Despite all that, there are many (not sure its more than a billion) people who seem to be healthy, well grounded, clear headed, honest, open, and cooperative. They, of course, do not end up on the psychotherapeutic couch. Psychology would probably learn more if it spent more time analyzing all the happy people who are alike, and less on the unhappy people who are all different and totally screwed up. — Bitter Crank

I think people in general are far saner and more resilient than psychology has been giving them credit for. I appreciate George Bonanno's work on this.

Psychology would probably learn more if it spent more time analyzing all the happy people who are alike

And what would that help? It seems that most well-adjusted people have as their foundation a functional and relatively happy childhood; so it's not something that can be replicated for adults with problems.

Society instructs us that if we peer deep inside our hearts that we will eventually find what makes us happy. — Ladybug

Yes, but I think this instruction is supposed to be taken as a polite way to brush off an impertinent intruder. It's the sort of thing people say to someone they pity and don't want to get involved with.

What's that with the breathing under water remark?

I personally do not think there exists a unified antivaccination side. People who are not overtly enthusiastic about vaccination are a versatile group: from those who are rabidly against any kind of vaccination, to those who are just not very enthusiastic but who get vaccinated anyway, and anything inbetween.

But the existence of a unified antivaccination side is supposed by some high politicians (and other individuals) who put the same label on anyone who is not overtly enthusiastic about vaccination.

Just the other day I watched the daily press conference of the Croatian health department on covid issues. The minister is promoting exactly this same simplistic separation into those who are in favor of vaccination and those who are "antivaccers".

From what I'm seeing, government officials don't care about people's concerns about the vaccines, enforce the party line "the vaccines are safe and effective", despite daily reports of serious negative side effects from the vaccine and despite reports of people getting sick from covid despite being vaccinated, and coerce people into vaccination with socio-economic measures.

That's exactly the point! Psychology isn't/can't be a science. For it to come anywhere close to being a science, it needs people to be honest when reporting their thoughts, feelings, intuitions, whathaveyou and as we all know, honesty is (not) the best policy. — TheMadFool

That's not the only problem. It's that a person has so many thoughts about a certain topic, often contradictory ones, as one can tell from one's own experience. So what is it that a person really thinks about something?

It's not fucking yellow either is it? Moron. — Isaac

Yeah, when psychologists say such things to people, this really helps to improve the reputation of psychology!!!

If that’s the case, then it makes sense to share the load. But this ‘cultural assumption’ - that women are consistently unavailable for work - certainly works in a man’s favour, doesn’t it? — Possibility

That's the idea.

Afford what? A home computer and email? Childcare would have cost half my pay check - it was never an efficient option. My employer simply valued my work, and made allowances for me to continue working.

Most people don't work at a computer, and working from home isn't an option for them, because of the nature of their work.

The Desire Conundrum: — TheMadFool

Fool, we've been over this, at least once.

Stop confusing yourself and go study some actual Buddhist doctrine instead of relying on popular pseudobuddhist soundbites.

In Early Buddhism, there are two types of desire: the bad one (tanha) and the good one (chanda). A person is actually suposed to cultivate the desire to make an end to suffering!
There is no catch-22 like some pop-Buddhists would have us believe. — baker

Why must it be broken? Justify.
— baker

Because people shouldn't replace morals with Leviticus 20:13 (for example)? — jorndoe

You're letting yourself be dragged onto their turf, exactly what I warned against.

People who think psychology should be a hard science like physics or chemistry need their heads examined, as well as their lives. — Bitter Crank

Oh, the irony.

The reality is that psychologists themselves act as if psychology _is_ a hard science like physics or chemistry. That's how much credit is given to psychology, that's how much credit they believe they deserve.

Psychology might not be a hard science like physics or chemistry, but in society, and by law, it certainly gets the credit of being such.

And this is what the issue is: the unwritten cultural assumption. It’s actually a load of crap that men are paid more for their ‘prospective availability’ - that’s a flimsy excuse. If you write this clearly into the contract without discrimination, then you would see this. — Possibility

What are you talking about?
For an employer, it makes sense to hire someone for whom there is reason to believe will consistently be available for work. Having to hire and train new people and substitutes is time-consuming and expensive, so employers avoid it as much as possible.

