Arlo, I agree completely about the process point. 

I was a bit less certain when you said, "something difficult about psychology
is that much of the data has to be collected through someone else - those
[people] involved in the study"

I assume you would consider a person to be part of the physical world,
treatable in most ways like any other type of object. Yes?  If so, how is your
statement different than the following,

"something difficult about chemistry is that much of the data has to be
collected through something else - those chemicals involved in the study"

Eric

On Thu, May 17, 2012 06:23 PM, Arlo Barnes <[email protected]> wrote:
>>It seems so far science and tech have been regarded as thing, or adjectives
to describe 'problem' - whereas I consider them processes (and to a much lesser
extent philosophies in the) and not necessarily even ones with discrete ends,
but more a recursive approach - I see a phenomena, I make a 'magic'
explanation, I collect data on it, and see if the magic matches the data. If
not, I revise the explanation. If so, I see if it predicts more data. Wash,
rinse, and repeat. Really we are making rules (that are not perfect and have
exceptions, and are therefore not 'done') and making more rules that govern the
exceptions (and those rules also have exceptions). So we have something
asymptotically approaching whatever objective Truth/reality there is by way of
infinite regression. Then if we are doing tech, we makes things that take
advantage of this set of rules and therefore work most of the time.
>
>
>I think something difficult about psychology is that much of the data has to
be collected through someone else - those involved in the study.
>-Arlo James Barnes.
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Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601


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