Re: death of the mind.

From: David Longley (David_at_longley.demon.co.uk)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 19:09:19 +0100

In article <8d8494cf.0407271924.6a966523@posting.google.com>, dan
michaels <feedbackdroids@yahoo.com> writes
>lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net (Lester Zick) wrote in message
>news:<41069c1e.46852009@netnews.att.net>...
>
>
>> >It isn't that they've studied it and don't *agree*, rather, it
>> >invariably seems to me to be the case that they just don't get the
>> >important facts right. Conversely, those who *do* seem to be able to
>> >give an accurate account of what is the case (whether they *agree* or
>> >not) don't seem to say the things about "the mind" etc that the former
>> >group do.
>>
>> If behaviorists deny the mind and mental effects, what other accurate
>> accounts of what is the case are relevant? You may not appreciate
>> having the significance of behaviorist science interpreted without
>> your approval. But apart from denying the mind, you have nothing to
>> contribute to the subject of imaginative ideas regarding the mind. The
>> science part of what behaviorists contribute to behavioral science
>> doesn't show anything except that you can and do train animal behavior
>> effectively whether or not there are minds and mental effects.
>>
>> Regards - Lester
>
>
>Interestingly, Adler keeps weighing in on this discussion. He taught
>psych back in the 1920s, so he was a little familiar with the current
>events of the time .... [pg 49 of a book I lost the title of] ...
>
>"... I can still wholeheartedly subscribe to the opening section,
>which expressed my adverse judgements about experiemntal psychology
>and especially about JB Watson's brand of behaviorism, a doctrine
>which has become a little more sophisticated, but not much sounder, in
>the hands of BF Skinner. Watson, it should be said to his credit, did
>not pretend to be a philosopher as well as a scientist, and certainly
>did not issue moral and political edicts on the basis of his
>laboratory findings ..."

You're 'fundamentally mistaken' like Adler.

You appear to choose what to believe like kids choose ice-cream
flavours! This tends to make what you have to say about these matters
rather trivial and uninteresting, as it would seem that all you're doing
is reporting your idiosyncratic preferences. This makes you appear as
clue-less as Zick. Were this not the case, you would, by now, surely
have learned *something* from the corrective feedback which Glen, I and
others (as more experienced members of the scientific verbal community)
have provided on the nature of behaviourism and behaviour analysis.

One might (perhaps naively) have thought that such feedback (with
explicit pointers to independent sources which would allow you to
confirm that you *are* 'mistaken'), would have given any "rational"
person some pause for thought, and even to say thank you! Why, after
all, would anyone bother to tell you that you had got so much so wrong?
You appear ('mistakenly') to think all of the above are trying to induce
you to select *their* preferences ('flavours') rather than your own.

The fact of the matter is that despite having been given helpful,
corrective feedback, you, Zick etc, still don't look carefully at your
verbal behaviour, check it against the facts of the matter elsewhere
(the evidence) and modify it as a consequence. That, simply put, is
pretty much all there is to why I keep saying that you are clue-less,
and why you remain clue-less.

Change your behaviour and the descriptions of you change too. 

-- 
David Longley

Relevant Pages

  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... > referring to mind, especially in philosophical discussions, let alone ... >>mind and mental effects as matters of science. ... > We don't care about poor philosophy that says "this cannot be ... cognitive scientists? ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: R&Ms "memory illusions" and functional verbal response classes
    ... >>ain't proved there ain't no mind and mental effects jus likin the good ... >>possible explanation for the success of animal training experiments. ... >This is true of your posts and of Navega's exchanges with Sizemore ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... >> say is that there are no mind and mental effects. ... >started this subject line) i did so as a dramatization of the politics, ... whatsoever in what behaviorists imagine they explain about behavior. ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... >> What behaviorists actually do is deny the mind and mental effects. ... it's pretty hard to paraphrase them inaccurately on the subject ...
    (sci.cognitive)
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