Talk:Psychophysical parallelism

a proposal for compromise and concensus
OK, I have a thought. Let us work out a text on the talk page for the article. We need sources that use the term. (This will avoid OR). Here is a proposed outline, skeletal as it is..

1. Intro, Lieblinz coining the term and some secondary sources on what that meant 2. Early importance in psych re: mind body problem (which is now pretty much historical, the mind body thing isnot really much of a question any more in psych) Perhaps sort of disambiguating it with psychophysics. 3. Recent stuff, from secondary sources.

This will make it more like an encyclopedia article and less like a definition in a dictionary. What say you Shimon? Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. Good idea ! --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 00:06, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * However, please note that what you refer to as "historical" is in fact, an ongoing, still unresolved problem in philosophy and science (e.g. physics, or even anatomy, physiology or psychiatry, and so on). Science still cannot even understand, let alone define and formulate the "self" ('psyche') as in "you" and "I". Therfore, as a scientists I would like to mention this ongoing relevance --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 03:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, psychology is a science, but that is another debate.... Anyway,  we need good, secondary sources that say it is still a debate.  Then, we must summarize the debate.  To me, that is what the article should become.  We must tread very carefully here.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 04:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Dbrodbeck, some people were seemingly too "trigger happy" and have undone all the additions that I have made, without bothering to neither refer to this discussion page, nor to add even a single word of comment to it, as appropriate. If we are to create a good article, as per your suggestion, to which I fully agree, we need not change anything, until the draft is ready, at which time we will use it to run over the entire contents of the existing article. What's your opinion? --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 03:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Original Research: I'm going to give this one more try. Shimon, Wikipedia is not the place for original thinking, no matter how brilliant and insightful it is.  The reason I'm being so unyielding is because you've convinced me that the only thing you really care about here is getting your own ideas into the article.  That isn't going to happen.  If I see any sign that you're giving up on getting your own unsourced original material into the article, I'll become much more open to cooperating with you. If you think Dbrodbeck or anybody else feels differently about this, I believe you are mistaken. Looie496 (talk) 15:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Looie496, I appreciate your effort to participate in this discussion, which is the appropriate thing to do. You raise a concern that I agree with, and so does Dbrodbeck (see above), which is that this should not be an original research, and that we need more Sources. In this spirit, let's cooperate, instead of waging wars. --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 17:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Adding Sources and References
You can help in adding sources and seferences to or from the different disciplines on which, Psychophysical Parallelism reflects.

Please add sources and references at the bottom.

The Debate
Vandalism? How would such a reversion be vandalism. Psychophysics is studied by psychologists? Dbrodbeck (talk) 05:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Physics project
Added "physics" and "science" (see stub). Do psychologists believe that they are the Only, or the Most Important school of knowledge ?

Quote: " The term Psychophysical was first introduced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who discussed "Psychophysical Parallelism" in his book "La Monadologie" (Monadology), published in 1714."

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was one of the most prominent mathematicians, physicists and philosophers of all times.

He coined this concept in 1714, ages before either Sigmund Freud, or psychology ever existed.

--Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 06:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Freud has little to do with psychophysics or psychology frankly. You might try looking at the article on psychophysics.  You had your 'psychophysical paradox' article deleted.  You are now trying to turn this article into that article.  Please stop Oh and the result was not to merge!  It says in quite plain English on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Psychophysical_Paradox that the result was to delete.  That was consensus, so now you are attempting to create a back door to your conceptDbrodbeck (talk) 12:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Dear Dbrodbeck: How lucky we are that this is NOT about the Paradox, then, or is it?

Note: the article about the Paradox was deleted, but the article about Parallelism was NOT, or was it?
 * You mention the paradox article and that the result was to merge in your edit summary of the article and I quote " 05:43, 2 August 2008 Shimon Yanowitz (Talk | contribs) (1,910 bytes) (There has been a debate about "Psychophysical Paradox". the result was to merge with this (mistakenly, psychology-related only) article. This concept was coined in 1714, ages before psychology existed) (undo)" I do not understand your question about was the article deleted or not.  It is clearly here. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Now, as I have repeatedly reiterated:

Psychophysical Parallelism was first introduced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who discussed Psychophysical Parallelism" in his book "La Monadologie" (Monadology), published in 1714, although he worked on this subject since circa 1680 (meaning, late 17th Century).
 * One wonders though if he meant the same thing as the psychological concept that this article has been the subject of since 2005. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

To be crystal clear: This concept existed ages before psychology was even born! Do we agree on that?
 * The words did, as I mentioned above, did it mean the same thing? Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was one of the most prominent mathematicians, physicists and philosophers of all times. His approach to "Psychophisical Parallelism" was from the viewpoint of philosophy (i.e. "psyche") and physics (i.e. "physical").
 * The term psychophysical nowadyas relates to psychology. As I mentioned, read the article on here about psychophsyics, or, pick up a copy of  a journal like Psychological Science, or JEP:Human Perception and Performance. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

he referred to Parallelism as in mathematics and geometry, meaning - two distinct straight lines which can strech to infinity, without ever connecting.

