This semester at college I am taking 4 classes, History Psychology, Seminar of the Nature and Origins of Consciousness, Cognitive Psychology, and Research Methods. It will be interesting to see in the classes especially History Psychology what information is new to me. I think that the history of psychology will change a lot because aspects of psychology can change as the world changes in the future. Some of the researchers that are new to me are Ernest Weber (1795-1878), Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887) and James Mill (1773-1836). Ernest Weber found the experimental determination of the accuracy of the two -point discrimination of the skin, which basically means two points on the skin are spanned and then an individual says that they feel two different sensations. This was done by an instrument that looks like a drawing compass which separates apart on an individual until someone reports saying they feel two different feelings. I don't think that this is a big finding for today standards but I imagine in the 1800's it was. Weber's research is considered the first example of a threshold which in psychology is known as the point at which a psychology effect begins to be created. On October 22, 1850, Gustav Theodor Fechner found the idea that a quantitative relationship between a mental sensation and material sensation existed in the relationship between mind and body. Fechner basically found that the sound of one bell along with another bell makes more of a sensation then adding one bell to another ten already ringing; which means the effects of stimulus intensities are not absolute but are relative to how much sensation already exists. So he found that the amount of sensation (the mental quality) relies on the amount of stimulation (the physical quality), and to measure the change in sensation the change in stimulation also has to be measured. Pretty complicated but I think that it is important research in some ways. James Mill believed that the mind was a machine and that it operated much like a clock because it has its own operations related to external and internal forces. This view follows the belief that the mind is a "completely passive entity" and is influenced by external stimuli. We respond to these stimuli automatically and we act without knowing it. Mill did not talk of free will in his theory and he thought that the mind should be studied by a method of analysis. Mill also believed that sensation and ideas are the only kind of mental factors that exist. I think that all of these theories consist of a lot of work and I imagine they must have been huge at the time and apparently are still pretty important. But I think there is a combination of a lot more theories that help explain psychology better and I don't completely believe humans are machines although I think sometimes our behaviors are automatic. Anyhow it will be interesting to read more about the elaborate theories that came about in the past history of psychology.