On Mon, 22 Oct 2012 10:11:46 -0700, Ken Steele wrote: >On 10/22/2012 9:54 AM, Michael Palij wrote: >>> On Mon, 22 Oct 2012 05:39:32 -0700, William Scott wrote: >>> October 22, 1850 >>> A day to celebrate psychophysics!!! >> >> *crickets chirping* >> >We celebrated Fechner Day in my Perception class today. I spend >a fair amount of time on psychophysics and my students know the >story of the dream well. > >Speaking of the dream, I have tried to find the original description on >several occasions without luck. Does anyone know? I have started >having fears of another Freudian iceberg.
A few points about Fechner Day, history of psychology, and the influence of Fechner on Frued: (1) Take a look at: Meischner-Metge, A. (2010). Gustav Theodor Fechner: Life and work in the mirror of his diary. History Of Psychology, 13(4), 411-423. doi:10.1037/a0021587 Meischner-Metge quotes from Fechner's diaries and the following quote from her article which quotes from Fechner's diary is relevant: |That is the way I found the principle with which I am now occupied. |It was October 22, while lying in bed, when I had these ideas.4 . . . If |this principle could be established—which remains to be seen—it would |be an enormous discovery, worthy of noting the date. The consequences |as I see them are astonishing. Philosophy as a whole will not so much |be shattered by it, as be given an anchor and a grounding.Above all, |however, it is important to me that this mathematical theory not stand in |conflict with the ideas that I developed in my book on matters concerning |the heavens and the realm beyond, and vice versa . . . And though the |writing of this book is nearly finished, I dare not complete it until I see |where my mathematical theory is headed in this respect. These matters |must be understood from a certain point of view. It should be noted that the footnote 4 above refers to a contrast to what Fechner wrote in Volume II of Elements of Psychophysics. Meischner-Metge provides the following reference for the Fechner diaries: 2. All diary excerpts are from Gustav Theodor Fechner, Tagebu¨cher 1828 bis 1879, ed. Anneros Meischner-Metge and Irene Altmann, 2 vols., Quellen und Forschungen zur sa¨chsischen Geschichte, nr. 27 (Leipzig: Verlag der Sa¨chsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004). (2) G. Stanley Hall in his 1912 "Founders of Psychology" recounts a story similar to that given above. Books.google.com has a downloadable copy of Hall's book and I suggest looking at page 151 (page 175 in the PDF). Hall lived a few houses away from the Fechners when he was studying in Germany and knew Gustav Fechner personally. (3) It is amusing to read in various sources how useless William James thought Fechner's law was. (4) There is an interesting connection between Fechner and Freud that Lawrence identifies and details in his chapter in Marks, L. E. (1992). Freud and Fechner, Desire and Energy, Hermeneutics and Psychophysics. In Geissler, H. G., Link, S. W., & Townsend, J. T. (Eds.). (pages 23-42) Cognition, Information Processing, and Psychophysics: Basic Issues. Lawrence Erlbaum. Marks provides an rich tale about the connections between Fechner and Freud, including reference to a figure from Freud 1923 (The Ego and the Id) which, while looking something like an iceberg, is referred to as looking like a brain by Marks. Ken, you should recognize the description of the figure because I believe it was you who first located it and scanned it and provided copies to the members of the "Great Iceberg Hunt". See page 35 of the copy of the book that is available on books.google.com: http://books.google.com/books?id=9WtTKQcm3B8C&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=Lawrence+Marks+Freud+Fechner&source=bl&ots=jw3ZOsnuA6&sig=hgPMq5R52nb5YitXcBuNv0BfTLA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=f9yFUND5Fuq10QH96ID4CA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Lawrence%20Marks%20Freud%20Fechner&f=false Isn't it ironic? ;-) -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=21242 or send a blank email to leave-21242-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
