From: llama@pooh.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Mind/Not Mind
Date: 14 Sep 92 10:32:38 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Dave Pipes x4552 (dpipes@spica.srg) wrote:
: In article <79459@ut-emx.uucp> llama@pooh.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine) writes:

: >i think that most of the behaviorists (at least the ones i studied)
: >took more of a black-box approach to questions of mind. they didn't
: >argue for or against the concept; they merely described the results of
: >various stimuli. why those results happened wasn't a huge concern of
: >theirs, at least not experimentally. 
:
: This may well be aresponse to the problems behaviorism has in trying to
: explain "mind" or "consciousness.  Strict behaviorism, mind you, which is
: rare these days.

so rare is to be pretty much nonexistent. most of the rat-runners i
knew and the texts i read seemed to think behaviorism in the style of
skinner was taking a few assumptions way too far.

: I was referring to clinical psychology, specifically Freudian or Jungian
: analyses, with their constructs which describe the Id, the Ego , the
: Superego, the nature of personalities and the like.  These are (I believe,
: correct me if I am wrong) based on the idea that their *is* a mind, and are
: some of the ways that have evolved to describe it.  I merely pointed out that
: the basis for such assumptions is less strong than that for evolution, given
: that evolutionary evidence includes such physical evidence as fossils.

you're right; it's much harder to be scientific in clinical psych than
in other areas. for one thing, a lot of the work in clinical is in the
form of case studie and other single-subject work, where you can't
have a control group. and a lot of the theories are not really
testable. clinical psychology has a very pragmatic feel to it, a kind
of "it works so it must be true" approach.

: I specifically do not feel that experimental psych, cognitive science or
: similar studies fall within the purview of my objections, studying as they
: do observable, repeatable phenomena.  Disparate theories of the nature of
: personalities of schizophrenics would, I believe, if they are above the
: level of chemical imbalances.  At least until the nature of the mind is
: described in detail.

it depends. there is some work being done even in clinical that
doesn't invoke concepts of mind. for example, things like the mmpi;
it's known that certain patterns of answers correlate very very highly
with the presence of certain types of psychopathology, but it's not
entirely clear why. tests like the mmpi are very well validated, but
not as well explained theoretically.

i think a large part of the problem is that psychology is a very young
science, one which doesn't yet have a paradigm (in the kuhnian sense)
under which the work of what kuhn calls "normal science" can proceed.
another problem is that psych is an incredibly diverse field, and even
people in it aren't in agreement about what it covers. it's kinda like
trying to find a unification theory without being entirely certain
what all the forces are that you have to include.

--
sine nomine
debbie martinson
your beliefs are arbitrary, mostly a matter of chance and upbringing.
this makes them no less valid for you, but might affect their validity
for others.