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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
DIANETICS: SCIENCE OR FICTION, July 3, 2009
THE "FACTS" ON WHICH DIANETICS IS BUILT AS A "SCIENCE" OF MIND
L. Ron Hubbard (LRH) presented himself thus: "My right to enter this field was an inquiring mind which had been trained in mathematics and engineering and which had a memory bank full of questions and far-flung observations" (p. 8).
He described his sources of knowledge as follows: "The medicine man of the Goldi people of Manchuria, the shamans of North Borneo, Sioux medicine men, the cults of Los Angeles and modern psychology. Odds and ends like these, countless odds and ends" (p. 9).
But he later admitted that, in building his science, or theory, of mind, "We've completely bypassed how this ties in with modern psychology" (p. 102). This turns out to mean that he did not profit from the findings of modern research but made use of his superficial knowledge of old psychological ideas, often distorting them.
Among modern research subjects that LRH completely bypassed is the cerebral localization of mental functions, which constitutes a rich source of knowledge about mental functioning. Instead, he studied the functional parts of the mind like Freud did calling them "topographical" parts of the mind. e.g., the id, ego, and the superego. LRH claimed that the functioning of the mind could be studied without reference to brain structure, and he based this claim on the method of scientific investigation that he used.
THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION USED BY LRH
"Here were all the various cults and creeds and practices of a whole world to draw upon. . . . The cults of all the ages, of all the world seem, each one, to contain a fragment of the truth. How do we gather and assemble the fragments?" (p.13).
LRH wrongly assumed that every view expressed by anyone, anywhere, and at any time exposed a fragment of the truth. Moreover, he excluded from his data base the findings of modern psychology, including the facts about the cerebral localization of mental functions, as mentioned above. He thus reduced much his chance of discovering any truth. He also used superficial ideas that he tacitly derived from his ordinary observations, to which he referred as "far-flung observations."
He then faced the problem of how the fragments of the truth have to be gathered and assembled. This is done in science by (a) generating at least one hypothesis, or adopting an existing one, (b) gathering facts relevant to that hypothesis, and (c) testing the hypothesis using those facts. Without using a hypothesis, "the multiplicity of facts is baffling" (Bertrand Russell). LRH appears to have recognized this problem belatedly and answered his above-quoted question with another one: "Or do we give up this nearly impossible task and begin postulating our own answers?" (p. 13). This means generating or adopting hypotheses, which LRH presents as the method that he discovered, or learned from physics, for solving the problem of the multiplicity of facts.
So, LRH began inventing hypotheses but did not explain how he did it. The origin of hypotheses is generally ignored, and obscure ideas are used to explain it, such creativity, intuition, stroke of genius, gift from God, etc. But the examination of the genesis of the grand theories of physics exposes the process by which hypotheses have been generated that turned out to be useful. Newton explained the process thus: "Propositions [i.e., hypotheses] are deduced from the phenomena [from a few singular phenomena] and made general through induction." What is deduced from a few phenomena is empirical knowledge about those phenomena; but it becomes a hypothesis when it is generalized, because induction and generalization yield only a probability, or hypothesis, not certainty. An example will clarify the process.
"If a horse draws a stone tied to a rope, the horse will (so to speak) also be drawn back equally toward the stone, for the rope, stretched out on both ends, will urge the horse toward the stone." Newton generalized this observed fact to the interaction between the Earth and the Sun and hypothesized that the Earth was attracting the Sun with the same force with which the Sun was attracting the Earth. He used this hypothesis in deriving the formula that gives the value of the gravitational force.
LRH was evidently not consciously aware of this process and invented hypotheses - without explaining their origin - quite arbitrarily by generalizing his superficial and unscientific knowledge about certain phenomena, which he obtained from his unreliable sources of knowledge explained above. He kept saying that if a hypothesis that he used "didn't work," i.e., turned out to be useless, he would try another one.
He justified this use of hypotheses by saying, "The only test is whether or not a [hypothetical] fact works. If it does work and can be used, it is a [proven] scientific fact." He is talking here, in imprecise language, about the method by which hypotheses are tested in theoretical physics: A hypothesis is considered correct, or useful, if it serves to explain, predict, and control the phenomena. A group of statements containing at least one untested hypothesis, some tested laws, and some known facts constitutes a theory and is tested through its usefulness in explaining, predicting, and controlling the phenomena. By using an imprecise idea like "if it works," LRH avoids the responsibility of testing properly his hypotheses, "axioms, or "answers."
