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From: karl@dartvax.UUCP (S. Delage.)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: No mirror, no dust
Message-ID: <1914@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24-Jun-84 09:23:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.1914
Posted: Sun Jun 24 09:23:40 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Jun-84 02:57:15 EDT
References: <561@flairvax.UUCP>
Organization: Dartmouth College
Lines: 25

Perhaps Mr. Moffet should not have denied the existence of other
minds/brains. As Mr. Kissell points out, we all [at least to my
knowledge] are aware of ourselves, and can think about ourselves,
and so on.
   A more traditional behaviorist position, which is Skinner's, if I
remember correctly, is that attributing causes to the
mind/brain is not useful. That is, "I did something because I
thought about it and came to the conclusion that it was a good
thing to do." does not tell us anything more than "I did something
because Zeus gave me a hint that it would a good thing to do.".
That does not deny the thinking-about-it part, just its usefulness
as an explanation for behavior.
   Instead, our behavior is caused by (a) our genetic endowment.
( A predisposition to certain acts, if you will. ) (b) our current
environment. ( Immediate threats/enticements to act on. ) and (c)
our past conditioning history. ( If something was bad or good last
time, our behavior will be changed appropriately. )
   If I'm misrepresenting Skinner, let me know.
   What this all means in light of the current mind/brain discussion
is not very clear to me. It seems to me that if we understand the
mind/brain better, we will be able to predict behavior more
accurately, and understand which parts of the brain are involved
in more decisions, and so on. Whether or not this is an
interesting topic is a matter of individual choice.
karl@dartmouth ~~  {cornell,astrovax,colby,decvax,uvm-gen}!dartvax!karl