Discussing the Discourse - Question Format Recommended

[Dodes]

Yes, but a "right mind" or "several good choices" are only chosen by society. Any concept of an exterior right and wrong would have to be omnipotent.

To our society, murder without valid reason is a universal taboo. Though there is nothing scientific in that murder is bad or taboo. Yes, there are negative implications to murder and further negative implications in allowing unjustified murderers to be unpunished, but the point is that the concept of morality is a human construct and not a scientific one.

If anybody thinks I'm pro-murder from this, you've missed the point entirely. And I'm not.

 

[Vissy]

Morality is a human construct, yes. It doesn't stop us from having a science of morality that deals with facts about the well-being of conscious creatures, however. "Murder is bad", for example, is a fact about our well-being because murder is bad in every sense of the word 'bad' we use(and people cease to exist as well!).

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

I do take that how I wish, and I take it as follows, in that a lot of the branches of behavioural psychology are at best theoretical and generally unscientific and at worst a grouping of diverse cults, many of which are little more than a eugenics revival.

Wilhelm Wundt rolls over in his grave and a hundred psychologists at the University of Leipzig cry out in anguish. Anyway, onto the serious stuff.

The basis of what you are saying, at least for behavioral psychology, is that it is invalid due to psychology being unscientific. For psychology to be scientific it must follow the scientific method. The scientific method unfortunately cannot be directly translated to psychology, thus early psychologists had to adapt the scientific method while keeping to its core tenants. How this works is that psychological research must be replicable, falsifiable, precise, and parsimonious. Then how research is performed is the development of a hypothesis, the observation of subjects, the refinement of a theory based on the observation, and then the development of a theory which *surprise* results in additional formed hypotheses.

If you can tell and prove to me that this is not a scientific process and thus psychology is not a science, I will be astounded.

Well the fact that psychology isn't a science credit in many major universities should say something about it, and not that there's some sort of higher-education conspiracy intended to bring it down.

Psychology is unscientific due to the very principles you mentioned, because it can't adhere to the scientific method. There are aspects of psychology that do try to adhere to the scientific method in communicating their findings, but in reality they can only use a hollow mockery of it. Many of the major findings in the field of psychology are owed not to psychology itself but to neuroscience.

This may be somewhat of an interesting read for you.

 

[Vissy]

Hey, thanks for posting that link. A great find.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

Some of the more interesting stuff there is the responses to the article from professional psychologists and his responses in turn in the feedback section.

 

[Dodes]

You didn't address anything I said in the quote that you responded to on the basis that your university doesn't take psychology as a science credit and because arachnoid.com concludes that

it contains within it a model for correct behavior, although that model is never directly acknowledged. Buried within psychology is a nebulous concept that, if it were to be addressed at all, would be called “normal behavior.”

You then say psychology is unscientific due to the principles I mentioned, even though the principles I mentioned adhere to the scientific method. Then your claim is that psychology only major discoveries are simply neuroscience. I'm not sure if you're not understanding exactly what neuroscience is or how psychology does not follow the scientific method. So it is probably best if we talk about the definition and practice of each.

The Scientific Method: Propose a question, do background research, create hypothesis, test hypothesis by experimentation, analyze data and make a conclusion, and report results with how it infers with your first hypothesis.

Please tell me how psychology does not follow this method, which is the basis of what makes schools of thought science and not science.

Neuroscience: Regarding the nervous system.

Because everything that humans perceive utilizes the nervous system, it could be argued that literally everything is a neuroscience and I believe you are using the the idea that neuroscience can measure abnormalities in active brain thus psychology is not a science as only neuroscience can determine deterioration or mutation. The thing is, neuroscience as that concept, wasn't available until the 1940s when electrical activity of neurons could finally be explained, and that was at its very crudest. Psychology as a modern thought was active since 1879 with Wilhlem Wundt's Leipzig psychology lab.

SIDENOTE: While I admit I did not fully read the entire article, I skimmed through but read the conclusion fully. I would appreciate if you would bring specific points and findings of a paper, instead of just laying it down as a sole example of "this is why your thought is incorrect".

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

If you haven't read the article fully then I suggest that you read the article fully.

 

[Dodes]

You want to suspend the whole discussion because you refuse to paraphrase?

