Finale

So, at the beginning of this blog, I said I would go over the role constructions play in our lives, and at the end, decide whether or not the reader, or the other exists, along with other aspects of external reality. Now that this blog is at it's end, I would like to make my statement.

My answer to the question of the existence of the other is that yes, other people exist, and an external reality that is partially knowable exists, but we must always be skeptical about what parts of reality we take to be objective and external, as opposed to subjective and internal.

I believe the other exists because language is a social construct, the reasons for language to be invented all rely on the existence of multiple individuals. My senses tell me as well that the other exists, therefore, until proven otherwise, I will accept that the reader of the blog does actually exist.

As for external reality, I believe in the correspondence theory of truth, where our knowledge is determined by an external, knowable universe. In other words it acts like a mirror, where our knowledge is the mirror that reflects the external reality. However, I believe that reality acts more like a fun-house mirror, where constructions distort and warp the layout of the mirror, making what is reflected blotchy and inaccurate. Saying this though, most of the time a person can still tell what is reflected in a funhouse mirror despite the distortions, so we still know what is being reflected. The only differences is that our funhouse mirrors might not give us a good grasp on the true reality since we can't get past the warping.

The death of a construction

So as this class comes to an end, I wish to bring up the idea of what happens after a construction no longer becomes useful and is removed. Is the person aware of the removal of the construct? Does the construct still exist, but is just not in use? What happens to the ones that are discarded through obsolescence?

First we would have to define what an obsolete construct is. I believe that such a construct would have to be a way of interpreting experiences, thoughts, and meanings that is no longer beneficial for the individual and has  negative impact on one's life. So in other words it must not contribute anything positive to the persons life, and it must have some kind of negative or limiting effect on the person. constructs that don't add anything positive or negative I would consider not obsolete, because there is still no reason why it should be replaced. So if the only kind of construct that would ever be removed is one that does harm or limits, then the best reason for why it would be removed is to create a new construct that is more beneficial and less limiting.

Now, what happens to these constructs once they are replaced? I would argue that the constructs, upon being discarded, are still memorable for a time, and one can re-activate and use the construct at will, but after a long duration happens one tends to forget how to perceive the world from those lenses and one could not slip into that construct as easily. It is like the construct slowly fades away, leaving only the memory of it. I argue this because if someone goes from seeing the world from a racist construction of reality to a more non-discriminatory one, then the individual will remember what it was like to perceive the world through the other old racist lenses for a while, but given a few years, the individual is likely to say "Oh, I can't believe I used to think that way." And trying to use that construct would prove difficult to truly re-enter.

This is only my theory, but if there is a dissenter, let them be known.

The construction of constructions.

Many kinds of Constructivists (Especially radical Constructivists) argue that nothing exists beyond one'sconstruction. However, what exactly is a mental construct? Most would claim that it is a process that our brain uses in order to organize events and to create meaning from them. However, do we have constructs informing us on what mental construct are? If that is the case, then we do not truly objectively know what a construction is since all we have is the construct. Therefore constructions could be anything! If all there is in life is the construction, then we must admit that we have an objective definition of what a constructivism, incidcentally being forced to admit that there is an objective reality, which in turn makes all constructivists adopt a realist standpoint. Take that Radical constructivism, includingyou, von Glaserfeld!

On one's namesake

So, this was an idea that I toyed with throughout the weekend. Can a name construct an individual? For example, one continually hears the phrase "Oh, he looks like a Dave" or "Wow, I you just seem like a Griffin." I am starting to wonder how one's name influences one's personality and demeanor. This isn't only with first names. One's last name carries a lot of power. Being a Kennedy can influence the development of one's sense of being, or one's personality. Therefore, can it not be guessed that the name "John" or "Ashley" influences one's development as well?

"Bring honor to the family name!" and "The (Insert last name here) come from a proud, noble lineage" can certainly fill one's being with a sense of honor or purpose, but what does the first name bring to the construction of the self? I would argue that the first name can determine how a person acts by molding their personality to the person's own expectations on how a David, or a Susan should actually act. They get this impression through indirect societal standards.