This is what ‘parental leave’ and ‘family leave’ is all about - then either parent can take time off to care for babies and sick children. And they do. As Tiff said, the younger generation males are recognising these opportunities to genuinely share in the parenting responsibility, and both women and men are equally prepared to say “I’ll take this one” or “You stay home this time - I have a deadline to meet.”

Sure, this is a possibility sometimes, but not something to count on.

Agreed. I set up with my office to work remotely from home a few weeks before our first child was born, and I continued to work in this fashion as required until our youngest started school. We never needed external child care. — Possibility

So, again, it's about socio-economic class. You could afford such an arrangment, Most people can't.

If you are good at what you do and are loyal, you would be surprised how accommodating people can be. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

That depends on the type of work one does, the position one has.
A lowly worker in a factory or a subcontractor can hope for no such accomodations.

Up until now I didn't like the "cancel culture" to the point I would debate it's impact to the nth degree, much to the dismay of my offspring but I will be dipped if you didn't just score a BIG old point for them. Well done
/.../
Let me put it more clearly: my adult children are just as interested in "paternity" leave as they are maternity leave. In fact one of my boys fully intends on being a stay at home parent. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

The reality of work is that one needs to be prepared for "old school" attitudes from one's employer.
This is capitalism, after all.

So, at least in the short term, the side that is vigilant about its believes would win, not the one that is factually correct. — stoicHoneyBadger

Yes. Critical thinking (as understood in Western secular academia) is counterproductive to success in the world.

as well as the antivaccination side.
— baker
And just what exactly is that side? Might it be the same people who believe in breathing underwater? — tim wood

Are you trying to give an example of precisely what I'm talking about?

SO do you folk agree that opposing the vaccine is a bad thing?

I mean, do oyu honestly think that folk ought not get vaccinated?

Why? — Banno

The problem is that the whole vaccination public discourse is so superficial, it's scientism. And hostile. On both sides, the provaccination side as well as the antivaccination side.

While it's understandable that people are exhausted from the pandemic, are both afraid and desperate for a solution, this still doesn't warrant that critical thinking and science be kicked to the curb.

But I'm afraid that this is a lost cause, and that we're left to soundbites and non-communication on both sides.

Women want equal pay for equal work — Possibility

But often, they're not doing equal work. They're probably doing equal work in, say, a factory setting working at a conveyor belt. But in many other places, they aren't. Some types of work are such that only one gender is better suited for it, and also where (good) looks and age matter. Gender/appearance is often a part of the job description and job performance, even if it is not directly stated as such. This is a cultural given. Imagine an elderly fat man working as a kindergarten nurse, or a young poor looking woman selling luxury items for men. It just doesn't compute. In many lines of work, a person's qualifications matter not if they don't look the part.

Part of the pay is also the prospect of the employee being consistently available for work over a long period of time. Generally, men are in this regard more reliable than women, for men don't typically take maternity leave, nor do they miss work because they need to attend to the children, such as missing time from work when the children are sick. This is why men are payed more for what seems like the same work: they are payed for their prospective availability. Of course, this is not specified on a person's employment contract or paycheck, it's a cultural assumption.

1. Nobody wants to work — TheMadFool

Eh?

I suppose there are people who indeed prefer to lounge around all day and be waited on. But is everyone like that? I doubt it.

Many people probably hate working in lowly positions in a capitalist system, where they are pushed to work at the edge of exhaustion for very little pay and always under the threat of losing their job.

In contrast, working on a traditional farm is far more evened out in terms of strain and far more rewarding, even though on the whole, it's hard work.

We would expect L1 and L2 to contain different words (to express M1, M2, etc.), because they are different languages. Your parenthesis appears to indicate M4 is a "different word" used to express the same meaning as M3, yet you distinguish them as "M3" and "M4" which denotes different meanings. — Luke

No, the scheme is supposed to mean that a word in one language has a group of meanings and a word in another language has a different group of meanings, and that the two groups partly overlap (see discussion with ).

Thank you for a better explication here: that "how it means" is related to what "is lost or added in translation". Unfortunately, you don't explain what is lost or added in translation. Are you able to answer the question you posed: what is it that is Shakespearely? Is it anything other than the original (untranslated) style or form of expression?

