从“物理符号系统”假说到“信息人”假说—两次信息学革命推动心理学世界观方法论的跃升

From the “Physical Symbol System” Hypothesis to the “Informational Man” Hypothesis—A New Worldview and Methodology of Psychology Inspired by the Two Informatics Revolutions

摘要: 从理论信息学的视野观察20世纪中叶以前科学主义主导的心理学领域：由于“心理物理学”和“心理生物学”的建立，在整体上心理学先后成了物理学和生物学的分支学科；它一直没有被视为关于信息的学科。“人”，被处理为物理的人和生物的人(合称为物质人假说)，而没有被看做是信息的人(信息人假说)。人文主义和后现代主义心理学家对科学主义的心理学流派提出过批评，但是未能切中要害；更由于它们没有得到信息科学的有力支持，难能发展成为心理学的主流。20世纪中叶以来，信息科学迅速崛起，先后发生两次信息学革命，为心理学提出了新的研究纲领。首先，“物理符号系统”假说动摇了物质人假说；随后，“信息人”假说的使命则是颠覆物质人假说。我们认为，在信息科学世界观和方法论日益普及的今天，信息时代呼唤着“信息心理学”的诞生；新的心理学需要信息人假说作为它的第一个基本命题。本文在探究传统心理学的局限性、讨论信息加工心理学物质符号系统假说的缺陷之后，详细地阐述了信息心理学的第一个基本命题，即信息人假说：人类个体是一个开放的、自组织的生理与心理系统，人的本质是一个信息的复制与生成系统。

Abstract: When examining psychology led by scientism before the mid-20th century from the perspective of theoretical informatics, we found that due to the establishment of “psychophysics” and “psychobi-ology”, psychology as a whole successively has been studied within either the discipline of physics or the discipline of biology but it has never been investigated within the paradigm of informatics. “Man” is treated as the physical and biological material object (collectively referred to “Material Man” hypothesis), but not seen as an information object (“Informational Man” hypothesis). Humanism and post-modernism psychologists criticized scientism schools of psychology, but their criticisms failed to hit the mark. Without the strong support of information science, it was very difficult for humanism and post-modernism psychology to become the mainstream of psychology. Since the mid-20th century, with the rise of information science, two informatics revolutions took place successively and a new guiding principle for psychology was proposed. The “Physical Symbol System” hypothesis of information processing psychology shook the basis of the “Material Man” hypothesis, and the “Informational Man” hypothesis now is intended to subvert the “Material Man” hypothesis. It is widely believed that with the popularity of scientific world outlook and the application of systematic methodology, the information age calls for the birth of “Informational Psychology”, which needs an “Informational Man” hypothesis as its basic proposition. After exploring the limitations of contemporary psychology and the weaknesses of “Physical Symbol System” hypothesis, the present paper tries to illuminate in detail the “Informational Man” hypothesis as the first proposition of informational psychology: a new conception and methodology of psychology will be put forward, inspired by the two informatics revolutions. Our human being is an open, physical and self-organizing psycho-biological system, and human nature therefore can be treated as an informational repeating and generating system.