The new book

Some progress has been made on the new book. But, oh boy, is it slow.

Some of the difficulty is what Steven Pressfield calls “Resistance,” a force field of repellant energy pushing me away from my computer, from the books I need to do research, from the task at hand. It is powerful, and incessant. And some of the difficulty is because “It’s Nobody’s Fault” is hard work. Period.

There are four parts in this book. Yesterday I roughed in key information for the third part that looks at the science of attachment disorders, from about 1940 to today. “Science” requires both a theory, and evidence for that theory that is reproducible.

Bringing science to psychology has not been easy, because the evidence is hard to sift. Minds are not brains, and behaviors are not neurons. But they are all related, and nailing down those relationships is difficult. Not only are some things hard to observe, but, like quarks, their existence has to be inferred, because they can not be seen, at least not with the eyes we use to look at the dog, or the computer screen.

When we look at the computer screen, what do we see? Are we seeing glass and plastic and aluminum? Are we seeing pixels turning on and off? Are we seeing words and images? Are we seeing psychology and philosophy?

Are we seeing all of these at the same time? And if so, what system of language can we use to describe the entire vision?

This, you see, is why it is slow going.

 

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About Erik Dolson

Erik Dolson is a writer living in Oregon

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