Psychophysics

Uploaded by palma on Oct 15, 2000

Sam Vaknin's Psychology, Philosophy, Economics and Foreign Affairs Web Sites

It is impossible to rigorously prove or substantiate the existence of a Soul, a psyche.

Numerous explanations have been hitherto offered:

• That what we, humans, call a soul is the way that we experience the workings of our brain (introspection experienced). This often
  
• leads to infinite regressions.
  
• That the soul is an epiphenomenon, the software result of a hardware complexity (much the same way as temperature, volume and
  
• pressure are the epiphenomena of a large number of gas molecules).
  
• That the soul does exist and that it is distinct from the body in substance (or lack of it), in form (or lack of it) and in the set of laws
  
• that it obeys ("spiritual" rather than physical). The supporters of this camp say that correlation is not causation.

In other words, the electrochemical activity in the brain, which corresponds to mental phenomena does not mean that it IS the mental phenomena. Mental phenomena do have brain (hardware) correlates – but these correlates need not be confused with the mental phenomena themselves.

Still, very few will dispute the strong connection between body and soul. The psychic activity was attributed to the heart, the liver, even to some glands. Nowadays it is attributed to the brain, apparently with better reasons.

Since the body is a physical object, subject to physical laws, it follows that at least the connection between the two (body and soul) must obey the laws of physics.

Another question is what is the currency used by the two in their communication. Physical forces are mediated by subatomic particles. What serves to mediate between body and soul ?

Language could be the medium and the mediating currency. It has both an internal, psychic representation and an objective, external one. It serves as a bridge between our inner emotions and cognition and the outside, physical world. It originates almost non-physically (a mere thought) and has profound physical impacts and effects. It has quantum aspects combined with classical determinism.

We propose that what we call the Subconscious and the Pre-Conscious (Threshold of Consciousness) are but Fields of Potentials organized in Lattices.

Potentials of what?

To represent realities (internal and external alike), we use language. Language seems to be the only thing able to consistently link our internal world with our physical surroundings. Thus, the potentials ought to be Lingual Energy Potentials.

When one of the...