Re: A preliminary look at Spoonerisms

Glen M. Sizemore wrote:
>> There is too much said in this area to know everything.
>> I dropped by to learn and express an interest in AI, not
>> necessarily to discuss Skinner.
>
> You are the one who said he wanted to "cross swords" with me in
> response to Casey's increasingly obsessive comments about me. Yet,
> like most around here, you seem to know absolutely nothing about
> the position you are "criticizing."

Yeah, well maybe 'crossing swords' was a tiny bit inflammatory.
I am here to learn and not simply to exchange these tokens of
knowledge. Its not enough to exchange definitions, i am after
an understanding beyond these definitions. And yes, if i am not
as coached on your specialist subject as I might be, then its
in the nature of debate that one sides tries to leave the other
side better informed. That said, my knowledge of your subject
should not prevent me raising an interesting question or provoking
a thoughtful response from you.


> That said, the fashion
>> of skinnerism is everywhere. There is no way to avoid him.
>> What he offered is too seductive, too tempting to ignore.
>
>
> What alternate universe do you inhabit?

Ah ah the question....

This alternative universe is one of application and practice,
a universe where the inexperience act without thought for how
they are manipulated. Its a universe where the potential in the
technology is exploited to the ninth degree. In this alternative
universe, the control implicit in that knowledge which surround
skinner, defies notice, defies language, defies accountable.

Your universe has rules, manners, agreement, this universe has
each man making his way by his own rules, with those at its
sharpest point, dull from pain. Vague, i know. Too vague for
the empiricist?

> The question is do we appreciate the implications of what
>> he preached? Is there any thoughts on its limitations.
>
>
> Since your premise - that Skinnerian thought is everywhere - is
> absolute rubbish, it is not clear that the second part needs an
> answer. But - the implications have been widely discussed by
> Skinner as well as his critics. His critics have certainly said
> a great deal about the alleged limitations.

Perhaps i do this science a disservice when I place my forebodings
at Skinner's door. Its just that he is the most daring in this area,
one of the few to state publicly what is within the realm of that
science. It would be just like us to confuse the devil for the saint,
the rebel with the prophet. Which was Skinner? This is necessarily
lost on the next age. As for saying that behaviorism is everywhere,
I stand by that statement. What is the culture, if its not without
function, if its not guided by selection. This is before any notion
of 'entertainment'. Our language of 'goals and objectives', is one
borrowed from the behaviorists. The narrow idea of 'type' we inhabit
reflects the ways culture's function is served by 'type'. It seems
to me this science, if it choose, could contradict this narrow set,
instead it is bound to lend support to this regimentation of the
person.


>> Desired behavior, good and mad, models for behavior, innate
>> and cultural, rules, predictions, assumptions, projections,
>> constraints, goals and control. Eventually we'll all speak
>> the language without knowing it. Behave in whatever way the
>> culture demands, as we are expected to behave for fear of
>> being confused for some other type of behavior. Eventually
>> it will become a done deal, as we all communicate by the
>> same thought, until that time we have a choice.
>
>
>
> As Wolf has said, what you say is so vague and confused any sort
> of pointed response is impossible. Somewhat discernible in the
> gibberish above is, it seems, the notion that somehow behaviorism
> has pushed for some sort of totalitarian regime. Certainly
> behaviorism talks about the control of behavior, but most cultures
> (including modern democracies) have developed their coercive
> techniques without behaviorism. What has Skinner said about
> these issues?

I have deliberately tempered my thoughts so as to communicate only
with those sharing a similar understanding. If you can't see the
sense in what I've said, then so be it. You clearly don't share
the same experience, and that is perhaps is as it should be. All
i would ask is that you consider the application of your 'science',
even when that application is not obvious to you. This investment
of study is not without its primary impetus. I.E greater control.

>> As far as A.I is concerned i am still undecided as to what
>> Behaviorist offers, maybe you'd care to humor me on this
>> point.
>
>
>
> My position, in a nutshell, is this: Most of what we see as
> "intelligent" is the product of exposure to the environment.
> The mechanisms that make this possible are inherited, and the
> resulting behavior is somehow mediated by the nervous system.
> We cannot explain behavior physiologically until we can state
> with some precision what it is that we are trying to explain,
> and that is the domain of behavior analysis. Once we know how
> physiology mediates behavior, we might get a clue how to make
> a machine that does something similar.

Thanks for finally offering this view. There's nothing here
that i would disagree with, as its clearly general enough.

I would go further and say that the nervous system is a product
of time and the environment, and that mere study can't account
for the complexity which is enshrined in that nervous system.

To account for the input and output, action and reaction, surely
doesn't mean an understanding of the function which binds them.
it merely says given what we share, stimuli X will in most cases
provoke the response Y. This might be enough to claim control,
but is it understanding? Also i wonder if input and output where
there are relatively few, are sufficient or complex enough to
even suggest what is happening in the void between those two
poles.

On the A.I question. So much else happens before output. Also
the same input as any number of ways to manifest itself. This
study might help us define what we seek, it might allow us to
recognize a sought goal [should we stumble upon it], but it
can't explain. Perhaps definitions founded on classification
of observation is all we need to claim understanding, perhaps
not.