I'm not denying the work, I'm just pointing out that your debate methods are unconventional. It's not expected when sources are presented to fully read their contents, but instead to cite your paraphrase as credible.

(Though I am reading it as I go along offtopic)

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

My debate methods are indeed unconventional.

To put it frankly, to paraphrase it enough so that it would get the minimal amount of the message of the article across is more effort than I'm willing to expend.

 

[rebelsquirrell]

Well Dodes, if your on the nurture side of the debate for human behavior then the question for you is "how do we bring about circumstances that breed mutually fulfilling desires?" (Another example: I want as much sex as possible so how do I get more people to be sexually less picky.)



Even then some old anticommunist objections still hold power.

As some desires come more naturally than others and are often strong and not very flexible. ( Such as having shelter and safety) 

The trick would be determining if the desires to gather wealth and dominate others are in general  malleable desires or  rigid desires and acting accordingly.



While I don't think pure communism is sustainable for long periods of time some sort of long term collectivist system is attainable. (Albeit it still requires a state.) 

 

[Dodes]

So I was just working on the psychology debate yesterday and I felt less and less inclined as I went on with it. I decided to do something else with my free time and get back to it when my interest in it was high again. Then I made plans with family to go over for dinner, which then resulted with me watching a movie and sleeping on a couch. I think the "sleeping on it" did me well because when I woke up today (or maybe when I was going to sleep last night) I realized that this debate isn't about psychology nor is it about communism/anarchism, rather this feels to me like a discussion about "Is Vermillion Hawk a cynic?". That's not the reason I made this thread and why I was becoming so disinterested in debating "Is psychology a science?", my real enthusiasm lies with the political topic and I realized the farther and farther we moved away from the relevance from politics, the less interested I became. So if you do want to have an in-depth discussion about psychology, especially when regarding "Is it a science?" I would suggest creating a new thread, but I have no desire to take part in it. In reality, the debate topic of psychology and its relevance to being a science is near the bottom of the list when it comes to the relevance of communism and anarchism. That doesn't mean we won't talk about "Human Nature" and cynicism/optimism, I just feel like debating psychology itself is inconsequential. And for that, I apologize.

The spoiler below is the counterargument I was working on after I read the article. I just thought I'd post them to see I'm not simply saying "I DUN WANN READ".

隐藏: Jibberish/notes

Because this article is directed toward educated nonspecialist readers considering psychological treatment

At this point it must be clear to the intelligent reader that clinical psychology can make virtually any claim and offer any kind of therapy

I can't help but notice that the bias of this article seems to be that the author has the motivation for steering away anyone considering psychologists in a practical use of improving the self. Even though the article states the intention is:

We should determine whether psychology can be relied on to objectively support the social and legal policies that are based on it. In modern times, such a serious public burden can only be borne by a field that is based on reason, on science.

Also the use of Allen Frances as a reinforcement of the points the work is making. Allen Frances is the American psychiatrist that is the epitome of thought that is "Psychological practice should only be used for the severely ill".

What animals do not have is the ability to reason, to rise above feeling.

This just irked me and I needed to say something, I could honestly open up a whole new debate on this alone. If curious there is this: http://www.iep.utm.edu/ani-mind/#SH1d Please don't bring the discussion here (this applies to everyone) as it's not even the primary hypothesis in the article in question.

scientific investigations never draw conclusions directly from observations.

This seems to be the basis of "What is science" that the author is making in this article. It's very odd to me that such a core question regarding the definition of science goes unanswered: "What are conclusions drawn from?" I'd like to know what his answer is. (It's data) I assume he is saying it's data and only such. This would rule out everything that includes observational data or observational study in the same way that he rules out psychology.

This example highlights a cardinal rule of science: Always consider alternative explanations, never accept anything at face value.

This is a basis of "What is science" that is on equal footing with "conclusions are not drawn from observations". Later the author goes on to explain the "cults and fads" that appear/appeared in the history of psychology. While the author does not directly state it, it can easily be understood that

@rebelsquirrell

I feel like we're beating around the bush with "how do we bring about circumstances .... (etc.)", I'd much rather hear the point you want to make with my answer to the question, which I think will not make a real difference to your prepared response. I'd just like to hear the "old anticommunist objections" by themselves.

