Psycholinguistics 101

I found this book by chance in the library when I was looking for some books about behavioral psychology. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know the academic area “psycholinguistic.” I ran over this book, but this field seemed interesting for me… Psycholinguistics covers “zone 4?” Is that correct? If so, this theory and knowledge will be useful for my future education program (I’m going to create a new kind of education program: “integral developmental education program” I don’t want to explain this here in detail, but this education program aims to support human psychological growth.)

This is my impure motives, but I hope my English will improve by learning linguistics and applying the theory to myself.

Holism vs Reductionism

Lastly, I think that the word “holism” is opposite to the term “reductionism.” The reductionistic approach attempts to explain phenomena in the way that it dissects the phenomena in different pieces. And typical reductionists assume that they can elucidate the exact nature of everything by inspecting one element in the wholeness. Although this approach has contributed to the science, it includes an intrinsic limitation. For instance, in the field of philosophy of mind, our mind can’t be fully explained in the reductionistic approach.

             

On the other hand, the idea of holism is that it tends to regard the total of elements as a superior to it. In other words, the hidden belief underneath the holism may emphasize the importance of a total of components too much. In that sense, holism also includes an inherent limitation.  

The Term of "Consciousness?"

Regarding “consciousness,” my understanding of human consciousness is that it is like a huge formless container. It can become any forms and interact with other consciousness freely. Also, it always exists within us at every moment and everywhere. Even though we fall asleep, our consciousness embraces us gently. In that sense, our consciousness is like a vast amorphous vessel. 

Moreover, consciousness itself doesn’t have any meanings. Our consciousness is always “subject” not “object.” More strictly, it may be an essential base of the “subject.” All of our feelings, emotions, sensations, and thoughts arise from our consciousness, but our consciousness is not our feelings, emotions, sensations, and thoughts. All of them are our “subjective experiences.” Our subjective experiences are not our consciousness, but our consciousness creates them. Therefore, the term of “consciousness” is beyond our subjective experiences, and it may be “something” encompasses our existence.