SECTION A HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

The 17th century scientific revolution was a series of discoveries that enhanced the status of science. It came with the realisation that the universe is not at the centre of the universe. using mathematical equations came the understanding of the planets, sun and earth, this was termed the law of physics. the advancement of science and the questioning of God became known as the ontological mind-brain problem. 

Models of the 16th century were described by Aristotle and elaborated by Ptolmy. It was the idea that the earth was at the centre of the universe. but there were issues with this such as wandering stars, displacements either slowed, stopped or even went into the opposite direction. ptolemy coined this epicycles, which was of the small cycles made by wandering stars and in addition to their main orbit. This began questioning the influnce of God

Copernicus (1473-1543) came up with an alternative view, the heliocentric model. this was the view the earth was not at the centre of the universe, but that it orbitted around the sun on a axis in a 24 hour period, thus forming day and night. His findings were published in 1543 because of fear of the roman catholic church 

Galilei (1564-1642) was interested in the telescope which was invented by Lippershey. It came with the discovery that the moon has mountains, and that Jupiter has four moons. He also favoured the heliocentric model but his findings were prohibited until 1643 because the Vatican didnt approve. He was summoned to rome and put under house arrest until his death. at the time the church was being confronted by the protestant reformation and so the pope didnt want to be seen as weak, he decided to extend and defend his terriorities. his book was so convincing thatit came to dominate astronomy. 

Descartes (1596-1650) also favoured the heliocentric model, which meant that his findings were published 10 years after his death. he founded dualism, the view that the mind/soul were independent from the body. that the soul has innate knowledge of the universe and all matter. that it is self-perpectuating machine that God created that could be studied. that things within the material world could function independently without the need for God, exception of things being the human soul. He made this distinction between humans and animals, that being consciousness and free will. His main aim was to divide religion and science, although he favoured religion. he came up with the theory of radical doubt 'that i can doubt everything, except that i am a thinking thing'. 

Newton (1643-1727) used mathematical equations to explain the movement between the solar system. He was interested in Galilei's trajectory of cannonballs. this was that it had a parabolar path, in which the curvature depended on the force the ball was being propelled at. the bigger the force the further the ball would go. it was also known that the objects are attracted to each other, but the gravitational force on the Earth was larger than vice versa. This was able to explain the basic motions of everything 

Events that set of the 17th century SR included the Great Famine, the 100 years of war and the Black Death. The feudal system came to an end during the crusades which meant the end of the aristroacy. The relationship between handworkers and merchants also develpped. Handworkers made discoveries but lacked the analytical skill. merchants had the intellectual capabilities but lack the practical skill. the foundation of universities meant the emergence of science and the pursuit of knowledge. kings and aristocrats also became interested in the experimental psychology so they invested in instrument and labs. the relationship between westeners, arabs and greeks also developed. so that the protestant reformance led to the interest of the learned sciences.

had a different view of science. he made the distinction between knowledge-gathering and observations. He believed that peception and reasoning were limited as they lacked progression and were biased by our convictions and senses, an interaction was required. a closer coupling was needed to acheive Baconian sciences through inductive and deductive reasoning. Deduction is that conclusions can be drawn if the rules of logic are followed. Induction is that observations can lead to conclusions on the basis of convergence, but this doesnt guarantee that the conclusions are true. 

By the 19th century science and technology had increased the socioeconomic conditions for people, this meant that people are more access to goods and more time for education. Schultz (1994) termed this the recipe of knowledge. during the age of enlightenment autonomous thinking and observation became the primary source of knowledge. this lead to social value of science increasing known as positivism. Comte commented that civilisation must pass through three progressive stages (law of three stages), these include theocratic, metaphysical and positivist. science therefore became the motor of all progression 

Counterforces emerged from the roman catholic church, science was seen as the 2nd rank, distracting people from God's wisdom and dangerous if not stricted. the church's high position in education became a counterappeal for the protestant reformation. they formed the society of jewsus (jewsuits) who went into schools, universities, and training seminars. the relationship between science and the protestant reformation deteriorated during the 1970s due to science being patrnoised by their authorities (Garoutte, 2003). the disagreements also came from the estimation of the earth's age. another main force came from the romantic movement (1700s-1800s) who saw the universe as a changing organism who stressed everything that deviated from rationalism. the divide between religion, humanities and science was at the highest during the first half of the 20th century. Snow (1959) gave a talk to the senate house in cambridge where he highlighted that the humanities and science were two seperate cultures with no communication, he urged for cross-fertilisation. but things began to change in the second half of the 20th century where Sarton, head of the history of science, and the high expansion of academic productivity occured. even the term SR helped this cause