I speak several languages, so I can think of many practical examples. But I can't quite pinpoint yet what the phenomenon at hand is. I need to think abou tthis some more.

Style or form of expression are also meaningful, relevant to meaning, otherwise they wouldn't exist.

Do you think it is possible to deliberately induce the placebo effect?
As in, "have faith" and the placebo effect will set in?

How do you keep yourself up to date about last philosophy tendencies, research, important topics, new ideas? — Angelo

I don't. I stopped. Now I'm only interested in things that interest me. Sometimes, I google a theme and mostly just skim read the results.

At some point, wisdom becomes self-generating, self-perpetuating. Oh, what bliss, what bliss!

:starstruck:

The Smiths: Vicar in a Tutu



a Vicar in a tutu
He's not strange
He just wants to live his life this way

https://genius.com/The-smiths-vicar-in-a-tutu-lyrics

The problems with applied psychology have nothing to do with whether or not psychology is a science. — T Clark

What a strange thing to say. Science is science. If something is indeed a science, then it should be science all the way down.

But in practice, it so often isn't. Take, for example, the measuring of IQ in preschool children, which is so important for making decisions about their future. The child is tested once, and yet so much hinges on that one result. Children are sent to special education schools, their futures cemented, all based on the results of one test. This is not scientific.

Pick up any introductory book on the theme of scientific methodology, and you'll see the first chapters are devoted to errors in measurement and how to minimize them. One of the main ways to do so is to repeat the measurement several times and then calculate the mean. In practice, this isn't the norm.

Philosophy that is cut off from real life is of no relevance.

Yes, definitely a very difficult and contentious issue in clinical psychology. What do you propose as an alternative? — Isaac

If they are supposed to have that same measure of legal power, then psychologists should get their act together and agree on one theory and enforce it, one objective system of measurement.

Far too much is left to the whimsy of the individual psychologist and their personal preferences.

It's absurd, given the measure of legal power they have, and yet can afford so much whimsy.

And which leaves me wondering just what exactly psychology is. Maybe just a family name for differing methods and subjects they're applied to? — tim wood

It seems that psychology has largely taken over the role that religion/religiosity used to have. So that it is now psychology that prescribes to people what they are supposed to believe is real and what isn't, what is morally good and what isn't.
The authoritarianism and the dogmatism have, of course, remained the same.

Even if your theory had a shred of evidence from nearer than a hundred years ago, you've not shown at all how it would actually prevent the application of the scientific method, only that it would present the field with some unique challenges. — Isaac

The issue is applied psychology, as it is applied by people in positions of power, whether they have a degree in psychology or not, and the legal power that these people have.

And this isn't even about "the few bad apples". It's that someone in position of power can tell you "who you really are" and "what your problem is", issue a legally binding document that stigmatizes you, and you're supposed to accept all this, like the obedient sheeple that you're supposed to be.

In the abstract, the field of psychology is interesting and seems relevant enough. But when actually applied, it's an entirely different story altogether.

There are also countless theories in physics, until we settle on the best one. Then we continuously revise. — khaled

But in the meantime, there are real consequences for people from psychologists. People get stigmatized with psychological diagnoses, lose jobs, get their reputations smeared.

There being a multitude of theories in a particular field is fine, as long as there are no serious harmful consequences for people on account of that.

That parties have dramatically changed in time is in my view a noteworthy fact, not something totally unimportant. — ssu

And, of course, there was once the Democratic-Republican Party.

Such an ironic name.

I guess consolation and justice also have a Gaussian distribution, at large enough sample sizes ...

If people and governments boycott say, Germany or South Africa for their state policies, I can see no reason why this shouldn't apply to China. It may well be the case that it isn't going to work, but from an ethical point of view, at least we try to do something to redress an unacceptable situation. — Apollodorus

Following what said earlier:

By Buddhist logic, if you buy products that you know were produced in an unethical way, you are innocent of any wrongdoing so long as you didn't have any intention to cause those unethical ways or didn't directly have anything to do with those unethical ways.*

It seems that some (many?) people think this way, this is why they have no problem buying goods that they know were stolen or goods where it is clear that they are sold far under price (which means that someone isn't getting payed for their work in the process). It also explains why they don't feel responsible for pollution (because they don't drive their car or heat their house with the intention to pollute).

