Unit 1 Module 1 Introduction to Psychology – Transcript

00:03first day class you all got your brand-new notebooks I'm looking around who got a shiny little Trapper Keeper who here still likes shopping for school supplies yeah I thought figure glue is pretty good a lot of guys like no I'm tough I'm a dog yeah all right so what we're looking at you got your brand new school supplies you got your brand new notebooks so probably first day at school every teacher every professor in a psychology class or any class puts the title of

00:30their class up here psychology biology chemistry physics and they start with this question what is psychology and nobody says a thing because its first day of class and everyone's all scared and shy and then usually they pull this down and you write down a definition like psychology is blah blah blah blah blah bye before we get there does anyone have a concept have an idea of what psychology is quiet please

00:58well done very nicely done scientific study of the mind and mental processes I'm going to say that definition he came up with is necessary but not sufficient it's good but it's not enough but don't feel bad because we're gonna find some of the best thinkers some of the best people in psychology philosophy neurology they still won't know what it is go ahead please who would include behavior so we got the

01:23mind and behavior not too shabby I've been studying this stuff for a long time and I've read a lot of books and if you were to look at a textbook and it's going to tell you every textbooks like psychology is something and every contact first day everyone copied it down dutifully and remember that I mean you have a test it's going to be makeup of multiple-choice question here's the problem we have okay here's my definition I don't have one I've been

01:51studying this for a long time it's actually one kid in the back right now who's writing down insert definition here don't do that so I was looking at who is alright so what we're looking at is when we say what is psychology we really still don't know what it I know there's words and I know you had a very good definition and you had a very good definition one of the problems we have is those words aren't themselves very well defined you said study of the mind

02:16what's the mind hmm that's a honey-do of a melon scratching you know that was a pretty tough correlation so when we say this insert definition here seriously you just signed up for crack your first day of this class and I'm telling you I don't know what it is I'm going to teach you a class on something we don't really know

02:41what it is oh wait we could have a pretty good definition generally agreed upon to be their study of mind and behavior well done however there are things that are left out what is behavior things you do reflex what is the mind and I think you can realize studying the mind that's pretty tough to do and we're going to dig into it a little bit because we got really got to talk about the mind so let's pick the

03:08word apart whenever you see a word that you don't know what it is you've kind of got an idea we're going to divide in half psych ecology it's got its roots in ancient Greek psyche or psyche means mine or soul ology study you can see the root word logic in there so psychology is roughly translated study of the mind so we got that coming by oh the root

03:35word is life biology study of like geo earth study geology study of rocks in the earth so we're going to study the mind here's problem what is the mind where is it everyone here has changed their mind what change say again the way that you

04:00feel about it that's a great question we can't define feelings we can't define you okay maybe I'm maybe I'm coming at at the wrong way everyone knows that the brain is brain three-pound blob of fat that is and later on we're going to dissect the brain in this class of eyes a sheep brain all right don't don't get your ears look really sorry I need some

04:23volunteers you know sacrifice so we're so we know what the brain is some of you still don't believe all right go home get a q-tip put in your push there's your brain so you can hold the brain you can wait it a brain it doesn't matter we know where it is we know what it is where's the mind if your mind in your

04:50brain I've got effective brains before I've looked I've cut all through on microscopic slides I've never seen a mind in there if your blood doesn't I've seen structures of the brain I've seen fluid never ever ever seen a mind if you think your minds in your brain well maybe it is let me ask you this way do you have a mind or are you a mind

05:21we got I know if you were likely make it stop but I don't want to be here anymore someone is back sexy mom get me out of here these are some pretty powerful questions when we say where are you how do you know that your body isn't basically the analogy of a remote-control car and somewhere in a different dimension your soul your spirit you you are basically as usual

05:46joystick controller and walking your body around prove to me that's not right let me throw it this way I'm a horrible drawer but you know if it doesn't stop me don't keep me down you saw my scribble there what if we were to do this here's you and you're happy why can you draw better than that

06:09all right you're happy until guess what a gigantic truck are just about run zero I I know right that's a horrible day so here you are you're on the ground here's the truck I know it ran over everything that is you and there's like you juice all unpaid man you know what it's a

