[Wittrs] Re: some helpful guidelines for reading Wittgenstein's philo...
- From: "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:22:28 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@...> wrote:
>
> --- On Sat, 8/8/09, Stuart W. Mirsky <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
>
>
> From: Stuart W. Mirsky <SWMirsky@...>
> Subject: [Wittrs] Re: some helpful guidelines for reading Wittgenstein's
> philo...
> To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Saturday, August 8, 2009, 10:02 PM
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@yahoogroups. com, "gerardoprim" <gerardoprim@ ...> wrote:
> >
> > (Stuart) When I was driving up through the Carolinas and suddenly realized
> > the meaning of a sign that had initially seemed incomprehensible to me, I
> > suddenly had certain images in my mind. There were no behavioral changes. I
> > just kept driving. (The wiper blades and lights were already on.) But at
> > one point I didn't understand and then I did. What occurred is not
> > explainable as behavior unless you so broaden the term of "behavior" as to
> > make it meaningless.
> > (Gerardo) Why do you say that the broader concept of behavior would be
> > "meaningless" ? It will be meaningful as long as it´s part of a language
> > game, and new language-games come into existence all the time (PI 23).
> > Also, cognitive science has changed the traditional grammar of many
> > concepts (e.g. "representation" , "cognition", "computation" ), and
> > possibly you wouldn´t say those concepts became "meaningless" . The
> > narrower meaning of behavior is "publicly observable activity", the broader
> > meaning includes also "privately observed activity". There´re many
> > similarities that allow the extension of the concept, e.g. there´s a degree
> > of public observability (e.g. talk aloud, talk whispering, talk privately
> > to ourselves), conditioning principles can be applied to both overt and
> > covert activities, covert activities are previously learned as overt
> > behavior (covert reading comes from previous overt reading, mental math
> > calculation comes from previous overt
> math calculations, imagery comes from previous perception, self-talk comes
> from previous overt talk), etc. You can say "I don´t like it" or "I´d prefer
> another word", but you cannot say it´s "meaningless" .
> >
> > Regards,
> > Gerardo.
> >
>
> SWM: Yes, you're right Gerardo. It has meaning the way you put it. But it
> still fails a test that I think is important here. Terms do change all the
> time. Language isn't static though it usually changes fairly slowly. However
> it is possible to so broaden what we mean by a term as to extract it from its
> original uses. If "behavior" means what is observable in a being capable of
> acting (though we can and do talk of the behavior of rocks and gases, etc.
> though that is irrelevant to behaviorist psychology) then to add in "and I
> also mean all the mental events the being is having that prompt him/her/it to
> act or that accompany the said acts or that may presage the entity's acting
> under certain conditions (when a response is called for), then it no longer
> is about the acts of the entity under study. It is now about the very things
> the usual idea of behavior does not apply to.
>
> GS: I find this argument somewhat bizarre. First, though, you slipped up
> above when you said "If 'behavior' means what is observable in a being
> capable of acting... [then private events are outside of this definition],"
> you must have meant "If 'behavior' means what is PUBLICLY observable in a
> being capable of acting..." Skinner's behaviorism (radical behaviorism) holds
> that the sorts of events being called "private events" are, in fact,
> observable, but
> they are observable only to the behaving individual.
I drew a distinction, in keeping with Gerardo's point, that there is overt
behavior (publicly observable), covert behavior (publicly observable in
principle but not in practice because it is concealed -- either intentionally
or because of circumstance) and totally private behavior which cannot be
shared, even in principle, (assuming current technology). The first is publicly
observable, the second is in principle publicly observable if not in fact. The
third is never publicly observable given current knowledge and technology.
I was making the point that "behavior" can reasonably be extended from the
typically overt kind to the covert kind but that at the point where we want to
say 'and the feelings, thoughts, ideas, etc., of the behaving animal are also
part of its behaviors', we have gone from talking about behavior to talking
about the stuff once excluded from the class of behaviors by behaviorists.
Insofar as such things are now included, it is at least questionable whether
this is about behavior anymore because the definition has become so broad.
> This, incidentally, does NOT include much of what is called "mental" since
> much of what is called "mental" is not observable even to the behaving
> individual!
You'll note that MY examples were all about what I was aware of and, thus,
observing (assuming we aren't talking "microcosms" of course).
> But more importantly, the argument you use has the curious effect of cutting
> off a behavioristic account of certain phenomena. You are, in effect, saying
> that if behaviorism attempts to deal with certain issues it ceases to be
> behaviorism, and thus behaviorism can have no account of certain
> phenomena!
If a theory was unsound as originally formulated there is nothing to prevent
its reformulation, re-branding, etc. But that doesn't leave it as it was. If it
outgrows its old confines it may be a better theory but it certainly is not
what it was. In this case if we are adding to "behavior" things we once
excluded from it, is it still right to speak of this as behaviorism? Isn't that
misleading? If there's a reason to keep the old terminology, then what is there
about this approach that warrants that?
> But behaviorism is the view that behavior is the proper subject matter of
> psychology, and that it can be a complete view, leaving nothing out.
Insofar as it is the latter, I am arguing it cannot. I agree that behavioral
study is A proper subject of psychology. But it seems to me that your argument,
and Gerardo's, for its completeness depends on stipulating a broader definition
of "behavior" than was originally envisioned or than is consistent with
ordinary usage.
> It holds that what is "spected" in introspection IS behavior (or, perhaps,
> stimuli generated by behavior).
If it's stimuli then you have already gone beyond a claim that it is all
behavior.
> Hence the term "radical behaviorism," where "radical" means "thoroughgoing."
> Unlike Watsonian behaviorism (I make a distinction between Watsonian and
> methodological behaviorim), which denies the existence of "mental imagery*,"
> and methodological behaviorism, which acknowledges the role of subjectivity
> but rules it out of scientific consideration, radical behaviorism argues that
> what
> is observed in introspection IS behavior.
And this only means that a redefinition has occurred which may be the really
radical move in question.
> Thus, rather than being a sort of concession to mentalism, what one gets is a
> kind of "super behaviorism" (i.e. RADICAL behaviorism). Radical behaviorism
> is MORE behavioristic than Watsonian or methodological behaviorism -
> especially methodoilogical behaviorism which is, in
> fact almost indistinguishable from mentalism. As Gerardo has pointed out
> (and he has done an excellent job) is that in a behavioristic account,
> private behavior STILL follows the laws of overt behavior.
How would we know if it is, indeed, private as you say? When I had my moment of
insight on the road coming up through the Carolinas, what "laws of overt
behavior" were relevant or made that insight occur or explained it, etc.?
> Also, as he has pointed out (as have I), there are a few things that suggest
> the cogency of this position: first, there is the simple fact of private
> talking (or reading silently, for example).
That is truly "covert" in the sense of being concealed either intentionally or
by circumstance. But it isn't anything like the private moments I alluded to
when I saw certain images in my mind that clicked with the meaning of the sign.
Unless mental telepathy or its equivalent were possible, my wife who was
sitting beside me in the front seat simply could not have had access to those
images. And if I explained what I was seeing to her, the evidence suggests she
would have seen different images in her head to make sense out of my words just
as I saw an array of images to make sense out of the sign's words.
> Do you really want to argue that when we read silently we are not behaving?
> That the eye movements are the only thing that is behavior and what we "hear"
> silently is NOT behavior?
Nope, nor have I done so. I have made a different distinction.
>Second, related to this, is that the energy level of behavior is a
>differentiable property of behavior. That is, by arranging contingencies of
>reinforcement (the main explanatory principle of radical behaviorism) one can
>produce response classes where the energy level is quite low. We can't, of
>course, arrange contingencies based on complete non-observability (hence the
>similarity to to
> Wittgenstein's treatment of the impossibility of a "private language"). But
> the point is that behavior can occur with a range of energy levels - why
> can't it occur at a level that renders it
> unobservable to anyone but the behaving individual?
It most certainly can. But that is not what the cases I described involved:
"seeing" mental images as part of a process of understanding a sign; feeling a
sensation I could not describe; losing my vision.
Here is another: A little more than a year ago, I contracted whooping cough.
Because of my weakened heart it took a very substantial toll on me. I blacked
out from coughing spasms about 20 different times according to my wife (based
on instances I reported to her and instances she observed). The very first time
I blacked out it happened like this. I was sitting at my computer working on
something that was up on the screen. My cat was outside the window meowing
desperately to get in. I got up from my seat to go let her in and began
coughing so fiercely I could not stop myself. The next thing I knew, I was
sitting at my computer screen looking at the same image, trying to focus on it
but unable to bring it into focus.
I thought that was very strange and tried harder and the words on the screen
just seemed to be beyond my ability to grasp or, the closer I looked, to even
see clearly. Abruptly the screen image faded and I opened my eyes and realized
I was staring up at the ceiling and not sitting in front of the computer at
all. Apparently the coughing had caused me to black out and I had fallen
(fortunately I didn't hit my head or do other injury to myself that time). I
had been having what some might call a lucid dream. But my behavior had me on
the floor while my thinking placed me in front of my computer screen.
By what stretch to do you want to say that the mental image I had of the
computer screen and what I had been working on was behavioral? Blacking out and
lying on the floor and opening my eyes to stare at the ceiling, I could have
had a very wide array of things going on in my mind. There was no connection
between the content of the mental image and the behaviors I had manifested.
Thus, I submit, there are things about us that cannot be explained as
"behavior".
