Re: Pascal's Wager

From: Zenarchy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Tue Dec 08 1998 - 18:54:24 MST


Dana wrote,
>Ah...this caught my attention: "Psychonomy relates to psychology as
astronomy does to astrology." Wow. That's a really strong statement to
make. Perhaps you could elaborate?
>Psychology as a field of science seems to contain specific sub-fields
that definately try to get at explaining cognition, general level
consciousness, self-awareness, etc. beyond the level of the "mind myth".
That is, real world physics are used in the sub-fields to explain what
is going on in the brain, rather than global level, "black box" oriented
models. Perhaps I am misunderstanding your term "mind myth" and you
could elaborate on this as well.

Hi Dana,

I thought of the term /psychonomy/ after reading Francis Crick's _The
Astonishing Hypothesis_ (which I highly recommend, even though I haven't
read it cover-to-cover).
Ignoring the hubris of the psychonomy/psychology = astronomy/astrology
brag, your description of "explaining cognition, general level
consciousness, self-awareness, etc. beyond the level of the 'mind myth'"
sounds very close to what I had in mind <g> with the term /psychonomy/.
Indeed, what *does* go on in the human brain?
For more on that, try William Calvert's home page.

As for the mind myth, I recommend the following URL:

http://www.well.com/user/jct/index.html

 If you have the time to read _Mind Is A Myth_ (at the site mentioned
above), please let me know how it registers with you.

Grok it and rocket,

-zen



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