Re: Phenomenological Continuity and Discontinuity

From: Glen M. Sizemore (gmsizemore2_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 06/09/04 

Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 16:36:05 GMT

6/8 7:37

Neepy: "Genes" and "quarks" (for example) are/were "unobservable entities"
> for a long time. If scientists were barred from hypothesizing about
> them UNTIL their physical nature was understood, then there physical
> nature would never have been understood.
>
>
>
> GS: I have written about this issue at length here. There is no question
> that the postulation of things that can't be observed, at the time there
are
> postulated, has often been enormously successful. But this does not mean
> that one should necessarily do so in all circumstances. Obviously, there
are
> a host of "things" that have not proven to be as useful as "genes" and
> "quarks." They had names like "vis anima," "phlogiston," "ether," etc. And
> that brings us to the central question: Is there a way to decide if a
> conceptual framework is unlikely to be fruitful before generations of
> scientists pursue questions engendered by it? I argue there is. The
> fundamental concepts of a science (or "science" as the case may be) can be
> evaluated, but they cannot be evaluated by experiment, for they are not
what
> are tested. They must be evaluated philosophically. A general framework,
> can, I think, be offered that allows one to test concepts for their
> scientific utility, but I am not going to elaborate here. I will simply
> state that the metaphor is a double-edged sword, and one most evaluate
them
> with a non-charitable attitude - the few that survive may be useful. But
> this is not the manner in which psychology, and the fields that it has
> corrupted, have developed. Mainstream psychology adopts metaphors
> promiscuously, and promotes them carelessly, all while pretending that
doing
> so is simply what physics has done.
>

Neepy: And what you say here is entirely reasonable.

GS: What I write is always reasonable.

Neepy: When you write like this I can both understand and (to a large
extent) agree with you. The question of how/why "scientific" concepts like
"genes" or "the ether" are discarded or not is, though (IMO) at least partly
a matter of experimentation (certainly regarding the ether... predictions
were made and falsified experimentally).

GS: Did you know that the Lorentz transformation was written down first as a
description of changes in the ether that were a function of velocity?
Ultimately, Einstein stepped in and suggested that it was stupid to give
something mechanical properties that, essentially, made it unobservable
(i.e., it is compressed just enough to be unobservable). Unfortunately when
"memory" is shown, unequivocally, to NOT be a storage of the past (as in
so-called "memory illusions") the foundations of cognitive "science" are not
shaken. The metaphor of "storage of the past" will be defended, no matter
what empirical work is cited.

Neepy: I am not sure how you would go about deciding "if a conceptual
framework is unlikely to be fruitful" before it's investigated empirically
(since you don't expand on that), but the fact that you say "unlikely"
suggests that you at least recognise the possibility of making the wrong
decision.

GS: This is where conceptual analysis comes in. You are not familiar with
this because you're a mainstream psychologist. Once again I suggest: "Facts,
theories, and concepts: The shape of psychology's epistemic triangle"
(Machado et al, 200?; let me know if you are interested and I'll tell you
where to get it).

Neepy: I agree that people have in the past (and will in the future) offered
up theoretical positions that (personally) I would not waste my time
investigating.

GS: I argue that you are confusing "theoretical" with "conceptual." As I
pointed out, NOTHING will make cognitive "science" drop its conceptual
structure - at least, no experiment or set of experiments. When cognitive
"science" ceases to talk about concepts like "representations," "storage,"
"retrieval," etc. it will lose its identity. And when mainstream psychology
drops the traditional "knowledge," "beliefs," etc. mentalism will finally be
done with. But this will not happen because some experiment forces a Kuhnian
paradigm shift. It will happen when the whole enterprise is found to be a
failure.

Neepy: I am sometimes annoyed by the fact that others (IMO) waste time,
money, resources investigating them (if you want an example: so-called
parapsychology). On the other hand, I can accept the possibility that my own
theoretical framework could be wrong and so my judgement of what is
scientifically "worthy" could be wrong.

GS: Once again, the answer is conceptual (not theoretical) analysis.

Neepy: Anyway, I am not sure what you would count as a "generation of
scientists" (30 years? 40?), but at most there have only been two
generations of psychologists since the so-called "cognitive revolution" of
the 1950s.

GS: I was talking about science in general. As far as cognitive "science" is
concerned, I believe it will be many generations until people "get it," but
there are a few voices in the wilderness already.

Neepy: I would be interested in your view of why so many psychologists who
had been working (and progressing) in the behaviorist tradition moved so
painlessly to cognitive psychology (e.g. Miller),[.]

GS: Because radical behaviorism was never really very popular and never
really very well understood. Most people were working in the more Hullian
tradition, which is just a stone's throw from mentalism. As Hullians, they
were already used to talking about unobservable stuff and, many, I suspect,
had no great commitment to behaviorism and, in fact, were probably
unfamiliar with its origins and philosophy.

Neepy: [.]but who is to say that "mainstream" psychology won't swing back to
behaviorism just as quickly?

GS: Oh, it will. I'm just not sure of the time scale. After all,
evolutionary psychology is basically still fighting an analogous battle with
the "intelligent design" people.

Neepy: Though that view of two diametrically opposed schools that could not
exist in the same space is also a bit of a caricature (at least outside of
the US).

GS: I'm not sure what you are driving at here. It is probably clear to you
that 1.) I do not regard cognitive psychology as a science and 2.) I view
behaviorism and cognitivism to be opposed in a way that is analogous to
evolutionary biology and creationism. My guess is that you can ascertain
which one I think is analogous to behaviorism.

"neepy" <dsutherland7@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d4bd1f7c.0406080337.3765ba03@posting.google.com...
> "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemore2@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<f36bb5a8b3279f6cc72f4ea16dc271b1@news.teranews.com>...

Relevant Pages

  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... >Perhaps extensionalists don't pose abstract notions because they ... >cognitive scientists are in good company (please notice ... >criteria upon which to judge these models. ... shape them towards cognitivism where research and papers are easier to ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Phenomenological Continuity and Discontinuity
    ... If scientists were barred from hypothesizing about ... A general framework, ... Mainstream psychology adopts metaphors ... > so is simply what physics has done. ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Daniel Levitin
    ...   Daniel Levitin wrote a book promoted by Scientific ... Ph.D. work in psychology _after_ his stint in the recording industry? ... need to know much about XYZ. ... social scientists' confidence is not impaired by knowing ...
    (rec.music.classical)
  • Re: Galilean transformation equations
    ... able to see how scientists think and what the problem is with ... anyone on this newsgroup will be remembered by anyone else. ... psychology should not be posted to physics groups. ... the Galilean transformation equations. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Self protecting memes
    ... The methods of behaviorism are intended to prevent self deception as we ... It's the exact same effect we see happening with the memes of religion as ... and ignore the truth just like the groups that choose to ignore the truth ... we still need millions of scientists and engineers in the loop to keep ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
Quantcast