The appreciation for the dialogue is mutual, and I likewise hope we will
continue!

I see no problems or discrepancies with anything you are proposing and my
own understanding of how all of this is developing and coming into focus.
As I am professionally trained as a clinical psychologist, the fidelity of
my vision is most defined at the conceptual levels of Mind and Culture.  I
possess a cocktail party conversational level of understanding of the
foundational biological processes.  As such, I enthusiastically defer to
your expertise within the biological domain.
And so with all due respects given...


*[So just for clarity, and not for braggadocio, did Freud think that our
consciousness was the internalization of the external environment?]*

I'm not enough a Freud scholar to know if he would agree with that exact
phrasing, or at which time in his life he might have.  I'm curious, though,
and so I'll take a dive back into Freud to see if I can find a direct
quote.  I had a paragraph written out here about it, and then I just caught
that Freud discusses unconscious processes as existing in non-time and I
figured I'd better get out my highlighter and go line-by-line.

*"P -M--> E, which describes behavior, whereas behavior is in service to
epigenetic inheritance, referring all the way back to the First Principles
of Physiology"*

Yes! Exactly.  The Tree of Knowledge system is a model of the unfolding
wave of behavioral complexity that begins with the Big Bang, transitions
through physical processes described by physics and chemistry, and then
biological processes described by someone such as yourself, and then
eventually to the psychological domain of complexity that someone like
myself might try to grapple with.  You and I should both agree that my
typing this sentence to you is in some way a more granulated expression of
a pattern of behavior first articulated through the medium of epigenetic
expression.  Just as a bird does not defy physics when it flies, but rather
works in concert with physical laws, biological properties, and
psychological principles --- *and in that order*.

In "Beyond the Pleasure Principle"  Freud cites Fechner's Law, and quotes
Fechner as follows:

*"every psycho-physical movement rising above the threshold of
consciousness is charged with pleasure in proportion as it
approximates—beyond a certain limit—to complete equilibrium, and with pain
in proportion as it departs from it beyond a certain limit; while between
the two limits which may be described as the qualitative thresholds of
―pain or pleasure, there is a certain area of aesthetic indifference.*"

Gregg's P - M => E is the more advanced and modern articulation of what I
believe Freud was getting at, which is that when we have experiences that
move us significantly toward desired goal states, we become conscious of
feeling good (approach).  Whereas when we have experiences that move us
significantly away from desired states, we become conscious of feeling bad
(avoid).  P - M => E accounts for the physiological electrical-emotional
wave that serves as the orienting, or re-orienting force.

What those goal states are and should be is the big cultural debate we're
having right now.  For me, it all ends with the personal alignment of
consciousness to the reality of the present-moment singularity. However,
before we get there, we have to pass through other layers hardcoded into
our mammalian/ape structure.  Gregg articulates this in his Influence
Matrix.

 My life's work is in answering the question of how to have a heck of a
good time *on the way* *to the singularity*.

* "Oh and the simplification of the algorithm may be the consequence of
being warm-blooded"*

Jung describes this as "individuation," whereas Hobson and Friston describe
it in terms of the reduction of free energy in the external environment.
We carry the heat with us which allows us more freedom from heat sources.
The consequence, of course, is the need for more complex homeostatic
processes, and, thus, the commensurate computational control to organize
and streamline those processes.

Culturally, we are currently experiencing the collective negotiation of
what the social simplification will be, as we are all thrust shoulder to
shoulder through the proliferation of internet connectivity.

John, in the meantime while I continue to school myself on the materials
you're taking the time to send out to us, I am curious what you feel the
effect of consistent and long-term deep breathing exercises might have on
an individual's epigenetic expression and potential self-transformation?

