Goodbye from a Psychophilosopher

Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting. — J.M. Barrie,

With great sorrow, I regret to inform you that this will be my last ever blog post. Sadly, schoolwork is just piling up. Outside demands are growing. And in truth, my motivation to continue writing this blog has abandoned me.

The one silver lining, however, is that I wrote this post last night when it was still the first of the month, so everything above was part of my best April Fool’s joke! ha HA!

(My worst prank from yesterday was reassigning the keys of a coworker’s computer when she–unbeknownst to me–had only a limited amount of time to send out a job application… Yeah…Whoops.)

With that out of the way, let’s talk shop. (And for the record, everything turned out fine for her).

Now, if you’re a dedicated blog reader (or if you have a troubling case of OCD), you’ve probably recognized some slight changes to the website, foremostly, the heading for these posts:

“Meet Jake Teeny, Psychophilosopher”

What exactly is a psychophilosopher you ask? Well, considering I invented the word, I get to define it. First off, it should not be read as “psycho” dash “philosopher” as in “Jake is a crazy philosopher.” It should be read as “Jake is a philosopher who philosophizes with psychological data. And he’s crazy.”

But what does it mean to philosophize through psychology? It means taking psychological findings, empirical data collected and analyzed with statistics, and examining the consequences of such a discovery through the lens of an everyday philosopher.

Thus, I will not only be relaying scientific findings, but I will also be discussing how we should interpret them in the context of regular-Joe living. And unlike a lot of “scientists,” I am willing to acknowledge areas of life where science cannot, or maybe should not, speak.

For example, let’s talk love.

Research has shown that those with symmetrical faces, those we are exposed to regularly, and those who live within close proximity, are all perceived as more attractive to us, and therefore those are the people we are more likely to fall in love with.

Similarly, research has shown that when you have these “feelings” of love, there is a neurotransmitter in the brain called oxytocin that is released like wild. Thus, if you were to take all of that aforementioned information, you’re essentially creating an algorithm, a mathematical equation of life, for when and who we fall in love with.

But is this really how we conceptualize love? When you start to become attracted to someone, do you measure the symmetry of his or her face? Do you count the number of oxytocin transmitters released in your brain?

No. You love. You feel it. You do it.

And as your eminent (and only) psychophilosopher, I will be presenting psychological science to you in the way it should be delivered: of the people as the people experience it.

Psychophilosophically,
jdt