I am pragmatic. You need a different model for relationships than you do for appreciating art. Sometimes the entire idea of a model might be... unhelpful.
You need a different model for relationships than you do for appreciating art.
Indeed. How does that relate to understanding how the brain operates?
you are the media you consume.
With regard to the mind, I think that attempts at a purely positivistic understanding are not very promising. So I think that scientific research into the mind should, preferably, incorporate a significant 'internal' perspective. I explained this at greater length here.
Discounting law as a science, the only fields of research I know enough about to start to recommend specific methodologies are in social science (political science; political economy). Within these fields, the analytic narratives approach shows some promise in combining qualitative and quantitative research.
I do not think that this approach can be easily transplanted to anthropology because the set of issues dealt with in that field is just different. I also don't know how it would relate to mental research.
To my knowledge, it has never gotten past that stage to the actual work of science (like, in social science, formulating and isolating dependent and independent variables, testing them empirically, contrasting results with alternative hypotheses to show why a better explanation has been yielded...).
And: If you want to think about thought at all, banish "meme" from your vocabulary. A crude and reductionist parallel to an overly crude and reductionist interpretation of genes as the operational components of DNA, the concept of "meme" is useful only if your goal is to reduce thinking to inanity.
What I know of Dawkins is not inspiring further interest on my part.
Your preference for denunciation rather than specific, reasoned argument doesn't inspire interest in what YOU have to say. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience
