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The Dimensional Psychologist's Toolkit

Name: The Dimensional Psychologist's Toolkit
Author: Nathan Coppedge
ISBN: 978-1494807238

OR, THE SO-CALLED SERIOUS JOKE BOOK; THE DIMENSIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, SECOND VOLUME

by Nathan Coppedge ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 20, 2013

A random digest of recondite terms that may be inaccessible to most.

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Coppedge (The Dimensional Philosopher’s Toolkit, 2013) explores obscure notions of psychology in this collection of ruminations.

The author introduces his work by saying, “I am writing this book out of my obligation as a potentially eminent typologist.” This sense of hubris appears throughout his dictionarylike series of psychological principles. The stated intention is “to provide an original standpoint on conventional principles.” The challenge for the reader is in trying to understand the text. Its structure is an encyclopedic list of arcane psychological concepts—Itineralism; Nariety of Malapropism; Semblancy as Precondition—that often requires multiple readings to grasp some meaning. Some of the entries are images rather than text, but little explanation of these diagrams, via words or images, occurs. In a few select instances, fragments of text seem logical but only when taken out of context. For example, in the entry “Fear - Basis of,” the author notes “a pattern that emerges that knowledge should but does not resolve the problem of fear”; “Fetishistic Determinism” “[e]xplains why many objects have appeal when the person cannot necessarily argue for the object’s purpose, significance, or appeal.” But these intelligible entries are rare. Coppedge often further divides his listings into sections, breaking the concepts down into stages, types or categories, creating greater intricacy and confusion. For example, under the heading “Mentation,” he offers four types—Occupied, Distracted, Compelled and Open—and within those, four stages. Some unfamiliar terms are left undefined—“qua genus,” “agons,” “haptics.” It’s unclear who this book is designed for and what qualifications Coppedge possesses. He refers to himself as a philosopher. The book’s subtitle, “or, The So-Called Serious Joke Book,” remains a conundrum as well. Those with a taste for the esoteric and a love of complex psychology might enjoy this work.

A random digest of recondite terms that may be inaccessible to most.

Pub Date: March 20, 2013

ISBN: 978-1494807238

Page Count: 388

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: June 12, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY

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MASTERY

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2012

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...

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Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.

The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.

Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

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A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.