Malerin, what difference? Immaterialism is Moot

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Oh c'mon, Dave! Are you really trying to argue that schools of thought in psycology are not based on some underlying philosophy of how the human mind works and how it should be treated?

Sure, they are based on a psychophysiological philosophy. Are you proposing they are based on the metaphysical distinction between physicalism and idealism? If so, please give an example of something that a psychologist does differently based on that distinction.

~~ Paul

 

[Dancing David]

Oh c'mon, Dave! Are you really trying to argue that schools of thought in psycology are not based on some underlying philosophy of how the human mind works and how it should be treated? Are you somehow arguing that the scientific method isn't based upon natural philosophy?

I'm sorry but you're really going to have to explain yourself on this one



That really doesn't contradict anything that I've said

The mind doesn't exist, sorry, philosophy at best, trash like the id, ego and super ego that needs to be thrown out with god spirit and angels.

I really don't care for the debate on ontology, the universe is what it is, I don't care what you want to call it 'natural philosophy' or what, that is fine. Reality, the universe, is easier.

The mind does not exist it is a fiction with little utility. Brain process is slightly more accurate.

And no, many form of psychology couldn't care less about the mind.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

I just wanted to point out that there's a pretty significant difference between the philosophical thought experiments / speculation / inductive reasoning used in science, and the use of idealism as a means of lending support to woo beliefs such as creationism. Thinking outside the box of logical positivism should not be a license to jump to unfounded conclusions, like that there must be a prime thinking entity known as God, or that all ontological possibilities are equally plausible. There is no "faith" involved in the determination that the evidence we gather from our current reality is most reasonably applied to our current reality. Faith has nothing to do with it.

 

[paximperium]

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820

 

[AkuManiMani]

Sure, they are based on a psychophysiological philosophy. Are you proposing they are based on the metaphysical distinction between physicalism and idealism? If so, please give an example of something that a psychologist does differently based on that distinction.

~~ Paul

First I would like to make clear again that I'm not arguing in favor of idealism, per se:

Empirically, both positions are potentially valid in the domains that they focus on (idealist:abstract vs. materialist:concrete) but make flawed assumptions about the other. Philosophically, they're both flawed because they see the other perspective as mutually exclusive to the other when, infact they are complementary. There are certain insights that can be more readily gained from one perspective than the other.

[emphasis added]

I then went on to invoke psychology as one example of a field of inquiry that uses the perspective of the abstract (in this case the human mind) as its primary frame of reference as opposed to starting from the reference point of the concrete (i.e. the human brain).

I did not mean to suggest that the fields of psychology assume idealism as a metaphysical position, mind you. My point was to illustrate an example of how the concrete and the abstract aren't mutually exclusive.

In case you may have missed it I did go on to explicitly state what my ontological stance is:

Just to reiterate, I don't hold to the idealist view nor, for that matter, to the strict materialist view. Since I probably haven't stated is explicitly, I'd like to make it clear that my views are much more along the lines of monism [everything that is has the same ontological root] and realism [reality is there even when no one is "looking"].

I'm not aware of whether or not there is a formal school of thought concerning what my ontological views are so I'll try to spell them out in as clear a manner as I can.

I maintain a monist position but I differ from the materialist position in that I do not consider matter as primary. I consider it as derivative from a more fundamental "stuff" (whatever that may turn out to be) and that the label of matter is just that: a label, a category of the basic existent "something". IMO, abstract things such as thoughts, agency, etc. are as ontologically "real" as matter.

And, again, I'm a realist as opposed to being an idealist. In my view reality is what it is, and that our beliefs and understandings of it are provisional and can only serve as finite approximations at best.

 

[AkuManiMani]

I just wanted to point out that there's a pretty significant difference between the philosophical thought experiments / speculation / inductive reasoning used in science, and the use of idealism as a means of lending support to woo beliefs such as creationism. Thinking outside the box of logical positivism should not be a license to jump to unfounded conclusions, like that there must be a prime thinking entity known as God, or that all ontological possibilities are equally plausible. There is no "faith" involved in the determination that the evidence we gather from our current reality is most reasonably applied to our current reality. Faith has nothing to do with it.

Agreed. I was never trying to argue otherwise. My point, and my actual views, are quite different.

 

[PixyMisa]

I then went on to invoke psychology as one example of a field of inquiry that uses the perspective of the abstract (in this case the human mind) as its primary frame of reference as opposed to starting from the reference point of the concrete (i.e. the human brain).

