Intelligence and Short-term Memory Wiring Errors: Epistemic Considerations

Let’s suppose:
1. Oscar wants to go to the airport (x) to meet John, for which he needs to take a bus A11 (a)
2. On way to the bus stop, he changes his mind and informs John that he would meet him at Plus centre (y), and intends now to take bus C98 to go there (b)
3. He gets busy talking chatting with someone else.
4. When he reaches the stop, he sees bus A11 (a) and immediately gets into it with the intention of reaching Plus centre (y) asap.
5. Only after a while does he realize that he has got into the wrong bus.

Observation: While his brain got busy in chatting, items (x) and (b) got dropped from short-term memory. On seeing the bus A11 (a), his brain immediately connected a with y. In fact, it seems the internal meaning of b was taken over by a for a moment.

This is a problem.

At that moment of memory error, belief towards action was tampered by a memory fault.


See Also:
Volitional Memory Error

Volitional Memory Error

We may define volitional memory as the memory of a will or decisive encoding to do an action.

Let's suppose:
1. At time x, Oscar has the goal A and decides to reach it by act B
2. At time y, Oscar decides to change the plan and reach A by act C
OR,
At time y, Oscar decides to change the plan and reach D by act C
3. However, at time z, Oscar only remembers #1 and goes about reaching goal A by act B.

Only later does he realize that there was a memory error.

This may happen when at time z, Oscar may have another engagement that perhaps eats up the memory space of the most recent time y, and the brain is forced to retrieve elements of time x in order to facilitate action.

This is just an hypothesis, though this form of memory loss is a reality.

Similarly,
1. At time x, Oscar knows a set of decision things A.
2. At time y, Oscar knows a set of decision things B in addition to set A.
3. At time z, Oscar only remembers A.

Any ideas?

The Inclination Towards "Filling In The Blanks"

Gestalt psychologists have pointed out the interesting tendency of human brain to fill in the blanks in order to achieve an understanding of the world or sense data. Humans are incessant interpreters. They are all the time trying to figure out what something means.

[caption id="attachment_16080" align="alignnone" width="792"] One sees a CIRCLE and a BOX. However, these are just lines that could possibly not even be related. But, the brain makes a figure out of them.[/caption]

[gallery ids="16084,16083" type="rectangular"]

This quest and inclination has a helpful hand in enabling man to make a sense of things he cannot understand. He inputs data from his own previous experiences into otherwise seemingly meaningless data. Man is a puzzle solver and his attempt through hypothesizing and associating data with other data has given rise to a plethora of philosophies and ideologies. Especially, when the conjectures appear to be pragmatic and working well, the interpretations usually become sealed for posterity until someone is able to find a loophole in it.


The negative aspect of this inclination could be false suspicion and negative doubt. This process has been illustrated in many a novel and play of tragedy in literature. It also follows from a desire to make a sense of things happening; however, bad data and a wrong process of reckoning lead to false conclusions.

This is even more important in the context of spiritual faith. The spiritual man compares spiritual matters with spiritual matters. The natural man is not able to make any sense out of spiritual things. The Bible does not encourage blind faith; however, without faith one cannot even know God at all.

Milgram's Experiment on Obedience to Authority

Stanley Milgram, Yale University psychologist, began a series of social psychology experiments in July 1961. He discussed his experimental findings in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963, and later in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.

Objective
Milgram wanted to understand how many officers under the Nazi regime could follow brutal orders from authorities without showing resistance though it was evident that their obedience to such orders caused pain to others. Milgram wanted to research how far people could go into obeying orders from an authority that caused pain to others.

The Experiment
40 men were recruited for the lab experiment for $4.00 per hour of their time. The recruits were introduced to a shock generator developed by Milgram. The shock generator had on it switches that could generate shocks at increasing levels: starting at 30 volts and increasing in 15-volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. Labels such as "Slight Shock," "Moderate Shock" and "Danger: Severe Shock" were used over the switches. The final two switches were labeled simply with an ominous "XXX."

