Posted by finelinebob on May 9, 2004, at 19:53:21
In reply to »Racer: et al: What is reason? my history....., posted by 64bowtie on May 9, 2004, at 17:47:39
[Sorry about that non-sequitur...]
Is there a developmental neuropsychologist in the house?
Rod, if Piaget's beliefs (and how Americans misappropriated them to boot) went astray, it was in linking overt behaviors too tightly to underlying neurological structures and some sort of irreversible developmental progress altering those structures. The American insistence on establishing developmental yardmarks on stages of development in particular was something Piaget railed against.
Here's where a neuropsychologist could help, please.
From what I recall, developmental studies using modern brain imaging technologies show little difference in the fully developed brains of adults and those of children around age 3-4. Prior to that, however, there are significant differences. So, who's to say that differences in reasoning and decision-making between adults and children doesn't arise from differences in experience, not some biological developmental stage?
And adults aren't resistant to childish thinking. One of the best known Piagetian stage development yardmarks for infants is Peek-a-boo. Prior to 9 months, the game just doesn't make sense. When it does make sense is a marker of the infant developing Object Permanence. My point is that Piagetian theorists argue that the game gets old quick, and that a more mature brain should find the obvious existence of something hidden to be boring. Then again, there's the "Jaws" effect. You see the swimmer from under water. You hear the ominous music. You know what the movie is about. But still you scream when the shark finally attacks. And some people keep screaming no matter how many times they see the same scene. Object permanence, after all these years!
Social cognition theories talk about a Cognition-Affect-Behavior cycle in which an affective response is inseperable from a thought. What distinguishes shame from guilt? Perhaps where we believe we have no control over a personal failure, we feel shame. If we did have control, if we could have stopped it, well, maybe guilt is what we feel.
That is, as far as I can tell, 100% consistent with your summation on how adults think: we don't reason via feelings, rather our feelings have reasons. But the basis of the conclusion rules out fundamental biological developmental differences. Experience is what differentiates children's and adults' thinking.
Let me take it one step further: Read my lips:
If you thought you knew what I was going to say or, even better, the intent I had behind those three words, then you know what a "ventriloquism" is. Can meaning exist for humans outside of a social context? A comtemporary of Piaget -- Lev Vygotsky -- would argue that mind extends beyond our skin and only truly exists between people, not within an individual. That's why I can appropriate someone else's words and you can understand what I mean by them. The thought exists in the culture, and it has meaning to the extent that we share that cultural artifact.
So where's the freedom in that? (It's there) What sort of ownership can we have over a thought? (It's there, too, but they're both in the culture, not our wiring).
Sorry ... just HAD to toss out some alternative hypotheses for you, Rod!
flb
PS. While there was arguably a greater percentage of the population in the Flat Earth Society in the Middle Ages than today, people in the know knew it was round. The ancient Greeks knew it as early as 500 BC, and Eratosthenes had devised a method to estimate its circumference around 200 BC, and wsa accurate to within 1%. Remember, Columbus left Europe thinking he would hit the eastern shore of Asia in about 5000 miles or so. Can't do that on a flat earth (barring non-Euclidean geometries)! ;^)
poster:finelinebob
thread:345158
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040503/msgs/345212.html