why psychology isn't science

Okay, I'm going to get it now. A number of people asked me what is wrong w psychology.

The answer: it isn't science and most people pretend it is.

What does that mean?

It's simple. We understand the brain somewhat, but we know very little if anything about mind. What is the difference? The brain is a gray mass with neurons and lobes and stuff. Neuroscientists, when they know something, study it. They are probably pretty good. But mind? It is not the brain at all. It may not even be stored or emanating from the brain.

Ever question I ask from here on out is gonna have the same problem. I'm asking it about a thing we don't know. If I say what is Paris? you can drive there and see and then report back. If I say what is the unknown moon around the unknown star in a distant galaxy. You don't know? I'm asking about an object with no content in our knowledge base.

That's mind. We have no idea what "thoughts" and "ideas" are. No clue. And on this note I'm gonna have to take the Reid position. We can know these things exist without knowing what they are or who put them there, etc. We also cannot ask really good questions about them because they are starting points for us. Like the notion of "time."

Psychologists study mind. Without any clue what it is. They can study trends and habits and behaviors, like a person studying gravity. But ultimately they are limited by the fact that it has no real content on the fundamental level.

Why can't we be confident about things we don't fully understand? Well, that's part of knowing. Knowing when your knowledge base is so limited that you have to pull a Reid and humble yourself before the stark vacuum of description and language. We aren't very good at it. What is mind? No idea. What are thoughts? I have no idea. Where do they come from? Well, that's the point isn't it. Like Kant's Noumenal, if I don't have access to it, I can't make all these sweeping claims about it. Nature/Nuture? Well, good luck.

Descartes was maybe onto something here when he said we know we have our own thoughts and nothing else. The experience of "thoughts" is somewhat obvious. I'm down for that. But knowing our own "thoughts" does not give us much confidence if we are honest. We don't know how those ideas correspond to the outside world. AND, more importantly, we don't know if other people even have thoughts. Only our own. So speaking about them is assuming something about other people.

I for one, as a realist, believe others have similar experiences to mine. So, I can infer that they have thoughts. But that's the end really. I'm a realist, not a mystic. Just like the rabbit gets the carrot idea but not the food processor one, I get somethings and not others. I don't have the access. The limit to knowledge is the wisdom philosophers contain, not really the knowledge itself. And if there is specific whole knowledge about a thing, like maybe the brain, there are scientists for that. Neuroscientists in this instance.

So, pretending like you can understand mind, especially with no training in philosophy, is like doing brain surgery because you're a buttering-toast expert. Learn philosophy and then see the boundaries and the proceed with caution into the world of the mind. It's a long journey.