/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9965978
It makes money

bump

>>9965978
Social sciences are (usually) anti-scientific. They care more about their internal politics than anything else.

>>9965978
>psychoanalysis
Not science but I don't think anyone ever claimed it to be. Psychoanalysis holds legitimacy only as a means of treatment for mental disorder. Dentistry isn't science either.

>>9966264
OP here.
I tend to agree with this too. But why do some (a small but vocal minority) of people from the skeptic movement so fanatically attack psychoanalysis, supplements/nutriceuticals (I'm not talking about homeopathy, but actual supplements which help, such as melatonin for sleep) and other medical interventions which have a small but existent effect?
What motivates them ideologically/economically? Do they subscribe to some ideology (if so, which)? Or are they useful idiots to some economic interest? Or perhaps both?

>>9966293
>But why do some (a small but vocal minority) of people from the skeptic movement so fanatically attack psychoanalysis, supplements/nutriceuticals (I'm not talking about homeopathy, but actual supplements which help, such as melatonin for sleep) and other medical interventions which have a small but existent effect
Ignorance, probably
>What motivates them ideologically/economically
Probably arrogance. T. mechanical engineer who's met lots of these type.
>useful idiot
Stopped reading there

No one does classic psychoanalysis anymore.

>>9966293
>supplements/nutriceuticals
Do you have any idea how many of those are useless? Fucking Alex Jones sells supplements.

>>9965978
if you are royalty or equivalently wealthy you can spend it on the procedure and see the benefits. otherwise it remains obscure to someone who isn't interested in reading the texts as a means of learning how to understand and fix (a) oneself or (b) others

otherwise it's thought-provoking literature about issues central to social scientists' discipline

/thread

>>9965978
Psychoanalytics, the science of knowlege of human behavor and traits due to the observable eye. It's not because it is something clueless jibbersh one may call it pseudo, but the observator which most likely is a brainlet piece of crap that diagnosing anyone for a fee. And it is their job to make people believe their totally off valuable subjective nonsense that has no clinical relyence in the objective sense because psychology is shit tier and you wont find any good doctor any fucking day for doing so. Many and most of them lack the generally skill of how the psyche behaves in an enviroment. Because it's shit tier nonsense. They are dumb as in as stupid you can get many times. So the science becomes pseudo because the whole field is unqualified dick heads which does not get anything decent done with anything ever. So it is because it is a subjective piece of shit field that is gone long time ago. It serves no good purpose. I have personally got missdiagnosed badly not once but by several doctors up through time. They just hate me because im pain in the ass to them. But the clinical trials has no reliance in what's obvious going on in my head. Makes me mad. Bad business. Neuropsychology on the other hand has more reliability than psychology plus you most likely need more brain for the skill to get there. They diagnose in what's generally aproven clinically for then make the diagnosis more scientifically correct. Dunno what to say but it's shit tier not even pseudo. Filled with wannabe hipster shit heads that usually suck dick for breakfast and wants to see this world burn for glory. Shit tier.

>>9965978
Because sadly we have not mapped the mind or decoded the synaptical binary language of thought. We're still forced to examine abstract ideas without physical tools and try as best as possible to define our terms, cite our sources, and bide our time until an actual science of the mind appears.

Counseling does in fact work on a lot of stupid people, because all most people need is to subject their ideas to adult-level scrutiny and follow through the implications of those ideas to conclusions that they didn't choose for themselves from the outset.

psychoanalysis is the nu religion of secular jews, the only reason it is still entertained is because of how many jews there are in academia and popular media

it's also funny how much the very same Jewish academic continue to extol Freud to this day while having nothing but bile and vitriol for Jung even though they are both ostensibly equally pseudo scientific

>>9966352
Do you have any idea how many of these are useful? I'm prescribed melatonin by my doctor for sleep, and it works wonders, despite the fact that it's widely classified as a "supplement".

>>9966338
>>useful idiot
>Stopped reading there

Do you know why global warming denial is so prevalent in the US? It's because the oil lobby spends billions on fostering bullshit opinions (global warming "skeptics").
They pay the movers who then amass followings of useful idiots who spread these dumb ideas.

>>9965978
Psychoanalysis isn't a science you sperg. If anything, it's philosophy. Also it doesn't flourish in social sciences, Freud and Jung are openly mocked by most psychology professors which is a shame.

>>9966459
Strike a nerve? Fuck off.

