Gregg:

As we've discussed, there is no simple "identity" between language and humans.

Homo Sapiens did *not* have anything like human language as a direct  
result of its own biological evolution.  From 200,000+ years ago until  
some time much more recently -- perhaps only 10,000+ years ago --  
humans most likely didn't have spoken language and written language is  
only 2500 or-so years old.

Yes -- Merlin Donald is probably the best source on all this . . . !!

Mark

Quoting "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask]>:

> Nancy,
>
>   We are not quite aligned in our language systems. Makes me wonder  
> if we should talk on the phone. I am happy to do so if you would like.
>
>   Perhaps there is confusion about the meaning of the term "mind."   
> You say that "Animal mental behaviour gets us to the evolution of  
> mind." This is not quite right in the ToK language System. Animal  
> mental behavior does not get us to "mind". Rather, animal mental  
> behavior IS Mind (defined as the third dimension of complexity).  
> Mind has clearly already emerged in the Cambrian explosion about  
> 550,000,000 years ago. The example of the praying mantis hunting is  
> animal/mental behavior and occurs in the third dimension of the ToK  
> (Mind). See attached slide
>
>   I wonder if you are thinking mind as being connected to  
> consciousness or subjective experience. It is not in the language of  
> ToK. Consciousness is its own thing, a particular subtype of mental  
> behavior. It emerges in the dimension of Mind, but is not synonymous  
> with it. Indeed, we really have no idea when subjective experience  
> emerges in animals, although we can be pretty sure, IMO, that it is  
> present in mammals.
>
>   The ToK does have a theory that frames/explains animal-mental  
> behavior/Mind. That is Behavioral Investment  
> Theory<Behavioral%20Investment%20Theory>, which is a  
> meta-theoretical framework that organizes our understanding of  
> animal-mental behavior/learning. It functions as the Life-to-Mind  
> joint point. It ties together behavioral learning theory (especially  
> Skinner), cognitive science (i.e., the idea that the nervous system  
> is information processing system) and evolutionary theory  
> (sociobiology/behavioral ecology) to explain Mind...i.e., the  
> behavior of animals. It frames that understanding via the evolution  
> of the nervous system and animal/mental behavioral complexity,  
> ranging from insects to primates. As noted in the chapter on BIT  
> (linked above), BIT tracks the evolution of the animal mind/brain  
> system across the following four domains... (a) sensory-motor  
> reflexive actions into procedural fixed action patterns (corresponds  
> roughly to basic brains/brain stem); (b)  
> perceptual-motivational-affective systems (corresponds roughly to  
> limbic system); (c) imaginative thought/behavioral simulation  
> (corresponds roughly to cortex); and (d) linguistic justification  
> (in homo sapiens, expanded cortex and language centers).
>
>   All mammals have a cortex and engage in imaginative thought (c).  
> However, only humans jump from imaginative thought into full bodied  
> language. I know you are interested in that. That territory is  
> underdeveloped in the ToK, and I like how you put the pieces  
> together. I often say I see our proposals as compatible because of I  
> see your work plugging in, explaining the development of  
> representational thought into language and more formal operations.
>
>   Maybe it would help if it was in someone else's language. Here is  
> a summary of Behavioral Investment Theory from Dave Geary (full  
> article attached):
>
>   The life-mind joint point is elaborated in terms of BIT, which is  
> described in greater
> detail elsewhere (see Henriques, 2004, 2003, 2000). The gist is that  
> the evolved function
> of the nervous system is to guide the animal such that the  
> expenditure of behavioral
> energy (e.g., as indexed by caloric use, time budgets) is biased in  
> ways that enhanced
> fitness in ancestral environments. In other words, the nervous  
> system evolved and gained
> in complexity during the species' evolutionary history, because it  
> enabled the animal to
> engage in the types of behaviors that increased survival and  
> reproductive prospects. The
> biases define the general class of objects in the ecology such as  
> mates or food, the animal
> has evolved to approach (e.g., mates or food), or as well as objects  
> in the ecology such as
> predators, the animal has evolved to avoid (e.g., predators).
