A new paradigm for psychology research (with Slime Mold Time Mold)
Slime Mold Time Mold introduces a new cybernetic paradigm for psychology, emphasizing "entities and rules" and negative feedback loops. They discuss how this framework can redefine understanding of emotions like hunger, fear, and anger, as well as concepts like happiness and personality. This approach aims to foster a more mechanical and generative science of the mind.
Deep Dive Analysis
19 Topic Outline
Introduction to a New Paradigm for Psychology
Defining Entities and Rules in a Scientific Paradigm
Why Psychology Needs a Mechanical Understanding
Cybernetics: A Foundational Idea for the Paradigm
Applying Cybernetics to Weight Regulation and Obesity
Components of a Cybernetic Governor System
Applying Governor Systems to Psychological Phenomena: Fear
The Potential Number and Specificity of Governors in the Mind
Anger as a Psychological Governor and Alternative Models
The Cybernetic Paradigm's Testability and Generative Questions
Happiness as a Different Type of Signal: Explore vs. Exploit
How Multiple Governors Interact: The 'Parliament of Drives'
Personality Explained by Governor Parameters
Critique of Abstract Personality Models (Big Five, Grit)
The Replication Crisis and the Need for a Mechanical Paradigm
Characteristics of a Good Scientific Paradigm
Future Directions and Applications of the Cybernetic Paradigm
Origin Story of 'Slime Mold Time Mold'
When Depression Can Be a Rational Response
8 Key Concepts
Entities and Rules
These are the fundamental building blocks and their interactions required for a mechanical, scientific paradigm. Entities are the 'what' (e.g., mass, charge) that exist in a system, and rules describe 'how' these entities interact and change over time.
Mechanical Understanding
This involves moving beyond surface-level abstractions (like 'a car is fast' or 'a person is conscientious') to understand the underlying parts and systems that cause behavior. It requires proposing specific entities and rules for how they operate within a system.
Cybernetics
An interdisciplinary field studying negative feedback or control systems. It's based on the idea that a system (like the body or mind) aims to maintain a particular level or 'set point' for certain variables, detecting 'error signals' when deviations occur and taking action to return to the set point.
Negative Feedback
A system where different parts act together to drive a number or error signal towards zero. The system detects a deviation from a desired state and takes action to correct it, thereby reducing the error.
Positive Feedback
A system where a number or value compounds upon itself instead, getting bigger and bigger and moving towards infinity or the system's limits.
Governor System (Thermostat Metaphor)
A control system comprising an input function (detects a variable), a set point (desired level), a comparator (calculates the difference between the percept and set point, creating an error signal), and an output function (takes action to reduce the error signal by influencing the world).
Error Signal
The difference between a system's set point (desired level) and its current percept (measured level). In the cybernetic paradigm, emotions are often considered these error signals.
Parliament of Drives
A model describing how multiple governors (drives) in the mind interact to produce behavior. Each governor 'submits bids' or 'votes' for certain actions or plans, with the strength of these bids being a function of the size of their error signal, leading to a compromise that determines the final behavior.
11 Questions Answered
Entities are the fundamental building blocks of a part of the universe (e.g., mass, charge), and rules describe how these entities interact and change over time, forming the basis of a mechanical understanding.
Psychology currently relies heavily on abstractions (like conscientiousness or IQ) which describe surface-level behavior but don't explain the underlying parts and their interactions, hindering progress towards a mature science.
Cybernetics is the study of negative feedback or control systems, where a system maintains a set point by detecting deviations and taking corrective actions. This framework can be applied to psychological phenomena by viewing drives and emotions as governors with set points and error signals.
Fear is understood as an error signal generated when a perceived danger level exceeds a set point for danger. The system then activates behaviors to reduce this error and return to or below the acceptable danger level.
Potentially hundreds, or even thousands. Just as hunger isn't a single drive but comprises many specific drives (e.g., for salt, specific nutrients), other psychological phenomena might also be governed by numerous, highly specific control systems.
Anger is hypothesized to be an error signal related to social control. When an individual perceives a loss of control in a social situation, anger arises as an error signal, prompting actions to regain that control.
Happiness is not considered an emotion in this paradigm, but rather a different type of signal related to regulating 'explore versus exploit' behavior or facilitating learning. It's generated when errors in other governors are corrected, signaling successful navigation of the environment or the storage of a new, beneficial strategy.
Governors operate like a 'parliament of drives,' where each governor 'submits bids' or 'votes' for certain actions. The strength of these bids is a function of the size of their error signal, leading to a compromise that dictates the resulting behavior.
Personality is seen as the sum total of the parameters of an individual's governors, including their set points, the sensitivity of their error signals, and how strongly each governor influences the 'voting' mechanism for behavior.
