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From: brianc@daedalus (Brian Colfer)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free will and responsibility.
Message-ID: <2013@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu>
Date: 1 Jun 89 16:34:37 GMT
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Reply-To: brianc@daedalus.UUCP (Brian Colfer)
Organization: UCSF Dept. of Lab Med
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Mike Ellis in a previous article (May 24, 89 11:50 GMT) mentioned a 
few criticisms of behaviorsm.  My understanding of these criticisms:

	1) Behaviorism is only useful as a limited laboratory methodology.
	   >Problems happen when a narrow technical methodology with 
	   >worthwhile but limited results starts being dictated by
	   >some kind of a priori truth. 
	   [ which I assume is behaviorism, the pinheaded philosophy]

       > ... has given us nothing but vast rotting academic archives
	   > full of dead theories

	   > Until behaviorism can come up with hard results,
	   > your're just blowing hot air.

		There are many examples of real world successful applications 
		of behaviorism which have helped many people.  One can read about
		such examples in the Jo. of Applied Behaviorial Analysis.

		The best example which has worked in every case I have heard about
		is in the application of behavioral analysis to the problem of 
		phobic responses.  Until behaviorism this problem plagued many
		people but now it can be cured. Other applications include
		promoting energy and water conservation and in increasing 
		safe behavior at the work place.

	2) Evidence for free will is found in internal observation.

       > ... beliefs, thoughts and desires are causal determinants of
	   > human action .... The evidence is plentifully available in the
	   > form of 1st person experience...

		This is classic dualist retort.  The problem is then just shifted
		to where do beliefs, thoughts and desires come from.  

		I am affirming a) that beliefs etc. are causes and b) that
		they are important to the person experiencing them.

		I also am saying that they are scientifically unimportant since
		1) there is nothing we can do about them directy (we can only change
		   the things that control them) and 
        2) we can only have direct access to our own experience and no one
		   can ever have direct access to our experience.  In fact we actually
		   only observe the effects of our brain since there are no significant
		   sensory neuron receptors in the brain.

	3) The assumptions of materialistic determinism is fundamentally
	   undermined by quantum-mechanics. BTW this is the argument 
	   Douglass Adams uses to allow for all sorts of metaphysical
	   phenomena. (Adams is the author of Resteraunt at the end of the 
	   universe etc.)

	   Boy this is a tough one.  I don't know enough about QM but I
	   think that it addresses observations at the very macro reaches of 
	   our observations and at the extreem micro levels we find it impossible 
	   to predict the events.  From what I understand QM does not cancel
	   Newton or Einstien but describes our limits to predict the subatomic 
	   extremities of our universe.  I am talking about the the vast 
	   range in between.  Materialistic determinism works as the starting
	   assumption when confronted by a new disease and it would be silly 
	   to think otherwise.
    
	4) The main threat of behaviorism is that it is systematic control.
	  >It doesn't matter one whit to whether one's actrions are ...
	  >... determined ...
	  >... as long as they're not determined by the *intentional
	  > manipulation* of another *conscious* being.

	  It would seem that any part of society would fall under this,
	  laws, schools, jobs and any where else ones behavior is being
	  directed by others.

	  If you say that *any* of these are ok then you are saying that 
	  behavior control has a place in society. 

	  If you say that *all* of these are bad then you are merely a 
	  radical anarchist and there is no place for society.

As a retort to Hilary Putnam's thesis about Functionalism ... it seems
that the human brain is more of an open system than is a Turing Machine.
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