Caer Abred

... Science

Oh yes, just looking up to find a definitive form of science for investigating this strange thing called psyche (or at it's most raw brain) is a bit of a mess. There's lots of departments and specialities, depending on the philosophical route people use to examine the psyche, but little consistency. Some are into strict scientific research and other take liberal helpings from spirituality.

What do people understand about this field, and what might or might not constitute a viable psychology?

To put it another way, what are the tools we have to be able to "Know thyself"?

Start with basic drives and what they can be diverted towards.

ie. Sex drive, Food Drive, Killing Drive (seperate from Food Drive in all carnivorous animals), comfort/parantal drive, etc.

Ok. Then what? Are studying from the behaviourism angle? Neuropsychology? Humanistic psychology? Evolutionary psychology?

(Immediately I think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, humanistic psychology, which has its critics)

What is THE basic drive at the base and/or centre of all other drives? Is there one?

treegod wrote:What is THE basic drive at the base and/or centre of all other drives? Is there one?

Avoiding pain/death.

Ok, let's start from there and see if we can make a theory out of that. It seems quite basic, since it's not very nice.

But the question arises are we anti-pain because we are anti-pain or because we are pro-pleasure?

Is my drive to preserve my life based on my drive to avoid death? Or is my drive to avoid death based on my drive to preserve life?

Are we more concerned about pain/death or about pleasure/life?

Let's put it into context; our desires/drives/intents/motivations for being here, can they ultimately be traced back to this "primary drive" of avoiding pain/death?

treegod wrote:Ok, let's start from there and see if we can make a theory out of that. It seems quite basic, since it's not very nice.

But the question arises are we anti-pain because we are anti-pain or because we are pro-pleasure?

Is my drive to preserve my life based on my drive to avoid death? Or is my drive to avoid death based on my drive to preserve life?

Are we more concerned about pain/death or about pleasure/life?

I think all psychology begins from the desire not to suffer, simply because that is the primary driver of natural selection.

But such things as the desire to reproduce are pleasure driven. Again driven by selection pressure.

"Perhaps the single biggest mistake we make when we say No is to start from No. We derive our No from what we are against - the other's demand or behaviour. A Positive No calls on us to do the exact opposite and base our No on what we are for. Instead of starting from No, start from Yes. Root your No in a deeper Yes - a Yes to your core interests and to what truly matters." William Ury, Ph.D. The Power of a Positive No

I think what you are talking about, a drive to avoid, is a negative drive. It is a drive against something, in a way it is an evolutionary rebel. But like any rebel we don't get very far if we don't have something to rebel for. Without that fight for something we soon become exhausted and disillussioned. We need a cause to fight for that gives us a reason (read evolutionary drive) to fight against. For me this means there is a drive more fundamental to avoiding pain/death.

And I think the same thing can apply to evolution [incidentally we are heading into Evolutionary Psychology territory].

I have no fear of being dead, the experience must be like being asleep and before I was born; completely oblivious to my state of being (how I die is a different story). But I am sad at losing life, and any fear I have of death emanates from this experience of valueing life. I have no reason to avoid death other than the fact that I value life. If I didn't value life I wouldn't care about avoiding death.

I propose that the primary drive, before avoiding pain/death, is a pro-life drive. It is for this reason that we want to avoid death. But death would have been one of the first basic experiences of the earliest organisms, so indeed the avoidance of death most certainly has ancient roots but I think they come a fraction after the living of life.

I also propose that any drive for pain and/or pleasure comes after any drives for life or against death, simply because the eariest organisms only had pure drive, and pain and pleasure were later evolutionary adaptions to tell the organism what in the environment to avoid and what they could approach.

Psychologically I believe our primary drive is pro-life based. It is upon this positive drive that other positive for drives and negative against drives are based.

The primary drive being a negative does not mean it isn't so.

I come at this from an evolutionary perspective, bearing in mind that we are just animals.

I will revise my view above to not even include death. We are each of us the result of thousands of generations of creatures who have succeeded in avoiding death for long enough to breed. For me that means that the two primary drives are the avoidance of pain (from starvation/dehydration/disembowelment etc.) and sex.

The positive drive you mention is simply a result of those creatures also having been those who tended to reproduce most successfully. Most of them will not have linked mating to breeding. So the positive drive is just that to get your end away.

So.....

Negative primary drive: avoid Pain.

Positive primary drive: Fuck.