Anyone else suffer from procrastination?

[zanzibar]

P.S. "Emotion, in its most general definition, is an intense mental state that arises autonomically in the nervous system rather than through conscious effort, and evokes either a positive or negative psychological response."

That definition is filled with assumption and there are parts of it which are contestable.  It doesn't really answer the question of what the mind is or how it works, but maybe this will be a better answer to give you:

Umm, physicists barely understand what Black Holes are, or the physics behind them. So far the only concrete thing they know about Black Holes is that regular physics doesn't seem to apply to them. And gravitons are purely theoretical - most physicists don't even entertain the idea of particles governing the force of gravity.

Black holes are objects which have compressed to such a small size that their mass exists within the limits of their own Schwarzschild radius.

I can give a much clearer and more objective defintion of a black hole than you can produce for emotion, and yet you would say that we understand emotion well and we understand black holes poorly.  I can even describe blak holes mathematically.  Can you do the same for the mind?

I'm using these as an example for why Science isn't the be-all and end-all for understanding the world around us. If you really think science is the answer to everything, you're the ign'ant one...

I believe my claim was that psychology isn't a science, not that science is the be-all end-all for understanding the world.

Now you define energy.

"The ability to do work."

There's as much factual support for psychology - based on trial & error - as there is for science - which is also based on trial & error.

Again, have you studied Piaget?  It doesn't seem like it.  Piaget's work and the theories based on his work is probably the best demonstration of why it is fraudulent to portray psychology as a science.

[emeraldfool]

That definition is filled with assumption and there are parts of it which are contestable.  It doesn't really answer the question of what the mind is or how it works, but maybe this will be a better answer to give you:

Of course not. That's my point. Words can't describe what the mind is and how it works - it's like trying to explain communism with hand-gestures. That doesn't mean we don't understand communism.

Black holes are objects which have compressed to such a small size that their mass exists within the limits of their own Schwarzschild radius.  Modern theories suggest that black holes has a diameter of one Plank length.

I can give a much clearer and more objective defintion of a black hole than you can produce for emotion, and yet you would say that we understand emotion well and we understand black holes poorly.

Okay... explain how that happens. Or why it happens. Why would something compress that small? Why have the diameter of one Plank - what's the signifisance of a Plank? (assuming that theory is correct... it makes even less sense, but I guess I'm no physicist)
What's space-time? What happens when space-time is bent?

All of this is just speculation based on an out-dated theory.

I believe my claim was that psychology isn't a science, not that science is the be-all end-all for understanding the world.

So if science doesn't have the answer to everything, and psychology doesn't have the answer to everything, and it's just as easy to observe psychological 'facts' as it is scientific (in some cases moreso, 'cause psychology is in the head of the guy sitting right next to you, not millions of light-years away, and reachable only by mathematical equations...)

"The ability to do work."

Funny, that's also my definition of a green card.

Again, have you studied Piaget?  It doesn't seem like it.  Piaget's work and the theories based on his work is probably the best demonstration of why it is fraudulent to portray psychology as a science.

No, we didn't. Probably because his theories were based around a particular era or group of people that doesn't conform to our time. But that doesn't mean he's wrong. And besides, do you know how many so-called scientists there have been who've come out with utter bullcrap? Back a few centuries scientists used to think being a black person was a disease, and back farther they used to think the world was flat. Does that mean science isn't a science?

[Parallo]

That definition is filled with assumption and there are parts of it which are contestable.  It doesn't really answer the question of what the mind is or how it works, but maybe this will be a better answer to give you:

Of course not. That's my point. Words can't describe what the mind is and how it works - it's like trying to explain communism with hand-gestures. That doesn't mean we don't understand communism.

You just said we don't understand the mind and can't. Score one against it being a science.

Black holes are objects which have compressed to such a small size that their mass exists within the limits of their own Schwarzschild radius.  Modern theories suggest that black holes has a diameter of one Plank length.

I can give a much clearer and more objective defintion of a black hole than you can produce for emotion, and yet you would say that we understand emotion well and we understand black holes poorly.

Okay... explain how that happens. Or why it happens. Why would something compress that small? Why have the diameter of one Plank - what's the signifisance of a Plank? (assuming that theory is correct... it makes even less sense, but I guess I'm no physicist)
What's space-time? What happens when space-time is bent?

All of this is just speculation based on an out-dated theory.

Read the book before you comment.

I believe my claim was that psychology isn't a science, not that science is the be-all end-all for understanding the world.

So if science doesn't have the answer to everything, and psychology doesn't have the answer to everything, and it's just as easy to observe psychological 'facts' as it is scientific (in some cases moreso, 'cause psychology is in the head of the guy sitting right next to you, not millions of light-years away, and reachable only by mathematical equations...)

If we can't understand the mind, as you pointed out, it doesn't matter where it is.

"The ability to do work."

Funny, that's also my definition of a green card.

Were you avoiding the question and making a joke or being serious?

Again, have you studied Piaget?  It doesn't seem like it.  Piaget's work and the theories based on his work is probably the best demonstration of why it is fraudulent to portray psychology as a science.

No, we didn't. Probably because his theories were based around a particular era or group of people that doesn't conform to our time. But that doesn't mean he's wrong. And besides, do you know how many so-called scientists there have been who've come out with utter bullcrap? Back a few centuries scientists used to think being a black person was a disease, and back farther they used to think the world was flat. Does that mean science isn't a science?

They thought those things because they knew no better and didn't seek evidence. Science as pointed out earlier is not stagnent. It constantly moves. We learn new things about the world around us. Some of what we learn challenges former scientific 'facts'(I use quotes because I mean scientific terms not actual concrete facts as you seem to think I do.) and we go out and gather more evidence to 'prove'(See above.) one or the other.

[emeraldfool]

You just said we don't understand the mind and can't. Score one against it being a science.

What the hell? Where did you get that from. I just said it's difficult to put it into words. Why don't you try to explain the colour green to me then? Maybe you'll see what I mean. (And I'm not talking about 'Green is the colour of grass', or 'green is a part of white light refracted back to us'. That's like me saying 'the mind is something you use to think'. I mean explain what 'green' is.)

Read the book before you comment.

Most physicists contend Einstein's theory of relativity.

If we can't understand the mind, as you pointed out, it doesn't matter where it is.

But we can understand the mind. That's what psychology is: The study of the mind. Like I said before - psychology has a very deep understanding of the mind, obviously, because it's employed everywhere successfully.

Were you avoiding the question and making a joke or being serious?

I didn't think I'd have to explain this. If "The ability to do work" really satisfies science, and its the best they can come up with, fine.

"Emotions are a certain state of mind which alters one's disposition"

They thought those things because they knew no better and didn't seek evidence. Science as pointed out earlier is not stagnent. It constantly moves. We learn new things about the world around us. Some of what we learn challenges former scientific 'facts'(I use quotes because I mean scientific terms not actual concrete facts as you seem to think I do.) and we go out and gather more evidence to 'prove'(See above.) one or the other.

That's exactly what psychology does. It evolves. So why isn't it a science.









Anyway, this is getting nowhere. You guys are just reitterating your points in answer to my arguments, you aren't actually paying attention.

You make a point, I make a counter-point, and you re-phrase your point like it somehow counters my counter-point, so I re-phrase my counter-point, you argue about the exact phrasing of my counter-point and then make the same point again, I rephrase the counter-point again, you get frustrated and then it gets locked.

It's... disheartening

[lordraleigh]

I think something can't be classified as science if it claims itself as an absolute truth or as a *cough* FACT, that is the foundation of science. All theories, knowledges and discoveries should and must be questioned by all, including what the "Mainstream Scientifical Community" claims as the most closer to truth. Many bring an agnostic view over religion. Here is an agnostic view over Science.

IE: Have anyone ever sent a probe to the core of the Earth? Then why is this possibility more widely accepted by the Mainstream Scientifical Community than this ?

Answer: because other mainstream scientifical knowledges dismiss it, some of them are properly done to question it, specially the "Gravity on the Hollow Earth" and the analysis of Earth mass, but it is dismissed mainly thanks to the New Age pseudoscientifical crap that was built over the possibility of the Earth being Hollow.

But I love these ones, worst than all those self aid books, the kind of science that was widely accepted, in fascist and other totalitarian States. To classify rebelliouness, nonconformism, and refusal to obey as a disease:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggishly_Progressing_Schizophrenia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania

And another highly questionable "disorder":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_about_ADHD

Some of these examples make clear that certain "scientifical knowledges" are nothing but extensions of the enforcement to conform to established social values or to the State and that governments have a great power(sometimes fortunately not used) on defining what is "pseudoscience" and what is "science".

Miniluv cures mind disorders fullwise, doubleplusgood proles happy

Also as I said before: As Psychology, Economics can be hardly classified as science as most works either have a Neoliberal/Pro-capitalism POV, a Social-Democrat/Leftist POV or a Marxist/Anti-capitalist one. Neutrality is practically non-existant on Economics books. You either got the Red one to rant capitalism and launch utopian views that only work in theory, or the $ one to praise capitalism based on ficticious ideal economic models of "free market" and "fair competition" where Trusts, Monopolies and such don't exist and where the dirty corporate games, the unpredictability of human nature and so on are not considered.

There are some books about that, like "Railroading Economics: The Creation of the Free Market Mythology" and "Debunking Economics"

[Parallo]

We've been through colour in a different thread. Its the product of a reaction our brain takes to a particular wavelength of light. You can't understand how the mind works. You can understand the effects but not the causes. And just because Phycology is successful does not mean it has a deep understanding of the mind. I could know that when I press down the pedal in a car it moves forward. That doesn't mean I have a deep understanding of engines, does it? And you can't use your incomprehension of certain scientific theories as points to prove that something isn't science.

Edit to respond to last poster: Its all about politics with you is it
Well the reason that highly improbable theories aren't looked into is that they are just that: Highly inprobable. I could claim the celestial tea pot in orbit of the earth controls the universes gravity but would people go looking for it to analyse its properties for the sake of being fair and neutral? No.

[lordraleigh]

Its all about politics with you is it 

Unfortunately many sciences and not so scientifical theories are influenced and used by politics, both in subtle and outrageously obvious ways. Military applications are sadly what move a considerable amount of scientifical researches in certain countries ( *cough* USA Military-Industrial Complex *cough* ) and governments and corporations fund certain researches with goals that are far from the ideal goal of just supporting the progress of mankind's knowledge through science. Psychology and other sciences of the mind for example(WARNING: FNORD Ahead!): PsiOp , MK-ULTRA , Propaganda , Subliminal Messages and so on. Classifying rebellion against social and political systems as mental disorder is another historical one.

Well the reason that highly improbable theories aren't looked into is that they are just that: Highly inprobable

I know what is the reason that defines such probability, the scientifically known(and oftenly questioned as well) "Occam's Razor". In such matters, the Solid Core mainstream theory is much simpler than the Hollow Earth. Although the final answer about what is really in the core of earth(Having enough technology to send a probe deeply to the core of the Earth) will take a long time yet.

[Parallo]

I'm not saying that because its simpler its more probable. If that was the case I could just say god did it to every scientific question.

[emeraldfool]

We've been through colour in a different thread. Its the product of a reaction our brain takes to a particular wavelength of light. You can't understand how the mind works.

No, that's why you see the colour. Not the nature of the actual colour.

You can understand the effects but not the causes. And just because Phycology is successful does not mean it has a deep understanding of the mind. I could know that when I press down the pedal in a car it moves forward. That doesn't mean I have a deep understanding of engines, does it?

Lol, you could say that about anything.

Science says that if you move your foot, you're using up 'energy' and generating 'kinetic energy', and when you use it to apply pressure to the pedal, you're transferring kinetic energy from your leg to the pedal, which eventually causes the release of kinetic energy from chemical energy, and so the car moves.

Psychology says when you brighten a restaurant excessively, it creates a sense of vulnerability and nakedness, and makes people feel more stressed out and more like they want to escape the constant illumination, and so they are more inclined to take their food and leave immediately, which keeps the restaurant clear for more customers to come in.


They're both two identical ways of thinking. The only difference is one applies to the physical, and one to the mental. And people, like you, are only able to see the physical, so they think that the physical is obviously better known than the two.

Even though both minds and bodies have been around for exactly the same amount of time.

[zanzibar]

We do not see colour.  We perceive wavelength as colour.

We know that the mind exists.  We know its definition and description – it’s the processes of awareness.  We can describe what we know with words rather easily.  However, we do not know what the mind is.  We can’t dissect a body and point at the mind with a pencil.  We can say that it’s closely connected to the brain, but the brain is not the mind.

Explaining communism with hand-gestures is quite easy if you know sign language.

Objects collapse into black holes because of the force of their own gravity.  They become so small because there’s nothing to prevent them from collapsing given the force of their own gravity.  The Plank length diameter was a conclusion that resulted from a branch of mathematics inspired by string theory.  Coincidentally, the Plank length is the theoretical diameter of a string theory particle and it’s also the smallest resolution that we can observe space-time at.

Space-time is the field that particles exist within.  When space-time is bent, typically forces are present.  However, space-time is merely an abstraction.  It's symbolic.  It's an idea we use to describe what's happening around us.

Psychology does not really deal with facts.  It’s mostly taking what we already “know” to be true and then describing it with an abstraction.  A representational model.  This is unscientific in a number of ways.  Freud and Piaget are good examples of why psychology is methodologically flawed.  More fundamentally though, the theories don’t lead to new information.  They’re merely used to confirm the preconceived notions that they themselves were based on.

Now, psychiatry is a science, but that’s because it’s essentially biochemistry.

Not all that gets called science is actually science.

Piaget is very relevant to today’s theories, since many of the today's ideas are based directly on his work.  He’s basically the founder of developmental psychology.  Well, Aristotle came a bit before him, but anyway.  The problem is that he was a complete quack.  And yet, people still base theories on his work, even though his work has been shown to be garbage.

Emerald, we are not repeating ourselves except where you repeat the same questions.  You haven’t been countering our points, and you’ve been making some pretty asinine remarks.  If I were to ask you to back up your claim that our understanding of black holes is “speculation based on an outdated theory”, I suspect you would be unable to.  When I disprove one of your assertions, you seem to ignore me and then ask something unrelated.  You’ve made it obvious that you don’t really know what you’re talking about, and your ignorance doesn’t at all seem to bother you.  This is a problem if you wish to engage people in discussions.

Psychology says when you brighten a restaurant excessively, it creates a sense of vulnerability and nakedness, and makes people feel more stressed out and more like they want to escape the constant illumination, and so they are more inclined to take their food and leave immediately, which keeps the restaurant clear for more customers to come in.

Psychology says this, but included in that is the idea that this phenomenom is the result of unseen internal processes innate to the mind.  That makes proving it a bit more difficult.

[emeraldfool]

I'm bored now...


And you'll love this, but when I mentioned psychology as a 'science' in passing, it was a figure of speech. I didn't actually mean psychology was a science, I just meant it as a generic term for 'a system of practical knowledge'. Kida like when they say music is a science.

But when I thought about it, I figured psychology was as much a science as anything else. It's a science of the mind... which evidently is hard to grasp by some people. Even when they take psychology for a few years and have an aunt in the business. But that's my definition of the word.

 

Hey, wanna argue about about whether it's 'color' or 'colour' now?

[zanzibar]

Dodge, dance, distract, and revise.

[Parallo]

Music is by no means a science. That is simply abuse of a word. Using it for something its not. A science of the mind is absurd too. Is philosophy a science? No. Its a word which has a meaning which does not cover what you want it to cover. Simple.

Ps. Its colour.

[zanzibar]

Ps. Its colour.

Emeraldfool knows he's wrong and that he can't defend his statements, so he's instead trying to get people to argue with him over stupid irrelevant things such as the proper way to spell "colour".  If you wish to engage him on that level, I won't stop you.

[Parallo]

No, its fact that its colour in the English language. Not a discussion. A fact. I wouldn't sink so low as to even entertain the idea that the Americans are right about a language thats not even thiers. Back on topic please...