The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate. The subject believes that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual electric shocks, though in reality there were no such punishments. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. (Wikipedia) The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate. The subject believes that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual electric shocks, though in reality there were no such punishments. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. (Wikipedia)

The experiment emulated a scene of Teacher-Learner-Experimenter situation. For each session, three individuals were selected. One of them was the recruit (who would play the role of the Teacher); the other was a confederate of the experimenter and acted as Learner; the third was the experimenter(Milgram) himself. Of course, straws were drawn to determine who would play which role, but everything was fixed beforehand in a manner that the recruit's choice could only be to play the Teacher. The experimenter made sure to inform the Teacher (recruit) that the Learner (who was, unknown to the Teacher, a confederate of the experimenter) had a heart problem. The experimenter took the Teacher to the other room and showed the Learner strapped to a chair with electrodes. Then, the Teacher was given a list of word pairs that he was to teach the Learner. The Teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the Learner. Then, he read the first word of a pair in the list and indicated four possible answers. The Learner pressed a button to indicate his answer. If the answer was incorrect, the Teacher administered a shock to the learner, with the voltage increasing in 15-volt increments for each wrong answer. If correct, the Teacher would read the next word pair. But, while the recruit (Teacher) believed that real shocks were being given, it was so arranged that no shocks were actually administered.

After a number of high level shocks, the Learner would begin to bang on the wall and plead to stop. But, while a few of the recruits called out of the experiment, most went forward to administer higher level shocks in obedience to an authoritative procedure involved. When the Teacher would question if the experiment should be carried on any further, the experimenter would just give each of the following commands in sequential order:

1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the Teacher still persisted to halt the experiment after the fourth successive order, then the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.

Results
65% of the recruits, though showing unwillingness to do so, administered the 450-level shocks to the Learner. All the participants continued to 300 volts. "Throughout the experiment, subjects displayed varying degrees of tension and stress. Subjects were sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures." (Wiki) Yet, they continued to administer the shocks in obedience to authority.

Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience":

This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our study: ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. Many of the people were in some sense against what they did to the learner, and many protested even while they obeyed. Some were totally convinced of the wrongness of their actions but could not bring themselves to make an open break with authority. They often derived satisfaction from their thoughts and felt that -- within themselves, at least -- they had been on the side of the angels. They tried to reduce strain by obeying the experimenter but "only slightly," encouraging the learner, touching the generator switches gingerly. When interviewed, such a subject would stress that he "asserted my humanity" by administering the briefest shock possible. Handling the conflict in this manner was easier than defiance. For a person to feel responsible for his actions, he must sense that the behavior has flowed from "the self." In the situation we have studied, subjects have precisely the opposite view of their actions -- namely, they see them as originating in the motives of some other person. Subjects in the experiment frequently said, "if it were up to me, I would not have administered shocks to the learner." The experimenter's physical presence has a marked impact on his authority -- As cited earlier, obedience dropped off sharply when orders were given by telephone. The experimenter could often induce a disobedient subject to go on by returning to the laboratory. Even Eichmann was sickened when he toured the concentration camps, but he had only to sit at a desk and shuffle papers. At the same time the man in the camp who actually dropped Cyclon-b into the gas chambers was able to justify his behavior on the ground that he was only following orders from above. Thus there is a fragmentation of the total human act; no one is confronted with the consequences of his decision to carry out the evil act. The person who assumes responsibility has evaporated. Perhaps this is the most common characteristic of socially organized evil in modern society.

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Further Reading:The Perils of Obedience

The Psychology of Evil and the Spirit of Victory

Psychologists have always pondered on the psychology of evil and the corruptibility of humans. For instance, the Stanford Prison Experiments and studies conducted by Philip Zimbardo[1] show that certain psychological mechanisms that are part of certain cultural or political systems (e.g. racialism, Nazism, casteism, etc) can act as justifying frameworks of inhumane behavior. Zimbardo himself observes that at one point during the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which volunteers had been arrested in a realistic show style and put into prison cells where they were subjected to dehumanization and deindividuation, he arrived at a point where he had confused reality with this false world created for just an experiment. He writes:

I was sitting there all alone, waiting anxiously for the intruders to break in, when who should happen along but a colleague and former Yale graduate student roommate, Gordon Bower. Gordon had heard we were doing an experiment, and he came to see what was going on. I briefly described what we were up to, and Gordon asked me a very simple question: "Say, what's the independent variable in this study?"

To my surprise, I got really angry at him. Here I had a prison break on my hands. The security of my men and the stability of my prison was at stake, and now, I had to deal with this bleeding-heart, liberal, academic, effete dingdong who was concerned about the independent variable! It wasn't until much later that I realized how far into my prison role I was at that point -- that I was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist.[2]

That is not impossible. Players immersed in a soccer game can get so caught up in it that they, for a moment, forget that the game (with all its rules) is only something put together by man and is not all of reality. The game that we play (the system that we accept) usually defines the persons that we become. Usually, people are either born into (e.g. a culture) or drawn into a game (e.g. a political revolution). They still have the freedom to cast it away or resist it; or continue in it or accept it.