>>9966532
Both are Pseudoscience though

Jung didnt claim to know why dream analysis can cure mental disorders, just that it can. (Emprically proven)

>>9966590
>Pseudoscience

God, no wonder nobody likes you pure rationalist autists

>>9966338
some of it is probably pharma-funded PR. say what you want about psychoanalysis, at least it's not as barbaric as psychiatric medicine

>>9965978
>why does it still flourish in social sciences
lol you answered your own question

>>9965978
There is no scientific way to explain morality yet it is still important,It is all completely subjective and NOT A SCIENCE. before you claim that all morality is dumb and useless just think about how the world would be if everyone had no regard for anyone else, it would be miserable for most people.If we all want to live together here on earth we need a set of rule's to make sure it goes well, it is in your own interest to have morality because after offending someone else they could treat you badly in return,psychology and philosophy help us think about these thing's that are subjective and not a science, and everyone comes out with what they want,Science isn't the right tool to analyze everything.think of philosophy, psychology as a guide to thing's science isn't best suited for.

watching a program on DID. bullshit? need a psychoanalysist to tell me

the reason shit is spread is to fuck with ya brain and keep you trapped inside your existence rather than seeing things another way.
give certain people the spotlight to spiel away, and spiel they will. analysis of ones unconscious and other thoughts and patterns is complete sense, but freud was a fraud. he has written letters not to be opened until various years ahead. (2019 to 2027 or something) i wonder whats in them?
psychoanalysis is a science, but it needs more science.
>>9966921
morality is not completely subjective. there is nothing inherently right or wrong but there is a helpful and hurtful. the science of wholeness...
>>9966984
i know someone with DID, i can prove so because they can tell me they went somewhere and ill ask them again and theyll go
"haaa! i havent been there in years!"
plus them seeming like a different persona. trauma sucks and brains are mad.

>>9965978
70%+ social science studies non replicable.

>>9965978
Mental concepts are not empirically observable. We understand, explain and predict human behaviour through so called "common sense" or "folk" psychology. We understand each other by ascribing mental concepts to each other, namely belief, desire and so forth. Neuroscience is however not yet developed enough to ascertain the objective neuronal correlates of these concepts, therefore creating an explicative void where a plethora of metaphysical positions strive to offer the best explanation. Some respectable philosophers contain that one cannot ever formulate law-like (scientific) psychological generalizations no matter how advanced a neuroscience we have. Davidson argues that even though each mental event is identical with a physical (cerebral) event, and "in the world" there is indeed only one thing, namely, a physical event, this same physical event admits two different but equally valid explanations, one physical and one mental. Because they are constitutively different types of language, i.e. -explanations-, we will never be able to "reduce" psychological concepts to physical concepts. Both types of language (physical and mental) differ radically, and postulate radically different entities, to the point that no "bridging laws" between these two domains of language could ever be formulated. Fodor argues to the contrary that it is not only possible but necessary that we "functionalize" mental concepts, which as mental representations can be individuated by determining their semantic (meaning) and syntactic properties (causal role). That is, a mental concept can be defined by its semantic properties and its functional (causal) role with respect to a network of different mental representations. These two want to hold on to folk psychology, i.e. our common sense concepts, while Fodor believes in the possibility of a scientific psychology and Davidson doesn't.

>>9967762
(cont)
Paul Churchland, in turn, argues for the elimination of common sense concepts and that we'll one day reach a strictly scientific psychology that will get rid of so called "propositional attitudes" (e.g. a belief is a mental state of subject S, who is in relationship R with proposition P), and will develop it's own language and concepts, fully integrated with the physical explanations.

These are all valid and respectable positions.in philosophy of mind. So you see that confusion reigns and nothing is certain. Since humans are probably the most complex medium-sized objects in the observable universe, capable of engaging in thought and relationships the explanation of which far exceeds our current capacity to offer simple empirical models for simple phenomena, it is no wonder that alternative disciplines appear that seek to explain human behaviour through different metaphysical and epistemological assumptions. Freud was, however, a reductionist and a physicalist, and he argued that one day we will be able to establish the hardwired neurological correlates of the concepts he proposed, so he was closer to Fodor or Churchland. Lacan, on the other hand, as most of french post-structuralist authors, radically opposses this. For Lacan, science is one of the "master's discourses" by which subjectivity itself is established (much like a cartesian cogito) through language. Lacanian Psychoanalysis is thus a sort of highly speculative (even meta-theoretical) discipline that seeks to explain subjectivty itself (not just behaviour or thought) by elucidating how we constitute ourselves as human subjects through the conflicting experience of having our irrational animal desire ("appetit"), our striving for pleasure ("jouissance"), our so called (by Freud) "drives", etc., "culturallized" and thus "domesticated" by our insertion in some symbolic order through language.

So you see, there are many ways to formulate a psychological theory.

>>9967762
>Mental concepts are not empirically observable.
they are, at least to the experiencer. meditation, mental work and turning your awareness inward is the measuring.
and that's fine in terms of empirical science, because the only person that really can help you is yourself anyway.

