Re: death of the mind.

From: Alex Green (dralexgreen_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 08/30/04 

Date: 30 Aug 2004 10:24:35 -0700

patty <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net> wrote in message news:<L3tYc.112623$TI1.103642@attbi_s52>...
> Alex Green wrote:
>
> > Wolf Kirchmeir <wwolfkir@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<500Yc.26145$_H5.1005269@news20.bellglobal.com>...
> >
[snip]
> > "In short the behavorists tried to explain learning without referring
> > to mental processes"
> > http://www.uib.no/People/sinia/CSCL/web_struktur-832.htm
> >
>
> A better summary article delineating the various factions and evolution
> of behaviorism is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism>.
>
> > Behaviourism, in collecting data about the entire output of a set of
> > actions, is attempting to recreate the internal state that gave rise
> > to these actions (strangely without the admission that this is what it
> > is doing).
> >
>
> But there are no "internal states" in a behaviorist data. You are
> inventing for them variables which they explicitly claim are irrelevant
> to their control and prediction of behavior.

The claim that the input and output data sets can be used to predict
behaviour is not absurd. The output set contains both the simple
action of the animal AND the consequence of this action. When a paw
moves to kill a mouse all that exists in the signal that is the moving
paw is a direction, a momentum etc. The killing of the mouse is
present as an intention in the cat. When the behaviourist sees the paw
strike the mouse he is able to gain an insight into the cat's
intention even though the signal that is the moving paw does not
reveal this. So the behaviourist is able to form a crude model of the
inner state of the cat by observing the effects of its actions (its
overall behaviour).

The idealistic behaviourist who denies internal states in the cat
fails to realise that he is observing the cat's intention in the form
of the added data provided by the presence of the dying mouse.

>
> > When a cat strikes a mouse it transmits data about its internal state
> > through the movement of the paw. A moving paw in itself could mean
> > anything but the fact that the paw hit the mouse shows that the cat
> > had an intention. The behaviourist that records 'paw hit mouse and
> > killed it' is peering into the cat's intention, the behaviourist that
> > simply records 'paw moved' is being true to idealistic behaviourism
> > because the death of the mouse was just an accident if cats do not
> > have mental states.
> >
>
> A cat will paw just as ferociously at a bouncing ball. Did she have the
> intention to kill the ball?

She has the intention of moving the ball, not killing it. Cats have
complex internal states and the behaviourist can log these by
observing behaviours.

> A cat will paw at a lever and then go get
> her reward in a dish across the room. Did she have the intention to
> kill the lever? How do you scientifically distinguish your attributions
> of states (that interpretative process going on *in your head*), from
> the alleged intentional states *in the cat* ?
>

The internal states are complex. That is what varied behaviour is
demonstrating. Suppose the ball, lever and mouse are positioned so
that the paw movements are the same in all three. The data provided by
the cat is the paw movement. It is the same in all three cases. The
behaviour however is varied because it involves 3 different activities
with three different rewards for the cat. If the paw does not encode
the entire behaviour then where was it encoded? Clearly it was encoded
in the cat. The cat modelled the world around it and chose particular
directions in which to strike with the paw for particular effects.

The behaviourist can describe the three different scenarios and in
doing so is giving us three different internal models for feline
behaviour. The only problem is that 'idealistic' behaviourists do not
realise that this is what they are doing. (But are there really any
'idealistic' behaviourists?).

Best Wishes

Alex Green

Relevant Pages

  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... > paw is a direction, ... > present as an intention in the cat. ... they are calculating these internal states, ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... of behaviorism is. ... > through the movement of the paw. ... > had an intention. ... A cat will paw just as ferociously at a bouncing ball. ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... As the behaviourist will tell you, the cat moves ... >> paw into space with no intention. ... to operate an internal control system. ... > its environment constitute a system. ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: QI off to the Big Quilt Frame (Ode to Soccerball)
    ... Such a loud sound from such a tiny body! ... She was a Human's Cat, not part of a feline community. ... slept under the covers with us, ... covers, or inside, she just HAD to have a paw touching your skin ...
    (rec.crafts.textiles.quilting)
  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... > the action on the environment. ... What about the effect of the cat's action on cat? ... > the paw because the SAME MOVEMENT occurs in all 3 cases. ... internal state to you, and call that "your intention"; ...
    (sci.cognitive)