Peace,

-Chance






On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:02 PM, JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Chance, thank you for keeping the momentum of the Conference going (as
> I see it). I want to respond to your thoughtful comments, but to preface
> all that I will say in brackets by stating that what I have been able to do
> is turn biology around 180 degrees, allowing us to finally understand
> evolution from its origins instead of its ends, essentially reasoning after
> the fact, which we know by definition is illogical, yet until now that's
> all we had to go on. BTW, my latest book is entitled "Evolution, the Logic
> of Biology", and I assume that psychology is a branch of biology.... Nuff
> said....
>
>
> I want to chime in quickly and say that as I'm keeping up with the
> articles and discussions here, I'm doing quite a few double and triple
> takes.  John, I was wrong about Friston's first name, and so we were in
> fact talking about the same Karl Friston in our discussions.  I am very
> much a fan of Hobson and Friston's Bayesian brain model, and their
> temperature homeostasis model.  In my conceptual dissertation on dreams, I
> showed that Freud, Hobson, and Friston think of the brain in the same way,
> and in the way that you are articulating here:
>
> "*consciousness is assimilation of the environment as physiology,
> interpreted by our nervous system as consciousness.*"
>
> [Just to be clear, I am saying that what we think of as consciousness as
> the state of being aware is actually our awareness of the Cosmos, or at
> least those aspects that are necessary for our survival, derived from our
> physiologic makeup, which has been internalized from the environment
> endosymbiotically......and this is not metaphysics, it's the current theory
> for evolution from the unicellullar state to multicellular organisms as
> formulated largely by Lynn Margulis]
>
> I am not out to make a point that "Freud was first," but more that when
> two opposing camps actually agree on something a century apart, that we
> should consider that a sign post towards something worth looking at
> closely.
>
> [So just for clarity, and not for braggadocio, did Freud think that our
> consciousness was the internalization of the external environment?]
>
> The brain cooling hypothesis is one that I am attracted to conceptually,
> but I did not have enough time to research it enough to endorse it
> *strongly* in my own research.  I had to "earmark it" for later.  So thus
> my double take that you, John, have published on this.
>
> [And just for background, when I read Hobson and Friston's brain cooling
> hypothesis I instinctively thought to myself "well if brain cooling's
> important in dreams during REM sleep, the brain had to have been warm
> before it could cool, so I reflected on my theory of the evolution of
> endothermy, evolving during the water-land transition, causing physiologic
> stress and remodeling of the internal organs- skeleton, lung, kidney,
> thyroid, brain- and how that might have played out in brain cooling,
> particularly since only mammals and birds are warm blooded, and only
> mammals and birds exhibit brain cooling]
>
> I feel that this discussion and these conceptualizations are highly
> relevant to the current situation we find ourselves in.  The Bayesian Brain
> model/the UT/Freud/Torday model would suggest that the individual self is
> attempting to expand its awareness in order to account for the changes in
> the environment, but at the same time is driven towards simpler algorithms
> for processing the increased data and knowledge needing to be considered.
>
> [The other aspect, IMHO, is what Andy Clark is expressing in that New
> Yorker article that Gregg distributed, "Are we already living in a virtual
> reality". Clark talks about the externalization of the mind or disembodied
> consciousness. My bias is that this is how our minds are evolving, moving
> further toward the Singularity from whence we evolved. But this is not
> higher consciousness, it's the stripping away of the Explicate Order we are
> burdened with by perceiving the environment with our subjective senses,
> when the true Implicate Order lies elsewhere in the gap between us and the
> Singularity of the Cosmos. And no, I don't think of this as philosophy, it
> is a natural extension of the evolution of the human mind, which can
> conceive of past/present/future simultaneously due to the co-evolution of
> bipedalism, warm-bloodedness and the prehensil thumb. There is an actual
> DNA modifier that is unique to hominins that confers the prehensil thumb,
> mobile wrist and ankle on us. Oh and the simplification of the algorithm
> may be the consequence of being warm-blooded. Cold blooded organisms
> require multiple enzymes to accomplish the same metabolic step that
> warm-blooded organisms only require one enzyme for, which is why there was
> a collapse of the vertebrate genome in the post-Cambrian period when
> endotherms evolved. If the nervous system has evolved to regulate
> physiology, then that simplification would have translated to the simpler
> algorithm you referred to Chance. Oh, and to finish that thought, the
> simper metabolism also facilitated bipedalism because it takes more energy
> to stand on two legs v four, and the evolution of bipedalism freed the
