Hi TOK List,

  I just happened to have this link come across my feed and I downloaded it. It is a 2012 book that provides a simple overview of what psychology is. Here is the link:
https://www.academia.edu/41268838/The_Psychology_Book_by_Catherine_Collin_Nigel_Benson_Joannah_Ginsburg_DK_?email_work_card=view-paper

If anyone has trouble with the link and wants to get a copy, back channel me and I will send it.

I share it with you because I just want to say that I have a problem and I need your help.

The problem is that this book represents what psychology is in the academy. Here is how the book opens:

Among all the sciences, psychology is perhaps the most mysterious to the general public, and the most prone to misconceptions. Even though its language and ideas have infiltrated everyday culture, most people have only a hazy idea of what the subject is about, and what psychologists actually do. For some, psychology conjures up images of people in white coats, either staffing an institution for mental disorders or conducting laboratory experiments on rats. Others may imagine a man with a middle-European accent psychoanalyzing a patient on a couch or, if film scripts are to be believed, plotting to exercise some form of mind control. Although these stereotypes are an exaggeration, some truth lies beneath them. It is perhaps the huge range of subjects that fall under the umbrella of psychology (and the bewildering array of terms beginning with the prefix "psych-") that creates confusion over what psychology entails; psychologists themselves are unlikely to agree on a single definition of the word. "Psychology" comes from the ancient Greek psyche, meaning "soul" or "mind," and logia, a "study" or "account," which seems to sum up the broad scope of the subject, but today the word most accurately describes "the science of mind and behavior."
And here is how the opening chapter concludes:
The many branches of psychology that exist today cover the whole spectrum of mental life and human and animal behavior. The overall scope has extended to overlap with many other disciplines, including medicine, physiology, neuroscience, computer science, education, sociology, anthropology, and even politics, economics, and the law. Psychology has become perhaps the most diverse of sciences.
Psychology continues to influence and be influenced by the other sciences, especially in areas such as neuroscience and genetics. In particular, the nature versus nurture argument that dates back to Francis Galton's ideas of the 1920s continues to this day; recently, evolutionary psychology has contributed to the debate by exploring psychological traits as innate and biological phenomena, which are subject to the laws of genetics and natural selection.
Psychology is a huge subject, and its findings concern every one of us. In one form or another it informs many decisions made in government, business and industry, advertising, and the mass media. It affects us as groups and as individuals, contributing as much to public debate about the ways our societies are or might be structured as it does to diagnosing and treating mental disorders. The ideas and theories of psychologists have become part of our everyday culture, to the extent that many of their findings about behavior and mental processes are now viewed simply as "common sense." However, while some of the ideas explored in psychology confirm our instinctive feelings, just as many make us think again; psychologists have often shocked and outraged the public when their findings have shaken conventional, long-standing beliefs.
In its short history, psychology has given us many ideas that have changed our ways of thinking, and that have also helped us to understand ourselves, other people, and the world we live in. It has questioned deeply held beliefs, unearthed unsettling truths, and provided startling insights and solutions to complex questions. Its increasing popularity as a university course is a sign not only of psychology's relevance in the modern world, but also of the enjoyment and stimulation that can be had from exploring the richness and diversity of a subject that continues to examine the mysterious world of the human mind.

So here is the deal. From where I sit, which is 25 years after falling down a rabbit hole, all of this is just gibberish. It basically is another way of saying...

Dear reader,

We psychologists don't know what we are talking about. We have found interesting things. But we have no real way of making sense of them. There is a huge gap in our sense making. That is why we are presenting you with all of these findings from all these different perspectives with no real consensus. It also means, BTW, there is a huge gap in your sense making. You use folk psychology all the time. But when we experts in psychology and philosophy try to sort it out in a coherent way, everything falls apart into gibberish. That is why we have all those problems saying things about free will and consciousness and determinism and all of that stuff. We, the experts, hopelessly are confused. And that means we all are confused. And, frankly, humans have been confused about these issues ever since they were able to ask questions about them.

Finally, Here is what I want to say:

Don't despair, however. There is actually a way to make sense out of all these issues. There is a way to see the orders of nature<https://www.sunypress.edu/p-5577-the-orders-of-nature.aspx> clearly. There is a way to understand what the mental is, and how it is positioned in relationship to the material, living and cultural planes of existence. And there is a way to understand the kind of epistemology that was birthed with modern science and the lineage from Copernicus to Galileo to Newton to Einstein. And we can now map the ontic reality to our scientific onto-epistemology so that we can actually solve the problem of scientific psychology and go from gibberish and confusion to genuine clarity across the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities.

Here is the descriptive metaphysical system for the sensemaking we need in the 21st Century:

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If folks can help me learn how to say the above, I would be grateful.

Best,
Gregg

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