Yesterday, I wondered about assertions by Paul Smith and Ken Steele that
there was little everyday evidence for a supernatural realm of immaterial
entities and forces. They mentioned specifically phenomena such as magical
powers and religious miracles. But, it seems to me that the ease in which
these things are believed by most people is based on a prior belief in a
supernatural realm. Thus, I took this to be the general problem that Paul
and Ken were addressing (I hope that I'm not wrong about this). Let me now
expand upon the point I was trying to make yesterday and sketch out the
implications to which I alluded.
If the surveys I have heard about are accurate, most of our students (and
most people in the general population) believe in the existence of a
supernatural realm. It is obvious, I think, that this belief, coupled with
a basic scientific illiteracy, makes them very susceptible to
pseudoscientific views of psychology and magical thinking. This is
something that most of us want to change. One way to do this would be to
get them to question their supernatural beliefs. I think it makes sense for
us to assume that our students, if pushed, could point to evidence for
their beliefs (even for those beliefs that they might, at first, claim to
accept on faith). Yesterday, I tried to look at all of this from what I
imagined might be their point of view. Mind/body dualism is alive and well
in our student population, if my discussions with students are any
indication. Thus, I realized that they would probably point to the
experience we have of our own conscious minds as very good evidence for
their belief in a "supernature." In fact, I suggested that all of us tend
to assume, at least at times, that our minds are relatively immune from the
effects of natural determinants:
> Our experience of ourselves is that of a consciousness that feels
> separate from our bodies and from the rest of the natural world. It
> feels as if we make decisions independently of any determinants in the
> natural world (i.e., we feel as if we have free will). Although our
> thoughts and emotions are affected by what happens to our bodies, it
> still feels as if the mind somehow is independent of these happenings.
> One might explain these experiences by arguing that they are conditioned
> by cultural conceptions of the self; but, for our students (and for us,
> too), that doesn't remove the visceral power of the experiences nor does
> it explain why such conceptions seem so self-evident. The mind is
> experienced as supernatural (by even a naturalist such as myself). It
> takes years of intellectual labor to begin to see that such an
> experience is not necessarily good evidence for conceiving the mind as
> supernatural.
This analysis suggests to me that we need to take our students' beliefs in
a supernatural domain very seriously: there IS good, compelling evidence
for it in everyday life.
What I am trying to say is that the gathering of evidence does not involve
simply making observations: it requires the interpretation of these
observations. The process of interpreting observations depends upon a set
of prior beliefs. As you all realize, the very same observations may be
interpreted in very different ways by people with different systems of
belief. If a belief-system contains a belief in the existence of a
supernatural realm containing immaterial entities and forces, then everyday
observations will tend to be interpreted in this manner and offered as
evidence. In addition to this, the belief systems of many of our students
promote a subjective approach to knowledge development. Thus, they tend to
rely upon "personal experiences" as the best kind of evidence for a belief.
This subjective approach is associated, I think, with their supernatural
beliefs; and they undoubtedly tend to reinforce one another. Although we
might be able to show in our courses that many of these personal
experiences are not adequate evidence for their supernatural beliefs, there
exists at least one personal experience--the experience of our own
conscious minds--that may seem to support the existence of a supernatural
domain in a very compelling manner.
Thus, as we teach our courses, we should not feel that it is self-evident
that our students are wrong in their conventional beliefs about the nature
of the mind and related phenomena. For those of us who present psychology
as a natural science, we need to find ways to show them that the compelling
nature of their personal experiences, especially the experience of their
own conscious minds as supernatural, is still not good evidence that their
minds actually have a supernatural essence: much of this evidence is
inconclusive or ambiguous. For example, why are our minds so easily
affected by what is happening to our bodies (such as the deficits
experienced when there are disruptions of brain activity or damage to the
brain)? We need to make clear to them the problems inherent in a subjective
approach to developing knowledge: the problems of suggestion, mistakes of
perception, mistakes of memory, etc.
As I was implying in my last post, "it takes years of intellectual labor"
to begin to see the problems in a subjective approach: personal experience
often seems so compelling that it can be very difficult to consistently see
its weaknesses. None of us is immune from this. And because of this, we are
all prone to magical thinking. (We also need to be aware that the
subjective approach is very popular in certain areas of
psychology--especially those areas with which our students are most likely
to be familiar.)
I've probably gone on too long about this. I'll shut up now. Maybe we DO
need moderators.
Jeff
--
Jeffry P. Ricker, Ph.D. Office Phone: (480) 423-6213
9000 E. Chaparral Rd. FAX Number: (480) 423-6298
Psychology Department [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Scottsdale Community College
Scottsdale, AZ 85256-2626
"The truth is rare and never simple."
Oscar Wilde
"Instead of having 'answers' on a test, they should just call
them 'impressions'. And, if you got a different 'impression',
so what? Can't we all be brothers?"
Jack Handey
