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I'm sorry but this has to be the most un-scientific account I've read on the topic (granted, I read few), and it's incredibly misleading. - Humans did not chan
by third_I 6y ago
I'm sorry but this has to be the most un-scientific account I've read on the topic (granted, I read few), and it's incredibly misleading.
- Humans did not change biologically enough in 10,000 years, let alone 2,000, to produce a meaningfully different psychology. Take a a child born 2,000 years ago, raise them today, and you'll get just a regular human being. Same thing backwards.
- The entirety of the author's 'hypothesis' (sic) rests upon ignoring that nurture, context, is highly determinant in forming psychological references, relative perceptions, hence reactions, profiles. This is wrong, nature isn't 100%, you simply can't take two identical beings, put them in vastly different contexts and hope they present the same behaviors and perceptions. It makes no sense. Hello Darwin, wish you were here.
- “the absence of evidence”... Again, wrong. Historical psychology is a thing. Author may be well-meaning, but they should adopt a transdisciplinary approach if they are to talk about multiple disciplines at once. Find a good psychologist, work together as one on the topic long enough to form a legitimate hypotheses, then maybe make some conclusions.
- It seems the author also neglected to take into account philosophy, which used to be 99% practical back then. Recipes for good living. Guess why it was widely taught and shared, pretty much the basis of any education, throughout life. Guess why Seneca wrote his letters. What's the point of ignoring just about the closest thing to psychology sessions? Why is Stoicism not in that essay?
I feel like I've just read a mathematician trying, painfully, to speak of epidemiology. (forgive the "modern" reference, I think it's fitting as we speak)
Whatever your core expertise, armchair-other disciplines is a slippery slope. I guess the author somehow mistook his own intelligence for knowledge in psychology.
Say whatever you want about our past, you won't find a psychologist or biologist to tell you we've changed in any way, shape or form "inside". The context, however, ah, the context. Well for that, this thread on HN is much more eloquent, I must say. It's almost as if people collectively had insight! (because this is written: "/s", of course they do, and I wish the author didn't simply write solo or fail to question or quote others.
Here's food for thought: the very fact of "talking about your feelings" is very modern, that's a totally different context. We just didn't dwell on that topic as much in history (hence why, perhaps, some literature became so notorious, because it spoke of something that people weren't used to). It was "fluff". Hence why, when we made "emotions" a matter of science, it became a more acceptable topic, not just for a few who dared. It became "mainstream". (I'm NOT a specialist, so don't quote me on this but Freud, Jung, positivism, is probably where/when to look for a major shift; before that it was "magic", fluff, but it doesn't mean it wasn't "real", like belief in supernatural forces is "magic" but real to the psyche).
Imagine that, in the future, we turn some (currently) elusive aspect of our psyche (like belief indeed), into a form of science, of applied psycho-bio-model-mechanics (like we do cognitive sciences today, a scientific progress over prior centuries). Now imagine some author versed in history but oblivious to psychology and biology, centuries from now, claiming in some random short post that people in the 21st century did not experience any tension in that regard because they didn't have words for it. Well, we may not have the words indeed, not yet; but we certainly experience the tensions with beliefs (supernatural or otherwise), heck we made wars because of it. Just like kings of old have waged war because their feelings commanded them to.
That, my friend, is ethnocentricity of a temporal form (not strictly spatial as is usually the implication with that notion). At best, it's blinding Omphaloskepsis.
Edit: lovely downvotes! So, you think PTSD is a modern thing. You think human psychology has changed dramatically in a few centuries. Alright, point taken! FWIW, I've spoken with psychologists explicitly about this question, and my view is informed by their conclusions. You may wish to rethink your modern bias on biology.
- lidHanteyk 6y agoYour own first two points are in conflict. Either humans from the past raised in today's world would be like today's humans, or like the past's humans. Pick one.
- third_I 6y agoNo, it's precisely the same idea. Biology did not change. Perceptions and expression of it did change. It does not mean the inner biological processes are any different, just the way you consciously select what to say about them. Absence of words (context) means you cannot express certain things; does not mean you don't actually feel them. Romantic love for instance is a quite modern thing, the way we speak of it today. Does not mean people did not feel it before. Please reconsider your take and vote, you misinterpreted my points I'm afraid. Or at least, make a worthy counter-argument, a click is simply too easy IMHO.
- lidHanteyk 6y agoOh, I didn't downvote you. I replied instead. I'm used to systems that punish voting and replying in the same thread. Indeed, I won't ever downvote folks like you, since I'm usually punished by that very same system. Instead, I will shove words into your ears and drag you, kicking and screaming, to reason. I gave you a worthy counter-argument; I gave you a single-sentence dilemma which was intended to refute your entire platform. You may want to re-read Pirsig's thoughts on dilemmas [4] before you reply. The entirety of psychology, as a theory, is based upon cultural assumptions about inner experiences. There are important arguments against the ideas that people have inner experiences [0], that people are thinking when they talk [1], that therapy is effective due to its design rather than due to being a safe place to reflect [2], and even that mental disorders exist as opposed to being part of the spectrum of the human condition [3]. If you cannot tackle these foundational issues at all times, then your arguments ought to be considered no more strongly than the original author, by your own words, since you are not a psychologist either. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanism [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Horns_of_a_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Horns_of_a_dilemma