For example, one imagines the name of Albert to be a very intelligent name because of it's relation to Albert Einstein. Therefore a person named Albert might try to do well in school to 'live up to' his namesake.

This is just a brain thought of mine. If you wish to critique it, please do.

DSM drama

So, with our discussion of the construction of mental illness, there is a fascinating article by psychology today on the subject of the changes that will be made within the new DSM-5. Since some would argue that mental illness is purely a construction, then these changes are a simple reconstruction of mental illness. If there is more to mental illness than just construction, where mental illness does correspond to some kind of reality, then these changes could be catastrophic.

For example, classifying grief as clinical depression implies that there is something wrong, or bad for grieving. By claiming this, grief for a lost spouse, parent, or child can now be considered a mental illness. This brings up interesting questions on what a normal functional human. Is a normal functional human someone who is always content and happy? Or is a functional human someone who experiences sorrow and crippling despair along with happiness?

By constructing this new definition of depression, the DSM is claiming that experiencing grief is not a proper function of human behavior. What are other's opinions on this?

Constructivist magazine starring our wonderful professor.

So, I am doing a project on constructivistic psychotherapy, and as I was researching this topic, I stumbled upon a magazine devoted to philosophical constructivism. And in one of these journals, they have an article written by our incredibly inspiring professor. He posted an excerpt of this article on his blog, but here one can read the full thing. Now, in order to read it, one needs an account, but one can choose to have a free account. Also, there is a response to our professor's article as well which has some interesting insights, which one should read as well.

Constructions of Mental illness

So, if any of you haven't heard, the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the DSM-5 has finally been finalized! This is the therapists and psychiatrists bible, as it describes the symptoms and proper diagnostic criteria of mental disorders, and the previous DSM-4 was severely flawed. However, it seems that not everybody is that excited about this, as shown here. A lot of criticism has been running around about how the DSM will only benefit the pharmaceutical companies and that it will have no impact on psychologists or therapists in any manner whatsoever. A quote that properly sums up the criticism was released on the blog Mindhacks, where I first heard of the release:

"It’s arcane, contradictory and talks about invisible entities which no-one can really prove. Yes folks, the new psychiatric bible has been finalised." (article can be found here.)

There is a lot of debate in the mental health field about what exactly are mental illnesses. Some argue that mental illness is an objective part of reality, just as real as any other illness such as cancer or the common cold. This is called the medical model. In this model, there is an objective existence of depression, psychosis, and autism. The DSM promotes this model. However, some reject this idea, claiming that mental illness is actually a social construct. Some people argue it in degrees, saying that the way we view normality and abnormality influences what we classify as abnormal, but that some of these people actually do have a mental illness. On the other hand, some people completely reject the idea of mental illness at all. One psychiatrist, by the name of Thomas Szasz wrote a book called 'The Myth of Mental Illness.' It is exactly as it sounds. Szasz argued that mental illness was only a societal construct and that psychiatry was a pseudoscience because of it. Although I disagree with him, he did revolutionize the psychological world with his work and brought into light many flaws with the traditional view of the world.

Szasz would have fought tooth and nail against this new DSM, for it tries to pass off a social construct as an objective reality which only ends up hurting those labeled as abnormal. Although I believe the DSM is flawed and will probably always be flawed, I would not agree with Szasz that psychiatry is a pseudoscience. I would argue that the DSM highlights the typical symptoms shown in people who are unhappy, maladaptive to the environment, or a danger to themselves and others. I would not force such labels on anyone, but I would follow to some extent the advice that such a manual can offer me about how to treat such people.

Language and Thought

So, it is pretty well assumed that our experiences and perceptions influence how we create our language, but could the reverse be so as well? Could our language influence the way we think? For example, Luce Irigaray claims that language is inherently sexist, and we think in language, and how we think influences our perceptions of reality. Therefore, we interpret reality with a sexist bent. Language can therefore be an influence on our perceptions, just as our perceptions can influence how we use language.

