OVERVIEW
There is no more important behavior and skill set than the ability to objectively perceive, interpret, organize, analyze, and communicate the world we find around us, and the feelings and thoughts within us, to both ourselves, and to others. And yet, this is exactly the activity more and more of us are feeling uncomfortable with, if not avoiding entirely.
This avoidance includes not only Social Avoidance but the endemic use of, and often arguable over-reliance on prescription, and over the counter medications and substances facilitating Cognitive and Psychological Avoidance while numbing our humanity. Alongside this avoidance are statistics describing a massive rise in depression, anxiety, insomnia, drug dependencies (to both legal and illicit substances), addictions , overdoses, suicide, and a general hopelessness. |
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. 
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Yet the response we most often see from the fields of Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience, is one that primarily seeks out more and more of the same tired and often deleterious approaches. Those reliant on conversational and behavioral clinical therapies, and those related to the development of new pharmacological agents, compounds, and cocktails -- The "One Pill" Solution.
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Additional bandages or compresses are often applied to these open social, and psychological wounds and trauma such as meditation and mindfulness. These all have their roles and can be shown to be beneficial in particular situations but there is no one organization or body we have found that is addressing, and attacking the root causes, using an integrated, holistic, First Principles approach bounded by the Naive Question.
We seek an approach that facilitates the dissemination and democratization of efficient, and efficacious psychological approaches, methodologies, and solutions. And from our recent survey of the current roster of Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience Thought Leaders and Authority Figures we are not optimistic. |
This lack of optimism further stems from the fact that although this field (Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience) is quite broad in terms of topics, branches, and disciplines, the field is actually extremely narrow in terms of approaches deemed acceptable, and the cognitive degrees of freedom.
This is due to a number of human behavioral factors including the structure and progression of science (the field, and each field of science), and experimentation and exploration as well as (due to a very specific set of factors) the field being bounded and shackled by a stifling political correctness, a debilitating normative world view which moralizes, and malincentives related to metrics utilized in academic hiring and promotion decisions.
Further, we have found that much of the foundational science and studies are replete with poor or conflated experiment designs and methodologies, sloppy recording or coding of data, as well as outright data fabrication and fraud affecting some of the most influential researchers and seminal studies.
Our focus, mission, and journey then, is to break open this logjam comprised of feudal, hierarchical jockeying for position, subterfuge, bad science, sloppy research, fraud or the outright capture of research integrity and direction by corporate interests, and to then re-envision and re-architect Psychology and the Cognitive and Neurosciences as both a trusted, and valid conduit and cornerstone to be used to create a healthy, vibrant and loving society on not just this planet but beyond -- beyond this planet to where our dreams, curiosity, and adventuring spirits take us.
It is in this spirit of unbounded intellectual curiosity, exploration, and the pursuit of truth that we have sought to open the fields of Psychology, Cognitive and Neurosciences to the scientific method, data, facts, logic, falsification, and replication, and have thus created the Psyche Summit™.
This is due to a number of human behavioral factors including the structure and progression of science (the field, and each field of science), and experimentation and exploration as well as (due to a very specific set of factors) the field being bounded and shackled by a stifling political correctness, a debilitating normative world view which moralizes, and malincentives related to metrics utilized in academic hiring and promotion decisions.
Further, we have found that much of the foundational science and studies are replete with poor or conflated experiment designs and methodologies, sloppy recording or coding of data, as well as outright data fabrication and fraud affecting some of the most influential researchers and seminal studies.
Our focus, mission, and journey then, is to break open this logjam comprised of feudal, hierarchical jockeying for position, subterfuge, bad science, sloppy research, fraud or the outright capture of research integrity and direction by corporate interests, and to then re-envision and re-architect Psychology and the Cognitive and Neurosciences as both a trusted, and valid conduit and cornerstone to be used to create a healthy, vibrant and loving society on not just this planet but beyond -- beyond this planet to where our dreams, curiosity, and adventuring spirits take us.
It is in this spirit of unbounded intellectual curiosity, exploration, and the pursuit of truth that we have sought to open the fields of Psychology, Cognitive and Neurosciences to the scientific method, data, facts, logic, falsification, and replication, and have thus created the Psyche Summit™.