Boris Sidis

Name: The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology — The Transmission Hypothesis
Author: Boris Sidis

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

Summary

“The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology — The Transmission Hypothesis”, published in 1914 | notes, is a work by Boris Sidis. It explores elements such as hypothesis, consciousness and threshold.

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

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

“ Finally, it may be urged, that the invocation of an extra-mundane world helps matters little, as it does not show the modus operandi of the interdependence of mental and physical phenomena, inasmuch as the rising or falling of a physical threshold does not in the least explain or show how a stream of consciousness is made possible to vary in volume and intensity. Without explaining the proposition that mental processes vary as physical processes, the transmission hypothesis only assumes an additional world of disembodied consciousness and thus gratuitously multiplies entities. ”

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Source: Wikisource

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

“ Both the transmitter and the material transmitted are physical in their nature, but how can an idea or feeling such as our idea of eternity, or of infinity, or aesthetic, or moral sense be transmitted through a tube? How then can we apply the concept of transmission-function to consciousness and the physical world where the two are totally different in nature? ”

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Source: Wikisource

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

“ The transmission hypothesis from its very nature is unverifiable. For, if, by hypothesis, consciousness manifests itself in this sublunar world (the only one we know) only under physical conditions, how can we ever come to know and verify a postulated world of pure consciousness? Being outside the domain of our psychophysical world, the universe of disembodied consciousness cannot, by hypothesis, furnish us the means for its verification. In this sublunar world we can know of the existence of consciousness through its physical expressions, through its being embodied. ”

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Source: Wikisource

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

“ If it be objected that every hypothesis is extra-experiential, it may be pointed out that a hypothesis must be framed in terms that can be drawn within the circle of experience, it must use a vera causa, an agent that is observable in nature. But, as we have already shown, the transmission hypothesis lacks this essential requirement. Its agent, disembodied consciousness, is not a vera causa, nor can it ever be drawn into the circle of experience. ”

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Source: Wikisource

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

“ Furthermore, the hypothesis only seemingly holds to the empirical law that consciousness is a function of the brain. For if consciousness is in a separate world all the psychic phenomena are in existence from all eternity, ready made, the phenomena of consciousness have really nothing to do with the brain, inasmuch as they exist from all eternity, in a region outside and totally independent of the brain. ”

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Source: Wikisource

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

“ The transmission hypothesis is all the more unacceptable as the terms in which it is expressed are contradictory, and the analogy on which it is based is essentially illegitimate. Consciousness is supposed to be different in nature from the physical world and existing independently, the psychophysical threshold alone regulating the volume of the stream of consciousness to be poured over into the material world. ”

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Source: Wikisource

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

“ The transmission hypothesis sins further by reason of its transcending the legitimate grounds of psychology. It assumes an independent world of consciousness which cannot be brought within the range of experience. Now even if it be granted that such a world does exist, it still falls outside the subject-matter of psychology. For psychology as we pointed out deals with facts of consciousness, with experiences and their relations. ”

Boris Sidis

Summary

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

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