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From: jim@ism780b.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: Torek on Skinner (determinism &
Message-ID: <58@ism780b.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Oct-84 00:34:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780b.58
Posted: Thu Oct 18 00:34:14 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Oct-84 01:49:25 EDT
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Nf-From: ism780b!jim    Oct 10 00:17:00 1984

>It's a typical reductionist
>fallacy:  show that you can explain B in terms of A, and then pretend that
>B is somehow less real or less important than A.  It ain't so.  Explaining
>human behavior does not explain it away.

I think this is the crux.  Reductionists don't seem to realize that
discussions about human bahavior and discussions about chemicals
are discussions about *different things*, and the fact that one is composed
of the other does not mean they are discussions about *the same thing*.
One can discuss human behavior; one can discuss chemicals; one can discuss
the implications of our knowledge about chemicals on our knowledge about
human behavior, *and vice versa*, but it is a mistake to think that once
we know all about chemicals we know all about human behavior, just as it
is a mistake to think that once you know all about machine instruction sets
you know all about optimizing programs.
We talk about human behavior as opposed to chemicals because
human behavior is an extremely complex and non-obvious manifestation of
chemical reactions for us limited humans, and *because human behavior is
interesting in its own right*.  No matter how much we understand about
molecular behavior, we will still talk about fluid mechanics as a separate
subject.  Just because we can formulate Peano axioms doesn't mean that
the algebraic topologists can all go home.  Explaining the components
does not explain the whole, no matter how completely implicit the whole is
in the components.  But as a reductionist, you won't see that the nature
of human discourse is independent of the mechanistic, hierarchic nature
of the universe.  And you won't see that your ability to accept the case of
fluid mechanics or algebraic topology but not human behavior is politically
motivated.  Behaviorists, sociobiologists, libertarians, and free-marketeers
cling to their beliefs because they justify certain behaviors and policies,
not out of a neutral attempt to determine truth.

Saying that human behavior is completely the result of chemical interactions
states a materialistic view that some idealist types might have trouble with,
but your average non-reductionist or non-behaviorist would certainly
not disagree with it, and to think otherwise is to set up a straw man.
But saying that human behavior is "just" the result of chemical interactions
bears with it the false implication that we are capable of determining human
behavior given our knowledge of chemical reactions, or that we will be able
to completely understand human behavior given enough knowledge about
chemical reactions, which is stupid and arrogant.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)