by Isaac Asimov
Key concepts
"All theories are proven wrong in time "
"When people thought the Earth was flat, there were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth was spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. "
"Right and wrong are fuzzy concepts"
"In great abstraction over which human beings debate, one should start without preconceived, unexamined notions and that he alone knew this. "
"How wrong are they?"
"it is because the geological formations of the Earth change so slowly and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at first to suppose that there was no change and that Earth and life always existed as they do today"
Earth is not flat nor sphere, it is oblate spheroid because of rotation. The faster the rotation, the less likely to be sphere.
--> "Earth as sphere is wrong, but it is not as wrong as the notion of the Earth as flat. "
Comments
This essay is prominent in that it concretely emphasized the difference between relative and absolute wrong/right and provide clear evidence to prove the author's argument.
It is interesting that the author argued that there is no absolute wrong and believe that right and wrong and fuzzy concepts. This argument gives us the idea of importance of relativity but, to me, it overemphasized the relativity, ignoring the existence of absolute right/wrong.
Contrary to the author's argument, it seems that relative and absolute right/wrong are both exist and highly correlated. i.e my argument there is no absolute relativity.
For example: 1+1= 3 or 9 are all absolutely wrong, based on this fact. We can further know that 3 is much closer than 9. Thus, 9 is relatively wronger than 3. Thus, there are correlated and step by step.
I mean: step 1: it is absolute wrong. Step 2: it is relative wrong compared with what.
Additionally, if we think the right side, interestingly, it appears that there is no room for the relative right. 2+2=5 is relatively right? it is wrong absolutely.
article source
http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
By Thomas S. Kuhn
Concepts
"Normal Science means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice"
"Paradigms’, a term which relates closely to ‘Normal Science’ Incidentally, the origin of the word is Greek, it meant ‘standard’ and it was used by Plato in hisDialogues (standard of piety for example). By choosing it, Kuhn meant to suggest that some accepted examples of scientific research - examples which include law, theory application and instrumentation together - provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research, such as Ptolomaic Astronomy, Copernician Astronomy, Aristotelian Dynamics, Newtonian Dynamics, Corpuscular Optics, Wave Optics"
" early fact gathering is a more random activity than the one that scientific development makes familiar."
Example : light is characterization of light is half a century old. ((material corpuscles --> transverse wave motion --> photons) --> scientific revolutions
"they were partially derived from one or another version of paradigm that guided all scientific research of the day.
" early fact gathering is a more random activity than the one that scientific development makes familiar."
"To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted."
Comment
This article, to me, focuses on research revolution with an attempt to promote the researcher to study something that doesn't follow the paradigm (many readers may disagree with that). In this sense, it seems to tell us that studying in innovative way can help the researcher to leap out of boundary or limitation of thinking and inspire the researcher to propose a new paradigm, leading to the research revolution.
Other resources
http://des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html
http://www.brlsi.org/proceed05/philosophy0904.htm
http://reflectionsbeyondtechnology.blogspot.com/2009/06/august-11-2006-normal-science.html
Social foundation of thoughts and Action: A social Cognitive Theory
By Bandura (1986).
Preface
The capability of forethought and the capability for self-reflection add dimensions of to the process of self-regulation and self-influence.
Learning is conceptualized mainly as knowledge acquisition through cognitive processing of information.
Theories integrate laws.
Theories specify the determinants and mechanisms governing the phenomena of interest.
Theories are rarely free of imperfection, the research they stimulate delineates the range of conditions under which a given theory enjoys explanatory and predictive success.
Experimental analyses clarify determinants and the mechanisms through which they operate and suggest theoretical refinements that bring us to understand the phenomena.
Weak theories are discarded not because they are falsified but because they are withered by so many boundary conditions that their predictive generality is too limited to be of much use.
----------------------------------
Psychodynamic Theory
Concept
Human behavior is motivated by various needs, impulses, and instincts.
Human behavior is the manifestation of the dynamic interplay of inner forces, most of which operate below the level of consciousness.
Problems
the description becomes the causal explanation
Doesn't definite relationships between the unconscious inner life and human thought and action.
They are deficient in predicting future behavior.
Behavior patterns commonly attributed to unconscious inner causes can be instated, eliminated, and reinstated by varying appropriate social influences and by altering people's ways of thinking.
A good psychological theories should
(1) have predictive power.
(2) capable of effecting significant changes in human effect, thought, and action.
(3)identify the determinants of human behavior and the intervening mechanism by which they produce their effects.
Comments
Psycholodynamic theory has problems with prediction and change of behavior. It's overemphasized on the inner determinants, ignoring other factors that may influence human behavior. As a result, this theory has been criticized by psychological scholars because it cannot predict and change behavior but instead it only can explain casual behavior. For example, dependency motives from dependent behavior.
Trait Theory
emphasizes the internal determination of behavior
Problems
personality traits correlate weakly with social behavior in different setting.
Comments
Human behavior is very complex and dynamic. It will change dramatically under different settings and different time. It even will evolve to different forms. For example, when I was a child, I like green color. Now, I dislike it very much even though it represents environment. These issues are neglected in Trait theory and are contrary to the assumption of theory that human behavior is consistently the same under different settings.
Radical Behaviorism
Concept
behavior is controlled by genetic endowment and environmental contingencies.
behavior are assumed to be caused by external stimuli although they do not deny inner events linked to behavior.
autonomous agency ( self influence in causal processes)
mechanical agency ( automatically without thinking)
interactive agency (reciprocally contributing influencing)
Control by past stimulus inputs
Psychophysical functions and Epiphenomenalism
Psychoneural Monism
Problems
neither thought nor action covaries all that closely with external stimuli.
