bit more acquainted with the neurological/psychological side of things. Thanks for the link, certainly seems to touch on a lot of familiar subjects so I'll be sure to go through it. Continuing on the 'philosophical challenge' tangent, this talk recently came to my attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY I haven't delved into the matter much beyond what's presented there, but it seems plausible enough (given the evidence) to be another thorny aspect relating to 'consciousness'. Just thought I'd share.
  - richardjordan 13y ago
    No, Sheldrake is a pseudo-science crank and charlatan. Like most pseudo-scientists he says lots of hand-wavy things, and rails against some imagined scientific "they" who won't listen to his theories. If your'e serious about learning in the space you need to steer clear of folks like him or the Deepak Chopra's of this world. Nothing but mystical platitudes lie down that path.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

I think I understand where you're coming from: an apple hit Newton on the head because "gravity", students chose cake after memorizing a long number because "brain". The difference is that you can measure the force gravity exerts and quantify it directly, but with psychology (as opposed to behavioral biology) you have to ask the brain to tell you what is going on in English and then make guesses about the circuitry inside of this complex system that you have no way of verifying (e.g. "why did you choose the cake?"). Anyway, just to clarify, psychology is valuable without being science, and it has been for thousands of years. It's our society's insistence that science is the only valid way of understanding the world that is the problem.

oblique63 13y ago
> you have to ask the brain to tell you what is going on in English and then make guesses about the circuitry inside of this complex system that you have no way of verifying Ah, but this is where neurology steps in (when possible), no? There are ways of objectively observing the physical phenomena that are associated with such abstract actions after all, we just don't quite know what they mean or how exactly they fit together yet -- but that shouldn't matter because everything will still be just as correct, since we're speaking in terms of macro-level abstractions. Not knowing about atoms didn't hinder our development of insight into classical mechanics after all. > psychology is valuable without being science... It's our society's insistence that science is the only valid way of understanding the world that is the problem. See, this is odd. I think it would help a lot of people if you explained your definition of "science" a bit instead of just giving us your conclusions, because to me it feels like we're speaking different languages right now. As far as I've understood it, Science is a process (adhering to the Scientific Method), and I recognize that there exists good science and poor science, and that results can be qualitative or quantitative, but your definition of "science" seems to convolute all these different concepts into a set of arbitrarily rigid conditions. Science can be of totally bad quality + with no quantitative measurements and still be "Science". But your definition of "Science" seems to be based around the exclusion of such endeavors (hence getting reactions that link it to a negative connotation). I'm confused. I think it would be beneficial to see an elaboration on what you mean here.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Science is the simply the process of stating testable hypotheses and testing them. "Memorizing a long number makes people want to eat cake" is a testable hypothesis, but the concluding hypothesis "we have the same pool of resources allocated to cognitive processing and willpower" is not, because we have no way to measure those things. Yes, advances in neurology might make such claims testable, at which point they'll become falsifiable, but until then the brain essentially remains a black box for which much of the speculation about its workings is outside the realm of science. As our experimental techniques get better, the number of things that we can include under the umbrella of science grows. In the end, science literally means objective (i.e. agreed upon) knowledge, and at this point we are unable to generate much objective knowledge about the inside of our heads. Subjective, experiential, and personal inquiry, via psychology, into the workings of our minds is however tremendously valuable, and it yields a different and complementary kind of knowledge. It will be interesting to see the extent to which neuroscience bridges the gap in our lifetimes.

richardjordan 13y ago

Thanks for the reply. I think the thing to appreciate is not whether or not relativity emerges from QM, as they're not examining the same aspects of the science - though of course it is hoped by many that some underlying theory might one day help us appreciate where the nuance is in each theory that allows them to reflect the same reality. This is very different than the relationship neurology claims to psychology. At risk of spinning off a complete tangent, as you appear interested in the topic from a lay perspective (I'm a physicist myself by training) there are also some very interesting, and thorny, challenges when understanding brain science in general, and many of them (surprisingly to many scientists who often shun it) are really questions of philosophy, understanding the questions themselves and what can/cannot follow logically from our observations and reasoning on the topic. For a great blog on, and introduction to this angle of it I'd recommend http://www.consciousentities.com/ http://www.consciousentities.com/ I agree that the brain/mind sciences should not be dismissed, as they're very important, and increasingly we see that cross-disciplinary approaches are essential to more and more areas of science. I guess I was nit-picking with the appropriateness of the analogy as the specific one you chose isn't a good fit for the point you were making.

oblique63 13y ago
Indeed. I just finished my undergrad degree in CS, so going 'in depth' into either field is still on the horizon for myself personally, but I am admittedly a bit more acquainted with the neurological/psychological side of things. Thanks for the link, certainly seems to touch on a lot of familiar subjects so I'll be sure to go through it. Continuing on the 'philosophical challenge' tangent, this talk recently came to my attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY I haven't delved into the matter much beyond what's presented there, but it seems plausible enough (given the evidence) to be another thorny aspect relating to 'consciousness'. Just thought I'd share.
- richardjordan 13y ago
  No, Sheldrake is a pseudo-science crank and charlatan. Like most pseudo-scientists he says lots of hand-wavy things, and rails against some imagined scientific "they" who won't listen to his theories. If your'e serious about learning in the space you need to steer clear of folks like him or the Deepak Chopra's of this world. Nothing but mystical platitudes lie down that path.