Now: Hijacking of this article to psychology exclusively, shall constitute, and be treated as, an act of vandalism !
 * You claiming that if I disagree with your interpretation constitutes vandalism is simply not the case. You might want to look up what the guidelines are.  Please attempt to be civil. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

To address your Concern, I will mention in the article that an opinion was expressed by a psychologist, that this subject is more important in the context of psychology than in any other context. However, a contradictory opinion was expressed by a scientist of the same disciplines of Leibniz himself.
 * Psychophysics is about psychology, indeed it is the first scientific kind of psychology. Because someone, no matter how important used the word 'pyshcophysical' does not mean that the term means the same thing today.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

--93.172.67.108 (talk) 15:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

A little google scholaring...
I am not entirely sure scholaring is a word... Anyway, http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22psychophysical+parallelism%22&hl=en&lr=&client=safari&start=20&sa=N seems to show that the topic is in the domain of psychology and philosophy, particularly, it is about the mind body problem. Physics, seems absent, but, perhaps I have missed something. I hope this helps. Dbrodbeck (talk) 16:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The term is often misspelled, as "Psycho-physical" or as "Psycho Physical". Please try this Google Scholar comprensive search: . It takes a while, before one notices the enormity and vastness of this subject. --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 16:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Checking that search I see (at least in the first 10 pages) that these are articles almost entirely on psychophysics. Dbrodbeck (talk) 16:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Here is the 2nd result entry (medicine and science in sports and exercise): . Here is the 3rd (information theory, pattern and object recognition, image processing, artificial intelligence): . Here is the 4th (A computer interface for psychophysical and speech research, acoustics): . Here is the 5th (National Academy of Science, paper dealing with psychiatric effects on physics measures such as velocity): . And so on... --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 17:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Well you and I degine psychology and psychophysics differently. My definition (and the generally accepted one) of psychophysics is the study of the relationship of the physical to the psychological.  Psychology is the study of behaviour and cognition.  Those you mentioned are all psychology by any definition.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 18:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Shimon, I'm sorry to say, you're just simply wrong. The proper search to do, using either Google or Google Scholar, is the full phrase, not its parts.  If you do that, you find that the phrase is used in only one way, in philosophy, not in psychophysics, psychology, or physics.  Regarding your changes, it is valid to mention Leibniz, because he is considered the originator of the idea of psychophysical parallelism, but your other changes don't look right to me. Looie496 (talk) 19:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Looie, you have a semmingly good point. Normally, I would agree. However this subject is different, because it crosses centuries, eras, cultures, languages and disciplines. For example: The USA was not even born, when this subject was heavily discussed in Europe, which discussion was mostly in French, German and Latin. Hence, one should pay attention to the special case with regards to the English term here. --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 22:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with the details of Leibniz's writings on this. If he thought that the topic had some relationship with physics, it would be relevant to describe his ideas in the article (making sure to source them to the place in his book where they are presented).  You will hardly find a physicist anywhere nowadays who thinks this has anything to do with physics, though.  The fact that you think so does not justify putting it into the article.  Unless you can back up your ideas using a reputable source, they are original research. Looie496 (talk) 00:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * After looking at the google scholaring that I did, I am certainly happy enough to consider this a philosophical topic, with some tangential (mostly historical) interest in psych. It does not seem though to be about physics.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Dbrodbeck, I really appreciate your effort. Please give this some more time and look at more of these references and citations. I promise you that eventually you will recognize the true scope of this subject. I propose a peaceful coexistence of a plurality of disciplines here, with psychology taking its fair, but not exclusive share. --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 22:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I suggest that we wait some to see if others have an opinion and see if a consensus develops.  I certainly agree that philosophy is really important here.  If I gave the impression I thought it was *just* psych I was not clear.  Anyway, let us wait a while. Dbrodbeck (talk) 00:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * See suggested compromise and concensus at top. --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 03:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Original Research
I'm going to give this one more try. Shimon, Wikipedia is not the place for original thinking, no matter how brilliant and insightful it is. The reason I'm being so unyielding is because you've convinced me that the only thing you really care about here is getting your own ideas into the article. That isn't going to happen. If I see any sign that you're giving up on getting your own unsourced original material into the article, I'll become much more open to cooperating with you. If you think Dbrodbeck or anybody else feels differently about this, I believe you are mistaken. Looie496 (talk) 15:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Looie496, I appreciate your effort to participate in this discussion, which is the appropriate thing to do. You raise a concern that I agree with, and so does Dbrodbeck (see above), which is that this should not be an original research, and that we need more Sources. In this spirit, let's cooperate, instead of waging wars. --Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 17:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

added another reference today
I added another reference to the article today.Trilobitealive (talk) 01:31, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Explanation vs. Statement
What? Are no explanations statements? And vice versa? What do you want? The doctrine in question certainly doesn't EXCLUDE an explanation of the phenomenon in question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.231.34.232 (talk) 09:15, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Explanations are statements, but statements are not necessarily explanations. And I don't see any assertion in the article that the doctrine excludes an explanation, simply that it is not in itself an explanation. Looie496 (talk) 16:21, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea what the intro paragraph is saying
I do not know what psychophysical parallelism is. I came here following a link on another page. I read the intro paragraph. I do not know what it means. I tried to parse it apart... I find it impenetrable. It seems to say that things happen to your body and your mind doesn't ever react to those things. If your mind is reacting to something, it's some separate event that happens to the mind that just happens to correlate in time to what happened to the body. Since that's clearly nonsense -- we would have no awareness of body at all under that -- I'm pretty sure I'm not understanding something. Please clarify. AristosM (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Mind-Body, section 17
— Assignment last updated by Koada21 (talk) 02:00, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Mind-Body, section 18
— Assignment last updated by Amelia Marcellus (talk) 17:26, 17 September 2022 (UTC)