>
>   Behavioral plasticity is also an important feature of the theory,  
> and it allows for
> behavior-ecology adjustments during the animals' lifetime. Skinner's  
> (1938) operant conditioning
> represents a central proximate mechanism through which behavioral adjustments
> are made in response to fluctuations in ecological conditions (e.g.,  
> type of prey
> available). Rewards and punishments operate in a manner analogous  
> with evolved behavioral
> biases in approach and avoidance tendencies, but work to adjust  
> behavior within
> a lifetime.
>
> The ToK picks the story back up once humans have a  
> symbolic-semantic-syntactical language. It says that the emergence  
> of language was a game changer. This is where the JH and the  
> emergence of "Culture" comes in. The JH points to a feedback loop  
> between language, reason giving, self-consciousness and the  
> emergence of culture as shared, large scale system of belief-values.  
> Cultures are justification systems. (Minds are behavioral investment  
> systems). Humans are mental behavioral investors that plug into  
> justification systems. Justifications are the thing that links my  
> level of analysis at the human individual (i.e. human psychology) to  
> Joe's level as a sociologist.
>
> Hope that helps clarify the vision from the ToK...
>
> Best,
> G
>
>
>
>
>
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Nancy Link
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:35 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Stam's critique
>
> Dear Gregg and Joe,
>
> I feel frustrated the state of affairs within psychology and the  
> social sciences.   I see the discipline of psychology swinging from  
> one hot topic to the next, following the research funding,   I agree  
> that overall  the field is not disturbed by this  lack of coherence,  
> but I consider this a glaring problem.
>
> I suspect that  this frustration is shared by others in the group  
> and it is one motivation for the effort to develop integrated  
> theory. An integrated theory for psychology and the social sciences  
> would end or reduce the incoherence. If such a theory existed,   
> investigators would have to position themselves in relation to the  
> theory or develop a new one. The question on my mind how would such  
> a theory be structured?
>
> Gregg - Forgive me if I don't get this right.  At least one aspect  
> of the development of your theory is to reposition Psychology as the  
> science of mental behaviour, both human and animal mental behaviour.  
> Animal mental behaviour gets us to the evolution of mind and human  
> mental behaviour and the justification hypothesis  gets us to the  
> evolution of culture. The problem for me is that I don't see the  
> causal steps.  What are the changes  in evolution that take us from  
> life to mind or from mind to culture? For example, the justification  
> hypothesis depends of language. Where does language come from?
>
> If I am correct and you don't see the lack of causal explanation as  
> critical, how do you see your theory as advancing us from the  
> current state of affairs ?
>
> Nancy
>
>
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> on  
> behalf of Gregg Henriques <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Reply-To: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Date: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 12:46 PM
> To:  
> "[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>"  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Subject: Re: Stam's critique
>
> Hi Nancy,
>
>   I am uncertain if I am following your question/comment, so I  
> apologize if I am repeating myself. Of course, my personal/theory  
> answer is, yes, we need a theory/framework that includes animal  
> behavior all the way down. But, I was pointing out that there are  
> two issues. One is the ToK version of how psychology should be  
> defined, if we had our language/conceptual system coherently  
> organized around it. And the second isthe way the institution  
> functionally operates in modern society. The two are different.
>
>
>   1.  The ToK Version of Psychology
>  The ToK states that "psychology" can be defined effectively as a  
> singular entity that also consists of three great branches, basic,  
> human and professional. This argument is spelled out in the chapter,  
> Defining Psychology   
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.gregghenriques.com_uploads_2_4_3_6_24368778_defining-5Fpsyc.pdf&d=DwMF-g&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=VR0lJXTndbvFvsSi1WlXkFDtqIq5yyx8oHzhh3IjnQo&s=EwfyC2qIhCNKfCwjPIIJDVAczxRWi1CLl57VB5AmyD4&e=>  from my book. Basic psychology should be, first and foremost, defined as the science of mental behavior (corresponding to the behavior of animals, mediated by the nervous system). This would include comparative psychology, ethology, behavioral ecology, the experimental analysis of behavior of animals in the lab, animal cognition, cognitive/behavioral/affective neuroscience, and all other disciplines of this ilk, including everything to do with animal learning. The attachment describing praying mantis behavior was an analysis of basic mental/psychological behavioral  
> patterns.