> forelimbs for flight and texting, hence the selection pressure for the
> prehensil thumb(?)]
>
> Freud (and then later Hobson and Friston) talk about *surprise* as being
> inherently aversive to the organism, thus the drive to be able to predict
> what's going to happen next.  However, as experiences accrue, so do the
> proliferation of  "if - then" possibilities that the brain must calculate.
> Just like a computer will heat up if the system is overclocked, so the
> runaway brain theoretically becomes at risk for free energy spillage within
> the system, thus creating  neuro-associative damage.  I think of this like
> the water drip torture, where water is dripped on the face at random
> intervals.  The increasing anticipation of the next drop is said to lead to
> insanity (See Gregg's behavioral shut down model here:
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowle&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Qo8vmSq3kiJBIepmhSFCa5qCN6q0QnhwuxFUVx067MU&s=HK3cQ7uLdkiGFj0ztdfB-SSrXGwW0GMAiGwxM5cyw88&e=
> dge/201604/the-behavioral-shutdown-theory-depression
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201604_the-2Dbehavioral-2Dshutdown-2Dtheory-2Ddepression&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=U1HJ6jN3F5lwru9oOyTEknkaDlIVtjCtG3CvPIA9cgw&s=DFsVsrmmdPlOguTVY8QxCrOwuiKGstsWkQMhB7kKl5M&e=>
> )
>
> The tension is thus that it is more pleasurable to live life in a state of
> reflexive certainty, but once we become aware that our reflexes do not
> account for the total free energy in the environment, we feel the tug to
> incorporate more environment into our physiology.  "Why, oh why, didn't I
> take the blue pill," or said another way:  "ignorance is bliss."
>
> [My take is that you're talking about homeostasis, or energetic balance.
> In the face of dyshomeostasis, the cell-cell interactions that maintain
> such energetic balance physiologically are perturbed, generating what are
> called Radical Oxygen Species (ROS) due to the shear stress on
> microvessels. Such ROSs cause gene mutations and duplications locally in
> those tissues most affected, leading to remodeling of the
> structure/function to re-establish homeostasis, or what we conventionally
> call evolution. This certainly works in the visceral organs, and peripheral
> nervous system. Not sure how it would play out in the CNS other than as an
> inflammatory mechanism of some sort, given that you don't have capillaries
> in the brain (I don't claim to have all the answers...yet)]
>
> The solution to this tension between the desire to "take it easy" versus
> the anxious urge to anticipate the environment is the formation of simpler
> algorithmic models that consider all of the known variables, and thus allow
> the self to maintain certainty across the most situations possible.  This
> resolves the dialectical tension between death anxiety (which results from
> uncertainty) and the pleasure principle (the retention of optimal energy
> homeostasis).
>
> [I don't think this is an active process at the functional level, it's
> innate, as I have described above. But we become conscious of it and
> respond accordingly through self-awareness and social cues]
>
> Gregg's Behavioral Investment Theory is the best psychological model for
> this that I have encountered, and is fully compatible with everything that
> I'm reading so far from you, John.
>
> *I need to continue to read the articles you've sent out carefully*,
> though I will shoot from the hip now and say that your model seems
> theoretically rich at the domain of "Life" and then thins out at the level
> of Mind and Culture.
>
> Have you looked closely at P - M => E  ?
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Qo8vmSq3kiJBIepmhSFCa5qCN6q0QnhwuxFUVx067MU&s=fd4qloIzgnU6BjPg80Zop6SSZNaxWCGSwvYkNokIOwg&e=
> 306/perceptions-motives-and-emotions-control-theory-model
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201306_perceptions-2Dmotives-2Dand-2Demotions-2Dcontrol-2Dtheory-2Dmodel&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=U1HJ6jN3F5lwru9oOyTEknkaDlIVtjCtG3CvPIA9cgw&s=rmMQ06qMrc228fdO0Sh40v6B3zfuukgmu87MpEGW4g0&e=>
>
> [All due respect Chance, the model may only seem to peter out at the Mind
> and Culture level because it is integral with them. I think of it like the
> debate between Punctuated Equilibrium (evolution occurs in fits and starts)
> and Gradualism (as the term would infer). They are one and the same
> process, they just appear to be different depending upon the way they are
> perceived. This is the same as Neils Bohr's Complementarity hypothesis,
> explaining why light can be seen as both particle and wave. He said that
> the duality was due to the way light was being measured, but that they were
> one and the same in reality. I consider such dualities and dichotomies and
> dialectics the residual of the Singularity/Big Bang. We came into existence
> as an ambiguity of Free Energy, negative within and positive without. We
> learned to cope with that ambiguity through deceptions, originating with
> the deception of Nature by circumventing the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
> only complying when we die. That founding deception hypothetically gave
> rise to the deceptions that Robert Trivers had described in his book "The
> Folly of Fools". The persistence of such behaviors should, in my opinion,