Your problem here is that this is not true. Oh, it was true to a significant degree a hundred years ago, but psychology a hundred years ago was non-scientific and mostly wrong.

I did not mean to suggest that the fields of psychology assume idealism as a metaphysical position, mind you. My point was to illustrate an example of how the concrete and the abstract aren't mutually exclusive.

Yes, well, psychology of recent decades is very firmly grounded in materialism. That's why they can often give you pills that cure mental illness.

In case you may have missed it I did go on to explicitly state what my ontological stance is:

Yes, and that's the essence of it. There's only one kind of stuff, because if there's multiple kinds of stuff you land in a contradiction.

I'm not aware of whether or not there is a formal school of thought concerning what my ontological views are so I'll try to spell them out in as clear a manner as I can.

That's just what we're talking about: Idealism comes in many forms, but it is either indistinguishable from materialism, or wrong.

I maintain a monist position but I differ from the materialist position in that I do not consider matter as primary. I consider it as derivative from a more fundamental "stuff" (whatever that may turn out to be) and that the label of matter is just that: a label, a category of the basic existent "something". IMO, abstract things such as thoughts, agency, etc. are as ontologically "real" as matter.

And there you fall down. Thoughts are material processes. They're not abstract, they're instantiated.

It's possible that matter is not the fundamental existent, but something derived from that. However, everything is matter, including us, so it makes absolutely no difference.

And, again, I'm a realist as opposed to being an idealist. In my view reality is what it is, and that our beliefs and understandings of it are provisional and can only serve as finite approximations at best.

Yes, I agree with that, but you're wrong on your specifics.

 

[Dancing David]

Yes, well, psychology of recent decades is very firmly grounded in materialism. That's why they can often give you pills that cure mental illness.

Sorry Pixy, you are still right (IMNSHO) most of the time, but no cures, symptom management only and the process of medicine development is still , well, not what it might be someday.

 

[PixyMisa]

Sorry Pixy, you are still right (IMNSHO) most of the time, but no cures, symptom management only and the process of medicine development is still , well, not what it might be someday.

Yes, you're right, I could have phrased that better. A number of mental illnesses are due to (relatively) straightforward biochemical issues, and as long as you keep taking the pills, the mental problems go away.

The broader point, that psychology is fundamentally a materialist discipline, remains.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I then went on to invoke psychology as one example of a field of inquiry that uses the perspective of the abstract (in this case the human mind) as its primary frame of reference as opposed to starting from the reference point of the concrete (i.e. the human brain).

Ah, okay, sorry. Indeed, psychology is polluted with pantloads of dualistic thinking.

I'm not aware of whether or not there is a formal school of thought concerning what my ontological views are so I'll try to spell them out in as clear a manner as I can.

Sounds like a flavor of neutral monism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_monism

Your problem here is that this is not true. Oh, it was true to a significant degree a hundred years ago, but psychology a hundred years ago was non-scientific and mostly wrong.

I agree with you regarding neurophysiology, but I think psychology may still be mired in dualistic notions. If not, well then I'm glad to hear it!

~~ Paul

 

[AkuManiMani]

Your problem here is that this is not true. Oh, it was true to a significant degree a hundred years ago, but psychology a hundred years ago was non-scientific and mostly wrong.


Yes, well, psychology of recent decades is very firmly grounded in materialism. That's why they can often give you pills that cure mental illness.

While I agree with you that, most current schools of psychology maintain materialism as a given they still very much view human psychology in terms of mental attributes (memories, personal opinions, motivations, etc.) as opposed to strictly in terms of basic neurophysiology and biochemistry. As Dancing David mentioned, the approach of using chemical medication for psychiatric conditions today merely deal w/ managing symptoms.

Science is still a ways away from of having a rigorous understanding of the mind (as either a process or entity), and thus devising effective 'cures' to mental pathologies. I think the approach of merely writing off the mind is extremely counter productive in a gaining a full scientific understanding of what the heck is going on in regard to humans and thought process.

I don't think that the approach of simply developing better chemical cocktails is going to bear much fruit in the long run in trying to deal with mental pathologies. Much of the philosophy behind it is, IMO, based on some flawed premises which I will elaborate on later.

It's possible that matter is not the fundamental existent, but something derived from that. However, everything is matter, including us, so it makes absolutely no difference.