the scientific revolution led to the questioning of god and therefore the mind-brain problem. several resolutions did exist such as dualism, materialism and functionalism

dualism is that of the mind and soul being independent from the body. it is a central view of religions, Plato and Descartes. The soul provides us purpose, it is made up of left-overs of the cosmos;  Cartesian dualism. therefore some would argue that we have a divine soul within a sophisticated body. Disagreements for dualism did occur during the 19th century because of the emphasis religion put on the immortality of the soul. However, it did provide early philosophers with with a study area that could not get invaded. Chalmers (1996) looked at dualism now, in which it argued that consciousness is at the centre of human functioning. Walter (2001) extended this but stating that certain conditions must be met for free will to occur; the act must originate in the agent as a choice and be the outcome of rational deliberation. 

issues with dualism include the disagreements that occured in the 19th century because it was no longer seen as a viable explanation for the philosophy of the mind. there was an interaction problem with the fact that if the two entities were independent then how could one influence the other. In Descartes view immaterial substances do not occupy volume in the material world. Locke (1690) also voiced the issue of what would happen when we were alseep, if consciousness is meant to be a defining feature of human life. With this being said, as Descartes said 'i think therefore i am'. Leibniz argued that human life should not be limited to consciousness, and therefore the universe should not be sene as a living organism but as a machine. the building blocks are not part of the material world but of energy laden, soul-invested units known as monads. there are four type of monads; simple, sentient, rational and supreme. Kant pointed out that these ideas were evidence that rational thinking is at the tip of human potential. 

functionalism is the idea that there is no distinction between the mind and the body, but by-products of the biological processes of the mind. this led behaviourists to free themselves from the study of consciousness. it was seen as an illusion by Dennet and a by-product by Huxley. the replacement of dualsim with materialism did not come without consequence for free will and consciousness. Churchland (1981) argued consciousness is at the centre of human functioning, and that it is the controller of our actions. but a different view is that it is a dangerous illusion as it gives people a misunderstand of what makes them tick. Milgram's obedience experiement had 65% of the participants go up to the most lethal level of shock. these findings go against Churcland's claim, as consciousness cannot be the controller of our actions. moreover, Dawkins stated that the evolutionary theory was misunderstood from early on, human beings are actually survival machines for the genes in which they carry around. this is a very different view from dualism. 

issues with functionalism include the identity problem such that how is it possible to expreience one event as the same if two brains can encode and process it differently. this can link to the qualia problem in which how can our experiences be based upon our materialistic ideas. the first cyberneticss attempted to use materialistic idea to create a brain-like computer that would automatically become an intelligent machine. that it could be able to use a desirable output on the basis of self-learning. but when a more successful machine emerged that could stored information as binary codes and execute algorithms on the basis of this information and sequencing. instructions could then be run on other computers and other compatible devices. there was a distinction between the computer and the information being processed by the machine. 

mental states constituted by their functional role like computers. cognitive function is therefore not localised to the brain like with materialism. Cybernets were able to have individual machines function like the human mind that could manipulate information onto other devices. Parfit used thought experiments to show the difference between dualism, materialism and functionalism. a thought experiment is a hypothetical scenario which can be used to explain things, for example the star trek example. according to functionalism the mind should fine because it is where information is stored within the physiological network on the brain. when the latter is restored the mine should be fine. the mind is transported whenthe information code can be implemented onto the new brain. Stanvoich argued that humans can encode, store, retrieve and manipulate information to pursue in their own intentions without affecting their genes. thus, robots have the potential to rebel if they use rational thinking for their own personal interests. 

psychology wanted to look at the software not hardware of science. functionalism argues that cognitive neuroscience offers little more than correlations for brain activity and physioloigcal experiences. McCabe and Castrek (2008) argued that articles are more convincing when they were accompanied with brain images. Beck (2010) further highlighted that the non-scientific appeal for brain images is that it can afford simple messages, be reductionist and the hide the complication comparison and statistical analysis. But rapid acceptance of these correlations can lead to voodoo correlations. Vul et al (2009) also commented that cognitive neuroscience often use correlations because of the statistical artefacts. boolean logic should be used, but this can also lead to symbol grounding problem, because symbols often need to refer to reality to gain meaning. Anderson (2003) commented that this comparison was dismissed and ignored by the likes of Descartes. Thus, embodied cognition should be applied to eliminate issues with cognitive neuroscience.