Thursday, November 6, 2014


Post # XXII - IMPEACHING INDIVIDUALISM: THE 'PTOLEMAIC' FOUNDATION OF CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 

      The astronomical implications of Copernicus' revolutionary concept of the Solar System are described in Thomas S. Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (copyright 1957 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Eleventh Printing - 1981 - ISBN 0-674-17103--9)

      Thus,  (p.1)  "In 1543, Nicholas Copernicus proposed to increase the accuracy and simplicity of astronomical theory by transferring to the sun many astronomical functions previously attributed to the earth.  Before his proposal the earth  had been the fixed center about which astronomers computed the motions of stars and planets.  A century later the sun had, at least in astronomy, replaced earth as the center of planetary motions, and the earth had lost its unique astronomical status, becoming one of a number of moving planets.  Many of modern astronomy's principal achievements depend upon this transposition.  A reform in the fundamental concepts of astronomy is therefore the first of the Copernican Revolution's meanings."

       In contemporary Western culture and its social sciences, free-standing and independent INDIVIDUALISM has become the central organizing principle and goal of mature human functioning - not unlike how the GEOCENTRIC organizing principle was accepted by astronomers before Copernicus.

       Yet, the English word 'nature' is related etymologically to the concept of birth-giving that, at least in all higher life forms, is a consequence of non-independent and non-individualistic male-female procreational interaction.

       Could human functioning be better understood by perceiving and studying a mature man as a half-individual and a woman as a complementary half-individual?  [The formula of marriage would then be 'the two halves become one'.]

       Neither a man nor a woman can make a new life or a new reality alone.  Both new life and new realities require procreational interaction between one male and one female.

       Certainly, male(s) and female(s), individually or in groups, can build, construct and create a myriad of new things, situations, art, etc. - but a new life or a new reality results only from interaction between one male and one female who relate to each other as two complementary halves of a procreative process.

        SO  -- this blogger proposes that male-female procreative interaction rather than the individual become the focus of such scientific endeavors as psychology, sociology and psychiatry.

         Of course, in the same way that most people in Copernicus' time proffered that it was obvious that the Earth stands still, most men (not so much females) will currently declare that it is obvious that each person is essentially a whole individual rather than a half-individual.


Addendum-a

        Kuhn (p.2) "Initiated as a narrowly technical, highly mathematical revision of classical astronomy, the Copernican theory became one focus for the tremendous controversies in religion, in philosophy, and in social theory which, during the two centuries following the discovery of America, set the tenor of the modern mind.  Men who believed that their terrestrial home was only a planet circulating blindly about one of an infinity of stars evaluated their place in the cosmic scheme quite differently than had their predecessors who saw the earth as the unique and focal center of God's creation.  The Copernican Revolution was therefore also part of a transition in Western man's sense of values."

         And, if the mature human being is perceived and studied as a half-individual in terms of procreating both new life and new realities* and a man considers that he is "an image or God" [this blogger believes that a woman is not restricted to being an image of anything] it suggests that God also is not a 'free-standing' whole individual - but half of a process!

       * an overt indication about the presence of a new reality is the sense that "the earth has moved" consequent to male-female sexual intercourse.  Less flagrantly, new realities produced by male-female communicative interaction are common-place.

Addendum-b

        As critiques of Professionalistic Individualism, I note:  W. Epstein, Psychotherapy as Religion: The Civil Divine in America; J. Hillman, We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy: And the World is Getting Worse; and Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Psychotherapy

 Addendum-c

        And, of course, my "half-individual" concept challenges the Christian tradition that each person will appear before God as an Individual at Judgement Day at the end of time,

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

 XXI.  HETEROSEXUAL INTERACTION: AN ANALOGICAL ADVENTURE

                                     "...your body's really you."
                                                        Leonard Cohen
                                                             Closing Time

                 "...the human mind is the idea of the human body"
                                      Antonio Damaio quoting Spinoza
                                                        Looking for Spinoza

A.    While a number of computer 'geeks' have assured this blogger that analog computers were/are merely primitive forms of digital computers, this is not at all the case.  A cursory 'google' search of "analog computer" will clarify the matter.