It seems to me that there is a dialectic occurring between language and perception. They play off of one another and continually alter and change one another. Reality then is filtered through our construction of language, which then changes our language in itself, which alters our perceptions yet again. It is a vicious cycle.

Emotional Constructs

Quick question. Do we construct our own emotions, or do we discover them? This question pops up in a lot of Constructivistic literature, and it got me thinking. We label certain states that we experience with terms and we call some of these emotions. In other words, we use language to describe certain states of being. Language is a constructed phenomenon, and a single word can mean different things to different people. Because of this, one could imagine someone having a sensation that they call happiness than what you call happiness. Is the other person wrong? Is there only one objective state of happiness and some people just have a certain state misleading?

On the other hand, calling something happiness and experiencing it are completely different. So can someone experience happiness differently rather than just mislabeling it? If happiness to me relaxes me and makes me more relaxed, and happiness to you energizes and invigorates you,  are they both happiness? Are they both the same state of being that we experience in a different way because of how we have constructed the emotion?

Personally, I would claim that emotions are partly constructed and partly discovered. There are states produced within us from an external reality, but we all process these states and react to them in different ways. For example, people experience love completely differently, but it still is produced by the same chemicals in the brain.

These are just some thoughts, however. If you disagree with me please do so.

Science and Aesthetics

   So, pardon for the gigantic picture, but I was skimming around the internet and this quote by the famous scientist Richard Feynman popped up. It got me thinking. We often wonder about the relationship between science and ethics, and whether one can influence the other. However, because of this quote I wonder what the relationship between science and aesthetics may be. Can scientific knowledge deepen or change our concept of beauty? Does science 'deaden' our aesthetic sense, or liven it? Can our aesthetic sense influence how we regard scientific knowledge? Does science let us see more of the inherent beauty in an object, or does it just change our perception of the object? Can we call facts such as "A flower is laced with a deeply intricate and complex cellular structure" beautiful? These are just some questions that have popped into my head that deeply tie these two subjects.

    My gut instinct would to say scientific knowledge influences our perception of beauty based on our meta-scientific beliefs, or our beliefs on how we perceive science. For example, if one finds science boring, then science is likely to destroy the sense of beauty one can perceive in an object. If this were the case, then scientific knowledge wouldn't change our aesthetic sense, it would be our beliefs about such knowledge. However, I am unsure about how to go about explaining things in more detail, because I believe there is more to it than that. If anybody would like to expand upon this, please be my guest.

A Pratchett definition of Time

So I know we have passed our discussion of time, but I have been doing some personal reading (which normally doesn't result in good outcomes), and one book I read was Terry Pratchett's book Thief of Time. This fantasy book takes place on the Discworld, which is a world that floats on the back of 4 elephants which rest on the back of a giant turtle. The plot revolves around a few monks and the granddaughter of the anthropomorphic personification of death who try and stop these beings who are trying to stop time in order to make the universe more orderly. The plot was delightfully comic and absurd, and laced with philosophical points, such as the idea that wisdom can be found in any situation, and one should never challenge an seemingly innocent old man to a fight unless you want to risk your life.

However, when they discussed the nature of time, Pratchett created a whole philosophical theory of how time works. Pratchett argues that time the force that makes the smallest of particles move from one position, to the next position. In order to do this, the novel claims that the world is destroyed every exact moment, and then recreated in order to create the next. To try to make this more comprehensible, in order to progress from one instant to the next, the world must be destroyed then recreated with the particles in a different position which reflects the movement. Pratchett displays this idea in a humorous and engaging manner, which makes me want to share this fictional construction of time.

The Re-construction of Religion

So, I have stumbled upon a website titled Open Source Religion. This is a social media website subscribing to the belief that religions are no longer viewed as strict belief systems, where one draws their beliefs solely from that source. Instead, people can take their beliefs from multiple sources and different religions. 

According to the statement of a founder of the site,  Sidian Jones:

"in this day and age there is a massive movement of people who are “modularizing” beliefs. What this means is that religions no longer have a strict homogeneity of beliefs, but rather are being treated as sources from which to draw ones beliefs, even across multiple religions.

