PSYC 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Luigi Galvani, Action Potential, Experimental Psychology

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jill L Atkinson

Document Summary

Advocated an impersonal investigation of natural phenomena using sensory experience and human reasoning. The world was a purely mechanical entity-ran its course without divine interference. Animals were creatures of the natural world only-their behaviours were controlled by natural causes and could be understood by the methods of science. Human body=machine affected by natural causes and producing natural effects (reflexes) Set humans apart=possession of the mind (mind was not part of natural world-obeyed different laws) Dualism: the philosophical belief that reality consists of mind and matter. Suggested that a causal link existed between the mind and its physical housing. Inspired by the moving statues in the royal gardens thought of muscles as balloons-inflated when a fluid passed through the nerves that connected them to the brain and spinal cord. Model: a relatively simple system that works on known principles and is able to do at least some of the things that a more complex system can do.