>
> Then there is human psychology (the science of human/person mental  
> behavior), which is defined by the ToK as a unique branch of basic  
> psychology because humans also operate at the Cultural dimension of  
> behavioral complexity. The third formal, separate branch the  
> profession of psychology, consisting of licensed health service  
> psychologists (what I train and call "psychological doctors"). Here  
> is a visual depiction of these three branches, offering clear  
> parallels with biology (basic psychology), neuroscience (to human  
> psychology) and medicine (to the profession):
> [cid:image001.png@01D454E8.5AEEEAE0]
>
>   1.  The Real/Current world of psychologists
> A significant weakness of this conceptual analysis provided by the  
> ToK is that it does not align well with the actual roles and  
> functions of psychologists currently in the world. (It aligns better  
> with how American psychology was organized in 1930s). Thus, a very  
> reasonable critique of my argument goes something like this: "But  
> studying animal behavior is not primarily what psychologists do!  
> Ethology is a generally considered biological discipline and  
> virtually everyone who nowadays researches animal behavior  
> (especially animals like insects!) are biologists by training. So  
> the claim that they should be psychologists fails in practice."
>
> The point I am making here is that there is a tension and a  
> conceptual misalignment between the definition of the field, its  
> history (at least in America), and what modern psychologists are  
> doing (focusing/working almost solely with humans). Given this, then  
> the question becomes what to do about it. I see three main options.
>
> One option, the option taken by the field so far, is to ignore it.  
> Psychologists are what they do. We don't have coherence anyway, the  
> field is working fine by the influence it is accruing and number of  
> majors and so forth. Who cares about such issues? There is no  
> universal way to define these things, etc.
>
> Option two and three argue that language coherence matters. However,  
> they take different approaches.
>
> Option two is the ToK option that we reclaim the word psychology to  
> refer to mental behavior and stake out that territory. This is what  
> I mean by what I think should happen. (note: I don't think this will  
> or can happen because of institutional inertia, but in an ideal  
> world, this is what should happen at the level of conceptual  
> coherence).
>
> Option three is for psychology to formally get out of the animal  
> behavior/learning business, at least in terms of the subject matter  
> that makes up our identity (i.e., the thing we study). That would be  
> considered a separate cluster of sciences perhaps, the  
> Mind/Brain/Animal Behavior Sciences. In this formulation, psychology  
> would have links to it, but not be formally aligned with it or  
> defined by it. This has the advantage of being pretty much what  
> psychologists are actually doing in society. But it has the  
> disadvantage of disconnecting the field from its foundational  
> conceptual roots.
>
> Ok, I hope this makes sense and that I was in the ballpark of  
> clarifying my claims.
>
> Best,
> Gregg
>
>
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On  
> Behalf Of Nancy Link
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 11:55 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Stam's critique
>
> Gregg,
>
> Thank you for you response. I appreciate that both you and I are  
> intensely interested in this issue.
>
> I gather that what you are saying is that the science of psychology  
> used to be about the study of  human and animal behaviour and now it  
> is about the study of human mental behaviour.
>
> What about all the facts that those scientists gathered on the  
> learning of animals ? Do we just forget them? If we do, are not  
> contributing to the disunity within psychology?
> Should not a unified theory for psychology include a bridge that  
> connects animal learning theory to human mentalism?