Although I am not a computer expert, I gather that digital computation involves converting all input data into (binary) numbers/digits, manipulating the latter and, finally, converting the resulting numbers/digits back into overt real-life data.  The same digital computer can accept any number of different programs and, hence, solve any number of problems/projects.

On the other hand, an analogue computer accepts data (eg., voltages) directly and manipulates such directly without conversion to numbers.   But a given analogue computers is able to perform only the computation that it is specifically constructed to carry out.

B.    There is no reason to believe that the interior of the skull/cranium is the only anatomical location  that cognition takes place - or the only place that memories are stored.  Surely a concert pianist remembers his/her performance in his/her fingers (and arms) as much as in his/her intracranial "brain".   And hormones no doubt also participate in this mental functioning.

C.    To this blogger's knowledge, although both Antonio Damasio (Descartes' Error and Looking for Spinoza) and Danial C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained) identify the soma (body and brain) as being the foundational substrate of mental functioning, neither addresses consequent implications associated with the fact that in the highly innervated genital areas (and hormonally), male and female are quite different from each other both anatomically and functionally.      [In the present era of 'political correctness' they may fear losing their university positions and funding if they dare to investigate possible male-female differences.]                                                

D.    The cortex of the brain is now widely regarded as a "neuronal net/network".  (see 'google' again).  But this cortical net/network has myriad neuronal connections (both afferent and efferent) to other parts of the brain, hormones and the whole body.

And, in turn, the neuronally-based sensory organs connect this net/network to the world/universe in general.

All of this without the intermediate necessity of converting data into numbers/digits.

E.   Thus, living organisms such as mammals like homo sapiens would seem to be analog computers made - under the direction of DNA - of 'meat' (ie, bones, muscles, nerves, etc.)

Insects (and plants), of course, would be analog computers constructed (again under the direction of DNA) as different non-'meat' fabric.

F.     And what tasks/problems/projects are these 'meat' analog computers constructed to carry out?

The male body-mind human organism/computer is built to:
(i) seek food, water and shelter;
(ii) learn about and use natural laws/resources to expedite the obtaining of food, water, and shelter;
(iii) (analogous to male genitalia) seek and keenly perceive opportunities to impregnate (ie, inform, effect, define cf. Post # V)  females and situations;
(iv) compose potent, interesting and constructive/positive genetic/'genetic' material (both physical and psychological) and secondarily assist to nourish and raise offspring (physical and/or psychosocial); and
(v) learn about, develop and use culture to compete successfully with other men and favourably impress females so as to impregnate the latter physically and/or psychologically.

The female body-mind human organism/computer is built to:
(i) seek food, water and shelter;
(ii) organize events/reality so that her family has enough food, water and shelter;
(iii) (analogous to her female genitalia) attract (ie, transform, affect, interpret - cf. Post # V) interesting, potent and positive/constructive male and/or institutional impregnatory input;
(iv) conceive, gestate and give birth to babies and futures/realities and primarily nourish and raise her off-spring by/with the male (both physical and psychosocial/existential);
and
(v) learn about, develop and use her social and cultural organizing capacities to cooperate successfully with other females so as to nourish and raise her/their off-spring (physical and psychosocial).

 G.    Taking the ideas of Damasio, Dennett, Cohen and Spinoza a step further (or maybe not further, after all) this blogger submits that a life form such as the human animal thinks, and can only think, in ways analogous to how its body functions - because thinking is precisely a manifestation of somatic function.

Rephrasing and increasing the precision of Spinoza's concept: 'the human male mind is the idea of the human male body; and the human female mind is the idea of the human female body.'