Imagine 100 years ago someone saying that they are “Christian with Buddhist leanings.”; practically unheard of. There was strict boxing of what beliefs belong with what group. These days you are only a stones throw from anyone mixing beliefs like “Salvation Through Jesus” and “Karma”.

Having established this philosophy, I wanted to provide a platform for the Open Source Religion community to digitally interact with, and document all these beliefs and their relationships." (Quote found from this source)

I am sympathetic to this belief, for in an era of post-modernism, and relativity, viewing any one religion as completely objective and whole could be considered an outdated concept. However, at the same time, I am unsure of how much I like the idea rifling through various religions and picking and choosing what they want to believe. It seems to go against the very idea of a religion, in the sense that you need to either completely accept it as truth, or not at all. It seems to me to be a kind of religious relativism. I wonder what this will imply for how religion will be treated in the future.

Determinism and ethics

I might have been mislead, but it seems that when we discussed the differences between determinism and free will, we seemed to come out primarily in favor of determinism. We also discussed how determinism impacts ethical theory by completely negating any kind of morality. Morality implies choice, and determinism does not. So how exactly can we discuss morality under any circumstances if we can not get by this first problem? It seems to me that the construction of morality is just that if we can't get past determinism: A construction. If there is no such thing as morality, then it must be an illusion that we construct ourselves. I really do not like this conclusion, but unless I figure something else out, I must stay behind it.

Does 'Is' influence 'ought?'

So, I have been thinking about our class conversations, and I believe that our views on what 'is' can at least influence us to what 'ought' to be. My reasoning behind it is till a bit fuzzy, but I can at least provide a hazy example of how we use what is to influence our ethical decisions and beliefs.
For example, ancient civilizations used to sacrifice humans to the gods in order to live a good life, and to keep the gods appeased and content. Back then, it was a 'fact' that the gods demanded these sacrifices and that they existed. Now, because we know these deities do not exist, we ought not to do that, for it is pointless to do so.
In addition, we know that other people feel pain, and that influences how we treat others, our knowledge of death influences our moral actions and decisions, our belief on whether god exists influences our moral actions as well. There must be some relationship, but I fail to see the exact relationship.

Understanding.

Something I am interested in contemplating: is the question of whether the concept of 'understanding' is an emotion, or if it a mental tool we construct in order to comprehend a situation. Understanding at its basic core is something we use for comprehension of events and experiences. We use understanding to explain the actions of friends and enemies, we use it to get a grasp on the significance of events, and we use it to get a grasp on knowledge that is presented to us. Understanding then, is the way we contemplate thngs we experience, infer the meaning behind the experience, and apply it to our life. In addition to this, understanding must be something that has the capability of comparing the experience to all previous experiences, in order to find similarities and differences between them.  If understanding is an emotion, then it is something that we can only feel when in a certain state of mind, then based off of psychological evidence, that means that when one is experiencing understanding, one is incapable of feeling certain other emotions when feeling it. For example, one cannot feel happy when feeling scared. So that means one is incapable of feeling understanding when feeling other incompatible emotions. However, if understanding was a cognitive tool that one can apply to a situation, then that implies that it can be used in any emotional state, and by any person who has basic cognitive functioning.
There also seems to be a scale of understanding. There is a greater and a lesser understanding. Some people can only understand parts of a theory, while others understand much more. If it is on a continuum, then it seems to line up more with an emotion, for one can fluctuate from mild to extreme anger or happiness. However, understanding seems to be used for different purposes than other emotions, so it would be a unique one. I am on the side that would claim understanding to be an emotion, rather than a tool we use to understand and construct our perceptions. What do others think?

Prediction Versus Causation.

A year ago, I read a fascinating article on the role of determinism and free will in neuroscience that talked about how just because something is caused, does not always mean it can be predicted.
The author makes the important distinction that in order for an action to actually be free, it needs to be caused. When neuroscientists say that they can predict our actions, they are simply saying that they can show that our choices were caused, not that we were determined to do so. What do you all think about the article?

