Relativistic quantum psychology

pp. 419-436

in: Rolf von Eckartsberg (ed), Metaphors of consciousness, Berlin, Springer, 1981

Abstract

Up to the present, mainstream psychology has patterned itself after the apparently successful method and the underlying philosophy of the natural sciences. Specifically, it has undertaken the experimental method (with its objectifications, hypothesis testing, operationalizations, and control groups), basing it on the foundation called empiricism. The method and base of thinking, in particular, have come from classical physics—the mechanistic Newtonian physics we learned so well in our early school days. Newtonian physics has provided us with nothing less than a "way to think," an implicitly enculturated view of reality, a prereflective assumption of what the universe really is. The remarkable advances that technology has made (a technology rooted in this experimental paradigm) reinforce this implicit way of conceptualizing. It is difficult for anyone to doubt the impact of the myriad displays of electronic, time- and labor-saving devices which surround us.