Psychology Defined - What is Psychology
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What is psychology really studying?
Did you know that the word psychology originates from the Latin word psyche, which means soul? If you break this down completely, psychology is the “study of the soul.” But when we talk of psychology in today’s modern world, we rarely discuss the soul, and more often than not we completely override the idea of a soul even existing. The scientific study of psychology looks at the functions of the mind and more specifically the functions of the brain in the anatomical science of neuropsychology. We can also say that psychology is a larger topic which embraces our behaviors, emotions, and relationships, considering each as a unique part of the psychological experience. Yet still we remain somewhat detached from the origins of the word, the ‘soul’ and its important role in making up who we are within this massive universe. Fortunately we do not have to abandon modern science in order to discover the soul’s existence, for contemporary studies in physics and psychology has set a new stage for reveling a whole new dimension of reality.
Let us start by braking the ice, even though it may be a few feet thick; quantum physics, which is the new mechanics of modern physical science, says that all matter in its most basic form has two properties. These properties are very simple to understand when we break them down into what they really are. One is the form of matter, the same material that makes up the physical world around us. The other property is the wave in which there is no physical matter but rather a frequency of motion. Now what is important to understand out of this conclusion is that everything in the universe has a state of physical existence and physical nonexistence; or more simply put it is either physically here or not here. While this may be difficult to understand without the full philosophical and physiological explanation of this scientific theory, we can reflect on the topic by pondering over the fact that there is a world that we can see and a world we cannot see; there is a world that we know and a world that is hidden from us.
Now taking a giant leap back to psychology, we can ask ourselves the question “why must we rule out the possibility of a soul, or some higher form of energy, nonmaterial object that makes us who we really are in our most basic, essential form?” Just because we cannot study the soul by using microscopes and test tubes, must we cross it off the list of possibilities as to why we think, feel, and act as individuals with individual consciousness? I used the word consciousness because it is a highly controversial word that will come up in the debate of whether a soul exists, because if it does that there may just be a form of the human being that we may never come to grasp here in the physical world with our physical experiments.
Neuropsychology says that all processes of thought occur within the brain. They say that everything can be reduced within the cells within the brain, and if we had the ability to account for every piece of information stored in these cells, we would eventually be able to determine exactly where the unique thoughts of individual’s (you/I/they) occur. But as they dive deeper into the brain, it seems more difficult to find the answers. This” consciousness” is sometime here, and other times there. It looks like that under these circumstances, but looks like this under those conditions.
So let us ponder a very serious possibility: perhaps this consciousness if far too complex for us to understand, and it takes on so many unique forms within this material world that whenever we try to pin it down under one condition it takes on another form. If this were true, we would never be able to explain why we are unique and why we exist by blanketing all human beings under the category of X, where everything can be explained and understood. Why must we be the most complex thing in the universe and be the most powerful being too, capable of defining why everything exists and how it should work? Perhaps we are simply a strand in a much more complex and much more dynamic universe then we can imagine, and if this were true why should we waist our time reducing everything to one single theory? If we are but a part of a much more dynamic system, I think we would be playing our part best by living as dynamically and creatively as possible, trying to expand our understanding and looking beyond our own rational intellect and into a universe of complexities we may never understand. In doing so, we do not seek an end to understanding but put ourselves in a space to explore endless potentials where time and space cannot limit our creative and conscious experience of life. We grow, both for ourselves and for others, considering each idea as a potential in the endless universe.
Psychology, in this way, becomes an experience of consciousness, where the individual is unveiling his or her own comprehension of reality as we explore the inner and out dimensions of existence. If the soul does exist and quantum physics hold its own truth in explaining our world, then we are free to consider a universe without physical boundaries. If we choose to accept this, we cannot reduce the world to any singular idea, but instead we must constantly question and generate new ideas to help us gain a better understanding of why we can think and how it creates our experience of life and living. Psychology then becomes a study of life and its relationship to the whole, the universal connection between the individual and the cosmos, brought together by the psyche, the soul.
