So I can only look over boundary conditions via imagination and
think about what would happen to a "mind" if it was in different
conditions than the human body.
So at this point I just list a few off-the-wall ideas I could play with:
1. Take a mature mind (person say 35 - 55 yrs old) and place it in
another human body. What would the inputs be like via the
different nerves and 5 senses? Would the sensations be
basically the same with slight or significant differences?
2. Same as #1 but place the mind into an animal body. Ask the
same questions. Something more substantive than just the
fiction of A Once And Future King describing the scrapes little
Wart (King Arthur) gets into as a fish, bird, etc. I am not
sure
I am up to this task because I can only imagine my own physical
human body sensations in a new setting with a different
structured
body.
Different physical mechanism (more of them) for smell as a dog
or cat - so would we be able to create words to describe
different
odors like Hobbes does in Calvin & Hobbs?
3. For really off-the-wall, same as #1 but place the mind in the
"body" of an alien species from classical science fiction. See
Barlow's Guide to Extraterrestrials.
I derive this possible line of thinking from an earlier question
concerning the development
of a supernatural supreme being who is in the Old Testament a vengeful
God,
and in the New Testament, a loving parent. Is human
conceptualizations of a
a supreme being derive from our biology? As a species we have
nurturant parents,
so is it just a form of transference to derive a supreme being as a
ever present "parent"?
If so, what would sea turtles derive as "god" given they are hatched
and on-their-own
from the moment they crawl out of the sand and dash for the sea?
Then back to Barlow's Guide and what would any of those alien species
derive as
supreme beings given their biology?
I have wondered off the topic of embodied cognition. But I think of
it as wondering around
the edges to see what the landscape may contain. I also think
Lakoff's Metaphors can be
helpful in understanding how our human biology affects our choice of
good and bad and the
way those notions enter our language via metaphor. (up is good, down
is bad, etc.)
Would up/down or light/dark be the same metaphors of good/bad for the
Uchjin (floating paint
smears) from Chalker's Well World Series?
As an analogy, I don't have the training or the sophisticated tools of
a mechanical engineer,
but I do have access to some LEGO blocks. So I am playing with these
ideas in a similar manner.
I don't expect to build a real-world Golden Gate Bridge, but if I make
a colorful model with the
LEGO blocks I may be able to discern some basic principles.
I don't have much free time to follow these pathways, though more now
that the kids are grown
and out on their own. I spend most of my time reading.
Thanks,
Steph T
On 11/12/2011 10:32 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Stephen,
I thought Lakoff's Moral politics was bloody awful -- SHAMEFUL even,
given his earlier stuff which I liked. A terrifying example of what
happens when an Author's publisher gets him to write more books than
he has in him.
I have to admit, I am made nervous by the notion of "embodied
cognition". I mean, where the hell else is it. It's the same kind
of nervousness that overcomes me when people talk about "cognitive
psychology." (What the hell other kind of psychology IS there?)
Such expressions seem to be an attempt to slip dualism in by the back
door. Cognition is just adaptive action of a body. I think most
believers of embodied cognition are hoping to find the little door in
the skull that opens into the room where the teensy little guy sits
looking out through the windows of the eyes and pulling on the little
levers that send the fluids up and down the nerve channels.
Psychology has some wonderful theories. For instance, Skinner has a
wonderful theory of learning. Unfortunately, it applies primarily to
pigeons pressing levers. If only we could cram all humanity into
Skinner boxes, the theory would work fine. Physics has the same
problem, really. Billiard balls would glide along perfectly if it
weren't for friction, but there is friction everywhere where billiard
balls are. If only we had frictionless billiard balls. But the
problem doesn't seem to bother physcists so much The artificial
models of physics are more useful than those of psychology because, I
guess, physicists have a lot better sense of what happens when the
idealized circumstances of the model are violated. Poor
psychologists: you take people out of those skinner boxes and all
hell breaks loose.
At the risk of putting you all through distasteful spectacle of
having Doug and Peter yell at me again, let me remind you of our
discussion of tornados, where Peter seemed to be saying that one
really shouldn't talk about vortices until one had had sixty years of
experience engineering wings and propellers. Sounds like whatever
you learn about propellers in physics one won't get you off a
runway. It won't even get water out of a washbasin.
I think the problem is not that Psychologists don't have good
theories; I think it's more that psychologists don't have good
theories about the kind of questions that people want answers to.
You folks want answers about tornadoes and washbasins, and all we
have to offer is theories about behavior in skinner boxes.
Nick
*From:*[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
*On Behalf Of *Stephen Thompson
*Sent:* Saturday, November 12, 2011 8:54 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One
Eric:
I just picked up three books in order to learn more about Embodied
Cognition:
1. Embodied Cognition by Lawrence Shapiro
2. Where Mathematics Comes From by George Lakoff and Rafael E. Nunez
3. Philosophy In The Flesh by Lakoff and Mark Johnson
I came to these via Dr Lakoff's Moral Politics, then perusing his
Metaphors We Live By.
Will the 3 books above provide a basic understanding of Embodied
Cognition, even though
they appear to be oriented to Philosophy as opposed to psychology?
I read Dr Dennett's Consciousness Explained back in 1997 and came to
accept the
naturalistic world view - what you see is what there is; no mystical
nor supernatural
stuff.
Of the two links you provided, I found your post to be more clear on
the conflict in psychology
than the PsychScientists' post.
Thanks,
Steph T
On 11/12/2011 8:29 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
Doug, don't fret.
The answer to Jochen's question is "Yes, it is about friggin time we
get a good theory", and Andrew and Sabrina's blog is an excellent
source of ideas for improving psychology. Recently Andrew's blog has
been getting attention from other excellent professionals, including
a Scientific American author who is actively discussing Andrew's
previous post: "Embodied cognition is not what you think
<http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/11/embodied-cognition-is-not-what-you.html>".
(With more discussion here
<http://fixingpsychology.blogspot.com/2011/11/embodied-cognition.html>.)
Roger,
You are correct that it might seem like psychology should have other
things to worry about, but frankly the problems you mention (rampant
misuse of statistics and the rare forged data scandals) would be a
lot easier to deal with if we had a more unified theoretical base.
Eric
On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 07:12 PM, *Douglas Roberts
<[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]>* wrote:
Oh, God. Here we go.
On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Jochen Fromm<[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
> Nick, Eric, what do you think, does Psychology need a theory?
>
>
http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/11/theory-and-why-its-time-psychology-got.html?m=1
> -J.
>
> Sent from Android
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Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