>>9965978
>why does the pseudo-science flourish in the field of pseudo-sciences
hmmmm lemme thimk

>>9967762
>That is, a mental concept can be defined by (i) its semantic properties and (ii) its functional (causal) role with respect to a network of different mental representations
Better put: with respect to a network of sensory inputs, mental representations (internal states of a Turing machine), behavioural outputs; and their (causal) relations. This is a more or less classical version of functionalism, Fodor's "Representational Theory of Mind". Now, how is it possible to have physical states with semantic properties? Fodor claims that the in order to be able to carry such messages, the "representional vehicles" (syntactic properties of an internal physical states that instantiates semantic properties) of a system must enter in causal relations with each other in a way that allows for the carrying of said messages. In other words, the relations between syntatic properties must respect and reflect the characteristics of the semantic properties, e.g. composionality. This amounts to postulating the existance of a "Language of Thought", that is, that the hardwired relations between neurons (internal states of a system) must in some way be such that satisfy the conditions for carrying language-like messages (because thought can be causally effective and only physical, not semantic, properties can be) . This is a way of being an "intentional realist", someone who thinks that semantic properties (meaning) can be somehow physicially instantiated. Dennett, on the other hand, argues that all meaning (all intentionality) is second-hand or derived intentionality, that all language and all representations are a very convincing, well elaborated but mere illusion, "software" that holds no physical resemblance with the physical structure of whatever system it is instantiated on. But anyway Lacan is not interested in these metaphysical problems.

>>9968701
Of course, you could be some sort of cartesian or kantian and argue for the epistemic privilege of the first person. However I assume that your psychological theory would like to explain not only the relationship between mental concepts and behaviour, but also the acquisition of said mental concepts, hopefully though the same mechanisms?. This is very difficult, as Locke already recognized. Not even so called "Theories of Simulation" argue that we -acquire- mental concepts through introspection, only that we understand each other by projecting our own mental states unto others. Most respectable science nowadays argues that the phenomena to be explained must be defined or described from an "objective" third person perspective, in terms of what a neutral observer (if there could ever be such a thing) would experience, which is very helpful for scientific purposes because it allows for reproducible results, etc. First person descriptions of phenomena run into the problem of solipsism and intersubjective verifiability (how do we know we are describing the same experience if I cannot access your own personal subjective train of experience?). Psychoanalysts argue that clinical practice reveals a sphere of subjective phenomena only accesible through such method.

>>9965978
>>9965980
>>9966237
This just shows your ignorance of social science. Within academic psychology, psychoanalysis is largely regarded as anti-scientific and confined to the dustbins of history. During my courses at university (BSc, MSc, currently PhD), I had about one lecture on Freud, and even less than that on Jung and Adler (can't think of any other famous psychoanalysts who were even mentioned to be honest). The prevailing approach now is the cognitive-behavioural perspective, and mindfulness is also gaining traction.

That said, after taking the time to read some psychoanalysts myself (particularly Jung) instead of just listening to what others had to say about them, I've developed a much deeper respect for them. When we talk about elements of the psyche, we're not necessarily talking about physical structures (like we'd talk about the amygdala, the hippocampus, etc), but we're talking about how humans experience and react to the world. From the perspective of helping people to live more meaningful lives, that's what's really important, rather than what's objectively 'true'.

>>9968823
how can that be valid when you can't even define or measure your own mental states. Our own introspection is subjective folk psychology and inconsistent and some people are better at observing their own states than others.

Psychology can never be a science. Not under folk psychology. No. The brain doesn't work like our folk psychology. Representationalism is an illusion. Representations themselves are a folk psychological inference that is faulty. Whats more, folk psychology is culturally bound. Ofcourse we need to use folk-psychology for it for psychology to be useful for practical situations.

>>9968876
>you can't define or measure your own mental states

Not perfectly, no. But should that stop us from trying?

>Psychology can never be a science

Again, it can't be a perfect science because psychological constructs can't typically be measured objectively, but that doesn't mean it's a pointless endeavour. For example, in some of my own studies I've considered what might cause the psychological experience of 'stress'. To measure this, I could use questionnaires, and would acknowledge that the responses would contain error based upon the respondent's bias and the imperfect nature of the item(s) used. I could use physiological measures such as galvanic skin response or heart rate variability, and I would acknowledge that these objective measures don't entirely capture the psychological experience of stress. Ideally, I'd use a few different measures, and if they all seem to point in the same direction, I've got a pretty firm (but not perfect) conclusion. It's still worthwhile if you do it properly (which is admittedly often rare), even though it's not a perfect science.

>folk psychology is culturally bound

Interestingly, a large part of Jung's work was centred around finding commonalities in the folklore of seemingly very different cultures. He reasoned that the motifs or 'archetypes' that pop up time and time again represent something absolutely integral to the experience, contained in the 'collective unconscious' that lies within all of us. It's pretty fascinating stuff imho

>>9968909
>Not perfectly, no. But should that stop us from trying?

