ON THE VALUE OF CONSTANCY, THE CONSTANCY OF VALUES, AND THE SINGULAR ROLE OF TIME IN FUNDAMENTAL PSYCHOPHYSICAL LAWS

Authors

  • Hans Georg Geissler

Abstract

Newton’s Law of Inertia was a slap in the face of intuitions on mechanical motion on earth;fundamental physical laws just are not generalizations across observable phenomena. Likethe physical prototype, fundamental psychophysical laws are hypothetico-deductive bynature, i.e. translate into observable trajectories for contingent physical constraints and taskdemands. They thus cannot be pinpointed behaviorally by strategies following the rulingempiricist ideology; nor can they physiologically. Rather, it is psychophysical constructs thatenable identification of parameterized physiological correlates (Fechner’s “FunctionalPrincipleâ€). It will be shown that well-known regularities are derivable from behaviorallyfoundedhypotheses about cyclic carriers, including two constants: self-similar orderinganchored on a base-level cycle; limited temporal coherence after entrainment; capability ofhierarchical phase coupling; undisturbed superposition; random selection-by-inhibitionimposed by external constraints. Most strikingly, EEG bands are correctly predicted inabsolute terms and both predicted quantal-range extensions and growth of dispersions turnout to be construct-based versions of empirical relations as advanced by Teghtsoonian.

Downloads

Issue

Section

Full Articles