NB: this raw outflow mixes what are probably two distinct points:

Tidied

The second part revolves around the multidimensional nature of development, its emerging understanding, and its parallels to the growth of science. Key points:

  1. Development as Multidimensional:
    Development spans cognitive, emotional, relational, and spiritual dimensions. This broader perspective goes beyond traditional, narrow views and highlights the complexity of human growth, requiring updated frameworks to map and engage these layers.

  2. Emerging Understanding and Immaturity of the Field:
    Developmental psychology, and broader ontogenesis, is relatively recent compared to sciences like physics or biology. Its rigorous foundations, barely 50 years old, have yet to permeate education, public policy, or societal structures fully. While remarkable progress has been made, it remains underfunded, underinstitutionalized, and underutilized in mainstream applications.

  3. Historical Parallels to Science:
    Developmental science is akin to early alchemy evolving into chemistry or the initial integration of Newtonian physics into society. Just as 19th-century Germany saw a cultural shift that embedded science into societal norms, there is potential for a similar transformation in how developmental insights are valued. However, this requires greater dissemination, resources, and societal buy-in to reach a tipping point.

  4. Transformative Implications:
    Incorporating development into society could reshape foundational perceptions, such as the concept of the "self." Insights from Buddhism, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and cognitive science challenge traditional notions of selfhood, offering profound implications for personal growth and collective development. Yet, these ideas are still seen as niche or destabilizing to mainstream worldviews.

This highlights the necessity of integrating and stabilizing developmental insights, ensuring they inform institutions and culture as science once did. Would you like further elaboration on any specific angle?

Rawish

Development as a Multidimensional Process

The fundamental aim here is to convey that development is multidimensional. Additionally, we now have much better and more detailed maps of development, particularly in psychology and related sciences. These maps are quite recent—many of the relevant scientific disciplines are barely 150 years old, and in their more rigorous, experimentally driven forms, they are perhaps only 100 years old. Even then, some of the most significant work only became widely known in the 1950s.

Developmental psychology, for example, is really only about 50 years old in its modern form1. It is still in its infancy, though it has already yielded significant scientific results. However, because it is relatively new, its findings have not yet fully disseminated into mainstream society. Developmental insights remain largely absent from education systems, youth programs, government policies, and even broader institutional decision-making. While experts may understand these concepts, their application often requires broader structural and political support—particularly in securing funding for this kind of work.

In the West, the study of developmental psychology, particularly in its broader sense, is now quite limited. Few institutions have major programs in this field, and the primary networks sustaining it e.g. at Harvard (at HGSE with neo-piagetians) are decaying. Consequently, there are fewer leading academic figures and fewer students carrying forward this work. The field has, in some ways, fallen into neglect compared to earlier decades.

A useful analogy here is the development of chemistry from alchemy, or the emergence of Newtonian physics. Just as early scientific paradigms took time to be recognized and institutionalized, developmental science is still in an early phase of broader societal adoption.

Historically, societies have undergone cultural shifts that increased their appreciation for science, such as in early 19th-century Germany with Humboldt’s influence. A similar shift may be emerging today regarding developmental science, with increasing recognition of its relevance to governance, education, and mental health. If taken seriously, developmental work could be as stabilizing and transformative as the scientific revolutions of the past.

Finally, one example is the way modern cognitive and developmental science is challenging long-held assumptions about the self. From modern neuroscience to therapeutic models like Internal Family Systems (IFS), and even in Buddhist traditions, there is an emerging consensus that the self is not a singular, fixed entity but something more fluid and constructed. While this idea is now gaining traction in some academic and therapeutic circles, it remains shocking to many outside these fields.


Summary

  1. Development is multidimensional, and we now have more detailed maps of it, though they are recent.
  2. Developmental psychology is young (about 50 years old in its modern form) and has not yet fully shaped education, governance, or mainstream policies.
  3. Institutional support for developmental research is weak, with few major academic programs and increasing reliance on corporate networks.
  4. A historical analogy: Just as chemistry evolved from alchemy and physics took time to institutionalize, developmental science is in an early phase of broad societal adoption.
  5. A cultural shift may be occurring, much like 19th-century Germany’s embrace of science, positioning developmental research as a future stabilizing force.
  6. Emerging findings challenge the idea of a fixed self, aligning with both cognitive science and spiritual traditions, though this remains surprising to many.

