Norway: terrorist or nutter?

[eFestivals]

I agree with you completely - psychology tries hard to be a science, but humans are notoriously difficult to analyse and predict, for the reasons you've given. And given the complex nature of an individual, and the indeterminable amount of variables involved in just one individual's experience, it'd take more than humans to be able to understand human psychology scientifically.

Yep.

My ultimate problem with psychology is that it refuses to recognise its own limitations. It believes itself to be of more relevance and meaning than it really is or ever can be. It ignores reality in favour of meaningless and inapplicable theories (as proven by their failure to be 100% applicable, yet they stick with them ), when the very purpose of it can only ever be to apply to reality else it's looking at nothing of the human mind.

[worm]

which means that....?

Previously those things were not understood, they were 'nutty' because they were beyond understanding.

[worm]

Yep.

My ultimate problem with psychology is that it refuses to recognise its own limitations. It believes itself to be of more relevance and meaning than it really is or ever can be. It ignores reality in favour of meaningless and inapplicable theories (as proven by their failure to be 100% applicable, yet they stick with them ), when the very purpose of it can only ever be to apply to reality else it's looking at nothing of the human mind.

[worm]

I agree with you completely - psychology tries hard to be a science,

[worm]

And the concept of being unable to know someone elses emotional state, therefore, being unable to understand their pyschology is a stupid one. The sole reason we know of emotions is because we apply our feelings to others. Otherwise, we'd have no concept of our own emotion. So applying logic to an emotion, or lack of emotion, is easily done. Apart from, ironically, to someone who is psychopathic.

[feral chile]

And the concept of being unable to know someone elses emotional state, therefore, being unable to understand their pyschology is a stupid one. The sole reason we know of emotions is because we apply our feelings to others. Otherwise, we'd have no concept of our own emotion. So applying logic to an emotion, or lack of emotion, is easily done. Apart from, ironically, to someone who is psychopathic.

Edited August 24, 2011 by feral chile

[worm]

yeah, but what we're saying is that science is meant to be able to predict. And this is difficult for psychology, because humans are bloody-mindedly determined not to be determined.

[feral chile]

By asking them questions.

[eFestivals]

Error 2: Psychology operates upon nothing other than reality. The psyche is real (look up the word), and there is a definable logic to it.

I'm sure there is.

When psychology makes the first inroad into what the logic actually is, then give me a shout and we can pick up with this conversation.

(As it happens, I've just been listening to radio 4. It seems that the traditional medicine sciences are closer to a meaningful breakthrough than psychologists).

In the meantime, it has nothing of value or use to say on Breivek. It can point excitedly and say "ooooo, there's that XYZ thing" but it tells us absolutely nothing about what he did and why he did it. No one needs to have any training in psychology to make a guess.

Logic is not the reading of someone else's mind as you seem to be mistaking, but the premise on which we can have a mutual understanding of actions. It's exactly the same as sociology. You aren't studying the inner experiences of being part of a society, you are studying the logical premises on which a group function. Your 'pseudo-problem' with psychology is exactly the same as that with sociology and biology and any other ology for that matter. Your problem is with logic.

PMSL.

Sociology deduces that "if you do this, then x% of people will do that". It's provably true.

Care to show me anything so solid with psychology at any sort of complex level? And care to show me why psychology endorses practitioners up and down the country who 'treat' people with guesses?

Beyond the basics, psychology is still pre-enlightenment, and getting no where fast because of its own dogma.

What you're effectively saying is that there is no logic to the psyche and it's all made up, when in fact there absolutely is in each and every action. You can see a logical pattern occuring and can identify it by using logic. You spout psychology all the time when you explain the logic of people's opnions. The irony is astounding.

The only irony is yours.

You tell me nothing I don't already know, apart from your 100% wrong starting assumption. And along with that, what is passing you by is that when I make a stab at explaining a path I know its a guess and that there's a million factors beyond my (or any psychologist's) consideration which I can't account for, meaning there's a high possibility of error. The difference with your own faith in psychology is immeasurable.

