I'm talking about low level Scientology material only. Spurious BS that only comes much later is not relevant. This is not about the claims made in the upper levels of Scientology. This is about the logic Scientologists use to define something as a science.
It's not that I don't have an inkling (or more) to the answers to these questions for myself, I just want to compare my own answers to yours, so I'm playing devil's advocate and asking where exactly the reactive mind differs from known psychology other than assertions about the subconscious. I was raised in Scientology, so I've had a bias to emphasize the parts that correspond with common knowledge while looking over the debatable aspects. I mean Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and phobias acquired from bad experience are known facts right? Other than dealing with the subconscious and cell imprints, the reactive mind doesn’t seem to much differ from what’s accepted about the mind other than being an arbitrary border between rational and irrational aspects of the mind.
I know I just partially answered my own question, I just want to know if I fully answered it.
Second, more broadly, what makes Scienology a pseudoscience?
After all, Scientologists say Hubbard tested his techniques on a number of people to see what worked and what didn't work and kept only what was workable. Is the right answer just a matter of "It needs to be confirmed by independent studies or peer reviewed"? Or is that the wrong direction for an answer? That usually gets a response about not needing approval from scientists who know nothing of the subject and thus aren't qualified.
Scientologists point to the scientific method; You make an observation, do an experiment to test it by trying a Scientology technique) and form a conclusion based on the result. This is empiricism, at least to the Scientologist. And that is the scientific method applied on a personal level to find out what works for oneself.
What is wrong with this criteria for "science"?
Edit: I need to give some examples of what a Scientologist might test and believe to work
- They run out a traumatic experience from the "reactive mind" in auditing and feel a chronic pain go away or some other improvement.
- They do a touch assist or nerve assist and feel better afterward.
- They do a scientology course and feel they can handle life better.
- They do the communication course and feel they can communicate better
I am not an expert on scientology.
Dianetics and Scientology, from what I have read, appears to be a system of psychological hypotheses with a method of treatment for some basic personality problems. In this it is by no means unique. Understanding human behavior and motivations is a common theme of human culture for several centuries at least (if not the entire history of mankind). Attempting to cure ones self or others of mental quirks or "disorders", and wondering why various motivations and behaviors appear is surely a universal human experience.
Ancient religions contain some rudimentary level of psychological theory and hypotheses regarding the origins of various types of human behaviors. Unwanted motivations or thoughts may be seen as intrusive on the self, and thus appear to be the actions of separate beings. The motivations for particular unapproved behaviors may be seen to arise from demons, or the devil, for example, and may be cured by prayer to a particular deity, or in the extreme by exorcism. Jesus "cast out demons" as do various christian preachers even today.
Freud was trained in science in the late nineteenth century, and at the time he was working he was a pioneer in hypothesizing about the structure of personality, and the origin of its various quirks. His hypothetical constructs the id, ego and superego, are still common knowledge, although his analysis and exact methods of treatment are rarely employed today. Some followers who accepted his hypotheses as unalterable fact persisted in his methods for many decades, and weaved ever more elaborate, and contrived constructs to maintain the edifice in the face of conflicting new information.
Modern psychology, and cognitive psychology are the offspring of Freud's hypothesis, but bear little resemblance to it other than a few common themes.These common themes are also present in other hypothetical personality schemes, such as those of scientology. Humans have a "mind", consisting of our sensorium, thoughts, memories, emotions, motivations, and a "will" to act in ways consistent with their thoughts and motivations. The parts of these elements of which a person is conscious, "the conscious mind", appears to form a unified and independent "self". There are however many unconscious emotions, motivations, un-recalled memories, and sensations which do not appear in the "self". The unconscious elements have a profound effect on the conscious "self" and its behavior. The feelings, motivations and actions arising from the unconscious elements may appear so intrusive and foreign to the self that they must be explained away as separate personalities, or even as separate beings (possessions).
That this is the state of human existence is not really controversial, only the explanations (the hypotheses) are in conflict. Because the hypothetical explanations of these common experiences popularized by Freud were of a scientific tradition, they were malleable and have been altered over time and discarded as the failed hypotheses that they are.
The modern scientific construct of a human person is that of a primate, with a brain sub-serving all of these various functions of the psyche. In fact the understanding of the brain and its anatomy, neurochemistry and neurophysiology explains all these phenomena very well. The human brain has various sensory modalities, with both unconscious and conscious levels. It has a variety of memory types, working, short term, and long term episodic memory. It has emotional centers which underlie the feelings of happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, rage, and bliss. It has biological imperative motivational states (hunger, thirst, elimination, and libido) which drive behaviors to appropriate goals. It has a small area of cerebral cortex responsible for coordinating actions, planning, and initiating communication(the central executive). It has areas devoted to coordinated movement and the production of speech. In this modern model all of the activities of the psyche are understood as functions of the brain.
The definition of what motivations, feelings or behaviors are normal and which need "treatment" changes quite a bit from this perspective. Homosexuality and transsexualism change from aberrant and curable personality defects (psychoanaylsis) to natural behavior variations which will not be, and should not be "cured", for example.
So, as you say, that there are unconscious memories and motivations is not at issue. The failure of scientology is that its hypotheses regarding the origins of such unconscious elements and their influence on behaviors were never investigated, and they are not consistent with current massive body of literature regarding function of the human brain. At the time dianetics was devised we knew virtually nothing about the function of the brain. The Nobel prize in physiology for understanding the action potential was awarded in 1963, and the rudimentary understanding of synaptic function was the subject of the prize in 1970!
The fact that the method of auditing leads to some limited success, is not a verification that the hypotheses are correct. Freudian psychoanalysis also has a record of success, as does exorcism of demons by priests.
Being made aware that unconscious motivations exist and spending time investigating what those motivations might be is an enlightening experience for all of us, regardless of the methods used. Apparently Hubbard refined his method to provide some level of success which was convincing to some people, but his explanations of how and WHY he achieved success remained un-investigated.
The report of individuals that they "feel better", or that "chronic pain is reduced" by any given treatment are not sufficient to establish the method used as successful. Medicine went nowhere for centuries using this model. It is the basis of "success" in homeopathy, herbal cures, and acupuncture. Humans are extremely suggestible, and even organic symptoms like pain are subject to suggestion and placebo effects. Modern medicine relies on the double blind randomized controlled trial as the gold standard to establish efficacy because other methods have proven fallible. Even single blinding leads to spurious results. Subjects pick up on nonverbal and unconsciously transmitted cues from experimenters as to whether they are receiving placebo or treatment, and outcomes are accordingly skewed.
Furthermore, a method which relies on the galvanic skin response is bound to be unreliable, because the galvanic skin response is notoriously capricious, inconsistent and unreliable. The fact that it works "some times" is not verification that it provides consistent or reliable results.
If Hubbard were a scientist (like Hodgkin and Huxley), he would have published his findings regarding the success of auditing in a peer reviewed scientific journal, with detailed descriptions of his apparatus, the questions he used, and case reports of his successes. He would have encouraged others to attempt to replicate his findings, and modified his hypotheses when duplications and replications failed, or turned up new findings.
Instead, he published a book (which made him money), kept the methods secret, and collected money from his experimental subjects. These are the actions of a charlatan, not a scientist.
Instead of open publication and peer review, and modification with further findings, he kept his "hypotheses" secret, told only to advanced initiates, and forbid open discussion with those outside his influence. This is pseudoscience, not science.