Very raw (original poor transcription)

Okay. Now, um, I think, let's proceed to the second part. And the fundamental aim, the main point we need to get across, is the idea of, you know, and that development is multidimensional. And, thirdly, which is not the end of the discussion, is that we are, we have much better maps, and are starting to have maps that are more detailed in these areas. And this kind of map, this is quite recent. Quite a lot of the science eg psychology are basically 150 years old, if that, maybe 100 years old. And in their more rigorous form, related to the in-air experimentation, er, I don't know, it kind of feels like it's much more recent. I mean, yes, they started work 10 years ago, but essentially it wasn't really known until it was published in the 50s. So, the developmental ontogenesis, if I can, that, I've said it, yes, developmental psychology, in it, is really only 50 years old. 50 years old. So it's in its infancy in some ways, and yet we already have some scientific results. But the point of it being quite recent is that that hasn't really disseminated into mainstream society yet, if I understand. And so, it doesn't inform even, in many cases, education. It doesn't inform youth programmes, that much. It doesn't inform government official office, that much. And even if the experts get it, often it requires a wide set of foundations for this kind of, you know, politically sportive development. And this is the retention of, essentially, funding for this kind of work. And then the kind of classic developmental psychology, specifically in, you know, development, is now very limited in the West. We have very few institutions with a major programme in this, and the major network is built up by corporate figures. The public is out, which means that we have to wait, we have to leave, we leave a figure at Harvard, we leave a professor there, and the Harvard graduate student has to take it. You know, there's no-one who takes that Harvard, the Harvard person is somewhat disappeared. Yeah, in general, and I know it's like that, but in general, it isn't appeared, but it's somewhat fallen into even neglect, in fact, compared to even the surface of years ago. And so, that's just sort of worth emphasising, that while in some ways, relatively a fabulous work, some of it is quite fabulous, and some of it, other of it, even if it's more secular, has a political basis, it's not as widely disseminated, I think, in our society, as we've got the physics, and chemistry, and biology. And I think that analogy is absolutely useful, to think that people have thought that even chemistry, among the alchemists of the Middle Ages, and even by, you know, late 18th century, early chemistry, and the modern form, you have the Newtonian physics that's been coming through. I don't think this is necessarily widespread and born in us as a society, but it's sort of two-faced with the power and benefits of science. And I think that's important, most essentially. You know, there's a kind of tipping point, you can feel, and there's a paradigm, you know, today, for the whole society, of some of the youthfulness of science, in terms of the ethics and so on. For Humboldt, in Germany, in the early 19th century, there's this kind of change in the culture, actually, in the elite, in an interesting way, towards science. And from being a kind of curiosity, or being interested, certainly, as widespread, relevant, in society, you get the power, which you have. And, clearly, in its in-development days, that's what the USA already said. And, I also think, maybe like science, there is an analogy, and it's quite potentially stabilizing this idea. This is science, really, changing mental attitudes, but also, you've got this shift in resources and power in a society. So, in development, I think, at least, you stabilize the sense of perception of science, in quite an efficient way. I mean, for example, really, you take motion in a development work seriously. In the case of the spiritual tradition, or, for now, I would say, partially educated science, we see that, for example, the self is not a playable entity. There isn't something called self, in a way, that we think of as meaning research, and so on. And that, for, obviously, in Buddhism, it comes out of, maybe, quite a lot, even things like IFS, in terms of therapy, and it comes out of parts of cognitive science' work. And, yet, I think we all have the same idea, that it's not quite, it's quite shocking.

Footnotes

  1. Sure it started with Piaget ~100y ago – and there was James Mark Baldwin before that. But e.g. Piaget's work really does become known until 60s/70s at least in English.

© 2024 All rights reservedBuilt with Flowershow Cloud

Built with Flowershow CloudFlowershow Cloud