Questions on Psychology and Philosophy

Please answer the following questions for Psychology Part 1 and 2

Part 1

Choose ONE of these topics to discuss with your classmates for one point.  If you wish, you can do both.

1) States of Consciousness of Left and Right Brain

This is a video on how the brain interprets information.  It concerns states of consciousness and how we perceive the world.  And, you will learn and remember the functions and importance of the left brain and right brain for all time!

Please check it out.  Its about 18 minutes.  I would love your comments and thoughts on this one.  What did you learn?  What are the functions of the left and right brain? Your thoughts.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

Are you more Left Brain or Right Brain?

So, here is a test that might help.  Do you believe the results are valid, i.e., do they measure what they are supposed to measure?  Or they  reliable, i.e.,  you would get the same score again, or do you think we could be more left brain and then more right brain as we age, or vice versa?  Your thoughts?

Note that you do not need to register or enter your email, or pay for anything to take this test.

Click here for the test (about 10 minutes):Left/Brain Right Brain PSYC test

If you would like to do so, find another test for us on the left/brain right/brain and we can compare our results.

2) Selective Attention and the Cocktail Party Effect

What is selective attention?  Go to:  http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html Watch the first video, then  the second.  Then scroll down to the Original Door Study and watch that one.  What is going on in this video?  What is the purpose of selective attention?

What is the cocktail party effect?  Why might this be useful to us? (See e-Readings “Sensation and Perception”, Sec 4.5)  http://www.saylor.org/site/textbooks/Introduction%20to%20Psychology.pdf 

Part 2

We examine the contribution to philosophy of Rene Descartes. 

When discussing Descartes in your original post, be sure to explain his method of doubting all that cannot be clearly and distinctly known, and give your view of Descartes’ dualism and what you take as the relation, if any, between mind and body.

Reading material for part 2Rene Descartes is among the most important thinkers in early modern philosophy. He was a Frenchman who lived in the seventeenth century. This week, we will focus on two of Descartes’ most important contributions to philosophy: his method of inquiry and his dualist conception of the human person.

Before Descartes, most European thinkers analyzed reality within the framework of revealed and received truth from God. Descartes was interested in creating a method for examining our world that can give us certain knowledge about ourselves and our world without relying on divine revelation. Thus, he says, at the outset of his inquiry, we will doubt everything that cannot be “clearly and distinctly” known, and from the things that can be known this way, he seeks to build an explanation of reality that gives us certain knowledge. In other words, for Descartes, experience is not necessary in order to understand reality; for this reason, he is called a rationalist. When Descartes examines we human beings, he finds us comprised of a body and a soul. But Descartes insisted that soul and body are two individual substances, neither needing the other to exist. This creates an important problem, namely, to explain how the soul makes the body do what it wants done. This is the problem of dualism, and we will become more familiar with it this week.

http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/descartes

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199264797.001.0001/acref-9780199264797-e-606

http://plato.stanford.edu