Karl Popper says that psychology, sociology are not sciences. He says neither is Darwinism science. It doesn't meet his criteria for being science. Kuhn says something similar about psychology and sociology, but according to his criteria (the existence of paradigms that lead to experiments, which then, after many results appear that contradict the basic paradigm, to overturn it in favor of a new one). Wilson, in "Sociobiology" it says that psychology (I think sociology too) they will be swallowed up by biology, who will explain everything through his paradigms. His entire career is an attempt to explain behavior through Darwinism. Although once seduced by this idea, now it seems to me that it has reached some incredible aberrations. It is time for her to be overthrown? And…
But what do we put in place?? First of all, Darwin's theory, in fact the modern synthesis (darwinism plus mutations), must be fined, in the light of new discoveries. This theory should itself be embedded in something complete, for which Darwinism is what it ought to be for a final theory or what it is, at least partially, for relativity, Newton's theory. Let's say I'm working, in fact it is already elaborated, this theory. I am now in the phase of verifying the predictions, that yes, it's with predictions, falsifiable and what Popper wants. It all started with the idea from "Civilization", but actually, if we go further, it started from a discussion over coffee. Coffee is the greatest invention! I tried to generalize the idea from "Civilization" to other species, not only in humans. A mers, everything seems very simple to me now, how come I didn't think of it before? Those to whom I have told about my new evolutionary theory say that it resembles some economic theories, newer or older. The subject is beyond me.
Anyway, this theory would have many applications, would provide models for understanding social phenomena, from history to sociology. When I was writing "Civilization of Hunger", I thought Marx would like the ideas there, but also to Hitler, everyone would take something. About that in a future article... But the most important thing is that there are models for mental illness, typically human, from autism to schizophrenia and affective disorders to dementia. From here to developing methods of psychotherapy that correct biochemical deficiencies following these patterns is but a step.
But first where does mental illness come from? When I was writing "Civilization of Hunger", many of the ideas came to me along the way. In fact most are predictions of the hypothesis, which checked immediately or later. Many times since then I have had the feeling that nature was acting as if it were falsifying my results. If a hypothesis explains humanization, it also had to explain typical human characters, such as mental illness, starting from childhood, from youth to old age (dementias). In closely related species these diseases, like other degenerative ones, they do not exist or their proportion is much lower. Incredible, but the very important biochemical pathway in humanization was the one also involved in mental illness, all, regardless of the age of onset. More, a then-recent study on autism shed new light on human brain growth. I have often used disease to explain evolution, some pathological mechanisms can be highly inspired.
I moved on, I also tried to explain consciousness, but also other specific functions of the human brain such as symbolic thinking. And it went, again things seemed to play out as the hypothesis predicted. Consciousness in humans versus other related species appears to be only a quantitative matter. It can be said that man is distinguished by the greatest ability to look inside himself. This is consciousness, a look inside, but also connected to the outside world. Reporting on the affective coloration of an event is a look inside, because affectivity, which comes from impulses from the muscles and viscera, it's about the inner workings. Building a consciousness is an energy-consuming process, which depends on continuous investment. How we invest? By memory… Indeed, short term memory, also called working memory, is affected in mental illness, dementias. This type of memory helps us not only to learn things, the higher it is, the more information we can have simultaneously from the outside, as well as from the inside (older memories).
Indeed, consciousness is altered in the case of alcohol consumption, but also in most mental illnesses, of autism, to schizophrenia, mania, demented (Alzheimer). In the case of alcohol consumption, the most phylogenetically emerging functions are said to be the first to be affected. The perception of time is also affected. Long-term behavioral investing is the hallmark of humanity. Likewise in those diseases, which seem to be related, at least indirectly, with humanization. What is less well known is how well it maintains, as well as building a consciousness, energy cost. In all these diseases, a biochemical pathway involved in glucose metabolism is affected, actually a kind of faucet of the introduction and storage of glucose in the cells.
Philosophical implications, but also social, of this phenomenon are easy to see. Poor people, stressed out, marginalized, from poor countries, are more religiously inclined, irrational, but they are even more immoral, little cooperative, creates "worse" societies. The difference between societies that favor progress and those that do not is in the more friendly or hostile social climate. Hence policies that change things could take this aspect into account. Prison is not the solution to social problems. Clinical data show that changing social status has better effects on depression than psychotropic drugs.
In the case of stressed people, what is altered is the channeling of affective energy resources. Consciousness provides knowledge management, affectivity, Placer, ideas etc. When I wrote the book I thought there was no evolutionary point to consciousness, it's just a byproduct of evolution. Now I realize, after several events, after studying several people, that in fact consciousness has an extraordinary role. Probably people with developed consciousness have fewer accidents, but even less… depressions. Although conscience shows you many of your faults, of life and society. But it simply orders you. paranoid, but not only, they are obsessed with order on the outside. If you have a developed conscience, the order is made inside.
A psychotherapy that really takes into account human nature and biology should go for the development of an energetic management of mental resources. I wonder how Freud didn't see this, I'm surprised these ideas didn't come up a while ago. And the development of consciousness is an important solution. Which is in total disagreement with Christian morality (as far as I know) is that the development of consciousness is related to pleasure. Anything new learned is actually a source of pleasure that we access and conquer. Conscience, although it involves unpleasant parts, really painful, it represents a sum of victories over unpleasant and painful sensations with which we have come into contact. When I was little I heard a phrase that marked me: courage is the greatest quality. Indeed, courage is essential to the development of consciousness, it is the triumph over fear, involved in conservative thinking and all sorts of other behaviors considered irrational.
In short, a modern psychotherapy, SCIENTIFIC, they should not teach people to resign, as often happens, not to teach people what to feel and desire, people can have the craziest desires, that's why they are human, this is how people define themselves. A kind of mental energy management was offered by Buddhism, but in fact it cut off all sources of trouble, it did not bring sources of pleasure. Actually an effective psychotherapy, as a correct development, it must provide sources of pleasure, to effectively associate pleasure with effort. The right to sources of pleasure should be included among human rights.
