Boris Sidis

Name: The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology — The Simple and Compound Synthetic Moment
Author: Boris Sidis

The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

Summary

“The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology — The Simple and Compound Synthetic Moment”, published in 1914 | notes, is a work by Boris Sidis. It explores elements such as flounder, compound and sensory elements.

Quotes from The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (Boris Sidis)

Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ Some eminent psychologists go to the length of affirming that even the lowest representative animal life, the protozoa (possibly bacteria, bacilli) , possess ideational and volitional processes, that the lower stages of mental life manifest association, reproduction, memory, cognition, and recognition. Other psychologists are more moderate, they regard the acquisition of knowledge as adaptation through habit, characteristic of the lowest representative of animal life. Thus one psychologist propounds the question, "How is it that we or the brute learn to do anything?" ”

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Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ Although the flounder is perfectly quiet, almost lying motionless at the bottom of the tank, only occasionally moving his small protruding eye, no sooner is some small fly thrown into the tank, than the flounder at once darts in that direction, and attacks its prey with a snap. ”

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Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ An animal therefore that will by natural selection have its moment consciousness organized round a nucleus of highest sensitivity such as that of visual sense elements will have better chances to survive and succeed in the struggle for existence, Still, even in man the elements coming from other sense organs may become predominating in the nucleus and give rise to various mental types, such as audiles, motiles, and so on. ”

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Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ The individual presents only the history of the species. The reproductions of the synthetic moment begin to show the history of the modifications which have appeared in the course of the moment's life activity. Each recurrent reproduction of the synthetic moment is an epitome of its individual life-history, an epitome of its ontogenetic psychogenesis. ”

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Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ The sensori-motor elements of the moment are reinstated in all their reality. The moment in its successive stages of reproduction is brought to life by impressions coming from external stimuli. Primary and secondary sense-elements enter into the moment's constitution whenever it reappears. In both forms of the synthetic type, the moment with the recurrence of the reproductions, becomes enriched in sensory elements, primary and secondary ”

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Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ Such a phylogenetic accumulation in these low types of moments is formed only by variation and natural selection, while in the case of the synthetic moment the accumulation is formed during the life history of the particular individual. ”

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Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ Interruptions of functions due to unfavorable stimuli often occur within the series, interruptions, which may be brought about by artificial conditions and in which different psycho-motor responses are interpolated, but these responses do not enter into the content of the moment when the favorable conditions are restored,―the responses do not become habitual. ”

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Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ It is highly questionable whether the formation of habits is possible even in the highest representatives of the invertebrata, such as the bee and the ant. The ant is probably largely guided by the sense of smell, while the bee is prompted in its activity both by smell and sight. ”

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Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ In the synthetic moment the content of two adjoining stages is a little varied, still the sensory elements constituting the content of the preceding moment is reinstated in the succeeding one. It is true that even the desultory moment is not absolutely smooth in its course of repetitions or reinstatements. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ This holds specially true of the higher representative elements, A moment-consciousness that has a varied content of many different sensory-elements synthetized in one compound, accompanied on the motor side with a complex of motor reactions may be termed compound synthetic moment-consciousness.
The compound synthetic moment-consciousness is characterized in its series of accumulations in the same way as is the simple synthetic moment, the only difference being the complexity of the lines of accumulations. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ What belongs to our type of consciousness is assumed as being true of all types―the old psychological fallacy. "Learning," habits are biological variations characteristic of the higher types of consciousness and are not present In the lower forms of mental activity. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Boris Sidis, The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (1914 | notes)

“ The activities of these animals, though highly complex, are still fixed in their character becoming manifested with the recurrence of definite sensory stimulations. The individual acquires nothing by experience and forms no habits; everything is formed by the species. ”

Boris Sidis

Summary

Quotes from The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology… (Boris Sidis)

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