Other sciences aren't stabs in the dark made in the knowledge that huge amounts of data required to arrive at the right answer are missing. Any right minded scientist would say "impossible to compute" and go home and make tea instead. The psychologist believes he has the answer, which says it all.

Edited August 24, 2011 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

yeah, but what we're saying is that science is meant to be able to predict.

"applied" is the word I'd have used there.

But I guess that would just have worm thinking that meant he had carte blanch to apply his guesses. No worm, that's not what it means.

[worm]

but by definition they're manipulative, and feign empathy to get out of trouble.

[eFestivals]

anyway, to get away from the psycho-babble that some love so much....

The point in me saying "terrorist or nutter" wasn't to get into a debate about what a nutter is or isn't. I'd have thought that it was obvious to most people that a terrorist is an understandable thing, while what is nuts isn't understandable.

The point in wording it in that way was to find out if people thought he matched the idea of what a terrorist is, because much of the media were (and perhaps still are) referring to him as a terrorist.

And if he's not a terrorist then what is he? His act appears to defy any other label to just about everyone who rejects the idea of terrorist - and so that makes him 'a nutter'.

Worm, did you really not get that? Then that by itself would confirm how the ideas you present are detached from the real world. But I suspect you did get it, and decided to be a twat as normal.

[worm]

I'm sure there is.

Edited August 24, 2011 by worm

[worm]

anyway, to get away from the psycho-babble that some love so much....

The point in me saying "terrorist or nutter" wasn't to get into a debate about what a nutter is or isn't. I'd have thought that it was obvious to most people that a terrorist is an understandable thing, while what is nuts isn't understandable.

The point in wording it in that way was to find out if people thought he matched the idea of what a terrorist is, because much of the media were (and perhaps still are) referring to him as a terrorist.

And if he's not a terrorist then what is he? His act appears to defy any other label to just about everyone who rejects the idea of terrorist - and so that makes him 'a nutter'.

[eFestivals]

What are you on about?! You're spouting utter nonsense.

Sociology doesn't say 'if you do this, x amount of people will do that' and it's provably true. Sociology looks at the logic of society. Just as psychology looks at the logic of the psyche.

Science may hypothesise that 'if you do this, x amount of people will do that' and then verify it as true or false. This is done in both sociological and psychological research. Psychology and sociology then attempt to tell us why this is the case. They tell us the logic according to a model of the psyche or of society.

What exactly are you going on about?

Saying in 4 words what you used all that for.

And you're still telling me nothing I don't already know. So what was your point?

This is a thread about Breivik, so any psycho-babble needs to be applicable to him. Is it? Or is it "might be, might not be", because all you actually have to try to apply is a bit of loose trending data for en-masse - and so it fails. That's some 'science'!

I suggest you look up the word 'useful' in the dictionary.

[eFestivals]

My opinion, once again, is that he was either <all possible things>

Your opinion, once again, was nothing at all.

[worm]

And you're still telling me nothing I don't already know.

[worm]

Your opinion, once again, was nothing at all.

[feral chile]

anyway, to get away from the psycho-babble that some love so much....

The point in me saying "terrorist or nutter" wasn't to get into a debate about what a nutter is or isn't. I'd have thought that it was obvious to most people that a terrorist is an understandable thing, while what is nuts isn't understandable.

The point in wording it in that way was to find out if people thought he matched the idea of what a terrorist is, because much of the media were (and perhaps still are) referring to him as a terrorist.

And if he's not a terrorist then what is he? His act appears to defy any other label to just about everyone who rejects the idea of terrorist - and so that makes him 'a nutter'.

Worm, did you really not get that? Then that by itself would confirm how the ideas you present are detached from the real world. But I suspect you did get it, and decided to be a twat as normal.