Time as an hourglass

So, here is an idea I have been mulling about in my head: Time, in regards to the past, present, and future, cannot be on a continuum because if this were true, a single moment can be in the past and present at the same time, or the present and the future as well. Let me explain through an analogy of an hourglass.

If we imagine the continuum version of time as an hourglass, the sand at the top is the future, a single grain of sand that goes through the  absolute middle of the bottleneck as the present, and the sand that is on the bottom half as the past, it shows how incompatible this view is.  The sand on the top as it passes from the top to the bottom must flow through the top into the bottleneck, and since the motion is continual, there must be an instant where the sand enters the bottleneck from the top, and in that brief instant, part of it will be in the top, while part of the sand will be in the bottleneck, before fully occupying the bottleneck. The same can be said with the sand passing from the bottleneck to the bottom. In other words, if time ‘flowed,’ there would have to be instants where an event was both in the future and the present, and  in the present and the past. And as we know, an event cannot be perceived to be in two states of time at the same time. It cannot be in the past and the present, nor can it be both future and present. Therefore, time must move in increments or steps, where one moment is either in one ‘spot’or not. It cannot partially be in one temporal location and another one at the same time, for that implies contradictions. This in turn provides an idea that time, instead of flowing, sort of ‘leaps’ from one instant to the next, where each moment is sharp, distinct, and separated from all other moments

Psychological articles on time.

So, if anyone is interested in the psychological viewpoints on the perception of time, I found two articles that are quite enlightening.

This article focuses on the experience of time in everyday life. It discusses how our perception of time could be changed, and has fascinating examples of how time can be altered, for example, experiencing an earth quake while waiting for a pot to boil.

While this one focuses on how our perception of time get changed through drug and alcohol use. It is really interesting to see how time can be altered through such uses and how it changes depending on the drug.

Fantastically off topic!

So, guys, just to let you know, I have a new blog called Fantastical Philosophy! I have a couple blog posts up already and I will hopefully be updating things roughly once a week! The blog's emphasis is on philosophy done from a mythological or fantastical viewpoint, like as philosophy done from a perspective like a wizard's, elve's, or dragon's. Right now the current post up is a Dryad and a Maenad conversing on freedom and slavery so check it out!

Post reading: On time

Wow. Just, wow. I had no clue what just hit me. The article we had to read was a doozy. Anyways, That article actually reinforced my beliefs of what I hold time to be, but what I have realized is how little ground my definition actually covers. Physical and Psychological time, which are discussed in the article, seem to be what I had meant by perceived and physical time in my previous post. However, my concept of recorded time seems to be unique, for nothing in the article seemed to have mentioned it, or through recorded time under physical or psychological time. In my opinion it is something completely different than the two. Just as how a tree (Physical), a perception of a tree (Perceptive), and the organ that is used to perceive it of a tree (Recorded) are all different, so are my three ideas. Recorded time is a mental construct, while perceived time is a state of being. It is a subtle difference and they can play off of one another, but they are not the same.

So, if we were to start off with my previous theory on time then, then the only one that we could call external and objective is my physical time, or what physicists called spacetime, and would correspond with what was called absolutism in the philosophy of time. So, with this theory, in order to make it adequate, I would need to answer questions such as is time travel possible? Is time eternal? Is there such a thing as the past, present, and future? and so on. Right now, I view that it is impossible for me to answer all of these in one blog post, so I will try to spread them out over a few posts coming on up.

My definition of time (Pre Reading)

So, I have always been curious about the concept of time, and therefore, am super excited that we have an opportunity to discuss this subject in class. Now, before I read the article posted that we need to read, I am going to post how I currently define time before I do any research on this subject. Then when I am done reading, I will post my new definition of time if it has changed at all and compare the two.
My current definition is broken into three subconcepts. Perceived time, recorded time, and Physical time.

Perceived time: The construct in the human mind that allows the person to experience and sense of physical time. This is a subjective sense that can be just as easily fooled as any other sensory system in the human body, is subject to moods, states of consciousness, and the altering of chemical balances in the body (example: Drug and alcohol use). This is basically how the human mind perceives and experiences time.