The founder of Logotherapy, Viktor E. Frankl, was an existentialist psychologist who didn’t accept the deterministic and mechanical interpretation of man. To him, human existence was spiritual. Words like “meaning,” “purpose”, “hope”, “reason for living” play important role in his view about man. However, the answer, the reason (the logos) is not abstract; it is so concrete that it becomes the motivation for living. According to logotherapy, says, Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning (1959)[3], “we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.” Frankl said, “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

The Bible says that a living dog is better than a dead lion. This is because there is hope for anyone who is living (Ecclesiastes 9:4). Scripture is filled with several examples of people who didn’t allow evil to overcome them. They stood like a rock and prevailed against the onset of evil. Joseph, Nehemiah, and Daniel are great examples of those who didn’t allow circumstances to mold them and humiliate them. The greatest example of victory over evil, however, is none else than our Lord Jesus Christ. In the hour of temptation, He said that the flesh is weak but the spirit is willing. He asked His disciples to watch and pray that they fall not into temptation. There is no other solution that Jesus provides. Only those who watch and pray and are living and walking in the Spirit will be saved from the virtual world of carnal fantasy. Those who live according to the flesh will fall, but those who walk according to the Spirit will overcome.

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[1] http://www.prisonexp.org/. http://lucifereffect.com/
[2] “A Visit”, http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/27. Accessed on December 7, 2012
[3] IVth Edition, 1992.

Psychological Understanding of Religion

by Domenic Marbaniang (2003)

The word “psychology” is a combination of two Greek words psyche meaning “soul”, “spirit”, or “mind” and logos meaning “science” or “study of”. The science of psychology tries to investigate every area of human experience and behavior. Psychology of religion tries to understand the cause-effect relationships of religious experiences and religious consciousness so as to be able to predict behaviors. It aims to study the religious consciousness with investigations in religious behavior patterns.

The major systems of psychology are: structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and Gestalt School of Psychology. Obviously, each system has its own way of understanding religious consciousness.

Psychological Definitions of ReligionAbout a century ago, James Henry Leuba was able to select forty-eight definitions of religion to which he added two of his own to include in his famous Psychological Study of Religion (1912). Various psychologists have defined religion variously. The word “religion” poses the same problems as the word “God”. Both of the above words act like an umbrella comprehending a multiplicity of meanings, some of which drastically contradict each other.

Leuba divided all his rich collection of definitions into two groups, to which he added his own third one:

1. Those definitions that treat religion as “the recognition of a mystery pressing for interpretation”.


2. Those definitions which adopt Schleiermacher’s view that religion is “a feeling of absolute dependence on God.”


3. Leuba’s definition that “religion is the propitiation or conciliation of powers which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and human life.”

The above classification cannot be regarded as final, since newer definitions like Leuba’s easily arise. The definitions seem to be descriptions that, arising through induction, are not always comprehensive. The variety of psychological perspectives and definitions are also an issue of philosophical investigation.

As early as 1916, Professor C.C.J. Webb had said that “I do not believe that religion can be defined.” This does not, however, mean that the psychological definitions of religion are of no practical value. We must distinguish between definitions and descriptions. While definitions give essential meanings, descriptions state the external appearances. Obviously, the attempts to define religion are not merely attempts to describe but attempts to point out the essence of religion. Psychology understands the various rites, beliefs, and expressions of religions as reflective of a religious consciousness which it tries to investigate. The psychological definitions of religion do try to locate the essence of religion in the consciousness and not in the external “symbols”, which are only interesting as long as they lead to an understanding of religious consciousness. It is the similarities rather than the differences which are the object of the study.

Following are some psychological definitions of religion that help us to know what psychology reveals about religion:

Sir James Frazer: Religion is a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life. Thus defined, religion consists of two elements, a theoretical and a practical, namely a belief in powers higher than man and an attempt to propitiate or please them.

E. Durkheim: A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.

The cognitive and practical sides or aspects of religion have been well related in a definition by Professor George Galloway.

