Re: death of the mind.
From: Glen M. Sizemore (gmsizemore2_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/16/04
- Next message: David Longley: "Re: death of the mind."
- Previous message: Wolf Kirchmeir: "Re: The Intellectual Origin of Positivism"
- In reply to: Allan C Cybulskie: "Re: death of the mind."
- Next in thread: Allan C Cybulskie: "Re: death of the mind."
- Reply: Allan C Cybulskie: "Re: death of the mind."
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: 16 Jul 2004 09:18:10 -0700
AC: For those people who might be interested in reading on
behaviourism, I don't recommend reading what David and Glenn suggest,
because Quine and Skinner are probably way too confusing for
beginners, and David's "Fragments" doesn't really say much at all I
did read a good book recently by John Staddon called "The New
Behaviorism: Mind, Mechanism and Society" that does a pretty good job
describing Skinner and other behaviourists,[…]
GS: Really? A good job? But how would you know Allen? Within the next
year there will be published, in Behavioural Processes, some reviews
of Staddon's book, the ones I know about are all authored by graduate
students)
[…]and also points out some of the flaws and issues and motivations of
Skinner.
GS: Does he also point out some of John Staddon's motivations? And, of
course, there is again the question of how YOU know that the
criticisms are "accurate," or that Skinner's position has been
accurately represented. You are simply suggesting the route to
"understanding" behaviorism that Longley and I have criticized; namely
that of reading what Skinner's critics say and not what Skinner said.
AC: The only objection I found in it is probably at the heart of the
debate here between the behaviourists and the non-behaviourists.
Staddon is puzzled that people find worrysome discoveries that say
that our conscious recognition of a decision actually FOLLOWS the
activation of the neurons that will carry out the action. To him,
this doesn't seem confusing or worrysome at all. So why do we find
the discovery worrysome? Well, it's because that by all common sense,
our mental deliberations can and in fact do result in actions being
taken. If it is the case that the action starts before the decision
is "made", then our conscious decisions don't result in actions. And
that, ultimately, eliminates us as, in any way, intelligent beings,
since intelligent deliberation plays no role in our actions.
GS: I don't know if Staddon phrased the issue this way (no, I don't
intend to read it - but I have talked to some of the graduate students
that wrote reviews)but it is peppered with problems. Say I decide to
go to Paris instead of London in six weeks - in what sense is the
decision made after the "neurons that will carry out the action?" What
this illustrates is that the language used above is flawed because it
USES colloquial terms instead of casting the issues in technical terms
so that the relation of "decision" to other actions can be explicated.
Colloquially, "deciding" may be invoked anytime a person or animal
does anything "voluntary" (i.e., operant). In this sort of case, the
"decision" as a cause may simply be replaced by the contingencies as a
cause. Physiology can then, someday, tell us how contingencies cause
behavior - how it mediates behavioral function - but there will be
nothing that occurs that we will point to and say "See, the decision
is made right here." Decision will no longer be a concern because it
will be recognized as the animism that it is.
There is another meaning of "decide," however, that should also be
examined. Sometimes it is used when people are actively doing
something that, then, results in other behavior. For example, I might
obtain brochures from the tourist industries in Paris and London.
These we read and compare, maybe in a very painstaking manner.
Eventually, our actions result in us saying to ourselves or others "I
am going to Paris." All of this could be called "making a decision,"
and, even though it is behavior ultimately traceable to contingencies,
it is far more complicated than in the former circumstance where it is
not evident that anything resembling this is occurring at all.
AC: However, there is a way around this problem, which is to say that
the deliberation does, in fact, determine the action, but that the
action and the conscious recognition of the action both are the result
of a brain event or an event) that is the outcome of the deliberation
itself. In short, the deliberation -- when it reaches its conclusion
-- kicks off a brain event that both instigates the action, and the
conscious recognition of it. And it is obvious that these don't have
to occur together, since we can make "delayed decisions", where we
decide what to do at a future time, and then do it.
GS: There is a simpler, and less arcane description. First, sometimes
there is nothing going on that could be called "deliberation." Here
deliberation is a metaphor based upon observation of circumstances
where there is some behavior that can be pointed to - such as
obtaining and reading the brochures - that is "deliberation." This
behavior has discriminative (and other) functions that eventually
strengthen (make more probable) other responses, and such behavior is
reinforced (negatively) precisely because it does so. Such behavior
is, of course, mediated by physiology, but when it is understood we
will recognize that describing actual physiology as "deliberation" is
silly.
"Allan C Cybulskie" <allan.c.cybulskie@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:<ZLEJc.26181$TB3.1010975@news20.bellglobal.com>...
- Next message: David Longley: "Re: death of the mind."
- Previous message: Wolf Kirchmeir: "Re: The Intellectual Origin of Positivism"
- In reply to: Allan C Cybulskie: "Re: death of the mind."
- Next in thread: Allan C Cybulskie: "Re: death of the mind."
- Reply: Allan C Cybulskie: "Re: death of the mind."
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
