Re: Challenge to the behaviourists, #1

From: Lester Zick (lesterDELzick_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 09/24/04 

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 20:58:39 GMT

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 18:09:23 -0400, "Glen M. Sizemore"
<gmsizemore2@yahoo.com> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>But the point, since you're too stupid to grasp it, is that saying we behave
>intelligently because we possess intelligence is like saying viscous liquids
>flow slowly because they possess viscosity, or that sodium pentobarbital
>puts us to sleep because it possesses a soporific virtue. Get it, idiot?

Not quite, oh, dorkus mundis. Saying viscous liquids flow slowly
because they are viscous is like saying we behave because we have
behavior and both comments are equally vacuous since both observations
are presupposed by their explanations. That is quite different from
saying liquids flow slowly because they are viscous since viscosity in
this case is only one of many possible explanations for slow flow. If
there were no other possible factors causing slow flow, this
observation would indeed also be vacuous. However, slow flow in
general is not necessarily the result of viscosity to the exclusion of
other factors not related to viscosity.

If you wish to prove that intelligent behavior is exhausitively and
necessarily the only possible result of possessing intelligence, the
same would be true. But you can't prove this because this same
intelligence also produces unintelligent behavior, witness your own.

This is the problem with materialism and materialists in general. You
conclude that any explanation for an effect includes the effect
explained by the explanation in which case the only explanation for
behavior presupposes the behavior explained by the explanation. If
there were no unintelligent behavior you might have some vacuous
point. But as it stands you can't explain the existence of ambiguous
effects based on unambigous causes. This, I trust, concludes our
little discussion of viscous liquids, intelligence, and slippery,
silvery mercury atoms.

Regards - Lester