> by rectified now that we recognize this historic 'error'......that was a
> long-winded run up to my comment about P -M--> E, which describes behavior,
> whereas behavior is in service to epigenetic inheritance, referring all the
> way back to the First Principles of Physiology in the unicell (witness the
> fact that we return to the unicellular state as a 'reality check' to make
> sure we are in compliance with such principles....mechanically, that occurs
> when we undergo meiosis, or reduction division from 46 to 23 chromosomes.
> During that process there is an as yet to be determined mechanism by which
> the epigenetic marks collected during the life cycle of the organism are
> sorted out as to which 'marks' are consistent with the history of the
> organism genetically. So the offspring express the newly acquired
> epigenetic marks that informed the parent as to changes in the environment.
> In other words the phenotype is not a passive product of reproduction, it
> is an active 'agent' for the on-going acquisition of epigenetic in the next
> generation, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. I have attached the paper
> I published on the Phenotype as Agent, which yet again comes out of the 180
> degree turn around of biology from description to mechanism. I would like
> to think that this would/could/should apply to psychology as well.😀]
>
> By the way, if you want to translate this Western frame into a more
> Eastern one, then every time you hear the word "Chi" and "energy" just
> think of it in terms of the Bayesian brain model, where perfect "Chi" flow
> is simply a 1 - 1 ratio of adaptive reflexivity between self and
> environment.
>
> [I think my take on the continuum from the physical to the physiologic is
> in sync with Eastern philosophy. In fact we contributed the attached paper
> on ambiguity to a special issue of Progress in Biophysics and Molecular
> Biology on Eastern Holism-Western Reductionism]
>
> Hope I don't sound too hubristic, but I do think that the model I have
> concocted is an improvement on descriptive biology based on
> parsimony/Occam's Razor. I appreciate your willingness to dialogue with
> me.....hope we can continue. John
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 2:58 PM, Chance McDermott <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> I want to chime in quickly and say that as I'm keeping up with the
>> articles and discussions here, I'm doing quite a few double and triple
>> takes.  John, I was wrong about Friston's first name, and so we were in
>> fact talking about the same Karl Friston in our discussions.  I am very
>> much a fan of Hobson and Friston's Bayesian brain model, and their
>> temperature homeostasis model.  In my conceptual dissertation on dreams, I
>> showed that Freud, Hobson, and Friston think of the brain in the same way,
>> and in the way that you are articulating here:
>>
>> "*consciousness is assimilation of the environment as physiology,
>> interpreted by our nervous system as consciousness.*"
>>
>> I am not out to make a point that "Freud was first," but more that when
>> two opposing camps actually agree on something a century apart, that we
>> should consider that a sign post towards something worth looking at
>> closely.
>>
>> The brain cooling hypothesis is one that I am attracted to conceptually,
>> but I did not have enough time to research it enough to endorse it
>> *strongly* in my own research.  I had to "earmark it" for later.  So
>> thus my double take that you, John, have published on this.
>>
>> I feel that this discussion and these conceptualizations are highly
>> relevant to the current situation we find ourselves in.  The Bayesian Brain
>> model/the UT/Freud/Torday model would suggest that the individual self is
>> attempting to expand its awareness in order to account for the changes in
>> the environment, but at the same time is driven towards simpler algorithms
>> for processing the increased data and knowledge needing to be considered.
>>
>> Freud (and then later Hobson and Friston) talk about *surprise* as being
>> inherently aversive to the organism, thus the drive to be able to predict
>> what's going to happen next.  However, as experiences accrue, so do the
>> proliferation of  "if - then" possibilities that the brain must calculate.
>> Just like a computer will heat up if the system is overclocked, so the
>> runaway brain theoretically becomes at risk for free energy spillage within
>> the system, thus creating  neuro-associative damage.  I think of this like
>> the water drip torture, where water is dripped on the face at random
>> intervals.  The increasing anticipation of the next drop is said to lead to
>> insanity (See Gregg's behavioral shut down model here:
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2D&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Qo8vmSq3kiJBIepmhSFCa5qCN6q0QnhwuxFUVx067MU&s=JUhLucbsSv1ydmqcASik-bcUhLiOhbzs2MP25c-UT1Q&e=
>> knowledge/201604/the-behavioral-shutdown-theory-depression
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201604_the-2Dbehavioral-2Dshutdown-2Dtheory-2Ddepression&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=U1HJ6jN3F5lwru9oOyTEknkaDlIVtjCtG3CvPIA9cgw&s=DFsVsrmmdPlOguTVY8QxCrOwuiKGstsWkQMhB7kKl5M&e=>
>> )
>>
>> The tension is thus that it is more pleasurable to live life in a state