[eFestivals]

There's some interesting stuff online about how the internet can facilitate this kind of violence, because it can provide information to isolated individuals.

I don't know what I think about this guy. It's a bit of a grey area.

yep, it's all far too complex for psychology to unravel with any sort of substance. It might be a forgotten instance of a toy being taken from him aged five that was the trigger for all we know. And it might even be the result of his nourishment in the womb if the more contemporary medical research is on the right lines - blowing loads of what psychologists currently subscribe to right out of the water.

But I can't see him as a terrorist. While he of course terrorised the people he was hunting down on the island, it's no more of a terrorist incident than was Dunblane or Hungerford to me, which is a nutter with a gun out to cause death for whatever warped reasons drive him.

[feral chile]

yep, it's all far too complex for psychology to unravel with any sort of substance. It might be a forgotten instance of a toy being taken from him aged five that was the trigger for all we know. And it might even be the result of his nourishment in the womb if the more contemporary medical research is on the right lines - blowing loads of what psychologists currently subscribe to right out of the water.

But I can't see him as a terrorist. While he of course terrorised the people he was hunting down on the island, it's no more of a terrorist incident than was Dunblane or Hungerford to me, which is a nutter with a gun out to cause death for whatever warped reasons drive him.

[eFestivals]

yeah I tend to think it's more an act of violence that's been rationalised by him as political. the stuff I was reading kind of supports this - if you're feeling destructive and you find activist stuff online, it can almost give you permission to take extreme action.

yep, it could be that.

But him doing that might be a physically pre-conceived thing, with an ability to mentally over-ride being completely absent - meaning that it wasn't strictly a psychological act but one that he was physically pre-programmed to carry out in one manner or another.

Who knows? Psychology doesn't, that much we can be certain about - with more certainty than any aspect of psychology itself.

[worm]

But him doing that might be a physically pre-conceived thing, with an ability to mentally over-ride being completely absent - meaning that it wasn't strictly a psychological act but one that he was physically pre-programmed to carry out in one manner or another.

[eFestivals]

The irony being that this is a psychological theory you've just offered.

No, I've stated what is thought to be a physical medical fact.

("thought to be", because it's an area in its infancy - but less so than psychology. After all, there's solid facts to that, and not just the guesses of psychology).

If you care to note it, I've acknowledged the psychological aspects of the whole thing with me saying "wasn't strictly a psychological act".

But if what those doctors have found is the case then it ceases to be anything much about psychology, at least not in the form that psychology is considered as being about right now - it blows much of what is claimed for psychology out of the water by the fact of the driver of a person's acts being physical and not mental - physically pre-programmed, and naff all to do with any thoughts.

I don't see maths coming up with anything, probably because it has nothing to offer on matters of a psychological nature.

that's funny, because psychology has nothing to offer on matters of a physical nature.

Many psychologists in the relevant fields have accepted that psychology has had it all completely wrong, and that much of what has been claimed as psychological is in fact physical. All those psychologists are able to do is to pick things up after the event and agree with those doctors that they have nothing of any substance to offer outside of pointing and going "look, it's that thing".

It's odd that you ask an inherently psychological question and ask for people's opinions, yet state clearly that psychology doesn't know anything. One would think you had a hang up.

I've asked you many time already in this thread to show me anything where complex psychology is proven as right, or even infallibly useful. So why only the silence in reply?

That silence gets to show that it's you with the hang up and not me. I've simply cut past the crap to get to substance - a substance that psychology is unable to offer (unless you're counting guesses as being 'substance'? ).

It might be "an inherently psychological question" but it's a question where psychology does not have the answers and you know it yourself - so why look to something for the answer when it's not there?

Edited August 30, 2011 by eFestivals

[worm]

No, I've stated what is thought to be a physical medical fact.

("thought to be", because it's an area in its infancy - but less so than psychology. After all, there's solid facts to that, and not just the guesses of psychology).

Edited August 30, 2011 by worm