Agreed! This would make an excellent debate blog post...
On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 5:51 PM Marquis, Andre <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I, for one, am enjoying the dialogues between Gregg and John!
> andre
>
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]>
> on behalf of JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: tree of knowledge system discussion <
> [log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at 2:23 PM
> To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: How Psychology Helps Reinforce the Justification System of
> Neoliberalism
>
> Gregg, you are taking an anthropocentric position IMHO. I would submit
> that if you woke up in a fly's realm, but with your human attributes that
> you would rapidly succumb to the fly swatter absent the fly's skill set.
> All of the human qualities you enumerate are highly admirable, but they are
> what we humans use to do human things. And they have evolved from our
> bidpedal body habitus, freeing our forelimbs for specialized functions like
> tool making and texting, followed by language as another 'tool' needed to
> express ourselves while operating tools. Yes, we are probably unique in
> 'knowing that we know', but that has also resulted in our species being the
> only one that is destroying the planet, so that should give us pause.
>
> And yes, all organisms are conscious in their own idiosyncratic ways, in
> service to being aware of their specific enviornments, in turn in service
> to passing their genes from one generation to the next as the biologic
> imperative- that's why all species are engaged in evolution. Bottom line is
> that all of life exists in recognition of the Singularity as its origin as
> the template for our existence pre-Big Bang, the 'equal and opposite
> reaction' complying with Newton's Third Law of Motion, which we now
> identify as homeostasis as the reason that matter exists....without
> homeostasis there would only be energy. This is the basis for Alfred North
> Whitehead's "Process Theory". He intuited that matter is a transient state
> of energy, and that it is for this reason that only relationships matter
> (pun intended). I think that until we come to this realization we will
> continue to keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a
> different outcome, which is a functional definition of insanity,
> recognizing that I am ironically responding to a psychologist (with the
> best of intentions on my part)....
>
> On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 2:06 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Yes, John, we have confirmed we disagree on this point. J
>>
>>
>>
>> You do agree that we humans have a different form of information
>> processing than animals called symbolic, syntactical language, correct? And
>> you agree that we humans are the only animals that have the self-reflective
>> capacity, such that we know that we know, right? And we are the only
>> creatures that develop science and attempt to map the Explicate v.
>> Implicate order, correct? So, if consciousness is awareness (which is a
>> point that I believe you have made), then it seems to me that there are a
>> number of dimensions of awareness (i.e., self-conscious, reflective,
>> linguistically explicit, logical analysis) that represents a big difference
>> between we humans and, say, houseflies…or fish or snakes or ravens or rat
>> or chimps or dolphins…but wait, are you saying all animals have the same
>> level of consciousness? That would be a radical claim, at least as I am
>> conceptualizing consciousness (note, I mean little “c” not your big “C”)
>>
>>
>>
>> You have your “diachronic versus synchronic deck chair” claim, which I
>> continue to try to wrap my “evolutionary time oriented” mind around. Keep
>> in mind I have my argument that the universe represents different levels
>> and dimensions of complexity, with the different dimensions of complexity
>> emerging as a function of different information-communication systems,
>> Life-genes, Mind-nervous systems, Culture-human language, which I think you
>> have trouble wrapping your mind around.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best of intentions,
>>
>> G
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* tree of knowledge system discussion <
>> [log in to unmask]> *On Behalf Of *JOHN TORDAY
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 27, 2019 1:32 PM
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* Re: How Psychology Helps Reinforce the Justification System
>> of Neoliberalism
>>
>>
>>
>> As you well know Gregg, I respectfully disagree with the distinction
>> between animal consciousness and human consciousness. I maintain that
>> consciousness is derivative of physiology, and if that is correct, we don't
>> distinguish the principles of physiology in animals and humans.....to the
>> contrary, we study animal physiology to understand human physiology, not
>> just for ethical reasons, but because the comparative anatomy, biochemistry
>> and molecular biology inform us about the evolution of physiology. As for
>> mapping the relationships between disciplines, it must be more than just
>> the synchronic real-time 'rearranging the deck chairs'; it must entail a
>> diachronic, across space/time transcendent perspective in order to factor
>> out the artifacts of the human subjectivity about our origins and mechanism
>> of evolution, starting with unicellular organisms, moving forward. Just to
>> be clear, there are commonalities between how Mendeleev configured the
>> Periodic Table of Elements and that for Evolutionary Biology as I have
>> conceptualized it based on experimental data rather than inductive
>> reasoning. This is an important insight because both chemical equations and
>> the mechanisms of physiologic evolution offer the opportunity to transcend
>> space/time, providing that essential diachronic view I have alluded to that
>> is necessary in order to get to the fundament of Nature as the literal
>> product of the Big Bang. Only then can we understand interdisciplinarity
>> IMHO.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 12:34 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <
>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for these thoughts, Jason and John.
