Also, between the issue of human psychology and the issue of technology, the most important issue is the issue of human psychology. As one psychologist wrote, the evolutions in research and inquiry suggests that “the importance of the nature of man himself comes into sufficient focus in world affairs.” We as human beings are shaping technological tools and instruments such as ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) with our content and data as well as with our biases and preferences. And what we infer from all of it is that there is no real difference between human psychology in a pre-digital age and human psychology in a digital age. The same basic psychological drivers and motives exists in both ages, two of the most important ones being an escape from reality and the search for love.
Modernity has touched on virtually every question except for the most important one: “Where does human personality belong in the scheme of things?” The modern man has “so long delayed to attack with concentrated research the problem of what he is himself.” What compounds the problem even further is that “there is an unfortunate taboo, both in school and out of it, against discussion of the beliefs concerning man’s ultimate nature.” All of this, considering that the ultimate question or issue is the question or issue of human nature.
In the end, either the non-physical and experiencing and subjective mind or the objective, organic, and physical brain is “the control center of the individual’s personal world” to borrow from J.B. Rhine. And in order to resolve this final question of human nature, we must adopt either a “psychocentric view of man” which puts the mind at the forefront, or a “cerebrocentric conception” of man which puts the brain at the forefront. Is the mind merely “a physical brain function” as modern thought claims? If the mind is merely a physical brain function as modern thought claims it is, then freedom and volition must be non-existent, as Rhine argued. Everything would be subject to physical laws, and ethics and morality would be “entirely a fiction.”
Modernity meant that “rational man lost his belief in his own spiritual nature.” This also meant that “in the reconstruction of the findings of the sciences into a single universal scheme, the mind as a distinctive order of reality was left out.” Rhine also wrote: “Wherever science came in, the traditional belief in man’s spiritual nature went out. Psychology became increasingly saturated with physical concepts. The physicalistic doctrine of man did progress from a crude materialism to theories patterned after those of modern physics; but the dominance of physical analogy still remains.”
Rhine added: “[The mind] had no place in the new mechanistic picture of the world.” In short: “There is no tolerance left in the sciences for anything like the nonphysical, or exclusively psychical, reality which men once labeled the soul.” It follows that: “This development has gone so far that today the few remaining scientists who publicly express belief in the soul are likely to bring embarrassment to their colleagues.” But of course, the modern picture of human nature is entirely wrong. There are in fact “mental manifestations that appear to transcend recognized principles.” And if we were to have included these cases of transcendence into the modern picture of human nature, it would have “altered the whole design” of modern science and in turn flip all of our assumptions and axioms and theories upside down.
Adam A. Azim 