Well the thing is, I'm not satisfied with the rather pat conclusion of "everything is matter". If matter is infact derivative then it stands to reason that there can be and probably are processes/entities that come from the same substrate but could not be considered matter in and of themselves. In much the same way that matter and energy are basically equivalent but distinguishable, I'm of the opinion that there are other aspects of reality that could be equivalent-yet-distinguishable in much the same way.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Sounds like a flavor of neutral monism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_monism

Ah, thanks Paul. I'd never heard of Neutral Monism till today and it does seem to generally coincide w/ my own views

Anyways, I've done some further reading on variants of neutral monism and there are two interpretations that I've taken into serious consideration. One is Dialectical monism and Emergent materialism. It seems that the two views have a lot of overlap w/ some of the concepts I've been mulling over for some time and they don't seem to be mutually exclusive to one another. Definitely some extra food for thought. Once again, thank you.

 

[PixyMisa]

I agree with you regarding neurophysiology, but I think psychology may still be mired in dualistic notions. If not, well then I'm glad to hear it!

There are probably still psychologists mired in dualism. But (to take one example) the MIT lectures I link to once a week are not only materialist, but very explicitly so.

When you're routinely using drugs to treat mental illness, dualism becomes overtly problematic.

 

[athon]

To clarify, I was mainly using logical positivism as the most salient example I could think of off the top of my head. As to whether or not particle physics would have advanced, I'm also pretty sure science would have come around to it eventually. I'm just of the opinion that such a philosophical stance would have greatly slowed the progress if it had been universal. Correctly me if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware of, all of the scientists that were involved in the initial advancement into the world of atoms didn't proscribe to the strict positivist view.

No, I understand.

A far better example - and one that is relevant actually to the progress of logical positivism - was relativity. Mach had a hard time rationalising the whole thing, seeing as it was so mathematical. He likened the maths (which he didn't really understand, given his limited education in any formal mathematics) to metaphysics, and finally admitted in his final publication that he rejected the whole notion.

The real problem with logical positivism is that it doesn't give much weight to the abstract conclusions formed mathematically. Still...the basic premise of it remains sound to this day.

Athon

 

[Dancing David]

Yes, you're right, I could have phrased that better. A number of mental illnesses are due to (relatively) straightforward biochemical issues, and as long as you keep taking the pills, the mental problems go away.

The broader point, that psychology is fundamentally a materialist discipline, remains.

Of course your Royal Insectness....

 

[Dancing David]

I agree with you regarding neurophysiology, but I think psychology may still be mired in dualistic notions. If not, well then I'm glad to hear it!

~~ Paul

Sad but true, human services and psychology are full of woo, not so much the science (done with rats and freshman psych students) but yes, it is there.

 

[Dancing David]

Science is still a ways away from of having a rigorous understanding of the mind (as either a process or entity), and thus devising effective 'cures' to mental pathologies. I think the approach of merely writing off the mind is extremely counter productive in a gaining a full scientific understanding of what the heck is going on in regard to humans and thought process.

I don't think giving a fish a go cart if very productive either. But if you want to add spirits and demons to psychology, by all means go ahead.

I don't think that the approach of simply developing better chemical cocktails is going to bear much fruit in the long run in trying to deal with mental pathologies. Much of the philosophy behind it is, IMO, based on some flawed premises which I will elaborate on later.

Okay, simple question.

Do you believe that schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety disorder are real?

Or do you engage is some other unsupported belief?

Have you met a suicidal person?
Have you met someone living with schizophrenia?

You are foolish to call it a 'philosophy' of how neurotransmission works, the theory is very young, but is neurotransmission really a philosophy.

I will cease there before fire shoots out of my eyes and foam comes out of my mouth.

I hate it when people deny mental illness as a biological disorder.

Well the thing is, I'm not satisfied with the rather pat conclusion of "everything is matter". If matter is infact derivative then it stands to reason that there can be and probably are processes/entities that come from the same substrate but could not be considered matter in and of themselves. In much the same way that matter and energy are basically equivalent but distinguishable, I'm of the opinion that there are other aspects of reality that could be equivalent-yet-distinguishable in much the same way.

Nope, you have never demonstrated that, either they are contained in the 'matter' or in the 'idea stuff', an orchestra exists only as a symbol of communication.

An emergent phenomena is not outside the stuff of which is emerges from.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Science is still a ways away from of having a rigorous understanding of the mind (as either a process or entity), and thus devising effective 'cures' to mental pathologies. I think the approach of merely writing off the mind is extremely counter productive in a gaining a full scientific understanding of what the heck is going on in regard to humans and thought process.

