Mind is much more than psychology.

Arcturus_Descending · January 29, 2015, 7:00pm

That’s like asking: Is Earth much more than a planet?

Moreno · January 30, 2015, 4:08pm

Arminius:

The problem with the psycholgy is that it has no real object because nobody knows what psyche really is, means, how it can be defined. … and so on.

Brain is a natural, especially a biological, more especially a neurological object, soul is a cultural, religious, theological, philosophical object, and mind is a cultural, semiotic, linguistic, theological (partly also religious), philosophical object. According to the psychologists “psyche” is a psychological object because psychologists say that “psyche” is something between brain, soul, and mind; but why do they hide their object if they have one? The answer is that they have no object, or at least no real object. According to this we have the same problem with the “psyche” as all our ancestors had - except one point: since the occidental modernity psychology and especially sociology have been becoming the main part of the new theology and especially the new religion because the old theology and especially the old religion have been becoming the losers. This refers mainly to the occidental culture, but more and more also to the other cultures on our planet.

It seems to me that psychiatry and psychopharmacology is the new theology. Yes, the word psych is in these, but the people running these enterprises are generally not psychologists, nor is it useful to think of their focus as psychology. They are brain technicians, using behavioral clues, much as and old style car mechanic listening to the running of an engine, to do their diagnostics. They treat mind, soul, psyche what have you as chemical machines and their tools are primarily chemical.

Psychologists are much more likely to engage in engaging the mind andor psyche and or soul, even, and have other dominant paradigms for what leads to change and what we are. And a psychology text/education will look very different from a psychiatric text/education. Of course, psychology is becoming more physicalist. If only it was becoming more pagan.

James_S_Saint · January 30, 2015, 6:20pm

???

Arminius · January 30, 2015, 11:28pm

???

Arcturus_Descending · February 5, 2015, 3:25pm

Are, let’s say, imagination and creativity a part of those two listed above?

James_S_Saint · February 7, 2015, 3:19pm

Certainly.

Imagination is filling the gaps of certainty with optional possibilities (computers woefully do it every day as they guess at your intentions). Creativity is merely free exploration down paths of opportunities to see if anything significant develops. Quantum computers do both to an extreme.

Zoot_Allures · May 10, 2015, 3:26pm

Thomas Szasz:

The phrase “the myth of mental illness” means that mental illness qua illness does not exist. The scientific concept of illness refers to a bodily lesion, that is, to a material — structural or functional — abnormality of the body, as a machine. This is the classic, Virchowian, pathological definition of disease and it is still the definition of disease used by pathologists and physicians as scientific healers.

The brain is an organ — like the bones, liver, kidney, and so on — and of course can be diseased. That’s the domain of neurology. Since a mind is not a bodily organ, it cannot be diseased, except in a metaphorical sense — in the sense in which we also say that a joke is sick or the economy is sick. Those are metaphorical ways of saying that some behavior or condition is bad, disapproved, causing unhappiness, etc.

In other words, talking about “sick minds” is analogous to talking about “sick jokes” or “sick economies.” In the case of mental illness, we are dealing with a metaphorical way of expressing the view that the speaker thinks there is something wrong about the behavior of the person to whom he attributes the “illness.”

Moreno · May 11, 2015, 11:44am

Psychologists refer more and more to psychiatrists. They more and more conceive of mind and brain as the same, and words like soul and spirit are off the table - at least more and more in secular portions of the West. The physicalist model is presented as having won, which is an effective propaganda technique and this is bought by more and more of the educated West. Of course there are vast numbers of studies of minds and cognitive processes in the field of psychology that do not refer to neuroscience, etc. But there is a gradual shifting to thinking of reality, including people and their minds, in physicalist terms. I think that was what I was getting at back then.

Moreno · May 11, 2015, 11:48am

referring to Arminius other thread at that time where it was asked something like if paganism could save things. Paganism being vitalist, for example, where physicalism is a philosophy of death. Everything is actually dead, life is an appearance scum on the surface of a dead universe. Consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon. Brains (and thus minds) are machines. And so on.

Arminius · May 13, 2015, 6:11pm

Zoot Allures:

Thomas Szasz:

The phrase “the myth of mental illness” means that mental illness qua illness does not exist. The scientific concept of illness refers to a bodily lesion, that is, to a material — structural or functional — abnormality of the body, as a machine. This is the classic, Virchowian, pathological definition of disease and it is still the definition of disease used by pathologists and physicians as scientific healers.

The brain is an organ — like the bones, liver, kidney, and so on — and of course can be diseased. That’s the domain of neurology. Since a mind is not a bodily organ, it cannot be diseased, except in a metaphorical sense — in the sense in which we also say that a joke is sick or the economy is sick. Those are metaphorical ways of saying that some behavior or condition is bad, disapproved, causing unhappiness, etc.

In other words, talking about “sick minds” is analogous to talking about “sick jokes” or “sick economies.” In the case of mental illness, we are dealing with a metaphorical way of expressing the view that the speaker thinks there is something wrong about the behavior of the person to whom he attributes the “illness.”

