Re: death of the mind.

From: Alex Green (dralexgreen_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 08/31/04 

Date: 31 Aug 2004 02:55:52 -0700

patty <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net> wrote in message news:<nAKYc.208750$8_6.139913@attbi_s04>...
> Alex Green wrote:
> > patty <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net> wrote in message news:<L3tYc.112623$TI1.103642@attbi_s52>...
> >
> >>Alex Green wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Wolf Kirchmeir <wwolfkir@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<500Yc.26145$_H5.1005269@news20.bellglobal.com>...
> >>>
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >>
> >>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.
> >
>
> I think a cat's reaching behavior is a bad example. A cat will reach
> its paw at anything that moves, at least initially. Beyond that i
> expect that it's behavior can be pretty much predicted and controlled by
> setting the consequences of its actions. No internal states are
> necessary for this and a behaviorist will not use them in his
> predictions. IOW science cannot prove these alleged intentions in lower
> animals.

The reason I used this example was that there are three sets of
information present: the input information, the action, the effect of
the action on the environment. The effect of the action is obviously
not encoded in the input, it is also not encoded in the movement of
the paw because the SAME MOVEMENT occurs in all 3 cases. The
behaviourist knows the effect of the action by observing it but where
is the effect in the system input->cat->paw movement? It must be
modelled in the cat. As the behaviourist will tell you, the cat moves
its paw to kill the mouse, or move the ball, it does not just lob the
paw into space with no intention.

In the system there is a state of the input then an information flow,
this creates a state in the cat then an information flow in the form
of a paw movement which cause a state in the environment. The state in
the environment contains more information than was encoded in the paw
movement (which was the same in all 3 cases). Therefore the cat must
have modelled the extra information (mouse dead or ball rolls). This
suggests there is a complex state in the cat. It is well known that
mammals contain complex neural states that are compared with the
environment and used to initiate actions so it is faintly surprising
that idealistic behaviourism should exist.

>
> Another perspective on this is that what you call a "intention" a
> behaviorist will call a "pattern of behavior". Actually they would
> probably use different words, but to me it sounds like they say that the
> pattern of behavior preceding an alleged intentional action *is* what
> you call "the intention".

The "pattern of behaviour" is a confusion about the information flow.
The effect of the paw is not encoded in the movement of the paw in our
examples because the same movement has three different outcomes, it is
modelled in the cat.

Best Wishes

Alex Green

Relevant Pages

  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... paw is a direction, a momentum etc. ... present as an intention in the cat. ... The idealistic behaviourist who denies internal states in the cat ...
    (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)
  • Re: death of the mind.
    ... > the paw because the SAME MOVEMENT occurs in all 3 cases. ... As the behaviourist will tell you, the cat moves ... its environment constitute a system. ... behaviours may be caused by the same or similar state changes. ...
    (sci.cognitive)