PS1101 Lecture 2: Seating the Mind in the Brain

PS1101 – Historical Perspectives In Psychology Wk3, Lecture 2 Seating the mind in the brain Dr Vrushant Lakhlani...

PS1101 – Historical Perspectives In Psychology Wk3, Lecture 2 Seating the mind in the brain Dr Vrushant Lakhlani [email protected]. Aims By the endof this of this session session you will be able to understand: The importance of Importance of mathematics in the development of science The concepts of empiricism, induction, rationalism, idealism and realism The importance of scientific institutions Philosophical approaches and explanations to how the mind organises experiences Understand the contributions of Descartes to science and to the monism-dualism debate Appreciate the development of the neural doctrine by empiricists and phrenology in the 19th and 20th centuries 2 We have now arrived at the dawn of the Enlightenment Mathematics as a means of testing claims about the world Improvements in technology allowed experiments to occur Power of religious institutions were weaker Mass publication and better transport allowed fermentation of ideas Interest in the human body as a mechanism to be studied increased in interest Still access to science was for the privileged who could speak Latin/Greek 3  The dawn of the Enlightenment Independence of thought from the great institutions e.g. Roman Catholic church Philosophy was starting to move away from pure rationalism Not an easy process, the church had lot of political power Galileo's observations and defence of the heliocentric model lead to arguments with the church Trial in Rome and house arrest for the last years of his life to censor his views 4  Isaac Newton Published Principia(1643-1727) Mathematica (1687) Described the first laws of physics Mathematically defined physical effects (motion, gravity) Developed calculus Contributed to optics Influences Galileo's descriptions of orbits and how it aligned to the Copernican heliocentric system Independence from religious institutions and establishment of independent scientific 5 What influence did Principia Mathematica have on science? Helped to mathematically formalise what was a qualitative description of orbits Helped explain natural phenomena in formal common language which can make predictions (mathematics) Reinforced a view of perfection in the universe – the universe is a machine governed by strict, perfect rules Served as the main textbook of physics and influenced scientific thinking until the 20th century (still a firm basis for modern 6 Starting up new institutions Independence from religious institutions and establishment of independent scientific institutions were created during Newton’s time (Royal Society of London) Similar institutions were appearing across continental Europe Accademia del Lincei Académie Française 7 Scientific / Philosophical publishing in the Enlightenment With an increase in mass publication knowledge was being reproduced Single-authored books were still a popular form of communicating knowledge The establishment of learned societies allowed for their meetings and ideas to be printed in periodical (journals) One of the earliest journals was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (and it still exists today!) One of the first multi-authored works which communicated scientific ideas One of the first works in English (but still had Latin) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/ 8 Émilie du Châtelet (1706 – 1749 CE) Born in France Was a physicist, mathematician, philosopher, linguist and mother Translated Newton's Principia Mathematica into French Helped later French scientist continue with Newton’s work She contributed to many publications right up until her death 9 The end of rationalism? Rationalism assumes that knowledge is from within To obtain knowledge requires thought and reason Logic and mathematics formalised the rationalist movement Plato, Descartes are examples of people from this tradition Throughout the enlightenment a different approach was growing… 10 John Locke (1632-1704) One of the earliest proponents of hard empiricism Assumed that the human mind started out without any prior knowledge (tabula rasa – a blank slate) We acquire knowledge from experience via the senses and form associations to construct meaning and memories We collect experiences, mould them to meaning How we reason is also a construction 11 Locke’s view of knowledge Knowledge comes from 2 principle sources Sensation Reflection – the active mental processing of sensation Experience and objects consist of 2 qualities Primary qualities Inherent properties of an object Extension, shape, motion etc. Secondary qualities Depends on sensation Colour, smell etc. 12 Rise of experimentalism and empiricism Observations However some scientific theories were quite top-down The empiricist movement relies on forming associations with past experiences that come in from the perceptual senses; we make judgements about these based on inductive inference 13  George Berkeley (1685-1753) One of the first empiricists to systematically study visual perception Convergence and accommodation Inverted retinal image His empirical observation lead to idealism Subjective idealism We make judgements about what we see We only can be certain that we perceive object 14 Idealism vs Realism Idealism Knowledge is a construction of the mind Not 100% correspondence