It is sad enough that one has to explain this again and again. The brain is a part of the body, scintifically spoken: a part of biology, especially neurology. Brain is not mind, and both are not psyche. Brain is scientifically accessible, but psyche and mind are scientifically not accessible, because they are scientifically not objectifiable. So psychology is not a scientifical discipline. Psychology has no scientifical object. It can merely be a part of a theory.

Nobody knows what psyche really is. That is the reason why it is used for everything. It is no thing (=> no-thing => nothing), and if no thing is used for everything, then you can be sure that that can never be a real scientifical object and that those people who use it in that way are charlatans, quacks, quacksalvers, and so on.

Orbie · May 13, 2015, 6:39pm

The object, is not strictly speaking a physical object, a non physical objective may be spoken of as substantial. The difference between an objective, a mental event, and an object is one of secondary derivative of its constitution. Therefore it can be spoken of as an object, the substantial part of any thing, and it will by definition be a no-thing.

Whether that is something physical, or mental, is a derivation of secondary categorization, because irregardless both objects and objectives primarily have a perceptive albeit mental derivation. This is the primal identity between them , and the differentiaion takes place after this.

This is why cognition is a precedent, and that is why existenze philosophy has failed as a reductive process from secondary to primary signification. this is the reason for the existential angst, and it’s failed attempt at a nihilistic leap.

Orbie · May 13, 2015, 6:44pm

The deontological process gives certainty or assurance to the alternative model, vis, an inductive reduction, effecting the social/psychological shift/change of the paradigms. Szasz was by most part, right, within this meaning structure.

Arminius · May 13, 2015, 6:57pm

I am talking about a scientific object, and that is well defined. Psyche is no scientific object.

fuse · May 13, 2015, 7:23pm

I don’t think physicalism in general is tied to any statements about life or death in the universe - apart from the claim that life is rooted in purely physical phenomena along with everything else.
I’m sure a lot of physicalists think of the universe as something that is not even dead but non-living. But, like I was saying, this is an extra claim that is not essential to physicalism.

Orbie · May 13, 2015, 7:35pm

 This also is debatable from the point of view, that You may have  been right prior to Watson's but hence, the predominating psychology via Skinner, and it's philosophical underpinnings through Ayer, has given psychology a determine and exact

measurable science through behavioralism.

For this reason, Your critique is not determinative as per the above. Behavioral data can be exacted as the physical sciences.

Arminius · May 13, 2015, 7:47pm

It is not debatable. And my text is no critique.

No one can say what “psyche” really “is”.

Again:

fuse · May 13, 2015, 7:50pm

Arminius, two questions:

Is dark matter a scientific object?
Is the universe a scientific object?

Neither are known very well known and can’t be very clearly defined. Yet physics is a scientific discipline.

I’m thinking of all the topics in physics that deal with forces or phenomena that can’t be straightforwardly perceived or sensed. We know them by their effects only. It seems to me that the mind could fall into a category like this. The question of the mind is unanswered, but that doesn’t mean psychology can’t be a scientific discipline.

Arminius · May 13, 2015, 8:38pm

Fuse, two questions:

Do you really know what the sciientific object of physics is?
Do you know what “psyche” really is?

You conFUSE “physics” with “dark-matter-ology” or “uinversology”. The scientific object of physics is “nature” with its “bodies”. There is no doubt about it. The word “physics” is derived from the Greek word “physika” which means “nature”. It is well known what “nature” and its “bodies” mean.

If you, Fuse, knew what “psyche” really is, then you would be God or one of the Godwannabes who claim to know what it is, although they do not know what it is. The word “psyche” has always been an abstraction, a philosophical or/and religious term without any concrete meaning, without any material aspect; so psyche is merely an abstraction like a whiff (puff or tang), thus no thing, no-thing, nothing.

Orbie · May 13, 2015, 9:08pm

Yes, Arminius, but Nature is defined as such:

The phenomenon of the collective physical world and
```
The basic internAl 
```

features of some thing, when seen as characteristics
of it

Hence, Nature is the phenomena and it’s characteristics, as characteristics, they are perceived and channeled through the neural circuitry which interpret and organize them into laws. these phenomena and it’s effects are no different from those aspects and effects of the so called psyche, which manifest in the feelings and thoughts of human beings.

Arminius · May 13, 2015, 9:21pm

Orb:

Yes, Arminius, but Nature is defined as such:
The phenomenon of the collective physical world and
The basic internAl 
features of some thing, when seen as characteristics
of it

Hence, Nature is the phenomena and it’s characteristics, as characteristics, they are perceived and channeled through the neural circuitry which interpret and organize them into laws. these phenomena and it’s effects are no different from those aspects and effects of the so called psyche, which manifest in the feelings and thoughts of human beings.

That has nothing to do with what I was saying. The “feelings” and the “thoughts” are not what “psyche” means. The “feelings” are feelings, the “thoughts” are thoughts, and the “psyche” is psyche. Why are you so stubborn when it comes to accept what words, terms, and concepts mean? The natural base for thoughts is the brain, and the brain science is called neurology which is a part of biology. We know what that means. It has nothing to do with psychology. The natural base for feelings is also the natural living body, and the science of the natural living body is biology. We know what that means. It has nothing to do with psychology. What you are saying about “feelings” and “thoughts” is hocus-pocus when it comes to bring them in a discipline which they definitely do not belong to.