Yet the language of homo sapiens expedites both (i) 'jerry-building'/reconfiguration of the basic procreational male-female interactive model and (ii) the development of culture.

H.    The intimacy of human physical sexual intercourse (involving direct contact between highly innervated elements of anatomy) suggest that one partner's actions and responses may become part of the other person's 'thinking' 'brain' (ie., the other person's mind).

Less intimate physical and psychological interactions constitute milder forms of one person's actions/word/emotions becoming part of another person's mind.

A person's 'thinking 'brain' (ie, mind) is not entirely localized within his/her body let alone within his/her skull.

I.  ADDENDUM:  a boy goes to school to learn about the world/environment wherein he lives;  a girl goes to school to learn about the world/environment that she is.


Sunday, March 23, 2014

Post # XX -  LOGIC: HETEROSEXUAL MANIFESTATIONS

Werner Heisenberg's 1955-56 St. Andrew's Gifford Lectures have been published (2007) as a Harper Perennial Modern Thought Edition (ISBN 978-0-06-120919-2) entitled Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science.

While Heisenberg makes no mention of possible male-female difference, this blogger perceives a number of aspects of quantum mechanics as being analogous to female psychological function - especially female logic that males often perceive as being illogical.

After several pages of detailed analysis (including the use of complex numbers) of the language and concepts used to describe quantum processes as contrasted with classical logic, Heisenberg describes:

page 155 - "The vagueness of this language in use among the physicists has therefore led to attempts to define a different precise language which follows definite logical patterns in complete conformity with the mathematical scheme of quantum theory.  The result of these attempts by Birkhoff and Neumann and more recently by Weizsacker can be stated by saying that the mathematical scheme of quantum theory can be interpreted as an extension or modification  of classical logic.  It is especially one fundamental principle of classical logic which seems to require a modification.  In classical logic it is assumed that, if a statement has any meaning at all, either the statement or the negation of the statement  must be correct.  Of 'here is a table' or 'here is not a table', either the first or the second statement must be correct.  'Tertium non datur,' a third possibility does not exist.  It may be that we do not know whether the statement or its negation is correct;  but in 'reality' one of the two is correct."

page 158 - "In classical logic the relation between ... different levels of language is a one-to-one correspondence. .  The two statements, 'The atom is in the left half [of the box] ' and 'It is true that the atom is in the left half [of the box]' , belong logically to different levels.   In classical logic these statements are completely equivalent, i.e., they are either both true or both false.  It is not possible that the one is true and the other false.  But in the logical pattern of complementarity this relation is more complicated.  The correctness or incorrectness of the first statement still  implies the correctness or incorrectness of the second stement.  But the incorrectness of the second statement does not imply the incorrectness of the first statement.  If the second statement is incorrect, it may be undecided whether the the atom is in the left half;  the atom need not necessarily be in the right  half.  There is still complete equivalence between the two levels of language with respect to the correctness of a statement, but not with respect to the incorrectness.  From this connection, one can understand the persistence of the classical laws in quantum theory;  wherever a definite result can be derived in a given experiment by the application of the classical laws the result will also follow from quantum theory, and it will hold experimentally."

p. 159 -   "All these difficult definitions and distinctions can be avoided if one confines the language to the description of facts, i.e., experimental results.  However, if one wishes to speak about the atomic particles themselves one must either use the mathematical scheme as the only supplement to natural language or one must combine it with a language that makes use of a modified logic or of no well-defined logic at all.  In the experiments about atomic events we have to do with things and facts, with phenomena that are just as real as any phenomena in daily life.  But the atoms or the elementary particles themselves are not as real;  they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts."


Perhaps male 'classical' logic analogous to classical mechanics is the foundation of male cognition;  whereas female cognition may be substantially based on the kind of 'quantum' logic associated with quantum mechanics (e.g., the disqualification of the principle of 'tertium non datur').

Is the essence of romance, perchance, an interaction between two kinds of logic?