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Nancy
>
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> on  
> behalf of Gregg Henriques <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Reply-To: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Date: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 9:36 AM
> To:  
> "[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>"  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Subject: Re: Stam's critique
>
> Nancy,
>
> Interesting point, and one I largely agree with. I did my case study  
> of  
> Maggie<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201706_maggies-2Dstory-2Dthe-2Dmany-2Dreasons-2Dwhy-2Dnot&d=DwMF-g&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=V66h90Yxd9QOlRw0-9JzFjWIrL55UI-xPgYulZ-qiBY&s=36BNEB4vp9CS1CcQiP2KewKjeSztUBIx5BoDeZMdOaw&e=> in part to demonstrate that the UTUA language game is up to the task of capturing clinical/human  
> phenomena.
>
> For me, your point raises the general issue of the identity of  
> psychology and its proper subject matter. From a ToK System  
> perspective, what you are describing is the central interface  
> between human and professional psychology. That is, how does the  
> science of human psychology frame human experience in a way that  
> allows clinicians to operate in the therapy room in a scientifically  
> informed way? I agree that this is, arguably, the most central,  
> pragmatic question of our field.
>
> However, I would add a point of clarification. I would not  
> characterize it as the center of the basic science of psychology.   
> At least from a ToK metaphysical system perspective, the basic  
> science of psychology is concerned with the mental. Mental is a  
> description that characterizes what makes animal behavior so  
> different from that of inanimate objects and organisms like cells  
> and plants. I am particularly attuned to this because I am right in  
> the middle of working on this in my book. Attached is an excerpt  
> clarifying why I say this.
>
> For me, the basic science of psychology should be defined as the  
> science of mental behavior. Comparative/Basic psychology is  
> concerned with describing and explaining animal behavior (the  
> functional behavior of the animal as a whole, mediated by the  
> nervous system). Human psychology should be an important/major  
> subdiscipline. The human subdiscipline is what connects to and  
> scientifically informs the profession (which ideally feedbacks and  
> informs the science of human psychology). Now I say "should be"  
> because the institution of psychology can be defined anyway that we  
> psychologists want. I am making this pitch on conceptual grounds to  
> align the field with the (abstract) model provided by the ToK (and a  
> coherent language system more generally).
>
> I fully recognized that there is a strong argument against this,  
> which is that this is not how the institution of psychology has  
> evolved, nor does it correspond to how most psychologists currently  
> function. Animal behavior has gone by way of the biologists and  
> comparative psychology is fading  
> fast<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov_pmc_articles_PMC4591476_&d=DwMF-g&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=V66h90Yxd9QOlRw0-9JzFjWIrL55UI-xPgYulZ-qiBY&s=dZMuoVK-YMFkY198lvouMB9xM6qS4INX7YzgqLo6VRE&e=>.  As Stam's article note, something like 90% of psychologists are in applied domains, at least in the US. And of the meager 10% who are scholars, probably 80-90% of those are interested in humans. So, probably less than 5% of psychologists deal with animals these days. Of course, in the heyday of behaviorism in the 1920-40s, most experimental psychologists were animal behavioral researchers, so it has  
> evolved.
>
> The bottom line is that the field faces an identity issue, no matter  
> how you slice it. It is most commonly defined in textbooks as the  
> science of "behavior and mental processes." If this has any  
> conceptual validity at all, it corresponds to animals in general  
> rather than humans only. And yet, almost all modern psychologists  
> study and help humans. So the field is most definitely off kilter in  
> terms of its alignment. As an institution, if we care about  
> coherence, we need to decide if we are about human or animal mental  
> behavior. Of course, as the Stam article points out, coherence has  
> never been something that the field has achieved and by now,  
> psychologists have habituated to and accepted its absence.
>
> Thanks,
> Gregg
>
>
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On  
> Behalf Of Nancy Link
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 8:01 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Stam's critique
>
> Hi Gregg,
>
> Thank for this article and the discussion.   I agree that the route  
> to the unification of psychology lies in  scientific psychology  
> being able able to address at an abstract level the human phenomena  
> observed within clinical psychology.