>Indeed, the cultural evolution of "silent reading" seems to constitute just
>such an occurrence. The historical record indicates that, in fact, there was a
>period of time when "silent reading" did not occur. It has been suggested that
>it (silent reading) arose after the advent of libraries. When there are a room
>full of people reading different texts out loud, reading accurately is
>difficult. This lead to a situation that fostered ever less energetic vocal
>behavior until the public aspects were removed by differential contingencies
>of punishment. In some people, remnants of "reading out loud" remain; it is
>sometimes difficult to get children to read silently without "moving their
>lips." Finally, the most important
> aspect of treating private events as behavior stems from the fact (and this
> is not unrelated to my previous points) that, even when unobservable, the
> hypothesized behavior comes about because of contingencies. That is, the
> total behavioral episode (and I will give an example immediately below) is
> best, given a respect for parsimony,
> viewed as behavior.
Not if it doesn't account for everything!
SWM
> One of my favorite examples of this is the "directed forgetting" literature
>with pigeons. I will describe this phenomenon, but I am not going to try to
>describe specific experiments, though my description will closely parallel
>experiments that have been done. This will be somewhat long-winded. Consider
>delayed match-to-sample experiments (DMTS). In such experiments, the center
>key (in operant experiments with pigeons, they often peck a plastic strip that
>is mounted behind a circular hole in the operant chamber - the palstic is
>translucent, and when a colored light is turned on behind them, the key
> appears as a colored circle) is transilluminated with a color, and there are
> at least two different colors used. At he beginning of a trial the center key
> (of three horizontally-arranged keys) is, say illuminated "red." The pigeon
> pecks this key and the light is turned off. After some delay (on the order of
> seconds), the two "side keys" are illuminated. One key is the same color as
> the now extinguished "sample" and the other is some other color. If the
> pigeon pecks the red key, food is delivered, if it pecks the "wrong" key, no
> food is delivered and there is often a "blackout" for some period of time
> (i.e., negative punishment). If the delay is not too long between the sample
> and the choice stimuli (10 s is often too long for a pigeon), the pigeon will
> peck the "correct" key above chance levels. If the delay is on the order of a
> few seconds, the accuracy can be quite high. This, of course, is often held
> to be an animal model of "working memory." One of
> the first things to notice (though this is not my main point) is that in
> order to get pigeons to respond correctly at longer delays, the delay must be
> gradually lengthened. One can not just go from a zero s delay to a four s
> delay. That is, the pigeon must be trained, and the training involves
> gradually changing the contingencies of reinforcement, just as is done when
> behavior is trained in other circumstances. But, once the pigeon is trained,
> one can do something interesting; one can add a stimulus, say a tone. On
> trials where the tone is present, the trial no longer ends with the usual
> stimuli. Instead, for example, both side keys can be illuminated with a white
> light, and pecking either key results in reinforcement. Or, the trial may
> simply end with a blackout. An interesting thing happens when one does this.
> If one turns on the tone, but presents the choice stimuli anyway (clever,
> huh), the pigeon's accuracy falls to 50% (i.e., chance levels). It
> does not remember what color the sample was, even at delays that it usually
> "handles" quite well. What is the interpretation of this effect? I think the
> parsimonious answer is this: in DMTS the animal learns to behave in some
> particular SUBTLE way when the sample is presented. This SUBTLE behavior
> continues through the "retention interval" and it is this behavior that
> discriminatively controls the choice response. When the tone is presented,
> the behavior that occurs during the retention interval is not reinforced
> (either because no food can be obtained, or because the reinforced response
> is irrelevant to the sample), and it undergoes extinction, but it is only
> extinguished in the presence of the tone. Now, what is compelling here, is
> that what the pigeon does during the retention interval (if, indeed, it is
> DOING something) is not easily observed, and efforts to find "mediating
> behavior" has often failed. Interestingly, in the few cases where the
> mediating behavior IS easily observed (like, the pigeon turns around to the
> left when the sample was red, and turns to the right when it was green),
> there is no "forgetting function!" But the main point is that, even though
> the mediating behavior cannot be observed publicly,
>
>
> *Watson argued that "thinking" was "subvocal speech," so he did not deny all
> subjectivity.
>
> If behavioral pyschology includes our mental events (ideas, thoughts,
> feelings, beliefs, images, logical connections, etc.) then how can we
> continue to call it behavioral? Now I take it you and, perhaps, Glen are
> arguing that that is precisely what Skinner really meant (or what his
> followers now mean) and as I have said I am no expert on psychology or
> behaviorism or Skinner so I don't want to be seen here as passing judgment on
> that claim. Certainly, I must reiterate, I do NOT believe that any real
> behaviorists ever really thought they don't have the kinds of mental events
> I've described here despite how many of their claims might sound. So it is
> possible that your interpretation is correct and they do mean more by
> "behavior" than merely overt (observable) actions.
>
> But if THAT is the case it looks to me that they are confused because they
> are so redefining "behavior" as to make it no longer about behavior but about
> all the things most of us usually recognize as being other than behavior.
> Perhaps this debate is really just about terms and meanings though?
>
> SWM
>
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