So if the intention mechanism is like this: "I didn't do X with the intention to get Y; thus, I am innocent of Y and needn't do anything about it", how then can people be made to take responsibility for the unintended consequences of their actions?



(*Granted, in Buddhism, there are lists of things that are specifically and directly prohibited, such as buying or accepting something for which you know was stolen.)

At this point, we can't know if it was a scam. He had a history of pedophilia and sexual assault, so this should be cause for alarm. But some politically correct government officials thought it so important to respect his particular self-declared gender identity to put it first.

It's a cautionary tale of what can happen if people's own ideas about their gender identity are given primacy.

An intact male convict was allowed into a female prison, simply because he claimed to identify as a woman.

One of the heights of this political correctness was this:

/.../
This meant, that for the first time, legally male prisoners with fully intact male bodies could be allowed to live freely alongside female prisoners in one of the 12 women’s prisons in England.

https://fairplayforwomen.com/prison-review/
/.../

What happened? Women in prison were raped by men who identified themselves as women.

You're not agreeing. I had a bad relationship with my parents. — Tom Storm

This part:

What did cut through was when my mum said as an adult she understood some risks I didn't understand and that she wanted me to follow direction until I was older enough to understand the issues. Made sense to me. — Tom Storm

suggests that that particular conversation took place in an atmosphere of trust, even if it was just temporary.

Even a generally bad relationship with one's parents can have some bright moments, or at least such that aren't all bad.

Antisocial, free-riders are outnumbered over 8-to-1 by eusocial, cooperators; otherwise, h sapiens would not have achieved any viable social arrangements larger than hunter-gather familial clans. — 180 Proof

Yet the antisocials and the freeriders can do extremely well in life. How do you explain that?

Jostein Gaarder: Sophie's World
Terry Eagleton: The Meaning of Life

Hm?? I'm agreeing with you.

It's not necessarily about avoiding the harm caused by the actions themselves. It's about avoiding the harm caused by developing a psychological means of allowing oneself to be complicit in causing harm. Once you have those defenses so firmly in place that you can see the suffering you're complicit in yet feel no compulsion to act, you have a means by which any complicity can be accepted without dissonance, and I think that's a dangerous tool to encourage a population to develop. — Isaac

I agree. I've seen this phenomenon in, for example, meat eating Buddhists. Now, these peple vow not to take life, so they wouldn't kill or order the animals to be killed. Some of them wouldn't even kill a mosquito, but they have no problem with eating cows, pigs, chicken, etc. They believe they can buy meat at the supermarket, and that this way, they are in no way participating in the industry of killing animals and meat production. That since they themselves did not kill the animals, did not intend to kill the animals (or didn't intend to order them being killed), they can eat them guilt free and without fearing any kammic consequences.

With no further introduction to give, I ask the reader whether they think psychology is an important field or whether any of the above makes sense to assert about the importance that philosophers purported was the examination of one's life?

Can or ought this be done through psychology, why or why not? — Shawn

If only there wouldn't be so many schools of psychology, so many different theories about the same thing!

Simply saying 'because i said so' does not foster good relationships between people, and is fallacious. — Bradaction

That depends on whether the relationship is already bad or not. In an already bad relationship, adding more authoritarianism will not improve the situation.

But in a good, functional relationship where there is trust, the occasional "because I said so" will not cause any harm and will serve a good purpose, because both parties already assume that the person has a good reason for whatever they want, even if they don't say so at the time.

Criticial thinking skills and their implementation cannot make up for a lack of trust and they cannot make up for a fundamental lack of goodwill and affection.

Sometimes we are too young to understand. I had this argument used on me by my parents a few times when young. It did not bother me. I understood that I lacked capacity to understand at the time, which was completely true.

Example: I asked why I couldn't accept a lift from a stranger. I didn't understand what my parents meant by potential danger or comprehend why someone might present risks to my safety. What did cut through was when my mum said as an adult she understood some risks I didn't understand and that she wanted me to follow direction until I was older enough to understand the issues. Made sense to me. Experience is a significant factor in understanding and even in having capacity to understand and reasoned argument sometimes falls flat or introduces other problems. — Tom Storm

And, of course, this whole conversation with your parents took place in an atmosphere of mutual trust, which made the conversation a very specific one, quite different from a plain syllogism written on a page somewhere.