Going back to your nutshell, it seems to me to talk of the
environment is to talk of the immediate, yet intelligence
surely occurs before the immediate stimulation by the
environment.

What would you say about the part played by experience?
How much of that would you consider to be of value in this
analysis of behavior? Indeed just how much effort is made
to ascertain knowledge of this very individual nature? How
much can observation say for memory? It seems to me there
is an assumption of similarity. The same basic organic
structures, similar upbring, attachment to culture etc..

>
>> That said, the science isn't one thing, there are competing
>> philosophies to that 'science', some choosing to connect the
>> observable to physiologically, to biology and by implication
>> to a keener sense of circumstance, others though say the
>> science is just about the observable. Defined thus, it is
>> accepted as little better than a statistical science.
>> Probabilities used to define behavior, and thus the person.
>
>
>
> This is, at least, somewhat understandable. Behavior analysis
> is not reductionistic, and it has not, historically, relied too
> much on the hypothetico-deductive model of science. I have no
> problems with "reducing behavior to physiology" but we must
> first know what facts we are trying to reduce. Further, the
> same claims can be leveled against physiology - after all the
> world is just atoms, right? So "physiology" is merely a
> statistical science as well. The last sentence strikes me as
> somewhat stupid - behavior IS what a person is.


On an individual level it might be fair to say behavior is what
the person is. However when the study of behavior relies on
reams of data gathered from countless numbers of people, behavior
becomes a means of classification. It will tend to reduce the
nuances of individual behavior in order to establish pattern.
On this level behavior becomes an expectation of the person.
Says the science 'these types/responses are recognized'. Those
types become blurred with function, and then its a short step
for culture or society to turn this functional type, however one
defines function, into a projection, a sought type. This is going
beyond the cozy world of study, the pursuit of knowledge for its
own sake. And yet for all our study in this area, it is nothing
new, it might be more/better absorbed into the fabric of society,
so much so, that it now manifest in other areas as here with A.I,
its purpose lost or submerged in its apparent banality. I would
say its the new think, hinting at a new kind of growing dependency.
Not unlike the way Darwinism has been re-applied beyond its
immediate sphere.

The psychology of psychology.... who studies here?

As a clue consider this not so distant past...

http://www.ninehundred.net/control/

>
>> What scares me is the implications of a 'science' which
>> purposefully detaches itself from the observed, a science
>> which remains on the outside, the judgments which follow
>> without question. and worst, is accepted by the bureaucrat
>> on that basis. I am thinking of all those paper pushers,
>> book worm with knowledge of, but no real understanding,
>> least ways, not enough to question what they practice.
>
>
>
> You definitely possess an endless supply of gibberish and cliché.
> Behaviorism did not invent bureaucracy, nor any other aspect of
> culture. My advice to you is to stop trying to sound smart.

You mistake my meaning. The point i was making is that behaviorism
would become so much bureaucracy. It would be practiced by those
who don't study, those asked to tick this or that box on behavior.

It seems to me this science is also about the ethos of judgment,
about the technology of behavior. It's Science lending authority
to judgment. It is how we now accept. Its how we fool ourselves.
In another age this 'will to control' would have another face.

>> You'll pardon my rhetoric, i am not questioning what the
>> science says it observes, i am not questioning the categories
>> it creates for those observations, what i question are those
>> who would use this science to limit expression to what this
>> science claims to predict.
>
>
> I would worry more about the oligarchy in which we live in and
> the eventual change back to out-and-out fascism. Behaviorism has
> nothing to do with this, and Skinner sought repeatedly to
> counter this sort of thing.
>

I am arguing for the place of the person in the machine, for
a consideration of the systems and methodologies which would
turn the person into mere machine. It seems to me the person
as machine, as servant, slave and product is also what
possessed that other thing. That memory and dare i say it,
the [dis]advantages discovered in that other thing, remains
with us, too tempting for any machine to ignore.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A preliminary look at Spoonerisms
    ... This alternative universe is one of application and practice, ... skinner, defies notice, defies language, defies accountable. ... to me this science could if it choose contradict this narrow set, ... with those sharing a similar understanding. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: A preliminary look at Spoonerisms
    ... circumstance strengthens some core responses (let's look at ... ethos of this 'science' as his ideology. ... What did Skinner champion as ... terms of his paper "On the Generic Nature of Stimulus and Response." ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: A preliminary look at Spoonerisms
    ... ethos of this 'science' as his ideology. ... forces on the observer a kind of bureaucracy of observation. ... What did Skinner ... Stimulus and Response." ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: A preliminary look at Spoonerisms
    ... ethos of this 'science' as his ideology. ... forces on the observer a kind of bureaucracy of observation. ... What did Skinner champion as the most important dependent variable? ... Discuss this in terms of his paper "On the Generic Nature of Stimulus and Response." ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: DARPA Grand Challenge
    ... And modern science is just now beginning to unravel mechanism ... Why should I be interested in your opinion of Skinner? ... >> chemistry (not to mention biology) would be made completely obsolete by ... > boxes, just doesn't cut it. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)