No but its not good enough to make an empirical science out of it. If we relied wholy on that then we wouldn't be looking at things like therapy would we. Depressed people are mentally looking inward too and don't help themselves.

>Again..
I mean under folk psychology. My problem wouldn't be that those objective measures don't necessarily capture stress 100%, its that stress isnt objectified. Yes you can have fairly consistent measures of stress that capture someones self-reported experience but a subjective feeling like stress wouldnt be sufficient for a theoretical framework of the mind/brain because our definitions of stress are folk-psychological and even culturally bound. Our own introspection and theory of mind is inconsistent and so will our prior definitions of things like stress or belief.

>>9968780
>Not even so called "Theories of Simulation" argue that we -acquire- mental concepts through introspection,
i was talking about in terms of what psychoanalysis means, therapy / treatment.
maybe we are the mind of god staring into itself hehe.
>Most respectable science nowadays argues that the phenomena to be explained must be defined or described from an "objective" third person perspective
well i mean you could just ask questions and fill in questionnaires, close enough? physical science in terms of brain scans etc has its limits. maybe there needs to be more subsets of "science" in order to deal with the different layers of reality and existence. i also believe that neutral observers (not absolute) exist as long as everyone is following the same framework.
>how do we know we are describing the same experience if I cannot access your own personal subjective train of experience
multiple viewpoint / logic states that point to the same thing?
>solipsism and intersubjective verifiability
these are the same knowledge limits of philosophy, and in any which subject we measure. so you just have to listen to people and use empathy, or teach them how to deal with their problems themselves (they will teach themselves anyways, like how everyone learns, just give them material and guides)

>>9969078
>No but its not good enough to make an empirical science out of it

So what do you suggest instead? Abandoning psychological research altogether? I think it's far better to continue with it (improving it where possible), and accept that it is inherently flawed but still useful

>My problem... its that stress isnt objectified

So how would you attempt to measure it instead? Or would you abandon the study of stress altogether, since it can't be captured perfectly?

Like I say, good psychologists should acknowledge the limitations of the science, but that doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile discipline nonetheless.

>>9969078
>Depressed people are mentally looking inward too and don't help themselves.
i think u need a nondual perspective
>>9968876
>how can that be valid when you can't even define or measure your own mental states.
>Our own introspection is subjective folk psychology and inconsistent and some people are better at observing their own states than others.
1. if you cant understand your own mental states, you are unbalanced. i know exactly who i am and what i am doing and why i do what i do and why i am the way i am. if you need hardcore science to live your life or help others - holee fuk. like you can trust your own intuition, that has developed in accord with your being since the dawn of man. not everything is subjective, looking inward you will find objective truth too. how to find what isnt subjective folk stuff? compare it to the whole, think pragmatism.
2. - people are flexible and capable of learning and changing and growing new brain matter. also inconsistency and imperfection dynamically exist. some people are better, some people are more intelligent than others etc, such is life. if you want to improve such skills rapidly go devour some mushrooms or LSD or any nice psychedelic.

>>9969111
its not flawed if you consider the concept of SCIENCE is a limitation and science is not the answer to all. science could diversify into different kinds of problem solving. not everything is a science. science does not apply to doodling a nice fantasy drawing. science does not apply to making jokes with friends. science does not apply to psychology either it would appear; it deserves it's own field separated from the confines of "science". science is a philosophy lol

>>9969078
>>9969111
stress is doing something you don't want to do, or are unable to cope with. simple shit.
whats the obsession with measuring? open your ears.

>>9969156
>what's the obsession with measuring

Because it allows us to understand more about the situations in which stress arises, the ways it can be alleviated, the consequences it has, etc. Yes, the experience can also be understood by reading and interpreting people's reported experiences of stress (ie qualitative analysis), but scientific/rationalist types typically regard this form of research as too subjective and prone to bias, and prefer the at least quasi-scientific approach of trying to quantify the psychological experience and using statistical methods to objectively analyse the data

>>9965978
Because nothing in so-called social sciences follows the scientific method.

Because the main purpose of psychology is to improve the quality of live of people. According to the studies, people who go and talk about their problem with someone who was some kind psychoanalytic training feel better afterwards.

No one gives a shit if Freud theory is pseudoscience, psychoanalysis works, it helps most people improve their lives.

>>9969111
No just that that psychology is surface level stuff.

Those concepts are useful in our own social and subjective context. But they shouldnt be fundamentals to how the brain works. We need to clarify our concepts. Like belief, imagination, memories, attention/working memory, mood. Most people can't define what mood is. Thats how folk psychological it is.

>>9969142
nondual?

you are delusional.

>>9969152
delusional

>>9969156
>stress is doing something you don't want to do, or are unable to cope with

delusional

All of psychology is facing a severe reproducability crisis.