Prof. George Galloway: Religion is that which refers to man’s faith in a power beyond himself whereby he seeks to satisfy emotional needs and gain stability of life, and which he expresses in acts of worship and service. The cognitive side of the religious consciousness is represented by faith, and faith is stimulated by emotion and posits the object which will satisfy the needs of the inner life…. The practical aspect is denoted by the acts of worship and service which belong to the nature of religion.

“Faith is stimulated by emotion and posits the object which will satisfy the needs of the inner life” reveals that religion is that to which a person recourses to find fulfillment which he cannot find through mere physical products – terrestrial products. Needs may be divided into two:

1. Viscerogenic needs. For nourishment, rest, sex, and physical safety. They are considered as subjective.
2. Psychogenic needs. For goodness, beauty, truth, holiness. They are considered as objectified.

Religion, then may be called the individual reaching out to find fulfillment for his psychogenic needs. Faith in the supernatural or the mysterious, awesome, Great becomes essential to religion.

J. Bissett Pratt: Religion is the serious and social attitude of individuals or communities toward the power or powers which they conceive as having ultimate control over their interests and destinies… This definition defines religion as an attitude, which is used to cover that responsive side of consciousness which is found in such things as attention, interest, expectancy, feeling, tendencies to action, etc. The advantages of defining religion as an attitude are sufficiently manifest. It shows that religion is not a matter of any one ‘department’ of psychic life but involves the whole man. It includes what there was of truth in the historical attempts to identify religion with feeling, belief or will. And it draws attention to the fact that religion is immediately subjective, thus differing from science (which emphasizes ‘content’ rather than ‘attitude’); and yet it points to the other fact also that religion involves and presupposes the acceptance of the objective. Religion is the attitude of a self towards an object in which the self genuinely believes.

The concept of religious attitude as a response or consciousness leading to religious practices is important in the study of the psychology of religion. In Frazer’s thought, “belief clearly comes first, since we must believe in the existence of a divine being before we can attempt to please him. But unless the belief leads to a corresponding practice, it is not a religion but merely a theology.” Since the psychological method can be implemented with the availability of observable data, symptoms, practices, behavior, etc, observable practices are crucial for any possibility of the psychology of religion. Religious behavior is important to be identified and studied before any psychology of religion can be formulated.

Dr. R. H. Thoules: Any definition of religion to be adequate must include at least three factors: a mode of behavior, a system of intellectual beliefs and a system of feelings… Religion is a felt practical relationship with what is believed in as a superhuman being or beings.

Beliefs, feelings, and behavior are the three minimum factors that compose religion. Behavior includes things done and things-not-to-be-done, ritual and taboo. Thoules goes on to say:

… The main business of the psychology of religion is to study the religious consciousness. But it is impossible to study that alone; we must investigate religious behavior as well.

All the above and the many definitions of religion point to the fact that man has a particular bend toward the “Higher-Superhuman”. Archaeology, anthropology, ethnology and sociology have greatly contributed towards the field of psychological study of man. It is not the diversity of religions but the similarities between them that point towards the ‘religiousness’ of the human in any context, whether he is a remote tribal or a sophisticated urban. Psychologists agree that these similarities spring from such facts as the universality of human needs, spiritual no less than physical; from the same impulse towards unity and completeness; and from the same awareness of powers that appear to operate within the world and yet are external to it.

Though the study of human religious behavior is important in psychology, it is not all. Religious behavior is only a door towards the opening of real understanding regarding the mind of man which by its bend towards the mysterious incomparably differs from the brutes. The varieties of rituals and taboos (religious behavior) point towards something common to every man. In addition to religious behavior, a study of the beliefs is also important. Beliefs are important to the understanding of behavior.

Linguistic researches have shown that the meaning of the word ‘soul’ etymologically means similar in most of the known languages. In Assyrian, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Stoic, Latin and Sanskrit it means breath, spirit, or wind. The various taboos and rituals cannot be studied in isolation from their related beliefs. The belief in soul or souls is characteristic of most religions. Psychology tries to explain the origin of the idea of the soul in relation to the survival instinct of man and also his possible cogitations on the dream, waking, and unconscious states. The soul’s relation to breath might have been thought on the differentiation of a corpse (that doesn’t breathe) and a living person (who breathes). The relation between soul and breath is a concept not alien to even the primitive tribes. This belief expresses itself in certain rituals and taboos. Thus, psychology reveals that religious beliefs and religious rituals and taboos are closely related.

