Hi David, I would just like to address the paragraphs of yours which I have kept below:
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 12:27 PM, David Thomas <[email protected]> wrote: > How can one subscribe to James' "radical empiricism" and not be at least > mildly interested in psychology given he is thought of as the "father of > American psychology?" How can one point to Buddhist philosophy and not > understand that, in addition to its philosophy, it is the oldest, > continuously running, "brand" of psychotherapy on the planet? A > psychotherapy you now seem to subscribe to, or practice in some degree? > > But then I remembered that Pirsig's experience with the practice of American > psychotherapy had not been a particularly pleasant experience. Enough so > that it might put one off his feed and the field forever. And psychology > suffers from the same or similar problems as he found in anthropology. They > are both one set of humans trying to study other sets of humans. How does, > or can one, do that without introducing all kinds of personal, social, or > cultural biases? And by trying limit these biases do you create the Boas > problem? Or the Dusenberry problem? As Mark has eluded to since their > conception there has always been a skepticism by "hard" sciences to the > "science" of the humanities. It's "quasi-science" or "soft" science, with > psychology perhaps being one of the "softest". I think this is an > unfortunate application of adjectives. Psychology is actually a very, very, > hard science to do. Astrophysics or quantum mechanics is actually a breeze > to do and understand compared to trying to understand the working of any > mind, even your own. [Mark] It is interesting that I find above the inclusion of Buddhism as a form of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is used for patients that are ill, and its intent is to make them healthy. If we take "suffering" as an illness, then I suppose we could claim that Buddhism is a medical practice. But if this is the case, then taking one's son to Disneyland is also psychotherapy, which would make me a psychiatrist. If fact, it would be hard to find any action that is not associated with psychotherapy using this broad analogy. This, to me, points to the degree in which modern psychology has influenced our society. It is being applied to almost any human action. In this case, psychology should not be considered a study of the human mind, but a study of the human condition. We could then relate to philosophy as a form of psychology, and eventually the complete inclusion of all human actions would fall under psychology. James' used terminology that is now considered psychology, but at that time it was philosophy. I can only suggest that we try to limit the use of the term psychology, to its application to the sick, else wise we have a term which has not meaning what-so-ever, but which is ever so powerful. The reason I state that psychology is a quasi-science is not because I am utilizer of the "hard sciences" (physics, chemistry, and biology) in my daily job, but because of how the scientific method is used in psychology. I completely agree that psychology is a very difficult thing to proceed with, and this is because of the lack of "objective data". It is impossible to evaluate any data coming in to this discipline without including ones own subjective views of reality. Psychology is very quick to devide the world up into the sane and insane. How do the psychologist know if somebody is insane? Well, the have a checklist and 8/10 positive means INSANE. Actually I do not know how the law words on this, but I am sure it is something like that. What kind of checklist can address a persons view of reality? At its most grandiose, psychology could be considered a study on how we view reality. In this sense, James' book on the variety of religious experiences could be termed a book of psychology, as could Huxley's book on the perennial philosophy. If it is, then the writings of these books could be subjected to current theories in psychology (which no doubt they are). The problem with that is that the philosophy of the book is lost amidst the psychological interpretation. This interpretation is of course changing faster than any philosophy. One level down would be "behavioral psychology". That is, the interpretation of human behaviour through model systems which are being developed in that discipline. We have to ask in this case: is there a behaviour that results in the development of these model systems by such psychiatrists? Is behavioral psychology feeding off its own tail? More dangerous is the idea that people begin to associate their awareness with the models which the priests develop. Like I stated in a previous post: "There are two types of people...". I wonder which one I have to be? Then we have child psychology. This is a discipline which allows parents to forgo any responsibility and follow a book on the latest craze. Believe me, a child can tell when a parent is coming from the heart or coming from a book. What can child psychology tell a mother that she does not already know (since she is, after all, part of the human race which has survived so far)? It is this direction in which our "intelligence" is taking us, which could be possible away from an intuitive process. A child asks a question the parent needs to consult a manual as to how to answer it. This already happens since many are unwilling to think for themselves and have to consult an expert of some sort. Some child psychologists do not even have children. Some of them (aka BF Skinner) completely screw up their kids because of some fancy. We also have physical psychology. Well, this is really getting into the nuts and bolts of who we are. Our awareness is pinpointed to structures of the brain, hormones, and whatever. Our value becomes the net worth of the chemicals in our bodies. It is all a matter of pathways like some city waste management facility. Valves here, chemical there, electric transformer elsewhere. Put something in and something predictable comes out. Our intelligence could never know all the things that our body knows. In fact, our intelligence is just a part of the body as a whole, and stems from the body. How can it then turn around and look at itseIf? Well it does so by looking at others, and then forming an "objective" model, as if those others are not humans like they. A model making a model, you gotta love that. Who's on first? Any "science" that cannot be objective will run into problems. In order to try to be objective, psychologist objectify our awareness of reality. "You see things this way, because..." We are right back to the priests telling us why we sin, and how to correct that sinning. Yes, this is man's nature, it is based on leaders and followers. I just see no reason to take MoQ down that dark and narrow path. It is SOM on steroids! It has nothing to do with Pirsig's experience, it has to do with MoQ. There are plenty of philosophies that are based in psychology, why take MoQ down? Bravo, RMP. Don't let them frame the discussion and trap MoQ into a psychological paradigm. They are tricky, and before you know it, all of MoQ will fall under some model or another of psychology. MoQ will be used for behaviour modification, and drilled into our children, because we must control what the human race will become. Of course, those not yet born have no choice in the matter of who they are to be, since we know better. Evolution does not work that way. Cheers, Mark > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
