Archive for ‘Beginning of Scientific Psychology (Part III)’

So, the twin studies really interested me, partially because my dad is a twin and he's shared some really interesting things with me, but a lot of it was the types of study they've done. The fact that they choose to study something like religion and spirituality is a real comment on how innately that is a part of our lives. It is a core part of who we are and what we choose to believe/no believe, do/not do in that area means a lot to who we are as humans. I also think it is ridiculous that people think they can measure spirituality by someone's church attendance or religious affiliation. I think that we are really way to caught up in trying to find proof for everything. Why can we never settle for knowing that we will never know everything and that faith can only be faith without proof, and without and explanation. I believe that God moves in mysterious ways and that even twins with the same genetics could end up with different spiritual beliefs and levels of faith and understanding while living and breathing in the same environment their entire lives. God made us all individuals, and whether we can grasp that we can't see everything in DNA or not, it's true. Some, and even most things are beyond our comprehension. That's why we are not God.   

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I have some pretty big issues with Darwin’s theory that human emotions are remnants of animal emotions that had once been necessary for survival. I have no idea how to prove any of my concerns, but I also feel that Darwin could never really fully prove his theory either, so here goes it.

First off, I would like to say that I love emotions and the fact that they exist. Because of this, in one sense, I am very glad Darwin theorized on emotions at all. He caused many others to continue the study on human emotions and that I am grateful for. However, I feel so strongly about emotions that I cannot accept that they are merely around because we needed them for survival. Second, I would like to say that the two main arguments I want to share come from a Christian perspective…so I apologize if that makes them irrelevant to some psychologists…or you… but it’s all I have.

My first argument is that God feels emotions. In the Bible he expresses jealousy, anger, love, joy, sorrow, etc. However, God does not need survival instincts to survive. He will never know an end for he is not bound by time. If God is the Almighty that no power could ever match, why would he need emotions for survival? And if humans are made in God’s image, are our emotions given to us purely for survival?

My second argument is more about purpose. Darwin argues emotions evolved from survival instincts. This would mean that the purpose for emotions was mostly selfish; something created for the self to protect the self. However, God and his love operates in exact opposition to this. His love is a love of selflessness, and his emotions follow suit. I do believe that God gave us emotions (as in Ecclesiastes we are told there is a a time for everything and many emotions are listed), but I cannot fathom that God would give us such emotions if only to be used in a selfish way. I believe that emotions are a gift from him that teach us to be selfless. With that selfless emotion we can sacrifice and risk which is the exact opposite of looking out for the self first to ensure survival. God’s love is sacrificial and risk taking. Emotions created to solely ensure survival does not speak a word of sacrifice or risk and I don’t buy it.

My last point is really not an argument but just something I would like to say. In the video we watched in class about Darwin’s theory on emotions, they said that humans show their teeth when they are scared. Well, I just simply wanted to point out that they only showed scared humans..on a roller coaster. Maybe that’s because humans don’t actually make those faces when their scared if they’re not exposed to great heights and winds.

One of the things that has always intrigued me about William James is his perspective on religion and spirituality. What I find particularly fascinating is the way he addresses how we handle our relationship with God when things go wrong in our lives. He posited that there are two kinds of Christians: the “healthy-minded” Christian and the “sick soul”. The healthy-minded Christian tends to view everything optimistically, and ignore the more difficult aspects of life completely. This attitude keeps these kind of Christians happy, but seems to be a rather dishonest way of sugar-coating spirituality and avoiding the tough stuff. The sick soul is the most interesting to me; James described this type of believer as one who grapples with the evils of life and takes on religion even if it causes distress. The sick soul doubts, is frustrated, struggles with God and faith, and yet sticks with it. I feel that although this is not the most pleasant way to deal with spirituality, it is the most realistic. Looking back at questions that great men like Augustine asked about how evil can exist in the world if God is in control, how else can we respond to the difficult issues that arise in life? Although I do not feel we should solely focus on the overwhelming evils in the world to the point where we get as depressed as James’ description of the sick soul, I do think that if we really want to try to make sense of the world instead of just ignoring what we don’t like, we need to struggle with our faith in the manner of the sick soul. I also think that this is a greater testament to others about our faith; the gritty, realistic perspective will ring a lot more true to others in the world struggling to answer the “why’s” of the world’s evils than the happy-go-lucky sugar-coated Christianity.

