From my perspective, the ideas we come up with in science that tell us who we are are often influenced by broader shifts.
For what you name “introspection,” it was deeply influenced by the occult craze of the 19th century, the obsession with making the hidden revealed. Much like occultists went out and…
From my perspective, the ideas we come up with in science that tell us who we are are often influenced by broader shifts.
For what you name “introspection,” it was deeply influenced by the occult craze of the 19th century, the obsession with making the hidden revealed. Much like occultists went out and tried to build maps of hidden planes of reality, the early psychologist aimed to uncover the hidden world within.
Behavioralism was influenced by the ideas of man as an evolved creature, without evolution, behavioralism likely would never exist.
And the same is true for cognitive science, we began to believe we were like machines after creating the computer.
We can go back even further in history and discover that after the creation of the automaton, what we get is ideas of life being mechanical in nature. Or to the discovery of electricity, where people thought they could bring back people who had been long dead with jolts of electricity.
By that view, we might be a long time away from gaining a new paradigm. Maybe not, maybe there doesn’t need to be a huge technological advancement but a scientific one, like evolution. But judging by this pattern, the next explosive technology is ai, which, I believe (I’m not an expert on ai) is modeled on cognitive and behavioralist models of the human being (I think the ai is even punished and rewarded somehow to drive learning. Again, not an expert!)
Curious to hear your thoughts on this perspective.
You're definitely right that new ideas in science are often part of existing trends. But at the same time, a new paradigm is often a very old idea that's dredged up from the murky depths. For example, heliocentrism and atomism had both been considered by the Ancient Greeks, and were re-considered during the scientific revolution. Other times, the new idea is kind of strange and comes from an unexpected direction, like evolution. So my bet is actually that the new paradigm will come from a new application of old ideas; or possibly it will be based on an unusual insight from a distant field, like how the idea of evolution came from unexpected findings in animal husbandry.
Great article, very interesting read.
From my perspective, the ideas we come up with in science that tell us who we are are often influenced by broader shifts.
For what you name “introspection,” it was deeply influenced by the occult craze of the 19th century, the obsession with making the hidden revealed. Much like occultists went out and tried to build maps of hidden planes of reality, the early psychologist aimed to uncover the hidden world within.
Behavioralism was influenced by the ideas of man as an evolved creature, without evolution, behavioralism likely would never exist.
And the same is true for cognitive science, we began to believe we were like machines after creating the computer.
We can go back even further in history and discover that after the creation of the automaton, what we get is ideas of life being mechanical in nature. Or to the discovery of electricity, where people thought they could bring back people who had been long dead with jolts of electricity.
By that view, we might be a long time away from gaining a new paradigm. Maybe not, maybe there doesn’t need to be a huge technological advancement but a scientific one, like evolution. But judging by this pattern, the next explosive technology is ai, which, I believe (I’m not an expert on ai) is modeled on cognitive and behavioralist models of the human being (I think the ai is even punished and rewarded somehow to drive learning. Again, not an expert!)
Curious to hear your thoughts on this perspective.
You're definitely right that new ideas in science are often part of existing trends. But at the same time, a new paradigm is often a very old idea that's dredged up from the murky depths. For example, heliocentrism and atomism had both been considered by the Ancient Greeks, and were re-considered during the scientific revolution. Other times, the new idea is kind of strange and comes from an unexpected direction, like evolution. So my bet is actually that the new paradigm will come from a new application of old ideas; or possibly it will be based on an unusual insight from a distant field, like how the idea of evolution came from unexpected findings in animal husbandry.