Talk:Energy (psychological)

Article merged: See old talk-page here —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seaj11 (talk • contribs) 11:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge with psychic energy

I see no reason why anybody should object. Go ahead, full steamHallenrm 07:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I object because I see a distinct separation: psychological energy retains some semblance of reasonableness. Psychic energy is pure nonsense, wishful thinking substitute for science by those who don't (really) understand science. John 20:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I second that. Em3ryguy (talk) 23:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This article strikes me as esotericism. John Mark Wagnon (talk) 05:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Modify History Section

The History section either needs many citations added, or should be trimmed down to the first paragraph. All the rest of that section is written like a personal essay rather than an objective article, and makes very little sense. Citations would put this to rest, and if none can be found, then the relevant information should be removed on the basis of its inaccuracy. IceMetalPunk 04:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Focus

Is this article about vim and vigor, about historical uses of the term "energy" in relation to mental processes, or about Energy (spirituality)? Can we just pick one and excise and merge as appropriate? - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 15:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I deleted a lot of content

I removed a large portion of this article because: (1) It didn't deal with the topic (2) It was not cited and contained information that was likely false (3) It was poorly written

In my judgment, this reflected poorly on wikipedia and warranted immediate action as it bordered on vandalism. I'm not an expert wikipedian, so I don't know what the official policy for this is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.199.251 (talk • contribs) 2008-07-03T04:39:19

That is fine. - Eldereft (cont.) 20:36, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Delete?

I have been notified that this article is up for deletion. I created this article as a disambiguation from the Energy article which is now about the natural sciences quantity. I really do not care what you do with this one. Delete, keep, I have no energy to give a fig either way. SBHarris 23:01, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I share that sentiment. In my view, the (only) value in retaining this article is as forum to debunk the notion, maybe not a torch Wikipedia is willing to carry. John (talk) 17:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

this article keeps being deformed by people assuming "energy" refers to the quantity measured in Joule. This is a misunderstanding. The pedigree of this concept is the Aristotelian energeia and has nothing to do with Joule, or glucose, or neurobiology.

this is about OED's meaning 2.a.:

Exercise of power, actual working, operation, activity; freq. in philosophical language. Formerly also concr: The product of activity, an effect.

as well as 3.:

Vigour or intensity of action, utterance, etc. Hence as a personal quality: The capacity and habit of strenuous exertion.

The meaning in Physics (today understood as the quantity preserved via temporal symmetry per Noether's theorem) is meaning 6. in OED, which cites 1804 for its first attestation. The term in this sense is a mere secondary derivation of the much wider meaning the term takes here. --dab (𒁳) 11:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Besides Aristotelianism proper, I suppose that this article will need to focus on 17th century scholarship in particular, where physical and psychic activity (="energy") were being equated, as in

Henry More. Psychodia platonica; or a platonicall song of the soul (1642) Energie...is the operation, efflux or activity of any being: as the light of the Sunne is the energie of the Sunne, and every phantasm of the soul is the energie of the soul.

--dab (𒁳) 12:02, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

move

perhaps this page shouldbemoved to mental activity or similar so it won't be quite as plagued by over-zealous skeptics trying to debunk "energy therapy" type of quackery. --dab (𒁳) 12:11, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Seconded! Famousdog (talk) 15:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Wikipedia merges too many articles these days. If it is merged with a larger article then it will likely be relegated to a single paragraph. Furthermore mental activity redirects to this article. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 15:47, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I encourage not moving. It is precisely to enable the distinction of this as pseudoscience. If that undermines someone's agenda for scientific basis for "energy therapy" then so be it. It is what it is. Practically the entire scientific community are zealous skpetics who would debunk "energy therapy" as not only quackery, but pseudoscience. It is OK to believe in pseudoscience and non-scientific philosophy, but it is not OK to characterize it as legit science. There is a paramount distinction between mental activity and physic energy, the latter is pseudoscience, the former is legit. John (talk) 18:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I think his point was that this article should be about the legitimate scientific Freudian and Jungian concepts and not about psuedoscientific ideas like 'energy therapy'. After all, the whole point of applying concepts like energy and force to mental activity is to try to form a basis for a scientific theory showing how mental entities follow logical rules just like physical objects do. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 19:30, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Your use of the word "legitimate" implies that you think psychoanalysis is not pseudoscience. I would add simply that many people (myself included) think it is. Decades of experimentation and brain imaging have failed to produce any kind of convincing evidence for the id, ego, superego, collective unconscious, and other such psychoanalytic "concepts" that you claim are "legitimate". Famousdog (talk) 14:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

The concept of psychological energy is a legitimate fully scientific hypothesis. Given how very little we know about the inner working of the mind it is hardly surprising if experimentation has not yet proven its existance. I have neither said nor implied anything about psychoanalysis. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 22:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, we know shedloads about the inner workings of the mind and I fail to see how any of the material in this article relates to it. If, as you say, "the concept of psychological energy is a legitimate fully scientific hypothesis", then can you provide a workable definition of this hypothesis and perhaps design an exeriment to measure it? Famousdog (talk) 10:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

look, as long as this resides under "energy" we will have to prance around with people who will just not understand that "energy" has other meanings than the now prevalent meaning of "things measured in Joule", which was introduced in the 19th century. This is simply not what this article is about. "Energy" here has the much more general meaning of "activity". Yes, the article can also discuss pseudoscientific ideas, but within WP:FRINGE and WP:DUE. --dab (𒁳) 20:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

This term is used precisely as things measured in Joules, people ascribe scientific properties of energy to this as if it were something based on ligitimate scientific energy. If it is not scientific energy, then a more appropriate word would be in order. And of course, we have to be consistent with people will just not understand energy as something else; it isn't something else. John (talk) 05:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems a bit like blowing something up so nobody can steal it. It kinda defeats the purpose doesnt it? After all the entire article is specifically about mental 'energy'. thats the whole point of the article. can we maybe pursue other options. like maybe having the article locked? Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 22:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merge Effortfulness into this article

The article Effortfulness is an unsourced stub with only a dozen or so edits. It seems to me to be a duplicate the content of this article that simply got overlooked, but I thought it would be better to get a second opinion instead of making a BOLD edit. Does this look reasonable? Forbes72 (talk) 19:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Taken by itself, the word effortfulness just means: possessing the quality of being effortful, where the latter means: requiring effort. Together, then, effortfulness means: the quality of requiring effort. In a psychological context, this is mental effort, an important topic on which we have no article – but if we had, it would be a natural target for merging Effortfulness into.

It would be wrong to identify mental energy and mental effort. Mental energy is required for a mental effort, just like physiological energy is required for physiological effort. The energy resides in the acting subject, regardless of a specific task, while the effort required for a given task is an attribute of that task.

But lacking an article Mental effort, a temporary solution would be to create a section Energy (psychological)#Mental effort in this article, merging the section Energy (psychological)#Neuroscientific accounts (which is essentially about physiological correlates to mental effort) and the stubby article Effortfulness into it, while making Mental effort into an {{R to section}}cum{{R with possibilities}}.  --Lambiam 08:22, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

To the Dumb Dumbs of Wikipedia

Please read this: http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/11/harvard-doc-to-wikipedia-youre-not-playing-fair-on-alternative-trauma-therapy

And cite what it spells out if that's really what this project is about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.61.63.71 (talk) 19:18, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Gosh, an article by someone with a vested interest in the bogus field of energy psychology that claims we're unfairly suppressing the field just because its proponents have failed to persuade their peers of its validity.

This has literally never happened hundreds of times before. See Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans. Guy (Help!) 12:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)