to reality Truth of knowledge is based on how well it matches with social knowledge Realism Humans knowledge attempts to reveal knowledge Show properties of the outside world Truth of knowledge depends on how well it matches with the real world 15 René Descartes France 1596 – 1650 Very influential in mathematics – plotting of one variable against another (Cartesian coordinates) Saw animals and humans as machines; mechanistic view of the world Attempted to describe the reflex as animalistic mechanism in the body Intensely sceptical; kept the Platonic ideals and rationalism 16 Systematic doubting principle If you can be fooled by something, then it might not exist Keep on doubting the reality of what you see as your senses may be deceived The only thing you cannot doubt is that you are doubting – that you are thinking “I think therefore I am” 17 18  Cartesian Dualism Using this doubting principle Descartes came to conclusion that sensations from the outside world (feelings and sensations) are separate from the thought (mind or soul) Two (dual) separate parts to the human being Animals do not have souls as they cannot think (according to Descartes) The mind is the ghost in the machine By extension the brain may host the mind but the mind is a separate non-physical entity which communicates with the physical body The body and the mind are connected…. Somehow (pineal gland?) 19 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Suggested that we arrange experiences We organise them reference to space and time You need a priori knowledge of space and time (which are intuitive) in order for you to organise events and actions Argued that mental phenomena could not be tested directly (similar to Descartes) 20 Industrial Revolution Changes in technology influence society In the late 18th and 19th centuries steam and coal based machines improved productivity (rise of factories) Rise of capitalism and global markets Changes in societal makeup – replacement of manual work by machines Scientific improvements changed society (Kagan 2009) Mechanical devices relieved manual labour and increased productivity People had improved health outcomes Increased literacy Improved knowledge about the world 21 Franz Josef Gall Neuroanatomist Noticed that seemingly more intelligent animals tended to have larger brains Bigger the brain, the more intelligent you were Father of the phrenological movement 23  Phrenology Based on bumps and dents in the scalp The larger the bump in a specific part of the head reveals increased aspects in the particular personal quality (and vice versa) One of the 1st notions of localisation of function Not scientific but very popular in the 19th and 20th centuries 24 Neuroscientific revolution: Camillo Golgi Introduced technique of staining This allowed neurons to be seen via microscope 25 Neuroscientific revolution: Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) Spanish physiologist Used the same staining technique as Golgi Identified layers of different types of neurons Showed how their were specialisations of neurons which have different structures Neural communication (neural doctrine) 26 Materialism vs Dualism Materialism (Monoism) – Psychology is biology (mind is a by product of the brain) Dualism – Mind and brain are separate with mind being immaterial and independent Functionalism - soft-dualism – mind is made in the brain but mind can be represented in other machines (providing similar structure) Identity problem – problem how two events can be perceived as the same 27  War and the arrival of neuropsychology Early part of the 20th Century the neural doctrine had a boost with the advent on clinical psychology Brain damaged due to shrapnel and bullet wounds in soldiers during war (WW1 and WW2) Observations (qualitative level) of what these sides effects were Development of neuropsychological testing Neuropsychological patients have wide spread lesions and hard to compare what pre-lesion performance would have been like 28  Cognitive neuroscience In the mid-to-late 20th Century, the growth in measuring the brain to measure cognitive processes fMRI - measures oxygen “Blobs” of activation reflect brain activity during a cognitive task. EEG – electrical activity TMS – electromagnetism to interference with neural processes Is this a new form of phrenology? Neuroscientific measures on humans are largely indirect measure of brain and cognitive functioning Finding a neural correlate does not necessarily test underlying cognitive process 29 Summary The European Enlightenment showed a growth in different approaches to validate science as a discipline Empiricism was developing in this period Debates as to the importance of the mind was being considered Mathematics and induction were growing methods Natural philosophers attempted to show how the mind reconstructs perceptual reality using different associative techniques Mind being an active organiser of sensory experiences 30  Summary Descartes made influence in the mind-body debate, knowledge about reflexes and mathematics Growth in interest in localisation of cognitive functions in the late 19th century with neuropsychology and phrenology Staining neurons had influence the development of the understanding of specialisation of neurons The 20th century embarked a revolutionary paradigm shift towards biological basis of cognitive processes with advances in technology 31