>>
>>
>>
>> One thing I would offer from a ToK System lens regarding the point about
>> “behavior” and psychology and the social sciences, is that a major hurdle
>> to any coherent, consilient dual major or interdisciplinary view is that we
>> have lacked the appropriate map of the whole.
>>
>>
>>
>> For example, at the institutional level, it is absolutely the case that
>> psychology focuses its lens on human behavior at the individual level.
>> However, virtually all its foundational concepts regarding learning and
>> neuro-cognitive maps are at the level of the “mental” (i.e., animal
>> behavior and the idea that the mind is what the brain does). In other
>> words, to have linguistic clarity, we need to split basic/animal psychology
>> from human psychology and then place human psychology as the base of the
>> social sciences.
>>
>>
>>
>> We will achieve more effective multi/interdisciplinary perspectives if we
>> map out the relationships between the disciplines in a more effective way.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> G
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* tree of knowledge system discussion <
>> [log in to unmask]> *On Behalf Of *JOHN TORDAY
>> *Sent:* Monday, February 25, 2019 7:39 AM
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* Re: How Psychology Helps Reinforce the Justification System
>> of Neoliberalism
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Jason, Gregg and TOKers, the 'silo-ing' of intellectual pursuits is
>> overwhelmingly apparent in this thread. I have been involved in the
>> initiative for what is being termed Interdisciplinarity for a number of
>> years, contributing to the *Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity,* for
>> example. I assumed that that effort was pervasive, only to realize through
>> this discussion that clearly it is not. If I may share my own life
>> experience, I was a Biology/English double major in college. Through that
>> interdisciplinary approach I learned how to 'dissect' both a frog and a
>> poem, literally. But the contrast was palpable in the sense that my poetry
>> Professor would read a piece of poetry, 'dissect' it over the course of the
>> lecture, but would never let us out of the lecture hall until he had read
>> it again in its entirety because it didn't exist other than as a whole.
>> Conversely, the frog would remain on the lab bench in pieces, and many of
>> my classmates are your physicians, I might add. My learning experience was
>> that the frog, like the poem, did not exist without reassembling it, which
>> I have done as a cellular biologist/physiologist over the course of the
>> last 50 years. It's far more difficult to see things both as parts and
>> wholes, let alone teach it, but as Gregg had alluded to, perhaps we'd be
>> better off learning through dual disciplines that complement one another,
>> like Psychology and Sociology, IMHO.
>>
>>
>>
>> And not to get too meta, but I think the reason that we need to use a
>> 'double major' approach is because we are only approximating the 'truth' in
>> David Bohm's Explicate Order (*Wholeness and the Implicate Order*), so
>> to have an informed perspective, we must see things through more than one
>> lens. I have, for example, come to the realization that the reason we must
>> control a scientific experiment is because what we are examining is only
>> relative, not absolute, so we need to provide a 'context' or framework in
>> which to do so.....in Bohm's ideal or Implicate Order, for example, there
>> is no need for controls, if you get my drift. I offer these thoughts with
>> the best of intentions.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 2:40 PM nysa71 <
>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Gregg writes, " A problem, of course, is that mainstream psychologists
>> and psychotherapists don’t think about the macro-level structures..."
