Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!scherzo!allegra!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Science & Philosophy vs Rosenism (Skinnerist Moral Philosophy) Message-ID: <2011@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Sat, 2-Nov-85 15:10:29 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.2011 Posted: Sat Nov 2 15:10:29 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 05:57:28 EST References: <1663@pyuxd.UUCP> <1820@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1907@pyuxd.UUCP> <619@spar.UUCP> <1993@pyuxd.UUCP> <630@spar.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 142 >>>>Hmmm, this is an intriguing proposition. The internal state, having gotten >>>>to be the way it is (with indoctrination and conditioning leading that >>>>internal state into various forms).. >>> But does past history, in fact, determine `present state'? >>Of course. > WeAretheRobots > WeAretheRobots > WeAretheRobots > ... [ELLIS] The fact that you respond to what I said, not with substance, but with vague emotional rhetoric (insisting that anyone who would DARE to believe this is a "robot", and thus [because you also insist that a human is not a "machine"] INhuman!!), says it all, Michael. >>> If a great deal of recent scientific research and theory in biology, >>> chemistry, and physics is true, your pet behaviorist theories >>> must be tossed into the Humean flames! >>By Hume-an beings? > Frankly, Rich, I'd think you'd like Hume a great deal. He was one of the > first philosophers who was successful at systematically doubting > everything, including science. Besides labeling causality a superstition > (albeit more reasonable than most), he doubted religion, morality, mind -- > everything! I'm glad you think I "would" like him. Obviously you can dish out your little "jokes" (quotes most necessary, unfortunately), but you can't take them in return. > Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? > NO. > Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact > and existence? > NO. > Commit it to flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and > illusion. When do you start? :-) > Hume no doubt believed that past history determined present state > (incidentally, he did not believe in free will ... Perhaps because he understood the definition? (I shouldn't be belittling you, Michael, for definition-changing games. If anything, you are one of the few people here who understands such things. Rather than changing the definition to "get" what you want, which is a dishonest rhetorical trick, you change the premises to get to "acausality". What you miss, however, is that acausality cannot get you free will. Free will requires an active agent of first cause making the choices, unaffected by other causes of the material world. Yet it must be a WILLFUL agent, one of deliberateness that causes other things to happen. Acausality may be a necessary condition, but it is far from sufficient, and other internal contradictions make it effectively impossible, acausality or not. >>> Why do you suppose Strict Behaviorism is obsolete? >>Because the bulk of psychology department intelligentsia find the notions >>repugnant, and have done their best to rid psychology curricula of the >>abominable notions! (Otherwise, wouldn't we have heard the grand >>debunking round the world?) > It must be a conspiracy then, among those in psychology, biology, > biochemistry, and quantum mechanics to suppress the poor martyred > Skinnerists. It'd sound great in the National Enquirer. It'd sound better in the Skeptical Inquirer. Note, readers, that the grand debunking (which should be so simple a child could understand it, no?) is not forthcoming from Michael. Could it be that there is none, that it IS just wishful thinking? Yes, there is a passive conspiracy "I don't like that, we cannot be THAT way" presumptions, not among particular groups, but among people in general. >>> SMASH SKINNERISM!! >>Why not just reply to all my articles in the future with the following: >> >>Rosen is wrong because he believes in Skinnerism, which I don't like, >>in determinism, which I also don't like, etc. and thus he is completely >>and utterly wrong. Nahh! > But Skinnerism CONTRADICTS modern science. At best, any argument > which is based on Skinnerism is based on little better than faith > in the literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Even belief in > a Spinozan supreme being at least does not contradict science. > (although, no doubt, Hume would have tossed God into those same flames!) Nice set of assertions. It DOES, it DOES contradict... > And whereas Skinner's dogma on scientific issues is often merely wrong, > his grandiose moral, philosophical, and political issues, based is it > is on the most discredited of his scientific presuppositions, betrays an > analytical disability of almost Velikovskian microencephalism. Skinner's > specialist mentality was simply unable to comprehend anything outside of > his tiny Skinnerbox brainset. And so on... You have succeeded in convincing me that here is a man whose writing is worth reading, through your persistent insistence without evidence that he is simply wrong because you don't like what he has to say. > It is the intolerant quality of Skinnerian behaviorism, a blight whose > strict dogma stunted all other kinds of psychological research right up > until the 50's that I thoroughly detest. From your own writing, and from that of others, it sounds more like it's the other way around. > In summary, I dislike Skinner's dogma because: > > (1) It is in conflict with nearly everything in science since 1930. > (2) It effectively barred scientific advance along paths that > have been extremely effective (eg- Chomsky's transformational > grammar with mentalistic notions such as `deep structure') > (3) His incompetent proposals for grandiose social and moral > codes in which those of his specialty would be in total control. > He would have brute-forced his anti-free-will doctrine onto > society BY BRAINWASHING in order to `make' his theories become > `true', had he been given the opportunity! > (4) Many fine people, like you, have been brainwished to the point where > they are unwilling and unable to openly examine other competing > theories. In your case, entire semantic dimensions of your > vocabulary have been excised! For example, in your vocabulary: > > mind = free will = soul = responsibility = autonomy = > deus ex machina = {blame/praise}-worthiness = irrationality = > antiscience = the evil of {religion,Nazism...} You mean in your analysis of my vocabulary! You mean as a result of YOUR having been brainwashed (or, as you called it, brainwished) by your own set of presumptions. Don't you? > On the other hand, I do agree with his distaste for old time > morality and terms like guilt, sin, punishment, and so on. Sadly, > his shoddy thinking did much to discredit his good ideas. You mean the labelling of his thinkin as shoddy had that effect. -- "Mrs. Peel, we're needed..." Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr