[ExI] In defense of psych; was Re: aeon article - you have no memory

Sat May 21 16:44:25 UTC 2016

The first warning sign that the article is probably worthless

is

that it

was written by

Robert Epstein, a

psychologist and former editor of Psychology Today, a "science" that hasn't
discovered anything of much importance

today or

in decades.  John Clark

Now John, I have to scold you for that.  You just do not know what you are
talking about.  Clinical psychology, for which I have little respect
(some), constitutes a plurality of psychology but not a majority.  Most of
the goofy stuff comes out of clinical.

 Psychologists are everywhere:  designing  dashboards for NASA (as well as
being intimately involved in training astronauts), doing great cognitive
work like Kahneman and TVersky (and winning a Nobel Prize for it),
designing ads, contributing to neurology, and tons more.

Yes, we are a science.  Get outside of the clinical part and you have
plenty of hard science.  Give us a break - dealing with human subjects is
about the hardest thing to do experiments with.  Our brains are the most
complicated thing in the known universe.

I agree about the article and I have never had much respect for Psychology
Today.  It is embarrassing when a psychologist goes far beyond what we
actually know.  There is a tremendous amount of junk 'science' coming out
of psychology, not all of it clinical.  We are young.  Our errors are to
the left of the decimal, not the right, as typical in physics.  We have
physiological psychology at one end and social psychology at the other,
linking us to biology and sociology (the latter I have very little respect
for - the socio, not the social, that is).  It is a huge field, with
spinoffs like behavioral economics.

Most people, like you, are just not aware of what psychology has evolved
to.  Read Stephen Pinker if you want some really up to date good science.
He may be our best.

I would say that we are ahead of economics, a good bit behind biology, way
behind chemistry and physics.  As I said - we are young.

bill w

On Sat, May 21, 2016 at 10:18 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 1:05 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=0223b88963-Weekly_Newsletter_20_May_20165_20_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-0223b88963-68993993
>>
>> > 
>> Not surprisingly, I did not understand this at all, but clearly this
>> relates to some of the postings in this group, so have at it and I'll try
>> to follow.
>>
>
> 
> The first warning sign that the article is probably worthless
> 
> is
>  
> that it
>  
> was written by
>  
> Robert Epstein, a
>  
> psychologist and former editor of Psychology Today, a "science" that
> hasn't discovered anything of much importance
>  
> today or
>  
> in decades. The second warning sign was in the
>  
> ridiculous
>  
> opening tag line "*Your brain does not process information, retrieve
> knowledge or store memories*
> "
> .  So after that I just quickly skimmed the article, however one sentence
> did catch my eye:
>
> > 
>> *the IP metaphor is, after all, just another metaphor*
>
>
> Years ago they said the brain was like a switchboard and that was indeed
> a metaphor because a switchboard can't beat a human brain
> at Chess or GO or Jeopardy, but a computer can.
>  And nobody would hesitate to call a human champion of those games
> intelligent. And that's why a computer is more than just another metaphor.
>
> > a story we tell to make sense of something we don’t actually
>> understand.
>
>
> Richard Feynman felt that you don't really understand something until you
> can do it, and I think he was right. If Mr. Epstein can
> make something that behaves intelligently then his philosophy of mind would
> be worth studying, until then it's just metaphorical hot air.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>
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>
>
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