Regarding pure communism though, that I can talk about easily. Pure communism (classess society/utopia), as I see it, will not be feasible with the technology we have now nor is it likely within at least a 1000 year timeframe. With that in mind, it "pure communism" matters very little and any stances on it are, ultimately, useless. Let's say there is a unanimous conclusion on how pure communism will work, even then we have no idea the factors that the far future will bring and in reality, it will be very much up to future generations of humankind to make those decisions. Right now, we'd just be making prophecies.

 

[Mad Vader]

How do you see technology enabling communism in the far future? I can't see that happening. At best, it will serve to pacify the underclasses.

P.S. Sorry, but VH's link on whether psychology is a science and what are the consequences turned out to be more interesting than your personal thoughts on communism. I challenge you to make this topic more interesting to a wider audience by not self-indulging as much, but steering the debate with a light touch.
Thread ownership is not in the spirit of true communism!

 

[Dodes]

How do you see technology enabling communism in the far future? I can't see that happening. At best, it will serve to pacify the underclasses.

Well, before I start, let me clarify, as I hope you're saying as well, that I'm saying that technology will enable classless society (the technical/fundamental definition of a communist society). Though I believe that socialism (as in the process towards communism) can be ushered in today, the recent past, and the near future.

I think there are going to be dire consequences to the wealth/power gap once genetics/cybernetics/technology starts swinging in full. It's going to give those who can afford it a massive advantage over the underclasses (see: the concept of the Deus Ex video game franchise, but without the conspiracies and video game cliches/tropes, etc.). But capitalism may enter another crisis once automation becomes more and more present and the need for unskilled human labor plummets, the middle classes will stay relatively intact until they too are automated, though this would create an incentive for the wealth (controlled primarily by the upper class) to stop feeding progress of more effective automation. It would be a logical thing to do, "Idle hands are the devil's playthings" and all that.

With that in mind, it will be hard to judge what technology will do for communism and capitalism, though it really all matters if either the proletariat becomes class conscious or the bourgeois start cooperating more. Though personally the best case scenario is if the bourgeois remain uncooperative and the proletariat does become class conscious, but given history and current trends, I doubt that will happen without intervention.

Edit: By intervention I mean organization of communists, though not necessarily a vanguard party doctrine. I would say I'm more of a spontaneous than a vanguard.

P.S. Sorry, but VH's link on whether psychology is a science and what are the consequences turned out to be more interesting than your personal thoughts on communism. I challenge you to make this topic more interesting to a wider audience by not self-indulging as much, but steering the debate with a light touch.
Thread ownership is not in the spirit of true communism!

You have the means of thread production comrade! Power to the people! I mean, I am a communist rather than an anarchist after all, you know, with communists being more structural and anarchist being more auxiliary.

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

I heard this thread might have Christopher Lloyd in it, and wanted to get his opinion about a time-travel paradox I've encountered. If he turns up, ask him to PM me.

 

[Jhessail]

 

[Dodes]

I heard this thread might have Christopher Lloyd in it, and wanted to get his opinion about a time-travel paradox I've encountered. If he turns up, ask him to PM me.

As of this time that is known to me, Christoperh Lloyd is not participating in the revolution (hence the "yet")

 

[Lord Burgess1]

What about Christopher Hitchens, will he be here?

However I wiki'd him and it turns out he died in 2011, so maybe not.

 

[Dodes]

Couldn't get a hold of either Lee or Walken as well for the vanguard party 

 

[Weaver]

Though all communists are bond together in the belief that lower classes will somehow establish victory over the upper classes and further democratize the entirety of the practice of politics.

I believe civilized communism is rather about building a classless society rather than helping lower class destroy the upper class.
You can say that it is impossible to reach this goal peacefully, but then again violence never worked either.

So what about anarchy? We are talking here not about "a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority" but rather "an absence of state government with the absolute freedom of the individual".

Absolute freedom and defiance of any authority are not compatible with being a functional part of a group (family, society).
It's just not feasible for our species.

Both ideologies are utopias and fail the reality check.

 

[Mage246]

Communism believes that you can democratize egalitarianism. That has not proven to be the case.