I don't think giving a fish a go cart if very productive either. But if you want to add spirits and demons to psychology, by all means go ahead.

I'm not sure if you deliberately reinterpret what I say to mean what you want it to say or if I'm just not communicating clearly.

At what point did I say or imply that 'spirits' and 'demons' should be introduced into the field of psychology?? I'll try my best to be as concise and clear as I can but, in the mean time, could you atleast make the effort to bother trying to understand what I'm saying before disputing?

I don't think that the approach of simply developing better chemical cocktails is going to bear much fruit in the long run in trying to deal with mental pathologies. Much of the philosophy behind it is, IMO, based on some flawed premises which I will elaborate on later.

Okay, simple question.

Do you believe that schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety disorder are real?

Of course I believe that mental disorders are real phenomenon. I'm just saying that we don't fully understand them because we don't have a rigorous understanding of the mind. Further, attempting to rationalize away the subject in question (in this case the mind) is extremely counter productive, to say the least, and downright ludicrous.

Or do you engage is some other unsupported belief?

I think the only unsupported belief here is that mental disorders exist but minds do not

You are foolish to call it a 'philosophy' of how neurotransmission works, the theory is very young, but is neurotransmission really a philosophy.

First off, I never stated that neurotransmission is a philosophy. I stated that the assumption that simply medicating a person w/ a chemical cocktail is the answer to all mental ills is based upon a flawed philosophy. As you mentioned yourself, the current attempts to treat mental illness with pills only manage symptoms.

What I'm saying is that this method of treatment is based on flawed assumptions of reductionist philosophy. The approach of thinking of mental illness strictly in terms of reducing it to neurological components will continue to yield the same superficial results you've been lamenting.

I will cease there before fire shoots out of my eyes and foam comes out of my mouth.

I hate it when people deny mental illness as a biological disorder.

Perhaps if you stop being so knee-jerk in your reactions and actually take time to calmly and rationally assess what I'm saying you'd realize that that is not what I'm arguing at all. Mental disorders are biological, yes, but they are not strictly and always chemically caused and cannot be effectively cured chemically. I'll give an example.

A person can suffer from severe, lifelong depression after witnessing the death of their family. They may even harbor some feelings of guilt and feel responsible for not preventing their deaths. This >mental< trauma may even cause them to develop suicidal tendencies. Its very clear in this instance that the nature of the illness is mental. This mental state is very real and causes an equally real physical change in the individual's biochemistry. One can monkey around with this person's biochemistry with some pills but at the end of the day the person is still traumatized. IMO, its equivalent to simply treating a gunshot victim with pain killers. Sure, the symptom of hideous screaming pain is managed but the actual source of the problem is not treated or addressed.

Well the thing is, I'm not satisfied with the rather pat conclusion of "everything is matter". If matter is infact derivative then it stands to reason that there can be and probably are processes/entities that come from the same substrate but could not be considered matter in and of themselves. In much the same way that matter and energy are basically equivalent but distinguishable, I'm of the opinion that there are other aspects of reality that could be equivalent-yet-distinguishable in much the same way.

Nope, you have never demonstrated that, either they are contained in the 'matter' or in the 'idea stuff', an orchestra exists only as a symbol of communication.

Okay then, Dave, what is an idea? What is a symbol?

An emergent phenomena is not outside the stuff of which is emerges from.

Never said they were.

 

[Belz...]

I've noticed that the "what difference does it make?" line is one taken solely by the materialists. They do this because they implicitly recognise a weakness in their own position. That weakness being that idealism is a priori batting on a better wicket, due to skepticism as to the existence of mind being patently absurd and self-defeating.

So, is that straw in your avatar ? Because I see copious amounts of it in your post...

Skepticism does not deny the existence of "mind". The nature of "mind", however, is dabatable.

Also, your claim that "they do this because" implies knowledge on your part of what happens in their minds. Care to elaborate on how you got it ?

 

[Belz...]

Your whole presence here at JREF cries out that you believe there's an enormous difference.

That makes no sense, whatsoever. How would you know, anyway ?

For instance, I'm here to engage in skeptical debates. What does that have to do with idealism or materialism ?

In fact, what does it matter ? In the end, the physical laws we devellop to describe how the universe works seem to correspond to that universe's behaviour. What else is needed, really ?