Re: The Hard Problem for Behaviorists

From: David Longley (David_at_longley.demon.co.uk)
Date: 10/08/04 

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 13:53:49 +0100

In article <41668801$0$44072$5fc3050@dreader2.news.tiscali.nl>, JPL
Verhey <matterDELminds@hotmail.com> writes
>
>"David Longley" <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:RidvXIKVNoZBFwWG@longley.demon.co.uk...
>> In article <41667c99$0$44068$5fc3050@dreader2.news.tiscali.nl>, JPL
>> Verhey <matterDELminds@hotmail.com> writes
>>>This is copy-pasted form a reply to Glen Sizemore in another thread,
>>>but
>>>I thought it worthwile to post it in a new message:
>>>
>>>Chalmers formulated his Hard Problem as follows:
>>>
>>> " Why doesn't all this information-processing go
>>> on "in the dark", free of any inner feel? Why
>>> is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge
>>> on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by
>>> a visual system, this discrimination and categorization
>>> is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know
>>> that conscious experience does arise when these functions
>>> are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the
>>> central mystery."
>>>
>>>This question can be reformulated for behaviorists that don't like
>>>computationalist and/or neurophysiological terminology:
>>>
>>> " Why doesn't all this behavior go on "in the dark", free
>>> of any inner feel? Why is it that when contingencies
>>> involving features of the world are arranged, there is a
>>> senstion of vivid red, for instance? We know that conscious
>>> experience does arise when these contingencies are
>>> arranged,
>>> but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery."
>>>
>>> * * * * *
>>>
>>>It shows not only that Behaviorism can have a Hard Problem, but also
>>>that the Hard Problem itself has a problem - it can be reformulated by
>>>replacing terms with any other term - as here for instance
>>>"information-processing" with "behavior".
>>>
>>>
>
>[deleted - mere statements without explanations by Coward, Avoidant and
>His Reference David Longley, the loathed one]
>
>

Perhaps this might help you to ponder on that loathing.

     'Cognitive psychology is frequently presented as a
     revolt against behaviorism, but it is not a revolt, it
     is a retreat. Everyday English is full of terms
     derived from ancient explanations of human behavior.
     We spoke that language when we were young. When we
     went out into the world and became psychologists, we
     learned to speak in other ways but made mistakes for
     which we were punished. But now we can relax.
     Cognitive psychology is Old Home Week. We are back
     among friends speaking the language we spoke when we
     were growing up. We can talk about love and will and
     ideas and memories and feelings and states of mind, and
     no one will ask us what we mean; no one will raise an
     eyebrow.'

     ('The Shame of American Education')
     B.F. Skinner 1987

     'Regardless of how much we stand to gain from supposing
     that human behavior is the proper subject matter of a
     science, no one who is a product of Western civilization
     can do so without a struggle. We simply do not want such
     a science.'

     B F Skinner (1953)
     Can Science Help? - The Threat to Freedom
     (in Science and Human Behavior p.7)

What better explanation can there be other than the fact that you,
Chalmers etc simply ignore or distort the science that addresses these
matters (much as Dennett and Chomsky before him have) simply because
you'd rather believe that you can "solve" this problem analytically (or
spin it out into an interminable series of controversies which you can
argue about to keep yourselves busy if not employed? That sort of talk
occurs outside science itself because science is anathema to it!

You don't seem to be able to accept/understand what you are being told.
You actively work not to it seems to me. You ignore it and the above
action is an illustration because I know how people who *do* address it
talk to one another. They don't necessarily always agree, but they
simply disagree over what gives better prediction and control - which is
constructive disagreement and how I think good science works!. Each time
you have been urged to follow up the references which might, with a
little (possibly guided, hence the references) effort on your part,
actually help you to see *how* it repudiates old metaphysical approaches
to these matters, you just throw a fit and deny it's possible out of
hand. Now to me, that's a tell-tale sign, along with calling me the
devil or whatever. You both actively and passively don't find out what
might falsify your current ways of dealing with these matters. You
*avoid* the very work which addresses these matters in a scientific
manner.

That's how this has always worked, and that's what makes behaviour
analysis *deceptively* simple and therefore *so* difficult in my view. 

-- 
David Longley

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