The replication crisis, while highlighting issues with methods and statistics, is seen as secondary to the more fundamental problem of psychology lacking a mechanical paradigm. Without a clear framework of entities and rules, the questions being asked are often meaningless, making even robust statistical methods unproductive for scientific progress.
Depression, viewed as the belief that one cannot create things of value, could be a rational response in situations where there genuinely is nothing of value to be created or no actions to take that would improve one's situation, such as being trapped in a cave with no escape.
17 Actionable Insights
1. Seek Mechanical Paradigms
To make progress in understanding complex systems like the mind, focus on identifying specific “entities” (building blocks) and “rules” (how they interact), moving beyond abstract concepts.
2. Apply Cybernetic Thinking
Analyze psychological phenomena by asking about set points, what is being controlled, and feedback rates, which generates specific, testable research questions.
3. Prioritize Meaningful Research Questions
When conducting or evaluating psychological research, emphasize asking “meaningful” questions grounded in a mechanical paradigm over solely focusing on statistical rigor or methodological correctness.
4. Question Abstract Psychological Concepts
Critically evaluate psychological concepts (like the Big Five personality traits) by asking if they describe underlying mechanisms with entities and rules, or if they are merely abstract, superficial observations.
5. Understand Set Point Defense
Recognize that your body’s “governors” vigorously defend set points (e.g., body weight). Attempts to drastically change these will be met with physiological and behavioral resistance, such as sluggishness or reduced energy output.
6. Emotions as Error Signals
Interpret emotions like anger and fear as “error signals” that indicate when a specific aspect of your life is out of alignment or control, prompting corrective action.
7. Happiness Calibrates Explore/Exploit
Understand happiness as a signal that calibrates “explore versus exploit” behavior. High happiness suggests current strategies are effective, while low happiness indicates a need to explore new approaches.
8. Depression: Blocked Value Creation
Conceptualize depression as a state arising from the perceived inability to create or obtain things of value. This suggests that identifying and pursuing avenues for value creation can be a key to overcoming it.
9. Behavioral Activation for Depression
If experiencing depression, actively engage in “behavioral activation” by performing tasks you typically find meaningful, valuable, or pleasurable to help jumpstart motivation and recovery.
10. Treat Mental Health via Drives
To develop more precise and effective treatments for mental health conditions like depression and addiction, strive for a deeper, mechanical understanding of the fundamental human drives and their dysregulation.
11. Simulate Mind with Software
To advance understanding of the mind, build specific computational models (e.g., software simulations) of how it works. Use these models to identify points of disagreement between theories and design experiments to test those discrepancies.
12. Focus on Fundamental Questions
Direct research efforts towards “fundamental questions” in psychology, such as identifying the complete list of human drives, their specific parameters, and developing methods to measure them, as these are foundational for scientific progress.
13. Personality from Governor Parameters
View individual personality differences as the sum of varying parameters (e.g., set points, sensitivity) across a person’s many psychological governors, offering a highly dimensional model.
14. Hunger: Multiple Nutrient Drives
Recognize that hunger is not a single drive but a complex system of multiple “governors” for different nutrients, explaining specific cravings and phenomena like the “dessert stomach.”
15. Anger as Social Control Error
Consider anger as an error signal for a “social control” governor. When you feel a lack of control in a social situation, anger arises, prompting actions to regain that control.
16. Happiness Reinforces Learning
Consider happiness as a signal that reinforces learning, particularly when a new and effective strategy or behavior is successfully implemented, aiding its storage in memory.
17. Research Specific Nutritional Drives
To understand specific nutritional drives, design studies to test if a deficiency in a particular nutrient (e.g., vitamin C) leads to active seeking of that nutrient.
7 Key Quotes
A paradigm refers to a large variety of things, but we'd say something like a mature paradigm or like a scientific paradigm that's going to get you anywhere that's going to lead to progress has to be mechanical.
Slime Mold Time Mold
It's not like there's like some very particular technical observations that we're bringing into psychology, we're just saying what if you start thinking about things in terms of negative feedback?
Slime Mold Time Mold
Happiness successful behavior doesn't drive it to zero right you're not trying to reduce your happiness whereas behavior is always trying to reduce your feelings of cold your feelings of being too hot uh your feelings of hunger your feelings of shame.
Slime Mold Time Mold
People can be in the same situation materially but based on their set points and might behave quite differently.
Slime Mold Time Mold
The real problem with the big five and every other theory of personality is that it's abstract right it is at some level really genuinely not a scientific theory like abstractions are fine they can be useful but it's at best a superficial theory of personality.
Slime Mold Time Mold
It doesn't matter how good your stats and methods are if you're asking the wrong kinds of questions.
Slime Mold Time Mold
A good paradigm is one that you can't get out of your head.
Slime Mold Time Mold