Eric CharlesStephen,
I thought Lakoff’s Moral politics was bloody awful – SHAMEFUL even, given his earlier stuff which I liked. A terrifying example of what happens when an Author’s publisher gets him to write more books than he has in him.
I have to admit, I am made nervous by the notion of “embodied cognition”. I mean, where the hell else is it. It’s the same kind of nervousness that overcomes me when people talk about “cognitive psychology.” (What the hell other kind of psychology IS there?) Such expressions seem to be an attempt to slip dualism in by the back door. Cognition is just adaptive action of a body. I think most believers of embodied cognition are hoping to find the little door in the skull that opens into the room where the teensy little guy sits looking out through the windows of the eyes and pulling on the little levers that send the fluids up and down the nerve channels.
Psychology has some wonderful theories. For instance, Skinner has a wonderful theory of learning. Unfortunately, it applies primarily to pigeons pressing levers. If only we could cram all humanity into Skinner boxes, the theory would work fine. Physics has the same problem, really. Billiard balls would glide along perfectly if it weren’t for friction, but there is friction everywhere where billiard balls are. If only we had frictionless billiard balls. But the problem doesn’t seem to bother physcists so much The artificial models of physics are more useful than those of psychology because, I guess, physicists have a lot better sense of what happens when the idealized circumstances of the model are violated. Poor psychologists: you take people out of those skinner boxes and all hell breaks loose.
At the risk of putting you all through distasteful spectacle of having Doug and Peter yell at me again, let me remind you of our discussion of tornados, where Peter seemed to be saying that one really shouldn’t talk about vortices until one had had sixty years of experience engineering wings and propellers. Sounds like whatever you learn about propellers in physics one won’t get you off a runway. It won’t even get water out of a washbasin.
I think the problem is not that Psychologists don’t have good theories; I think it’s more that psychologists don’t have good theories about the kind of questions that people want answers to. You folks want answers about tornadoes and washbasins, and all we have to offer is theories about behavior in skinner boxes.
Nick
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Stephen Thompson
Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2011 8:54 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One
Eric:
I just picked up three books in order to learn more about Embodied Cognition:
1. Embodied Cognition by Lawrence Shapiro
2. Where Mathematics Comes From by George Lakoff and Rafael E. Nunez
3. Philosophy In The Flesh by Lakoff and Mark Johnson
I came to these via Dr Lakoff's Moral Politics, then perusing his Metaphors We Live By.
Will the 3 books above provide a basic understanding of Embodied Cognition, even though
they appear to be oriented to Philosophy as opposed to psychology?
I read Dr Dennett's Consciousness Explained back in 1997 and came to accept the
naturalistic world view - what you see is what there is; no mystical nor supernatural
stuff.
Of the two links you provided, I found your post to be more clear on the conflict in psychology
than the PsychScientists' post.
Thanks,
Steph T
On 11/12/2011 8:29 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:Doug, don't fret.
The answer to Jochen's question is "Yes, it is about friggin time we get a good theory", and Andrew and Sabrina's blog is an excellent source of ideas for improving psychology. Recently Andrew's blog has been getting attention from other excellent professionals, including a Scientific American author who is actively discussing Andrew's previous post: "<a href="http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/11/embodied-cognition-is-not-what-you.html" onclick="window.open('http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/11/embodied-cognition-is-not-what-you.html');return false;">Embodied cognition is not what you think". (With more discussion <a href="http://fixingpsychology.blogspot.com/2011/11/embodied-cognition.html" onclick="window.open('http://fixingpsychology.blogspot.com/2011/11/embodied-cognition.html');return false;">here.)
Roger,
You are correct that it might seem like psychology should have other things to worry about, but frankly the problems you mention (rampant misuse of statistics and the rare forged data scandals) would be a lot easier to deal with if we had a more unified theoretical base.
Eric
On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 07:12 PM, Douglas Roberts <doug@...> wrote:Oh, God. Here we go.
On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Jochen Fromm <jofr@...> wrote:> Nick, Eric, what do you think, does Psychology need a theory?>
>
<a href="http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/11/theory-and-why-its-time-psychology-got.html?m=1" onclick="window.open('http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/11/theory-and-why-its-time-psychology-got.html?m=1');return false;">http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/11/theory-and-why-its-time-psychology-got.html?m=1> -J.>
> Sent from Android> ============================================================> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at <a href="http://www.friam.org" onclick="window.open('http://www.friam.org');return false;">http://www.friam.org>
============================================================FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at <a href="http://www.friam.org" onclick="window.open('http://www.friam.org');return false;">http://www.friam.org
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at <a href="http://www.friam.org" onclick="window.open('http://www.friam.org');return false;">http://www.friam.org============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |