[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 08:56:07 -0700 (PDT)
--- On Sun, 8/30/09, swmaerske <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> wrote:
From: swmaerske <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sunday, August 30, 2009, 12:46 AM
--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups. com, Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@ ...> wrote:
>
> --- On Fri, 8/28/09, swmaerske <SWMirsky@.. .> wrote:
>
>
> From: swmaerske <SWMirsky@.. .>
> Subject: [Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
> To: Wittrs@yahoogroups. com
> Date: Friday, August 28, 2009, 4:12 PM
>
> <snip>
>
> Kindly ol' Uncle Glen: < and ask this: if I wanted to know whether or not
> "being on d-amphetamine" feels, to a rat, like "being on cocaine," how would
> I go about that?
> >
>
> SWM: You would not know because you cannot ask.
>
> GS: But I did ask.
SWM: You asked me, not the rat.
GS: Right. I asked you to tell me how to find out if "being on amphetamine"
feels like "being on cocaine" to a rat. You answered incorrectly, below.
SWM: You cannot ask the rat anymore than you can ask any animal without
language.
GS: You are, of course, assuming that "language" i.e., verbal (not necessarily
vocal) behavior is fundamentally different than all other kinds of behavior.
But if verbal behavior is simply operant behavior reinforced via the behavior
of a suitably trained listener, then it should be possible to bring some
operant response of a rat under stimulus control of the behavioral changes
(probably largely private) wrought by drug administration and, indeed, it is
clear that it is. Now, some (even some behaviorists) might not like saying that
what is discriminatively controlling the rat's lever-press is behavioral
changes wrought by the drug, prefering to simply speak of the drug producing
interoceptive stimuli, but in any event what you say above is simply not true.
SWM: And even asking a fellow creature with language poses some problems
because of the subjective aspect.
GS: The problem is not so much the subjective aspect, as so-called drug
discrimination clearly shows. With other humans, you have not provided the
history that is responsible for their behavior, nor are you necessarily able to
control relevant variables. With the rat, of course, this is not the case. You
have arranged the history that produces the discriminative control, and
eliminated variables that might interfere with such control. It is possible,
for example, for a human to say that they took a drug and feel high because
such behavior was reinforced by the attention of others who "think it is cool."
>
> SWM: Why should that matter?
>
> GS: Because it debunks your position, which is my goal.
>
SWM: It may be your goal but there's no cheese waiting for you because it
doesn't "debunk" my position. That there are subjective experiences which are
inaccessible in a direct way to any but the subject does not imply that those
experiences are just "behavior".
GS: Well, as I said, some would say that the drug produces interoceptive
stimuli, but this is, I think, a minor issue. You are clearly wrong that "I
cannot ask the rat," though your position is the majority position. This just
means that the minority are correct. In any event sometimes what is
discriminatively controlling behavior is clearly private behavior, as in
"talking to oneself," or "reading silently." Saying that it isn't behavior
because it isn't public is, in my opinion, obviously wrong, especially when we
are talking about "talking to oneself," or "reading silently." Indeed, in
"reading silently" it is clear that the origins of the behavior are the same as
"reading aloud." If Mrs. Pavlevich had not trained me to read aloud in the 1st
grade (yes, that is when it was taught when I was a child!) I would not be able
to read silently now. Do you not think that your ability to "read silently"
stems directly from your being trained to read aloud?
Indeed, reading aloud is an interesting example, because part of the behavior
remains public - one must move one's eyes in the same fashion that one does
when one is reading aloud. And, indeed, it is sometimes difficult to get other
aspects of the behavior to recede to the covert level - even some adults "move
their lips" when they read silently. All this seems terribly obvious to me. I'm
guessing that there is not some small measure of resistence to this idea, since
it opens the door to the possibility that behaviorists might be right, and that
would be less than comfortable to those who parrot the majority view.
> SWM: When the doctors wheeling me into the emergency room wanted to know my
> symptoms, what I was feeling, they didn't just observe me, they inquired. And
> I struggled to find a way to answer and did. Later, when I wrote about the
> event, I refined that way and chose some verbal descriptions that conveyed
> better the kind of experience I had had. Language gives us some advantages
> over rats, even if it has its own limitations (think Wittgenstein' s private
> language insight).
>
> GS: I AM thinking about Wittgestein' s treatment of "private language"
> (indeed, I have thought about this for nearly thirty years). I would say that
> "you have not answered my question" but you will say "Yes I have." Therefore,
> I will cease being coy: if I reinforce (i.e. deliver food) for a rat's left
> lever-press when it has been injected with cocaine, and reinforce its right
> lever-press when it has been injected with saline, the rat comes to respond
> on the left lever when it has been injected with cocaine, and on the right
> lever when it has been injected with saline. The act of sticking a needle in
> the rat's belly cannot be the source of the rat's accuracy, since it gets a
> needle stuck in it's belly whether or not the fluid is saline or cocaine
> disolved in saline. Now let's say I have bottle that may contain either
> saline or cocaine. The label has fallen off, and I need to determine if it is
> saline alone or cocaine. If I have a rat that has been
exposed
> to the right "contingencies" can I figure out if the bottle contains saline
> alone or saline plus coke? You know that I can based on what I said above.
> Now, let's say that I inject the rat with amphetamine sometimes and and
> saline at other times. When I inject the rat with amphetamine, it presses the
> "cocaine lever." What is your explanation of this phenomenon? Has it not been
> shown
> that "being on amphetamine" feels like "being on cocaine"?
SWM: Looks that way but you still don't know what it feels like to the rat.
GS: But the question was "does it feel like 'being on cocaine.'"
SWM: All you know is that it prompts a similar response...
GS: But it "prompts a similar response" via the process of discrimination.
There simply is no other explanation. Administration of cocaine and amphetamine
produce functionally similar stimuli.
SWM:...and so presumably feels the same or very similar to the rat which
supports my position that there is something the rat feels which is behind its
behavior -- unless you want to claim that it's merely an automaton type
response in which case what is the mechanism that prompts the differences and
similarities in the behaviors?
GS: Now you are being internally inconsistent - above you argue that what I
proposed couldn't be done. Of course there is something "behind its behavior" -
the drug stiimulus. You seem to be saying that my position is that
"subjectivity" IS the "reporting response" but that is basically "philosophical
behaviorism," and it never was what I and Gerardo have argued. When I say that
subjectivity is a matter of private behavior, I am saying that it is private
behavior that serves as a discriminative stimulus function that controls the
probability of the "reporting response." This is what I have said all along (as
has Gerardo). If behavior didn't generate stimuli, there would be no verbal
behavior, and there would be no thinking. In thinking, we emit private behavior
that discriminatively controls other responses. That behavior can be both a
response as well as serving various stimulus functions is, I think, quite
obvious.
SWM: And what is it you think is happening when you read and think about and
formulate a response to my comments here? Or is that also an example of
autopilotry at work on your view?
GS: It should be clear by now, what my position is. My behavior, both overt and
covert is, in large measure, a product of the contingencies of reinforcement to
which I have been exposed. However, some of my behavior, both overt and covert,
discriminatively controls other responses. A simple example is looking up a
telephone number and saying it repeatedly until one reaches the phone. The
verbal behavior is discriminatively controlled by the marks on the page, and it
discriminatively controls the behavior of pushing the correct buttons. All of
this is a product of the contingencies of reinforcement to which we have been
exposed. In most species the vast majority of their behavior does not serve a
discriminative function for them because the contingencies that generate such
discriminative control are largely of cultural origin. I used to agree with
Skinner that NONE of the behavior of other species serves a discriminative
function, but I no longer think
that is completely true - certain delays that could arise without social
intervention can, I think, lead to behavior that is discriminatively controlled
by stimuli at the beginning of the delay, and that behavior discriminatively
controls behavior at the end of the delay (i.e., what is now called "working
memory"). In any event, animals have little "self-awareness" because the
contingencies that generate much of this behavior are simply not arranged.
Obviously, we can arrange such contingencies in the laboratory, as drug
discrimination shows. Further, even before drug-discrimination become the
popular procedure that it is (and it is popular, basically, as bioassay to
assess likely pharmacological mechanisms of the subjective effects of drugs),
experiments were done in which the behavior of non-humans was brought under
discriminative control of other responses.
>Anyway, I'll leave this stand on its own and snip the rest (for now) of your
>comments below.
>
> <snip>
>
SWM: As you like but it seems to me you have yet to respond to my question
about what it is you think you are doing when you post on lists like these? Are
you just running through some mazes here, responding to stimuli like a rat
seeking cheese?
GS: Again, as I have said, we sometimes learn to behave in ways that
discriminatively control other responses. Frequently, the "other responses" are
verbal. Exposure to complex contingencies of reinforcement is responsible for
such phenomena. But, "yes" there are similarities between my operant behavior
and the operant behavior of a rat, though no one uses the kinds of mazes that
you are thinking about very much. And "yes" my behavior is controlled by
stimuli - do you seriously think yours is not? How terribly naive. Some of the
stimuli are "self-generated" as in thinking etc. but that does not mean that it
is not contingencies of reinforcement that are responsible. I have no problem
with the fact that my behavior is determined. I am not threatened by this in
the least, nor am I sufficiently arrogant to think that the behavioral
processes that are Glen Sizemore do not share similarities with other
vertebrates, particularly mammalia and aves.
SWM: And is that all that you think the rat is doing?
GS: I think drug discrimination is operant stimulus control.
SWM: If so, why can it learn to do such things but frogs and lizards cannot?
GS: Reptiles and fish can acquire discriminated operants, and it is argued that
insects can as well. It is not clear to me that amphibians can, though very,
very primitive, "simple" animals show habituation and classical conditioning.
Probably ALL animals respond to stimuli, but not all stimuli are the same. An
eliciting stimulus alters the probability of behavior, but it is not a operant
discriminative stimulus, and the behavior is often not sensitive to modulation
by its consequences. Stimuli (things and events in the world) can serve a
variety of functions, often simultaneously. The sound of the feeder operation
in an operant chamber is a conditioned reinforcer (a particular stimulus
function) but it also discriminatively controls approach to the food tray (a
different stimulus function), and it probably elicits salavation (yet another
stimulus function). We are responding to stimuli continually - this is obvious
to me.But stimuli are not
contingencies of reinforcement - they are parts of contigencies. Finally, are
you really asking me why some species do things that others don't or can't? The
answer is, of course, partly natural selection. The mechanisms that lead to
simple habituation and senzitization, classical conditioning and operant
conditioning, are produced through natural selection, presumably because being
able to respond effectively in changing environments often confers a fitness
advantage. This is elementary stuff, it seems to me.
SWM: Do you really think your tale of behaviors is adequate account of what
happens when we think, feel or otherwise experience, whether the effects of
cocaine or something else?
GS: Yes, at least at the level of behavior. No one knows how anything but the
simplest behavior is mediated physiologically, despite the arm-breaking,
self-congratulatory back-patting of many physiologists. But the sorts of
processes that I am talking about are quite complex, even in the simplified
world of the laboratory, as you would know if you ever bothered to crack a book
that deals with behavior analysis. As it stands, you are simply ignorant about
such issues, as was I before I was educated. You don't have to read anything on
the topic, but I always wonder why those that know the least about behavior
analysis and behaviorism are often the most vocal in their opposition to it. It
is an acute problem for a science of behavior. I'm pretty sure that it is
because we witness behavior all the time, and it has been talked about
endlessly because of its immense importance.
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