Ignorance in Method: The Re-Examination and Restructuring of
Western Thought
Shane LeMaster & Josh Morris
Spirituality in Literature and Art
The connection between an organism and its environment has been disputed among different cultures, religions, and individual truth-seekers. An organism and its environment, in the Western perspective, are traditionally viewed as separate entities that can be controlled and studied in a manner that will provide evidence for future conditions to lead to a specific outcome. Moreover, the development of psychological theories has, from ancient times, been based on the idea that humanity and environment form two different and evenly opposed systems1.
The Western scientific approach can be used as an effective tool in the discovery of relational theory (relations between objects and environments), but the use of abstract (metaphysical) as well as spiritual (Buddhist) philosophy needs to become more prominent in the minds of Western researchers. The Buddhist and metaphysical theory that everything in existence is interconnected and mutually influential should be part of psychological experimentation. With regards to the organism-environment debate, Timo Järvilehto states that the importance of the environment cannot be neglected, but it forms only some sort of necessary and trivial background for the achievements of the human spirit2. The development of our current thoughts, intentions, and actions are a result of a chain of events that lead us to the point we are at presently. When we view the world in a way that supersedes labels, the interconnectedness of the organism-environment system becomes apparent.
Järvilehto’s theory of the organism-environment system encompasses an individual being/ object and its relationship to the surrounding environment. The theory starts with the proposition that in any functional sense, organism and environment are inseparable and form only one unitary system. The organism cannot exist without the environment and the environment has descriptive properties only if it is connected to the organism3. In Western psychology, organism and environment are traditionally broken into two completely individual parts. The organism reacts, in a causal sense, to different changes in the environment. However, this logic seems to be flawed in the organism-environment system. Järvilehto uses the consumption of coffee to illustrate the inherent problem.
There is a mug on the table filled with coffee. A person sits at the table looking at the cup. At the current moment, it is to be said that the mug (with the coffee) and the person are independent of each other. The person picks up the cup with the intent of drinking it. At this point, the person has full control over the cup given its physical properties. Is the cup still independent from the person? The person then goes onto drink the coffee. The coffee is in the body of the person, but is it actually part of the person? This example is used to make people aware that the distinction between organism (the person) and environment (the mug and coffee) is not as clear as one may think.
To better illustrate the theory, pertaining to the scientific method let us look at a simple time reaction experiment. A subject comes into a lab and is given the instruction to press a button when he/she sees a certain color light up on the screen in front of them.Scientists would like to say the organism is reacting purely based upon which light comes up and how quickly the person reacts to that stimulus alone. However, according to the organism-environment theory, the person is not simply reacting to the color of light. He/she is part of a cycle of causal events in which the light is the ending event. For example, the person had to come to the experiment, follow instructions......continued in print edition.
