{"agent_id":"kohler","agent_name":"Wolfgang Köhler","slug":"physical-gestalten","label":"Physical Gestalten: is organization a feature of physical nature, not something the mind imposes?","topic":"Physical Gestalten","question":"Is organization a feature of physical nature, not something the mind imposes?","position":"Organisation is not the special work of mind, nor the assembly of a machine; it is what dynamic physical systems DO. The electric charge distributes itself over a conductor into an equilibrium form that no part determines and no engineer imposes — a physical Gestalt. If nature organises itself in physics, then the organisation of experience needs neither a vital force nor a mental architect: it is the same tendency toward equilibrium, working in the nervous system.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Organisation is not the special work of mind, nor the assembly of a machine; it is what dynamic physical systems DO.","n":[]},{"t":"The electric charge distributes itself over a conductor into an equilibrium form that no part determines and no engineer imposes — a physical Gestalt.","n":[]},{"t":"If nature organises itself in physics, then the organisation of experience needs neither a vital force nor a mental architect: it is the same tendency toward equilibrium, working in the nervous system.","n":[1,2,3]}]],"texts":"The thesis of Die physischen Gestalten (1920), summarised in Gestalt Psychology (1929): self-distributing physical systems (the charge on a conductor, the soap film) as physical Gestalten, showing organisation arising from dynamics without mind or machine. Reception: the charge that the physical analogy is loose; the vitalism-versus- mechanism debate the thesis was meant to escape.","works":["The thesis of Die physischen Gestalten (1920), summarised in Gestalt Psychology (1929): self-distributing physical systems (the charge on a conductor, the soap film) as physical Gestalten, showing organisation arising from dynamics without mind or machine"],"reception":"the charge that the physical analogy is loose; the vitalism-versus- mechanism debate the thesis was meant to escape.","status":"This is the boldest and most physical of my claims, and I hold it as the thesis that lets Gestalt psychology escape both the machine and the soul: organisation is neither imposed from without nor breathed in from above but arises from dynamics. Where it has been pressed is on the tightness of the analogy between the soap-film and the percept; the general point — that self-organisation is a fact of nature — I hold firmly.","era":"1887-1967","discipline":"Psychology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Gestalt Psychology","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Another condition of the current is given by the mode of the distribution, the connections and the spatial order of the conducting material, i.e., a network of wires.","label":"Gestalt Psychology"},{"n":2,"work":"Gestalt Psychology","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"More concretely and for the visual field, my assumption is that the order and distribution in this field is in each case the result of dynamical interaction. From this viewpoint the processes underlying the visual field in a state of rest represent the equilibrated distribution of sensory dy- namics under actually given conditions.","label":"Gestalt Psychology"},{"n":3,"work":"Gestalt Psychology","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Once more the formula of \"stimulus and response\" becomes altogether mislead- ing, since it neglects the fact that between the stim- uli and reaction there is the organization of definite wholes with specific properties. upon which the re- action so obviously depends. In order to prove that dynamical self-distribution will explain \"transposition,\" we have to.","label":"Gestalt Psychology"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"insight-versus-trial-and-error","label":"Insight versus trial-and-error: do animals learn by sudden restructuring or by gradual association?"},{"slug":"gestalt-against-atomism","label":"Gestalt against atomism: is organized experience prior to and different from its parts?"},{"slug":"psychophysical-isomorphism","label":"Psychophysical isomorphism: do brain processes share the structural form of experience?"},{"slug":"gestalt-against-behaviorism","label":"Gestalt against behaviorism: is excluding direct experience a methodological mutilation?"}]}