This relation has been a regular feature of any religion. For instance, the belief of the identity of breath with soul is illustrated in a living example which Jung found during his researches among the mountain triebesmen of the Elgony; who, in the morning at the rising of the sun, ‘hold their hands before their mouths and spit or blow into them vigorously. Then they turn their hands round and hold the palms forward to the sun. Jung explains that this particular ceremony is an offering to the sun which for these natives is mungu. If they have spittle on their hands, this is the substance which, according to primitive belief, contains the personal mana, the force that cures, conjures and sustains life. If they breathe upon their hands, breath is wind and spirit. The action means “I offer my living spirit to God.” It is a wordless, acted prayer, which could equally well be spoken: “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Perhaps the command “not to eat strangled meat” in the Bible is based on the assumption that strangling stifles the breath while the outflow of blood (in which the soul dwells) pours the soul out, a requisite of every sacrifice of blood in Judaism, at least symbolically. Thus, whether it is manmade ritual or a “divinely” commanded taboo or ritual, psychological connexions between attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and behavior can be found through the study of beliefs and behaviors. The strength of the connexion in a person depends on the time and degree he/she has been connected to the religion. Age and context do matter.

Psychology reveals that the human soul is religious. Human beings consciously and unconsciously respond to the mystery of the Supernatural, the mystery of life and death. Psychological experiences may be behind certain beliefs regarding self and the universe. These beliefs lead to certain practices of ritual and taboo. As far as the validity of the beliefs is concerned, that is not the domain of psychology; it is the domain of philosophy and science. For psychology it is the responses that are focal. And a psychological perspective of religion often views it as man’s responsive attitude to the ‘sacred’.

Resource:

Spinks, G. Stephen. Psychology and Religion, Margaret Gorman (ed), New York: Paulist Press, NA.

Imagination: Productive, Reproductive, and Creative

Imagination is the faculty of forming mental images or concepts.

There are three kinds of imagination:

Productive Imagination. Also, referred to by Kant as transcendental imagination, whose function is to synthesize, by means of the a priori categories, the manifold experience. It is spontaneous and a priori. By the help of this faculty one is able to experience the world of senses in a meaningful way.

Reproductive Imagination. It is the power of reproducing images stored in the memory under the suggestion of associated images. (Random Dictionary)

Creative Imagination. It is the power of recombining former experiences in the creation of new images directed at a specific goal or aiding in the solution of problems. (Random Dictionary)

3 Forms of Memory - Lectures in Psychology

Notes:

1. Sensory Memory (SM): Remembrance of a sensation lasting from a split of second to some 10 seconds. It is like a spark that is intense and strong but evaporates.

2. Short-term Memory (STM): Stores limited information for a limited amount of time. The older data will give way to the newer to accomodate space.

3. Long-term Memory (LTM): Stores unlimited information for unlimited amount of time. Must be retrieved by means of memory bookmarks, clues. But, thanks for the mind's ability to self-organize; the search isn't very difficult, given the proper clues.



LTM is like the Library
STM is like the Desk
SM is like the Page I'm reading

Illustration:

• I remember the taste of the candy while eating: Sensory Memory. It is so real; that's one reason why SM has more appeal than LTM. Joke: "A philosopher gives up his philosophy over a tooth-ache".


• I remember the taste for some time after: Short-term Memory.


• I recall the taste, but indefinitely: Long-term Memory.

STM can be etched into LTM by repetition. Other factors: impression, interest, motive.

Hindrances: Ageing, Interference, etc.

The Inner Conflict - Thoughts on Psychology

From Lectures on Psychology

An important field of psychological research is the biology of behavior, also variously called physiological psychology, psychobiology, or biopsychology, whatever.

The theological problem is that the Bible doesn't accept that moral choices are physiologically determined. Determinism may form the basis of animal behavior, but not of man who is held morally responsible for his actions. Though, materialists may disagree, the argument connects to the factor of difference, namely the spirituality of man.

The inner conflict of Romans 7 is the conflict between the physiological determinant and the soul's incapability due to sin to obey God's law, an external factor not belonging to the cause-effect system of the flesh. Therefore, as long as we were in the flesh, the passions did what they would. However, the introduction of the Law posed the conflict because the soul finds itself in the bondage of the flesh, so knowledge conflicts with determinist animal passions. The battle is lost because of the bondage. However, the life of Christ frees us, because faith is the act by which, the causality sequence is broken and the transcedent Law is embraced through the Spirit of Christ...