>
> Nancy
>
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> on  
> behalf of Gregg Henriques <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Reply-To: tree of knowledge system discussion  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Date: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 7:35 AM
> To:  
> "[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>"  
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Subject: Stam's critique
>
> Hi List,
>
>   In case anyone is in the mood for some philosophical psychology  
> early on a Tuesday morning, here is a 2015 article I came across  
> yesterday by Hank Stam, who offered a critique of the unified theory  
> back in 2004. This is a similar viewpoint. He is not a fan of  
> attempting to unified the field, ToK style, although he does respect  
> the effort (he was editor of Theory and Psychology and invited me to  
> do a special issue on it in 2008).
>
> Here is the article:
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov_pmc_articles_PMC4595780_&d=DwIBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=7gPGlTV070n3UfWg-gEip2TuFxhVUNS3_o3VJofAza4&s=R0umWrIpyJSrUVoFewHrShaUKV83Qe4sH2rO62yLaNk&e=<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov_pmc_articles_PMC4595780_&d=DwMF-g&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=ooUOZHYNlwvxTdxvTqfZy_0MWbewbJ7txC_zVMEzKbE&s=2xQQmfQ8eNe0r71-WaG3ux_ZcDAbggoZOhhPDgG_np8&e=>
>
> Here is the most relevant part, at least in relation to a critique  
> of the UTUA approach. I think it is worth being aware of:
>
> "But it has meant that from time to time there have been attempts to  
> "unify" psychology under some banner or other so that, at the very  
> least, the stories told to the public by both academics and  
> practitioners would match. The claim is that psychology is not  
> unified and this hurts both its practitioners and its status as a  
> science (Staats, 1991; Henriques, 2008)3. A quick and simplistic  
> comparison is then drawn with the natural sciences wherein physics  
> is taken to be exemplary but even biology will do as a standard.  
> This is then contrasted to psychology's squabbles and the lack of a  
> consensus on the status of just what is scientific and what counts  
> as pseudo-science and, goes the argument, it is high time to clean  
> up the mess. Some one or another scheme is then proffered for  
> replacing many small but recalcitrant theories in the discipline and  
> this over-riding scheme is usually packaged as superior because of  
> its ability to unite, provide a foundation, or otherwise cohere the  
> many strands that make up the contemporary discipline.
>
> Although not numerous, such schemes usually include a list of  
> reasons why this is a problem or why psychology is a "disunified  
> science" in Staats's (1991) words. After some broad generalizations,  
> lumping all areas of psychology together, a wide variety of  
> propositions or arguments have been put forth to unify the  
> discipline. In Staats's (1994) case, this was a "unified positivism"  
> or a "psychological behaviorism" depending on what phase of Staats's  
> career one is reading. Ultimately it was an attempt to fuse multiple  
> areas and features of psychology into a single "unified science."  
> Others of more recent vintage have attempted to keep these projects  
> alive, or at least to put their personal stamp on such a project for  
> every unification project seems to require that its proponent think  
> through the problem anew. In recent years, Sternberg and Grigorenko  
> (2001), Goertzen (2008) and Henriques (2008) among many others have  
> continued to write on these questions, providing variations on the  
> problem (is there a "crisis" of unification?) and offering numerous  
> solutions (e.g., the "tree of knowledge,"-Henriques, a "unified  
> psychology approach"-Sternberg), and so on (see Stam, 2004 for one  
> critique).
>
> The problems with these projects are (i) they are not responses to  
> genuine problems in psychology but an attempt to impose order on  
> disorder from an abstract vantage point, (ii) their relationship to  
> empirical research is thin, and (iii) they rarely amount to more  
> than a singular project or a personal vision of some abstract  
> structures and/or institutional and political processes that might  
> solve the so-called "crisis of disunification" (Green, 2015). But  
> all of these, it is important to note, have also been proposed at a  
> high level of abstraction without solving any particular, single,  
> concrete problem in the discipline. Indeed what characterizes such  
> projects is their considerable remove from the world of minute,  
> everyday psychological phenomena."
>
> Best,
> Gregg
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