>>
>> It's funny you should mention that. Over a decade ago, I started thinking
>> that it was strange that there were these institutional "walls" between
>> psychology and the other social sciences, and that it seemed so "early 20th
>> century". I remember thinking that they're all dealing with human behavior
>> --- with psychology dealing with individual behaviors, but the other social
>> sciences dealing with the context within which individuals behave, (and
>> those social structures being both reinforced and changed due to behaviors
>> at the level of psychology).
>>
>> All of these fields have developed to the point where I sometimes
>> wondered if it would make more sense to start thinking of universities
>> offering more "general" bachelor degrees along the lines of "Psychology &
>> Social Science", and then focusing on a specific disciple, (e.g.,
>> psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, etc.),
>> in post graduate studies.
>>
>> At the very least, psychology undergraduates should be required to take
>> some social science classes.
>>
>> ~ Jason Bessey
>>
>> On Sunday, February 24, 2019, 10:35:01 AM EST, Henriques, Gregg -
>> henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for sharing this, Jason. Neoliberalism and its critique is a major
>> focus of a number of the major Div 24 scholars, with Jeff Sugarman leading
>> the way. A problem, of course, is that mainstream psychologists and
>> psychotherapists don’t think about the macro-level structures, values and
>> processes that are operative. Rather they look at phenomena and clients and
>> try to describe and explain what they see, with really appreciating the
>> deep context.
>>
>>
>>
>> My favorite book on a related topic is Barry Schwartz’s The Battle for
>> Human Nature
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Battle-2DHuman-2DNature-2DScience-2DMorality_dp_0393304450&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pXQ2SEX6BD7KGH3vPZgvrLZ7AAYVVT_vaq07aAJgoms&s=u3WdyySlG7vIl2KMErhZQBr88We_e0_390E8CwYOFEs&e=>.
>> It reviews behavioral theory, evolutionary theory and economics and here is
>> its summary:
>>
>>
>>
>> *Out of the investigations and speculations of contemporary science, a
>> challenging view of human behavior and society has emerged and gained
>> strength. It is a view that equates “human nature” utterly and unalterably
>> with the pursuit of self-interest. Influenced by this view, people
>> increasingly appeal to natural imperatives, instead of moral ones, to
>> explain and justify their actions and those of others.*
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> G
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* tree of knowledge system discussion <
>> [log in to unmask]> *On Behalf Of *nysa71
>> *Sent:* Saturday, February 23, 2019 5:03 PM
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* How Psychology Helps Reinforce the Justification System of
>> Neoliberalism
>>
>>
>>
>> Interesting paper on psychology and neoliberalism:
>>
>> ABSTRACT
>>
>> This article draws attention to the relationship between neoliberalism
>> and psychology. Features of this relationship can be seen with reference to
>> recent studies linking psychology to neoliberalism through the constitution
>> of a kind of subjectivity susceptible to neoliberal governmentality. Three
>> examples are presented that reveal the ways in which psychologists are
>> implicated in the neoliberal agenda: psychologists’ conception and
>> treatment of social anxiety disorder, positive psychology, and educational
>> psychology. It is hoped that presenting and discussing these cases broadens
>> the context of consideration in which psychological ethics might be
>> examined and more richly informed. It is concluded that only by
>> interrogating neoliberalism, psychologists’ relationship to it, how it
>> affects what persons are and might become, and whether it is good for human
>> well-being can we understand the ethics of psychological disciplinary and
>> professional practices in the context of a neoliberal political order and
>> if we are living up to our social responsibility.
>>
>> Sugarman, J. (2015). "Neolberalism and Psychological Ethics
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.researchgate.net_profile_Jeff-5FSugarman_publication_276140354-5FNeoliberalism-5Fand-5FPsychological-5FEthics_links_555c08af08aec5ac2232aa06.pdf&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=vwLIeIntBrX9PS9a_NIXhc5NSW7hFU5gGxWKr_V1S8g&s=52cspoZeSdor9CUOfJ1rN27wy_0SO4T-PYmkx9W7nv8&e=>".
>> *Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 35,* 103 - 116.
>>
>> ~ Jason Bessey
>>
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