giving up

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

just to let you all know I am giving up my amateur Psychology .....

[T i m]

Thanks for sharing. It is often the first step towards some level of recovery.

Cheers, T i m

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

shit sorry ...wrong group ....sorry

[Gareth's was W7 now W10 Downst]

_ALL_ psychology is amateur for it comes from observing the external behaviour of other humans but without any concept of how the message passing between neurons at the lower level then translates to behaviours at the higher, outer levels.

[Richard]

Perhaps one should learn the difference between amateur and professional?

[Andrew]

Now we'll have to guess when ...

[Andrew]

Amateurs *read* the instructions and generally don't deviate, mainly because they don't have the knowledge.

Pro's chuck the instructions away and assume they always know best.

Last nights C5 program by Rob Bell on 'why structures fail' as an example.

[Gareth's was W7 now W10 Downst]

There is no difference in the above contest because neither group is capable of taking the behaviour of individual neurons and showing at each stage of abstration how the lower behavioural levels give rise to the next level.

[Roger Hayter]

Nor is there the slightest reason why thsy should want to. Could you write a manual for a word processing program by observing the processor instructions during its operation? (That's a rhetorical question with the answer "no", by the way.)

[Gareth's was W7 now W10 Downst]

I could write a manual showing how low level binary instructions give rise to assembler and then to high level languages, how data structures and subroutines in that high level language give rise to word processors. I have under my belt a complete understanding of the processes involved, and if necessary can go down to the electrons and crystal structures, for I graduated in electronics in 1972 and have had a career in electronics and software, much of it in assembler, and, in one case professionally, in hex machine code.

(So it was a valid question with the answer, "Yes", by the way.)

[Roger Hayter]

The point is that you could pore over assembler for 100 years before you could work out the reformating menus for Word. The complexity of human behaviour is such that you could never predict it from low level neuronal processes. No doubt features of low lever processes, especially occurring en masse, might *affect* behaviour in broad ways, but this would never give you a way of predicting it. Some systems (and it is only in my lifetime that artificial ones existed) are just orders of magnitude too complex to predict from their simple elements. You can't for insitance predict the weather from the gas laws and defined starting conditions.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I see. So neurons cause 'behaviour' do they?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Seems a waste of good toilet paper

[Roger Hayter]

Depends exactly what you mean by behaviour. A slimple spinal reflex is behaviour of a sort.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

when what ? ....

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

sorry I mentioned it

[Richard]

Oh well, in your perception, everyone is an amateur then in everything they do. Which probably is the case.

[Richard]

the recovery process is complete.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Whoosh. But I was shooting pretty high.

I was more gently probing to see if you believed that the rational materailsitic model of the universe was something you believed to be actually true, or whether you understood it was juts another narrative.

i.e. is stuff real, or is that just a handy way to look at it?

[Richard]

Hmmm... over apologising. Signs of an anxiety disorder. Perhaps you need to see a psychologist to help you with that?