Did you know that the word psychology originates from the Latin word psyche, which means soul? If you break this down completely, psychology is the “study of the soul.” But when we talk of psychology in today’s modern world, we rarely discuss the soul, and more often than not we completely override the idea of a soul even existing. The scientific study of psychology looks at the functions of the mind and more specifically the functions of the brain in the anatomical science of neuropsychology. We can also say that psychology is a larger topic which embraces our behaviors, emotions, and relationships, considering each as a unique part of the psychological experience. Yet still we remain somewhat detached from the origins of the word, the ‘soul’ and its important role in making up who we are within this massive universe. Fortunately we do not have to abandon modern science in order to discover the soul’s existence, for contemporary studies in physics and psychology has set a new stage for reveling a whole new dimension of reality.
Let us start by braking the ice, even though it may be a few feet thick; quantum physics, which is the new mechanics of modern physical science, says that all matter in its most basic form has two properties. These properties are very simple to understand when we break them down into what they really are. One is the form of matter, the same material that makes up the physical world around us. The other property is the wave in which there is no physical matter but rather a frequency of motion. Now what is important to understand out of this conclusion is that everything in the universe has a state of physical existence and physical nonexistence; or more simply put it is either physically here or not here. While this may be difficult to understand without the full philosophical and physiological explanation of this scientific theory, we can reflect on the topic by pondering over the fact that there is a world that we can see and a world we cannot see; there is a world that we know and a world that is hidden from us.
Now taking a giant leap back to psychology, we can ask ourselves the question “why must we rule out the possibility of a soul, or some higher form of energy, nonmaterial object that makes us who we really are in our most basic, essential form?” Just because we cannot study the soul by using microscopes and test tubes, must we cross it off the list of possibilities as to why we think, feel, and act as individuals with individual consciousness? I used the word consciousness because it is a highly controversial word that will come up in the debate of whether a soul exists, because if it does that there may just be a form of the human being that we may never come to grasp here in the physical world with our physical experiments.
Neuropsychology says that all processes of thought occur within the brain. They say that everything can be reduced within the cells within the brain, and if we had the ability to account for every piece of information stored in these cells, we would eventually be able to determine exactly where the unique thoughts of individual’s (you/I/they) occur. But as they dive deeper into the brain, it seems more difficult to find the answers. This” consciousness” is sometime here, and other times there. It looks like that under these circumstances, but looks like this under those conditions.
So let us ponder a very serious possibility: perhaps this consciousness if far too complex for us to understand, and it takes on so many unique forms within this material world that whenever we try to pin it down under one condition it takes on another form. If this were true, we would never be able to explain why we are unique and why we exist by blanketing all human beings under the category of X, where everything can be explained and understood. Why must we be the most complex thing in the universe and be the most powerful being too, capable of defining why everything exists and how it should work? Perhaps we are simply a strand in a much more complex and much more dynamic universe then we can imagine, and if this were true why should we waist our time reducing everything to one single theory? If we are but a part of a much more dynamic system, I think we would be playing our part best by living as dynamically and creatively as possible, trying to expand our understanding and looking beyond our own rational intellect and into a universe of complexities we may never understand. In doing so, we do not seek an end to understanding but put ourselves in a space to explore endless potentials where time and space cannot limit our creative and conscious experience of life. We grow, both for ourselves and for others, considering each idea as a potential in the endless universe.
Psychology, in this way, becomes an experience of consciousness, where the individual is unveiling his or her own comprehension of reality as we explore the inner and out dimensions of existence. If the soul does exist and quantum physics hold its own truth in explaining our world, then we are free to consider a universe without physical boundaries. If we choose to accept this, we cannot reduce the world to any singular idea, but instead we must constantly question and generate new ideas to help us gain a better understanding of why we can think and how it creates our experience of life and living. Psychology then becomes a study of life and its relationship to the whole, the universal connection between the individual and the cosmos, brought together by the psyche, the soul.