>> of reflexive certainty, but once we become aware that our reflexes do not
>> account for the total free energy in the environment, we feel the tug to
>> incorporate more environment into our physiology.  "Why, oh why, didn't I
>> take the blue pill," or said another way:  "ignorance is bliss."
>>
>> The solution to this tension between the desire to "take it easy" versus
>> the anxious urge to anticipate the environment is the formation of simpler
>> algorithmic models that consider all of the known variables, and thus allow
>> the self to maintain certainty across the most situations possible.  This
>> resolves the dialectical tension between death anxiety (which results from
>> uncertainty) and the pleasure principle (the retention of optimal energy
>> homeostasis).
>>
>> Gregg's Behavioral Investment Theory is the best psychological model for
>> this that I have encountered, and is fully compatible with everything that
>> I'm reading so far from you, John.
>>
>> *I need to continue to read the articles you've sent out carefully*,
>> though I will shoot from the hip now and say that your model seems
>> theoretically rich at the domain of "Life" and then thins out at the level
>> of Mind and Culture.
>>
>> Have you looked closely at P - M => E  ?
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Qo8vmSq3kiJBIepmhSFCa5qCN6q0QnhwuxFUVx067MU&s=fd4qloIzgnU6BjPg80Zop6SSZNaxWCGSwvYkNokIOwg&e=
>> 306/perceptions-motives-and-emotions-control-theory-model
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201306_perceptions-2Dmotives-2Dand-2Demotions-2Dcontrol-2Dtheory-2Dmodel&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=U1HJ6jN3F5lwru9oOyTEknkaDlIVtjCtG3CvPIA9cgw&s=rmMQ06qMrc228fdO0Sh40v6B3zfuukgmu87MpEGW4g0&e=>
>>
>> By the way, if you want to translate this Western frame into a more
>> Eastern one, then every time you hear the word "Chi" and "energy" just
>> think of it in terms of the Bayesian brain model, where perfect "Chi" flow
>> is simply a 1 - 1 ratio of adaptive reflexivity between self and
>> environment.
>>
>>
>> -Chance
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:30 AM, JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> To Gregg and the ToK community, I am totally empathetic to Gregg's
>>> frustration with the field of psychology because I have come to the same
>>> point in my coping with Biology/Evolution/Biomedical Research. Like Gregg,
>>> I have come to the realization that we are merely doubling-down on
>>> collecting factoids, assuming that if we haven't figured the problem out
>>> yet we just need more data (or what is commonly held to be the case in the
>>> field of Informatics; the fallacy is that biology, like psychology, is not
>>> a closed system, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, i.e.
>>> some other paradigm is needed). We need a paradigm shift in both biology
>>> and psychology, and Gregg has made a strong and organized case for his Tree
>>> of Knowledge. I, in turn, have offered that the 'joints' in his schematic
>>> are the mechanisms that have facilitated the progression from the
>>> Singularity to Matter to Life to Mind (in brief). In my reduction of the
>>> problem to cell biology and communication I have been able to work
>>> backwards from what we think of as complex (actually complicated)
>>> physiology to the unicell, and from there back to the Singularity/Big Bang.
>>> That progression, in the forward direction, has been accomplished by the
>>> internalization of the environment (Endosymbiosis Theory), de facto
>>> encompassing the Cosmos, or actually as much of it as we need to survive
>>> (which is just enough). So with that perspective, I have deduced that what
>>> we think of as consciousness is assimilation of the environment as
>>> physiology, interpreted by our nervous system as consciousness. It is like
>>> Philip Johnson-Laird's "Mental Models" concept, referenced in the New
>>> Yorker article that was circulated among the ToK community a couple of days
>>> ago, entitled "Are we already living in virtual reality?". What is missing
>>> in that perspective is the connection to the physiology that I offer in my
>>> mechanistic approach. So in this synthesis there is, IMHO, opportunity for
>>> a more holistic way of thinking about health, both physiologic and mental
>>> that may buoy all boats? With all due respect to other opinions. So, for
>>> example, I offer a segue to Chance's lecture on Dreams in a paper we
>>> published on the role of brain cooling/REM sleep as a way of understanding
>>> the evolution of mind (see attached).
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <
>>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Nancy,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   Thanks so much for your note. It was great having you here. You offer
>>>> an interesting and helpful question regarding “building knowledge within
>>>> the ToK System.” This is a little hard to answer because I think there are
>>>> many different communities that I am trying to address and the emphasis,
>>>> tone and tenor varies a bit depending on the audience. For example, I am
>>>> trying to connect with Big Picture philosophies and movements like Big
>>>> History, I am also trying to get my vision out to mental health
>>>> practitioners, and am trying to narrate the need for the system to lay
