Russ, 

 

This is, of course, the pragmatic[ist] understanding of "solved." 

Everybody has quit looking for a better solution.  

 

Nick

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 8:20 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology

 

Perhaps we can approach the question of which problems in psychology have
been solved by asking which published results are generally accepted. I
suspect there are quite a few--even if most of them are relatively low
level.


 

-- Russ

 

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 6:30 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[email protected]> wrote:

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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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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