06:35mirror fast-forward ten twenty years thirty years in the future and they can do a brain transplant it's actually not that much science fiction we get into the brain and neurology unit you're going to see that science has planted the seeds of brain computer interaction there are such things where when people think it will be able to control a computer or robotic arm he was controlling the robot arm just with her sauce

07:05there are such things where incoming signals can go to the brain such that when people have a neurological disorder they can have for lack of a better word a pacemaker stimulates your brain in the right way to help with their symptoms so we can get incoming computerized signals coming into the brain and computers can read signals coming out of the brain it's not that far-fetched 10 20 30 years so what are we going to do we're going to cut open the brain cut open the skull

07:32take the brain paramedics do it and they take you to a hospital you know what they do with your brain here's your brain squiggly thing spinal cord cerebellum all these little squiggly lines and then it's ended up and it's put in oh what'd I just do ran out of ink there it is and it's putting like a big vat of bubbling water and the brains kept alive some mad scientist

07:58laboratory and the brain is kept alive is being fed nutrients and cell waste is taken away and it's still alive it still is it you let's discuss that same mad scientist made a robot the robots got antennas it's got microphones it's got a speaker

08:21it's got a body in the brain the back of your brain is your vision part that's the part that interprets the stuff coming from your eyes but you don't have any eyes anymore kiddo with run over by trucks so who's laughing at that that's not even funny all right so you got cameras coming in and they're wired into the back of your brain microphones are

08:48wired into the part of your brain that interprets sound the party of rain that does speech is going to be connected to a course of your speaker now you and I know computers usually have touchscreens your phone has touchscreen and you can program it such that it's not just if you touch your touchscreen but how hard so you can now interpret kind of on the surface of the robot how hard the robot

09:15touches something the type of impact and this is going to go to the party then interprets touch so for all purposes this robot walks around and when the robot video camera sees something this brain process it when it hears something this brain process this was your brain but now you see from the robots point of view and now you hear from the robots head here's my question

09:37for you where are you where is your mind are you in the brain are you in the robot are you in the middle I don't pretend to have any of these answers if any of you do please write it down I'll publish your work and get the Nobel Prize it kind of take credit for it but

10:04if you have any of these answers by all means let me know so if your parents kind of bother you with questions first day at school you come home them off with honey how was it how are your classes like mom Shh quiet well your mom still want to talk if we never talk anymore your mom's automatic you we didn't ask your mom mom where's your mind likes to neglect and then walk

10:29away you know that's kind of what we're looking at I think you can see this whole random conversation we had notice look in my class notes I think we've gone down like an inch I've got 17 pages of class notes I think we're like three lines down we got a work cut out for us I think so far you've written down one or two lines we really haven't learned

10:54anything all right so let's do it this way then I don't know what the mind is and I don't think you know what the mind is so let's dip into some Renaissance artists Renaissance philosophers Michelangelo not the Ninja Turtle but the other Michelangelo he sculpted the Statue of David it's clearly a Simpson eyes version of it but if you look at

11:19the Statue of David it is amazing a couple hundred years ago he took this on a gigantic thing of marble and he cut with hand tools and he made it so precise you could see the striations on the muscle is like a perfect replica of male anatomy different how how did you do this if it it's easy I just chipped away all the stuff that wasn't the statue

11:46so now we're going to take a page out of his book I don't know what the mind is so I'll find out what the mind is not so here's my dear I went a whole semester you give me this one you're done you mean have to show up anymore sat home collect your egg give me something that is not connected to the human mind there's not related to the mind I know

12:13people are old science class so I want you to right now Paul look around look around this lab right now okay so we got then is there anyone in this class whose opinion matters to you no not it this is your competition all right right now far along is all pretty comfortable pretty confident you going I'm variance so here's my point to you don't be so shy

12:38throw it out there well it's not connected to the mind and a body part or an action I think that your hand is connected to your mind I mean if I were taking your hand I hit you with a hammer they're gonna feel pain I got that okay go ahead is that shows the situation your mind or just lent anything because like it somebody else who made it a gate a