Robert, I think you have made the bait and switch covert. You are now saying "mental processes" and "mind", but I suspect you are still thinking "brain processes" and "brain". Putting that aside:
This deserves some sort of very through response I am not mentally prepared for at the moment (I blame Russ, whose email I saw first). As a semi-cop-out though, I will say that, when dealing with any attempt at scientific theory, there are easy problems and hard problems. That is, there are cases the theory will deal with almost effortlessly, and there are cases that will be tough. However, the hope is that the tough cases can ultimately be answered in a manner substantially similar to the easy questions. Lets redivide our competitors into two camps, those who think mental things are the sine qua non cause of behavioral things, and those who do not. Causal-mentalism seems well suited to answer the challenge involving the derivation in the deprivation chamber. Behaviorism seems well suited to explain simple behaviors. Ultimately, I suspect behaviorism will find success attacking the question of "what exactly happens in the deprivation chamber". In several hundred years, causal-mentalism has had little success explaining simple behavior. In fact, if you try to explain how the "mental" derivation becomes the "written proof" on the paper, you will see the mess. Again: To say that someone turned left because they "chose to turn left" or because a part of their brain "chose to turn left" misses the point, and doesn't answer the question. If I could build a rat that floated in a deprivation chamber, then got out and typed out a proof on a set of keys, the explanation for that behavior would be a description of the circumstances under which I reared the rat. The explanation cannot be found in the rat's head, because the occurrences in the rat's head are a component part of the larger pattern to be explained. Nothing changes if I substitute "person" for "rat" in the prior two sentences. Eric On Mon, May 3, 2010 01:07 AM, "Robert J. Cordingley" <[email protected]> wrote: > Eric > So you (or perhaps behaviorists) don't want to join me (and possibly many others) in calling the collective mental processes the mind. Then what about a scenario in which in a sensory deprivation tank a person mentally works out the solution to a mathematical problem he/she has never solved before. Some time later after removing him/herself from the tank, writes down the solution for all to see. Where did the mental thing happen if not in the brain as a process of the mind? Where is the observable behavior? Isn't the development of the solution the mind in action? > > Also Behaviorism is too restrictive a term for scientists or anyone else for that matter, in my mind, ugly problems or not! Perhaps it all semantics. > > In the mean time I still know of no similar parallel models for aura, soul etc. > > Robert C > > On 5/2/10 5:03 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: >Robert, > You accuse Nick of talking about "the brain", when he was talking about "the mind". > > The most basic tenant of behaviorism is that all questions about the mind are ultimately a question about behavior. Thus, while some behaviorists deny the existence of mental things, that is not a necessary part of behaviorism. On the other hand, the behaviorist must deny that the mind is made up any special substance, and they must deny that the mental things are somehow inside the person (hence the comparison with soul, auras, etc.). If the behaviorist does not deny tout court that mental things happen, what is he to do? One option is to claim that mental things are behavioral things, analyzed at some higher level of analysis, just as biological things are chemical things analyzed at some higher level of analysis. So, to answer your question: There IS a brain, and the brain does all sorts of things, but it does not do mental things. Mental things happen, but they do not happen "in the brain". As Skinner would put it, the question is: What DOES go on in the skull, and what is an intelligible way to talk about it? The obvious answer is that the only things going on in the skull are physiological. > > For example, if one asks why someone chose to go left instead of right at a stop sign, one might get an answer in terms of the brain: "He turned left because his frontal cortex activated in such and such a way." However, that is no answer at all, because the firing of those neurons is a component part of the turning left! Ultimately, the explanation for the choice must reference conditions in our protagonists past that built him into the type of person who would turn left under the current conditions. In doing so, our explanation will necessarily give the conditions that lead to a person whose brain activates in such and such a way under the conditions in question. > > Put another way: To say that he chose to turn left because a part of his brain chose to turn left misses the point. It anthromorphizes your innards in a weird way, suggests homunculi, and introduces all sorts of other ugly problems. Further, it takes the quite tractable problem of understanding the origins of behavior and transforms it into the still intractable problem of understanding the origins of organization in the nervous system. Neuroscience is a great field of study, and it is thriving. Thus, people hold out hope that one day we will know enough about nerve growth, etc., that the origin of neuronal organization will become tractable. One day they will, but when that day comes it will not tell us much about behavior that we didn't already know, hence they won't tell us much about the mind we didn't already know. > > Or at least, so sayith some behaviorists, > > Eric > > > > On Sun, May 2, 2010 05:09 PM, "Robert J. Cordingley" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="#"><[email protected]></a> wrote: >Nick > Let me try this on(e)... it's because the brain is the physical structure within which our thinking processes occur and collectively those processes we call the 'mind'. I don't see a way to say the same thing or anything remotely parallel, about soul, aura, the Great Unknown and such. Is there an argument to say that the brain, or the thinking processes don't exist in the same way we can argue that the others don't (or might not)? > Thanks > Robert > > On 5/2/10 12:52 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > </snipped> > >How is banging on about mind any different from banging on about soul, or aura, or the Great Unknown? > >Nick Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601
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