I must give credit to our very own Dr. Beck, as I started pondering this after reading what he had to say about James in his blog, Experimental Theology, which everyone should check out. He also makes some very interesting to Freud’s view of religion, which are worth looking at.

Evolutionary psychology examines many characteristics of homosapiens, including memory, language, reproductive tendencies, etc. and seeks to identify which traits are evolved from natural selection.

I am sorry, but I really cannot bring myself to agree with evolutionary psychology. It is very interesting to me and I respect the research and the theories that have come about, but I simply cannot entertain the idea of agreeing with it. There are many great things that have been discovered that can be stepping stones for the future of science and psychology, and I hope that one day the creation theory and these findings can better go hand in hand.

Though not always directly, I think that it minimalizes the essence of our existence and inhibits humans from being differentiated from animals. Don’t get me wrong, I know that evolutionary psychology isn’t only about our similarities with animals.

I did find this ridiculous & hilarious video though.. Anna, I’m hoping there’s no relation to the Baba Brinkman.

Short-Term Mating Dance

I think this video is a wonderful representation of how we can dumb ourselves down to act like animals. Sure, we can look at life as a way to find pleasure and… mate like animals do, because that is their only purpose. But my goodness we are robbing our species of so much if we take away the fact that our Lord made us to worship him through that act and that there is an emotional connection made there. It is not only about bettering our species.

As we watched the TedTalk on the Phantom limbs a couple weeks ago a friend of mine brought up and showed me this audio excerpt. As the study of physiology grew and Scientists are starting to make more and more connections between the brain and the mind they are starting to understand that psychology has much more than behavioral processes. As the ted talk showed us the brain can play tricks on us and vice versa fairly easily. When we visually stimulate the brain to think that our tightened phantom limb is being stretched out by using the mirror box, we can see a very distinct connection between our physical and mental processing. When watching this video correctly it can have similar effects. By adjusting the volume and audio densities in this clip we tick our brain into experiencing and almost visualizing a haircut. I think it is so interesting and also creepy how easily our senses and manipulate our brains into experiences. This clip will make you think, and view your brains capacity for auditory sensory competently differently. More »

I really like what William James had to say about human behavior. He felt that behavior was governed by instinct. He states that these behaviors develop with in a lifetime and he called these patterns of behaviors habits. I would have to agree. God gave us all some basic instincts of survival such as acceptance, security, or even sex. But we take these basic instincts and develop terrible habits. We allow the world to condition us to these instincts to the extreme, or better yet, not take them serious at all. We allow money, power, and sex to rule our lives for pure pleasure and prestige; then we are conformed to the world! James states that a habit is formed by repetition. But he adds that we have to place our self in circumstances that encourage good habits and discourage bad ones. He also adds that we should force ourselves to act in ways that are beneficial to us, even if it is at first distasteful and requires effort. Today, we act on what feels good at the time. We have become a society that is in it for mere convenience and pleasure. As I see what is taking place in the world today, I hope that we all can learn from James’ wisdom.

Hergenhahn states “a main goal of science is to discover lawful relationships, science assumes that what is being investigated is lawful”. Determinism operates under the assumption that something can be determined because it is operating under a set of laws. So we must operate under the assumption of determinism in order to better understand the world around us. Especial as Christian we are faced with the issue of wanting our faith and the faith that others to be of our choosing and not determined.

In many societies it was believed that everyone had a fate and many believed that this fate was either unavoidable or severe consequences would follow had you not gone with fates plan. This is amazing to me because in early societies even before social sciences had developed people had already started to form the ideas of determinism. Although external forces like events in peoples lives appearing to be out of their control people had still conceived that their was an order to the chaos that we live in. Thinking back through those old tales that I would have to read for English every time the theme was about defying fate it was as if it was a miracle of some kind a one in a million chance, but their were countless about the hopelessness of avoiding fate.

I feel like the issue is not backing up determinism because we are swimming in a sea of it but rather finding ways to support non-determinism. I liked the thoughts of William James on the topic of free will as he tried to deal with the over whelming evidence in favor of determinism that psychologist must face. James writes “My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will…” What really gets me about this quote is the context of it prior to this James had not be productive and in a depressive state however following this James was extremely productive. I cannot say that I am on board with determinism but I do like indeterminism because it seems to me that there are limits in terms of method not to mention ethics to be fully either non-determinism or determinism.