There is a second method of testing a hypothesis, which is used in experimental work, i.e., in research, in physics and in all other sciences. This consists of deducing the hypothesis from a large number singular phenomenon. This operation is essentially the same as the one by which hypotheses are generated; but in hypothesis generation, it is performed unconsciously-automatically using very few singular phenomena, whereas it is performed consciously and systematically in testing the hypothesis in research using many singular phenomena that represent the phenomenon that is studied. It is because hypothesis generation is done unconsciously that the origin of hypotheses is explained using obscure concepts. But LRH claimed that the unconscious did not exist.
All these mean that LRH rejected the method of hypothesis testing used in research and adopted the one used in theoretical physics, albeit in an imprecise form. He has done that because he ignored how hypotheses were generated in physics, and research looked difficult to him. Consequently, he began to invent hypotheses on the basis of his superficial and mostly unscientific knowledge about mental functioning, trusting that he could test them by showing that they "work," and work every time they are used.
In opposition to LRH, modern psychologists reject the theoretical method of hypothesis testing, considering it unscientific. They require all knowledge to be deduced from data obtained through experimentation and observation. In reality, the theoretical method is more useful than research in the study of mind because mental phenomena cannot be observed and cannot be known even subjectively to a large extent. This is true especially concerning mental disorders due to the fact that they cannot be experimentally caused for many reasons. Statistical analysis too has been unfruitful in research on mental disorders because a wrong hypothesis is used, as explained in a later section.
So, LRH was right in adopting the physicists' theoretical method of hypothesis testing in the study of mental disorders, unlike modern psychologists who reject the method of testing hypotheses through their consequences and require all scientific knowledge to be deduced from the phenomena. LRH used the correct method of testing but did not produce correct results because (a) his data bank was insufficient and contained unscientific materials, (b) therefore his hypotheses were often ill-founded, (c) he did not test his hypotheses adequately, (d) he sought easy and rapid success in helping people, and (e) he was too much interested in making money.
THE "DISCOVERIES" OF LRH
One of his main hypotheses is that the mind is composed of two functional parts: the Analyzer and the Reactive Mind. The Analyzer works like a digital computer, is rational, conscious, and self-determined, i.e., it has free will. He ignored or overlooked the fact that this analyzer is the new cortex of the left cerebral hemisphere (LH) which is known to be the seat of consciousness, to use deductive logic, and to be able to deal with detail. He called this last characteristic of the LH "thinking in differences." He hypothesized that the analyzer, which he pretended to be his discovery, was a perfect computer and did not make mistakes. He did not explain how he found that out, counting on its proof through its "working."
The reactive mind is composed of Engrams, which "is simply a period of physical pain when the analyzer is out of circuit and the organism experiences something it conceives to be or which is contrary to its survival." He is talking here about traumatically harmful and painful events, or failures, that are recorded in memory that is not accessible to consciousness. This is the phenomenon called amnesia. LRH claims that he has discovered the engrams because there is no way of knowing about them, that is, without using the perfect mind that he apparently possessed. In reality, memories covered by amnesia can be reached using hypnosis or drugs such as sodium amytal.
Amnesia is the extreme and absolute form of repression. LRH ignored that not only traumatic failures but also non-traumatic and non-physically-harmful failures are repressed into the unconscious in various degrees of effectiveness when nothing positive can be done about them...
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11 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A well written book, December 13, 2002
This book gives a very easy to read and easy to understand history of the research that led to Dianetics. The writing is done in a very casual tone and is easy to understand and follow. The audio CD is even better because the casual tone makes it sound like the author is talking directly to you! It's a great chronicle of the various things that Hubbard struggled with to create a workable theory that would result in a simple, effective solution to the problems that plague the human mind.
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8 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A revolutionay new science, January 8, 2003
By A Customer
Hubbard wrote this book to create a better and clear understanding of the main subject of Dianetics for the public to learn how the research came about. He keeps it very simple and straight forward in a way that every one can get it. It is in fact a major breakthrough in the science of understanding how the mind works and how it can be cleaned of the clutters that inhibits us to have a full awareness of what are the causes of our stress, fears, anxieties and depression. It is unlike any other self help book ever written on the subject for the main purpose of reaching the common man to live a fuller and heppier life. Don't underestimate it by its simplicity. Read this book first and then read Dianetics, the modern science of mental health, and you will never be the same, nor will you ever agree with the falsehood that has saturated our environment regarding the sources of our troubles.
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