Physical time: An objective part or possible force of reality that allows for the movement of energy and particles throughout space. Without such a thing as time, objects would be unable to move through space, for movement needs to occur over a duration.

Recorded Time: Recorded time is an odd blend between objective and subjective time. This is the time we measure with clocks, stopwatches, sundials, and similar devices. The reason that this is a blend between physical and perceived time is because recorded time is an attempt by humans to measure physical time through a humanly constructed unit of measurement. Just as the metric system is constructed based off of an arbitrary unit of ten, recorded time is based off of the second. When humans think in how much time has passed between objective events, they think in terms of recorded time.

In conclusion, Humans think in Recorded time, feel in perceived time, and operate in Physical time.

On Boredom

Is boredom an emotion or a way we view the world? This has been a question that I was thinking about while on a particularly boring weekend in order to try to entertain myself (I do philosophy when bored.). Opposed to other emotions, boredom alters the way  one perceives the world more drastically than I would say others do. Other emotions tend to focus on the self (ex: I feel good because I am happy, I feel bad because I am sad), boredom seems to focus on external objects. When bored, one perceives the external world without any interest. One is indifferent, and it seems more like there is an absence of emotions or fascination with one's world. However, it still provokes a response in the mind. Boredom can be the cause of much mental anguish, and some might say that this pain implies that boredom is an emotion. However pain is not an emotion. It can make one sad or angry, but pain in itself is not an emotion, so why should boredom be defined in that manner?

Constructing Realities.

So, I have stumbled upon a book labeled "Constructing Realities: Meaning Making Perspectives in Psychotherapies." It is a book on constructivistic approaches to psychotherapy, and so needless to say I bought it for 5 dollars on Amazon. Thinking about the role constructivism would have in a psychotherapy confuses me a bit, so I am looking forward to learning about it. Many concepts in psychoanalysis can be claimed to be constructed after all, such as normalcy, deviancy, and some even argue mental illness. To see an approach that accepts that reality is constructed by the individual holds many interesting ideas to the psychotherapist, whose function is to try and understand the person and how they function in their reality. I am really excited to see what this book discusses.

Popper and Constructivism

"Logically, that gives us no clue as to how the "objective" world might be; it merely means that we know one viable way to a goal that we have chosen under specific circumstances in our experiential world. It tells us nothing -- and cannot tell us anything -- about how many other ways there might be, or how that experience which we consider the goal might be connected to a world beyond our experience. The only aspect of that "real" world that actually enters into the realm of experience, are its constraints; or, as Warren McCulloch, one of the first cyberneticists, so dramatically said: "To have proved a hypothesis false is, indeed, the peak of knowledge""-Ernst von Glaserfeld

   A philosopher of science known as Karl popper argues that the true process of science is to challenge the existing theories about the world and establish new ones which will in turn be discredited. In otherwords, all science is, is a process of discrediting other ideas and finding new ones that explain the world in a better way, until they themselves fail to work, or there is a flaw. Glaserfeld, in his article actually discusses popper, and claims that Popper's arguments actually support radical constructivism because we can only see what ideas line up with our own personal reality, and what ones do not. Science is then the study of what lines up with our experience of reality and what does not.

 However, Popper argues that we base our observations on external reality. He claims that even if we can never get a true theory without massive amounts of work, these theories are making statements about the external world, while Glaserfeld argues that they come from internal experiences. Glaserfeld is then misapplying Poppers theories about science in a way that suits his own purposes and is yet another flaw in Glaserfeld's argument.

Meme theory

          As I was reading Von Glaserfeld's essay on Radical constructivism, he brought up the concept of evolution and  how the environment not only shaped biology and how we function by eliminating those that were not able to survive in this life, it does the same with ideas, specifically this passage here:

"Just a the environment places constraints on the living organism (biological structures) and eliminates all variants that in some way transgress the limits within which they are possible or "viable", so the experiential world, be it that of everyday life or of the laboratory, constitutes the testing ground for our ideas (cognitive structures)."

          It reminded me of a concept developed in the ninety's by biologist Richard Dawkins called Meme theory. Meme theory is the concept that ideas, in their own right undergo their own form of natural selection.

"Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.  If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students.  He mentions it in his articles and his lectures.  If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain."

(for more on meme theory and the source of this quote)

         According to Dawkins, a meme is an idea that undergoes natural selection, which evolves and adapts over time, or else it dies out because it can not survive in the natural world. This is very similar to how Glaserfeld thinks we perceive reality. He claims that all our ideas and mental constructs exist because they helped us in surviving the world and navigating through it. Anything that is not conducive to survival, dies off because it would then lead the believers of that idea to extinction.
         However, where Dawkins and Glaserfeld differ is where they believe these ideas to originate. Dawkins is an empirical biologist, who believes that these memes originate and spread from interaction with external entities who are also conscious, Glaserfeld would hold that all the ideas one holds and concepts one have come from an internal source of one's own personal reality. In this issue, I am leaning more towards Dawkins.

Behaviorism and Reality

As a psychology major, I find some ideas of constructivism, especially radical constructivism, at an interesting conflict with the psychological theory of behaviorism. Behaviorism, for those who aren't familiar with the concept, is a branch of psychology that claims that all human behavior is learned through conditioning and observational learning. In other words, human knowledge and behavior results from external forces. They hold the idea that if you change a person's environment, you can also change their behavior. Extreme behaviorists go so far as to deny the idea of Consciousness or any true thought, claiming that they are all conditioned responses. 

Now, what does this have to do with constructivism? Constructivism is at the very core, the idea that things we believe to exist externally, are actually internal mental constructs projected on reality. Radical constructivism would hold the position that absolutely everything we perceive is a mental construct of our mind, especially ideas such as Good, Evil, Beauty, and Art. A radical taken a step further might be called a  solipsist.

These two branches of thought have some very strong arguments behind them, but, they seem to be mutually incompatible. Behaviorism lies on there being an external reality in which influences and affects our behavior. Constructivism argues for an internal reality that is independent of the objective world, especiallSo which one is right, or how can we make these two opposing theories compatible?

A potential solution that appears to me is the idea that One needs to be taught these ideas such as good and evil from an external source, but once it is learned, it is constantly created and projected onto the world at some points even unconsciously. If anyone has any other ideas on the relationship between these two subjects, I would be glad to hear them.

I don't care what you think, Pratchett is my Hero.

So, my possibly imagined reader, this week in my Creating Reality (CR) course, we talked about whether or not such a thing as Truth or Beauty was real. Throughout this entire week, this one scene from one of my favorite books has been playing through my head. The book is called The Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett. This book centered around Susan, the Granddaughter of Death (The anthropormic idea of death) trying to save her worlds version of Santa Claus, called the Hogfather. At the end, she has a meaningful conversation with her Grandfather about why humans must believe in the Hogfather and other beings such as the Tooth Fairy.

Here is an excerpt (Death is the one who speaks in capital letters):

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET— Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

You can also watch the clip of this scene from the movie adaptation here. (Very funny and dramatic. I highly recommend watching the entire movie)

       Pratchett brings up an interesting idea, which is: Humans, in order to function in life, and live to their fullest capabilities, need fantasies, need these lies like justice, mercy, and things such as right and wrong in order to function. Can a human be a human without the idea of mercy, or justice, or good, or evil? He completely dismisses the idea that such things actually exist independent of the mind and goes on to believe that this willingness to create such concepts is what causes humanity to live to their fullest. I agree with this idea. Although there might not be justice except in our mind, it is what heightens our status beyond the 'base animal' level. What do you guys think? Can we be human without these concepts we make up to function every day?

A warm welcome!

Howdy strangers that may or may not exist.
I say this because I am unsure of whether or not if you truly exist outside of my own mind. You, young reader, may just be a figment of my very complex and intricate imagination. Kudos to you. Anyways, this blog is going to track my journey through my 'Constructing Reality' course as I try to decide whether or not you, the reader, love, beauty, math, science, or reality actually exists externally. Along the way, I will discuss these topics and probably many, many, more.
So, bon voyage! Let us sink into the murky depths of the universe and the mind!