Free will.
Do you have it?

If you do, then you’re responsible for your actions. You’re responsible for yourself.

If you don’t…well then you’re not responsible for your actions. Your choices in religion, or in anything else aren’t in your control. So laws don’t really make much sense….So civilization doesn’t have any foundation….and if people are meant to live without civilization, then what’s the point in life? What could possibly be the reason? Hedonism? But Hedonism is greater with civilization. Why exist without free will? I suppose if there is no God…then perhaps it is possible. Otherwise, no-it is not possible.

Can we test free will?
We can give proof for its existence. We each make decisions every day and exercise our free will extensively.
Can we disprove free will? No.
Can we reason that there is no free will? I certainly can’t, and I’ve been trying hard. Nor have I seen an acceptable line of reason from anything I’ve read.
I suppose free will, although true, is much closer to the black-sheep paradox(or perhaps a better one that I’m unfamiliar with.)
We can prove the appearance of it’s existence, but perhaps we can’t really prove it as a fact…
Either way, I think it’s just about the first thing I will believe in.

I’ve been revisiting in my mind, the discussion of evolutionary psychology and religion that occurred before spring break.   On the day that we watched the video of how similar humans are to apes including the resemblance of our facial expressions, I brought forth the comment that it bothered me how animalistic evolutionary psychology made humans out to be.  I believe that God designed humans uniquely, as written in Genesis, God made Adam and saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so he then made Eve.   In reviewing evolutionary psychology and sociobiology in chapter 19 to write this blog, I again had a hard time to accept it with the looming thought in my mind that God made humans different from animals.  Yes, there is a rational aspect of females choosing males with “good genes” to have healthy and fit children, and there is rationality behind survival of the fittest, but the thought of these instinctual behaviors (being easy to compare to the behaviors of animals) being the root of humans’ actions or the essence of who human beings are greatly bothers me.  I have a faith in God that has been instilled in me since I was an infant that God created a beautiful earth, and he created man to rule over His creation on earth until the fall of man occurred, and Jesus later died on the cross, so we could be saved and have eternal life with Him.  I can’t find where my faith fits in or can even coincided with the ideas behind evolutionary psychology.  Where is the soul in this idea, and where is the belief in humbleness and good in a survival of the fittest world?  I think that is where I am struggling to accept this belief, which is difficult because it also makes rationale sense in the instinctive sense.  I think it’s important to discuss topics like this, because I do not want to use my faith as a tool of ignorance for learning; however, at the same time, I do not want to accept ideas that are contradictory of my faith… perhaps this is an example of free will, but at the moment I do not feel free, because I am stuck in trying to make sense of rationality and the comfort to accept so much rationality in my spirit.

Ever since our class discussion, the idea of religion as a pre determined concept has been rolling around in my brain. The thought fits in the with the biblical description of Israel as Gods’ chosen people, but I think you also have to keep in mind that much of that discussion took place in the old testament.  And while the the old testament still holds authority, when Jesus came he changed a lot of the age old standards.  In Matthew, Jesus says “The only way to the Father is through me, and whosoever accepts me, will also be accepted into the kingdom.”  With this being said, we have to keep in mind that Christianity has been transformed from a race to a deliberate decision.  People no longer have to be a part of “Israel, the chosen race” to be a Christian.  All they have to do is accept Christ into their heart, and follow His teachings to the best of their ability.  It is not about who you are or where you come from, but more about how you live your live, and most importantly, how you treat the people you come into contact with.  It irks me to death when people come in saying, “oh you have to do this, and do that. or dont do this, its not what good kids do”, and completely ignore the relational side of it. I believe it is all about how you treat people.  And yes, a part of it is about your actions lining up with your words, but I think it is MORE about the relationships you had with people , and how many lives you made a difference in.  And while the Bible says that there is a book called the book of life, and if your name is written in it, then you are going to heaven, and while that is traditionally considered a pre-determined concept, I believe that the book is always changing. Addtions are always being made.  No one can make you, or keep you from accepting Christ into your life.  Thus Christianity has evolved from a pre-determined concept, to a completely personal decision.