>>>> people.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> For the purposes of what follows, let me focus on how I am approaching
>>>> the field of scientific/academic psychology (as separate from professional
>>>> practitioners, which I am approaching from a different angle). I am
>>>> attaching a presentation I gave at the last Theoretical and Philosophical
>>>> conference as part of a President’s initiative on Re-envisioning
>>>> Psychology. It invites psychologists to consider moving from Empirical
>>>> Psychology to a Metaphysical Empirical Psychology.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> First, I attempt to point out in what I hope is a systematic and clear
>>>> way, that the field’s concepts and categories matter every bit as much as
>>>> empirical data. Metaphysics in this context refers to the concepts and
>>>> categories we use to carve up reality.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Second, I point out that the concepts and categories in current usage
>>>> are obviously flawed. I show very clearly that we do not have good working
>>>> definitions or shared conceptual maps of the field’s central terms such as:
>>>> psychology, behavior, mind, or human consciousness (and the animal/person
>>>> relation).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   Third, I point out that we have been pre-paradigmatic as a science
>>>> since our inception. This relates to the problem of the definition of
>>>> psychology because we have not had a system that has allowed a clear enough
>>>> map of the field of inquiry. Together, points 2 & 3 document THE PROBLEM OF
>>>> PSYCHOLOGY, *which I argue no psychologist can ignore in good faith*.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   Fourth, because mainstream academic psychology has doubled down on
>>>> empirical methods and data collection we are looking in the wrong
>>>> direction; more rigorous empirical studies will not solve conceptual
>>>> problems.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   If you agree with these elements, you agree that there is a problem
>>>> of psychology, then it follows deductively that we need to deeply consider
>>>> a new conceptual and meta-theoretical approach to the field.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Then I offer the ToK System as a system that can solve both the
>>>> metaphysical and metatheoretical issues that the field faces. And I argue
>>>> it does these things far better than any other system, thus we should take
>>>> it seriously. Indeed, if we are to be psychologists of good faith, we are
>>>> compelled to take it seriously or advocate for a better conceptual system
>>>> that can situate what we mean by the “field of psychology.”
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   The problem I face is in the diagnosis of the problems above. That
>>>> is, in response to the problem of psychology, mainstream psychology has
>>>> adopted an “eclectic empiricism” as the modern paradigm. Thus, most
>>>> psychologists have no idea how to think about or assess a
>>>> metaphysical/meta-theoretical solution. As such, academics in the field
>>>> look at my work, are overwhelmed, don’t see “methods and data,” and then
>>>> look the other way. After all, it is complicated to learn and is not
>>>> affirming of the direction the field is headed in. So, the natural response
>>>> is to ignore the proposal, which is more or less what happened.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   In sum, I do not consider my arguments intuitions. I have no problem
>>>> about intuitions (I have had many intuitions that have led me to this), but
>>>> this is every bit as much about clear argumentation as empirical research
>>>> on cognitive dissonance (or anything else). It is very clear and logical
>>>> and systematic. It is just is a different aspect of the scientific
>>>> enterprise than most academic psychologists are trained in, and thus there
>>>> is enormous inertia that must be overcome to get the field to pay attention.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   So, I guess the challenge has been, which I have not solved, is how
>>>> do you get academic psychologists to wake up to the problem of psychology
>>>> and realize they need to take it seriously? I have not been able to find an
>>>> effective way of communicating that message so that it gains traction with
>>>> large numbers of folks, but that is how I see my journey, at least within
>>>> that audience.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Gregg
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:* tree of knowledge system discussion <
>>>> [log in to unmask]> *On Behalf Of *Nancy Link
>>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 17, 2018 10:29 AM
>>>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>>>> *Subject:* Re: Thanks to all who made the conference a success
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dear Gregg,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I returned feeling upbeat and very stimulated intellectually. It was
>>>> good to get out of the confines of my Toronto home office and experience
>>>> the welcoming warmth of you, the other ToKers and the whole JMU community.
>>>> THANK YOU!!!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> One thing I have been wondering about is how you envision building
