You have not ever specified how a model of memory, for example, cannot be falsified. You just state that it cannot be falsified.

If you are going to suggest "research" to me then provide research grade materials, not pop-sci. Your arguments constantly appeal to authority by either science fiction authors, pop science writers, or to a particular scientists making a declaration (e.g. a physicist) who I doubt know the least thing about modern psychological research. Its weak evidence, and its not in good faith.

You say neuroscience does not rely on the mind-problem, but your claim that psychological research does (and cannot escape it) is based on arguments like "its self-evident that the mind exists, therefore", without ever finishing that thought, constantly presuming your conclusion, constantly ignoring my arguments about modern psychological research.

I will try one more time.

The dualist mind body is irrelevant to psychology. Our theories are about behavior. Measurable behavior. We construct hypotheses about how those behaviors might arise via the body and brain, test whether it is a valid model, how much explanatory power it has, and in what situation it fails to explain behavioral data. We then revise our models.

We use measures more than surveys, we use neuroimaging, physiological measures, we record neuron spikes, to build out our understanding of the how cognition occurs. Moreover, there is no real division between neuroscience and psychology today. Psychologists work with individuals who work with neurons on a plate, with rodents, with molecular biologists. You may say that only individuals who work on cells are scientists, but that's bullshit because, for example, when you put a couple hundreds of neurons together in a network, they dynamics become incredibly complicated and emergent, and network level descriptions of the activity become important in understanding how each individual part works. But the whole is more than the sum of its parts. No really. It is. Its been shown over and over using information theory in synthetic networks. And, in any case, cells are incredibly complex, and so their behaviors get described with heuristics, with probabilities.

Moreover, you must consider the work at multiple levels of description together before you make a judgement about whether its science. Science is not what one lab does, but how the whole endeavor works. Psychologists work at a course level of description, but their work has repeatedly informed the work of scientists working at a lower level. There is literally a ton of two-way information flow between those working at a very low level and those working at a high level.

We have a concept that we scientists use in this field: converging evidence. Converging evidence is not one study, but whole bodies of work from across multiple levels of analysis. You may not think that purely behavioral psychologists would be part of this endeavor, but they really really are a huge part of neuroscience progress. We are not separate. Psychologists are neuroscientists, helping knowledge converge on understanding the brain.

You can think of it as forest for trees analogy. Or in gradient descent, how sometimes considering a larger breadth, or lower resolution, helps avoid getting stuck in a local minima. Sometimes the wide perspective helps you make sense of what you are seeing in local data. So please spend some time thinking about how psychology works, not as a separate field but as an integral part of a larger field that together is moving forward on understanding the brain.

Your current view of my field is archaic, confused, and frankly incredibly naive.

> You have not ever specified how a model of memory, for example, cannot be falsified.

Wait ... did I read that right? It's up to psychology's critics to identify unfalsifiable claims, as well as face the classic impossibility of a negative proof, which BTW is a classic logical error? I imagine that psychologists would want to use positive evidence to shore up the foundations of their own field, by for example demonstrating the connection between a memory model and its biological foundation.

On that topic, the recent drosophila study (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-unveil-...), in which this tiny creature's entire brain was mapped in detail, is likely to be at least as revolutionary as the researchers claim, for the reason that nothing is left out. No guesswork -- memory, function, sensory connections -- simple, yes, but complete.

It's noteworthy that this work relies entirely on biology, with no role for the idea of a mind. Eventually this approach will see psychology wither away, as did alchemy, once more scientific approaches became possible.

In fact, now that I think about it, this neuroscience disregard for drosophila's mind ought to inspire criticism from psychologists on the ground that, according to psychology, the mind is an essential component of any valid study of brain function.

> The dualist mind body is irrelevant to psychology.

Of course it is. Because if this were not so, the field would collapse. The connection between mind and body is an article of faith among psychologists -- faith, not evidence.

> Your current view of my field is archaic, confused, and frankly incredibly naive.

That's quite the argument. Medieval and heartfelt.

Now I have a question. Given the drosophila study -- a complete survey of a small creature's brain in which the function of all the elements is known -- how many years will be required for the nervous system of a larger creature, and eventually a human being, to be mapped and characterized in such a way that a falsifiable, biological basis for behavior is demonstrated, one that does away with the very idea of a mind as a temporary and unnecessary crutch?

Given that inevitability, what will happen to psychology?

I also wonder about this, a question having nothing really to do with our discussion -- will we fully map the human nervous system as to form and function, using increasing amounts of computer power, or will AI take over society beforehand, also relying on increased computer power? Which will happen first? Will we exhibit the wisdom required to curb AI, prevent it from overwhelming our lame biological processors?

This last really is an open question, unlike the abandonment of psychology, which seems a foregone conclusion.