Social Cognitive Theory
human functioning is explained in terms of a mode of triadic reciprocality in which behavior, cognitive, and other personal factors and environmental events all operate as interacting determinants of each other.
Reciprocal Determinism
One-sided Determinism( often portrayed as operating in a unidirectional manner. )
One-sided interactionism
Triadic reciprocality ( the relative influence will vary for different activities, individuals and circumstances)
Differential Contributions of the Triadic Factors
Temporal Dynamics of Triadic Reciprocality
Analytic Decomposition of Triadic Reciprocality
Gauging Personal Determinants
Selective Activation of Potential Influences ( what part of the potential environment becomes the actual environment thus dependes upon how people behave)
Determinism and Fortuitous Determinants of Life Paths
Developmental Determinism ( childhood experiences set the course of later development. )
Chance Encounters as Contributing Determinants of Life Paths ( unintended meeting of persons unfamiliar to each other. )
Predicting the impact of Fortuitous Interests
Freedom as exercise of self-influence
Freedom as options and rights
Reciprocal influence and the limits of social control
Individual safeguards
Social safeguards
Psychodynamic Theory
Concept
Human behavior is motivated by various needs, impulses, and instincts.
Human behavior is the manifestation of the dynamic interplay of inner forces, most of which operate below the level of consciousness.
Problems
the description becomes the causal explanation
Doesn't definite relationships between the unconscious inner life and human thought and action.
They are deficient in predicting future behavior.
Behavior patterns commonly attributed to unconscious inner causes can be instated, eliminated, and reinstated by varying appropriate social influences and by altering people's ways of thinking.
A good psychological theories should
(1) have predictive power.
(2) capable of effecting significant changes in human effect, thought, and action.
(3)identify the determinants of human behavior and the intervening mechanism by which they produce their effects.
Comments
Psycholodynamic theory has problems with prediction and change of behavior. It's overemphasized on the inner determinants, ignoring other factors that may influence human behavior. As a result, this theory has been criticized by psychological scholars because it cannot predict and change behavior but instead it only can explain casual behavior. For example, dependency motives from dependent behavior.
Trait Theory
emphasizes the internal determination of behavior
Problems
personality traits correlate weakly with social behavior in different setting.
Comments
Human behavior is very complex and dynamic. It will change dramatically under different settings and different time. It even will evolve to different forms. For example, when I was a child, I like green color. Now, I dislike it very much even though it represents environment. These issues are neglected in Trait theory and are contrary to the assumption of theory that human behavior is consistently the same under different settings.
Radical Behaviorism
Concept
behavior is controlled by genetic endowment and environmental contingencies.
behavior are assumed to be caused by external stimuli although they do not deny inner events linked to behavior.
autonomous agency ( self influence in causal processes)
mechanical agency ( automatically without thinking)
interactive agency (reciprocally contributing influencing)
Control by past stimulus inputs
Psychophysical functions and Epiphenomenalism
Psychoneural Monism
Problems
neither thought nor action covaries all that closely with external stimuli.
Social Cognitive Theory
human functioning is explained in terms of a mode of triadic reciprocality in which behavior, cognitive, and other personal factors and environmental events all operate as interacting determinants of each other.
- Symbolizing Capability (Through symbols, people process and transform transient experiences into internal models )
- Forethought Capability(Through exercise of forethought, people motivate themselves and guide their actions anticipatory)
- Vicarious Capability(learning can occur vicariously by observing other people's behavior and tis consequences for them)
- Self-regulator Capability ( behavior is motivated and regulated by internal standards and self-evaluative reactions to their own action)
- Self-reflective Capability ( this enable people to analyze their experiences and to think abou their own thought processes)
- The nature of human nature ( human nature is characterized by a vast potentiality that can be fashioned by direct and observational experience into a variety of forms within biological limits.)
Reciprocal Determinism
One-sided Determinism( often portrayed as operating in a unidirectional manner. )
One-sided interactionism
Triadic reciprocality ( the relative influence will vary for different activities, individuals and circumstances)
Differential Contributions of the Triadic Factors
Temporal Dynamics of Triadic Reciprocality
Analytic Decomposition of Triadic Reciprocality
Gauging Personal Determinants
Selective Activation of Potential Influences ( what part of the potential environment becomes the actual environment thus dependes upon how people behave)
Determinism and Fortuitous Determinants of Life Paths
Developmental Determinism ( childhood experiences set the course of later development. )
Chance Encounters as Contributing Determinants of Life Paths ( unintended meeting of persons unfamiliar to each other. )
Predicting the impact of Fortuitous Interests
- Personal Determinants of the impact of chance encounters
- Entry Skills
- Emotional Ties ( chance meetings are most likely to affect life courses when individuals come to like the people they meet or gain other satisfaction from them
- Value and Personal Standards (human behavior is partly governed by value preferences and self-evaluative standards)
- Social Determinants of the impact of Fortuitous encounters
- Milieu Rewards (human behavior is influenced by the effects it produces)
- Symbolic Environment and Information Management
- Milieu Reach and Closedness
- Psychological Colsedness
- Nonsocial Fortuitous Events ( sometimes industries spring from happenstance)
- Fostering Valued Futures
Freedom and Determinism
Freedom as exercise of self-influence
Freedom as options and rights
Reciprocal influence and the limits of social control
Individual safeguards
Social safeguards
No comments:
Post a Comment