>>>> knowledge within your ToK system?  I think that we have strong negative
>>>> reactions to scientific thought as it is currently practiced, but we may
>>>> have different ways of reacting to that negative feeling.  My feeling is
>>>> that scientific thought has taken over too much of the dialogue.  Experts
>>>> use the “data shows that…”argument to silence opposition. The truth is that
>>>> the data seldom show anything with absolute clarity.  It is not surprising
>>>> that ordinary people have given up on science and stopped listening.  My
>>>> solution to this problem is to try to contain science by putting it in
>>>> balance with a narrative.  I believe that the narrative (theory) can only
>>>> be built using data. Once we have a narrative, we can use new data to
>>>> refine or change the it, but without a narrative, we are at sea.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> My impression of your negative reaction to the same reality is to blast
>>>> through it with your strong and good intuitions about how things fit
>>>> together. I like and trust your intuitions, but how do you argue to the
>>>> outside world that your intuitions are better that theirs?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nancy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From: *tree of knowledge system discussion <
>>>> [log in to unmask]> on behalf of Gregg Henriques <
>>>> [log in to unmask]>
>>>> *Reply-To: *tree of knowledge system discussion <
>>>> [log in to unmask]>
>>>> *Date: *Monday, April 16, 2018 at 10:30 AM
>>>> *To: *"[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> *Subject: *Thanks to all who made the conference a success
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dear TOK Society,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   I am writing to offer deep gratitude to all those who came and
>>>> participated in the first ever TOK Society conference over the weekend. I
>>>> thought the talks were splendid. The breadth of ideas covered was huge and
>>>> yet they did seem to cohere around key themes and pointed to future
>>>> directions for education, psychology and society at large. I also found the
>>>> conversation on the back half of Friday to be very stimulating and
>>>> demonstrated how thinking about big TOKs could illuminate powerful
>>>> perspectives on real world issues.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  I will be in consultation with folks about next steps. One thing I
>>>> would like to consider is having folks share their powerpoints on the list
>>>> and perhaps have some time devoted to reviewing the talks and engaging in
>>>> some exchange about them on this list.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks again to everyone.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Gregg
>>>>
>>>> ___________________________________________
>>>>
>>>> Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
>>>> Professor
>>>> Department of Graduate Psychology
>>>> 216 Johnston Hall
>>>> MSC 7401
>>>> James Madison University
>>>> Harrisonburg, VA 22807
>>>> (540) 568-7857 (phone)
>>>> (540) 568-4747 (fax)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.*
>>>>
>>>> Check out my Theory of Knowledge blog at Psychology Today at:
>>>>
>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_blog_theory-2Dknowledge&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Qo8vmSq3kiJBIepmhSFCa5qCN6q0QnhwuxFUVx067MU&s=VJZG5VdXQsS3uea3Cbz5ui1HbTiy2lWtC9ggONO_HkU&e=
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_blog_theory-2Dknowledge&d=DwMF-g&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Juk60hGu1CZhdxRJtBM7WIs6w_5lt2vuWHMjngCjLqY&s=RmWJ8gbPqrT25c6lk_wlXp7aiI0wwyVvlnjeGNCtY_I&e=>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ############################
>>>>
>>>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
>>>> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
>>>> following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bi
>>>> n/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>>>>
>>>> ############################
>>>>
>>>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
>>>> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
>>>> following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bi
>>>> n/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>>>> ############################
>>>>
>>>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
>>>> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
>>>> following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bi
>>>> n/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>>>>
>>>
>>> ############################
>>>
>>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
>>> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
>>> following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bi
>>> n/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>>>
>>
>> ############################
>>
>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
>> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
>> following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bi
>> n/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>>
>
> ############################
>
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
> following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=
> 1
>

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1