IN 2002, THE PSYCHOLOGIST STEVEN PINKER appeared on the New York Times bestseller list with The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature,1 a book that attempts to catapult the nature-nurture issue back into public debate, while squarely coming down on the side of human nature. I shall argue, however, that there is overwhelming evidence that learning exerts the most significant influence on human behavior— a fact that is rarely acknowledged, publicized or even understood. If anything, there is a modern denial of human nurture, not human nature.

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You've probably never hear of an Oxford House, but 9,500 people live in
these recovery communities throughout the US. They represent one of the
largest self-help organizations in the world, and they are completely
self run with no professional staff. What's more is that they don't cost
society anything. Residents of each house obtain jobs, pay their bills,
and learn how to become responsible citizens for their families and
communities. It sounds too good, but it's true.

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Abstract

This essay presents an account of a new paradigm in physics, cosmology and neuroscience that involves a change in our concepts of space, time and consciousness. This is a variation of brane theory in physics. It has been fitfully developed for a periond of over 300 years by various scientists and philosophers including Henry More, Joseph Priestly, C.D. Broad, H.H. Price, Bertrand Russell, Bernard Carr, and myself. The theory suggests that the real universe has more than 3 space (or 4 space-time) dimensions. It distinguishes the phenomenal space B of a person’s consciousness from physical space A, as two different cross-sections of a common higher-dimensional space.

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In 1991, Daniel Dennett published his tome, Consciousness Explained.1 Yet, ten years later he penned an article titled “Are We Explaining Consciousness Yet?”2 If he had to ask the question, the answer seems obvious. English-speaking philosophers and psychologists have been trying to understand consciousness at least since John Locke introduced the word into the English language in the 17th century. But despite the best efforts of those who’ve thrown their hats into the ring, we haven’t made much progress. Obviously, a different approach is needed.

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Abstract
In this talk, I propose that despite the nay-saying 1) positive psychology is justifiably a branch of humanistic psychology, and 2) a humanistic positive psychology would be salutary to the profession of psychology. From the standpoint of theory, I show how positive psychology shares humanistic psychology’s concern with what it means to be fully, experientially human, and how that understanding illuminates the vital or fulfilled life. However, I also show how the findings of positive psychology, particularly in the area “happiness” research—or what has recently been termed “human flourishing,” stop short of the fuller aforementioned aims. Specifically, I show how positive psychology appears to oversimplify both the experience of human flourishing and its social-adaptive value. While the positive psychology findings on flourishing are useful in limited contexts, e.g., in terms of their implications for the attainment of pleasure, physical health, and cultural competency, they are inadequate with respect to the more complicated contexts of creativity, emotional depth, and social consciousness. I will detail the nature of these discrepancies, such as their implications for perception of reality, psychological growth, and capacity for self-reflection, and consider their role in an expanded vision of human resiliency.

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Preface

My work has over the years focused, in one way or another, on a study of “alterity”. I have been interested, as a phenomenologist, in the personal means of access to that which is not my own experience, but which belongs to the Other – and which nonetheless comes within the purview of my own experience. I started out with the phenomenon of how I, as a clinical psychologist, could possibly have access to the meaning of a patient’s experience – and how I could approach the study of the other “person” or “personality”. Later I delved into the experience of gendered alterity, and in recent years I have begun to reflect on my encounters with primates at various zoos. While on sabbatical this past year I encountered people from the hill tribes of northern Thailand, and once again found myself reflecting on the experience of being face to face with an Other with whom I share no common language.

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Despite the fact that the concept of mind as an immaterial entity dates back at least to the twelfth century CE, it still occupies a central place as the subject matter of modern psychology. Consider only a few of the numerous recent books with the word “mind” in the title: How The Mind Works (by Steven Pinker), The Mind’s I and Kinds of Minds (by Daniel Dennett), The Maladapted Mind and Mindblindness (by Simon Baron-Cohen), Wild Minds (by Marc Hauser), and The Mating Mind (by Geoffrey Miller).

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Until recently the brain was thought to operate like a digital computer with fixed synapses in which learning was effected by changing weights in these synapses by procedures such as matrix multiplication. Now, however, it has been shown that neurons are highly dynamic structures (Smythies 2002). New synapses are constantly being formed and old ones removed. This results in a continual change in the wiring and connectivity pattern of the brain. This process is mediated by an enormously complex neuroanatomical and neurochemical processes. This essay will describe just one feature in all this—redox reactions.

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Pop culture has been an inspirational teaching tool for adolescents and young adults for centuries. In the 50's it was rock and roll and in the 90's it's hip hop, the Apprentice and American Idol. Young people in and out of college gravitate to the messages and themes in the creative expression of their media icons and many imitate and emulate them in fashion and character. Psychology Creativity Day is an innovative opportunity for students in my large (n = 240) Introductory Psychology class to share a meaningful part of their lives with their fellow classmates using creative expression

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