Psychology and Faith
Posted on: June 1, 2009 - 4:27am
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Psychology and Faith
No doubt you have some notion of what is known as the "unconscious" when speaking of some aspect of Psychology.
Does the unconscious AS YOU UNDERSTAND IT exis?
OR
Do you "take it on Faith" that unconscious AS YOU UNDERSTAND IT exists?
If it does exist, as you understand what is referred to as the unconscious, then what evidence of the existence of the unconscious
would you cite?
Additionally, if the unconscious exists, pls be sure to clarify what you are referring to.
Remember, we're using your own understanding, and definition of "unconscious",
not mine. However, for the purse of any discussion, you may of course choose to define it using any definition you choose.
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Yes it does
it can be easily tested with a simple baseball bat.
A state of non-awareness such as blacking out etc...
LOL. Reminds me of a South Park episode.
(Actually, I'm watching one right now.... Kenny's got "expolsive diarrhea".)
I have faith that Dr Phil is not a real psychologist...
www.RichWoodsBlog.com
I'd say so. Just look at the Iowa Gambling Task.
"Concurrent measurement of galvanic skin response shows that healthy participants show a "stress" reaction to hovering over the bad decks after only 10 trials, long before conscious sensation that the decks are bad."
Is that not unconscious decision making?
My Brand New Blog - Jesu Ad Nauseum.
God of the Gaps: As knowledge approaches infinity, God approaches zero. It's introductory calculus.
I am quite happy with the basic definition of the "unconscious" as:
There is so obviously a massive amount of mental activity that I do not have conscious experience of, such as that which takes care of the low-level skills of driving my car, keeping me balanced as I walk or cycle, retrieving some old memory which eventually pops into my mind minutes after I tried to consciously remember it, or solves some problem I have been wrestling with, then comes up with an inspiration while I am thinking about something entirely different.
Every time you learn some skill in a repetitive task, you are training your brain to handle as much as possible 'unconsciously', to free your conscious mind to concentrate on those aspects which either require higher-level control, or are what you specifically wish to consciously handle.
What regulates your breathing when you aren't thinking about it?
Seems literally a 'no-brainer' to me.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Let's explore your definition
for a moment because you seem to have modified that definition later on.
It appears as if you do not accept your initial definition, as is. To repeat
your initial def., you initially said you accept the following definition:
Inacessible?
Apparently not according to your later re-definition of the initial definition which nullified the inial definition. That is, you said:
What is it, as you understand it?
That is, what is it that you are saying does exist?
(BTW. Check out Bob's post and my response, before you respond. Tx.)
A doctor was treating a patient with memory loss. Every appoitment, the man would not regonize the doctor. On time, the doctor hid a pin between his fingers. When he shook the doctor's hand, the pin would prick his hand
Soon enough the man refused to shake the doctor's hand, even though he has no memory of meeting the doctor or getting pricked when he shook the doctor's hand.
The man unconciously knew that if he shook the doctor's hand he would get pricked with a needle, though he was not conciously aware of it. Ergo he did not know why he didn't want to shake the doctor's hand.
This commonly referred to as a "Freudian slip."
Freud might say:
You unconsciously may have been thinking about:
1. being on time for something.
2. that doctors are timely.
3. that people must be on time for doctor appointments.
etc., etc.
However, that can't be PROVED.
If the unconscious is inaccessible, then what evidence do you have that it exists?
Perhaps you simply were not concentrating on spelling OR
Perhaps you were distracted at the moment you were typing,OR
Perhaps your fingers slipped,
etc., etc.
There's no evidence of anything except what you typed.
Clearly you did intend to type!
(Spelling doesn't count. This isn't a classroom in school.)
Where's the evidence of what you claim no one can know exists?
Isn't this a question of Faith?
You REALLY do NOT KNOW WHY the man refused to shake the doctor's hand became the man didn't tell you.
YOU ASSUME to know what EVEN THE MAN DOESN'T KNOW! That presumption implies you posess god-like characteristics that (I as an Atheist) KNOW you are incapable of having.
[quote=Cpt_pineapple... though he was not conciously aware of it.
You haven't asked the man why he didn't shake the doctor's hand. You have no way of knowing what the man knew or didn't know. Additionally, you do not know the motivation for the man not shaking the doctor's hand.
Perhaps the man felt it was unnecessary. Perhaps the man WAS AWARE that shaking the doctor's hand caused pain.
If so, then the man WAS conscious of what you claim to know he could not be conscious of.
If the man was conscious of something he would know it, ergo, we could not then be referring to the unconscious, since the man WAS conscious of something.
Again, your argument implies that because something exists, therefore something we have no empirical evidence
to directly test the existence of what you claim we can not possibly know MUST exist!
Again, this is a strech in logic that only a Theist could make about the existence of gods, simply because there is evidence that WE EXIST!
[quote=Cpt_pineapple...
Ergo he did not know why he didn't want to shake the doctor's hand.
Even if you did ask the man what he knew, THAT does NOT PROVE THE EXISTENCE of what he can't tell you he does
not know.
Again, as with Bob, you claim to know what exists while admitting you CAN NOT EVEN KNOW the existence of.
So far, all I'm hearing is that you take it on Faith that there is something that you can not even know exists, does exist.
That would appear to support you have a somewhat religious belief in the unknown.
Care to clarity what it is that supports the existence of what we can't even know exists?