Damn, these are longer than I intend. Sorry. The question "How can you be satisfied without explaining WHY X is a reinforcer?"
Sloppy answer: Look, buddy. One thing at a time. Yes, in some sense a scientist is never satisfied - as each answer leads to new questions. On the other hand, to make that logic work, you need to accept that some things ARE answers. So, only if you are satisfied with my definition of what a reinforcer is, do we get to go on to ask why it is. Wherever that quest takes us, it doesn't change the fact that we have a perfectly good definition for a reinforcer, and that the definition is at a behavioral level. So, for example, were we to find that all reinforcers activate a certain part of the brain (WHICH THEY DON'T, but we'll pretend), we would NOT redefine reinforcers as "things that activate that part of the brain". We might let "activates that part of the brain" be part of a particular kind of explanation for reinforcement (the mechanistic or material cause) -- well, some might. Others would point out, as I have done before, that when you ask "why is X a reinforcer?" you would need to explain, among other things, why X activated that part of the brain. Hence, there are lots of interesting brain questions, but brain answers don't really explain psychological phenomenon. Take the imprinted gosling. We are tempted to say that its following its mother is "instinctive", but really, if anything is an instinct, it is that the gosling 'a close proximity to the mother' reinforces the goslings behavior. How do we know? Well, you do some experiments. If you build a box where the gosling has to press (peck) a key to bring mom closer, then it does. In fact, you can even build a box where the gosling has to walk AWAY from the mother for the mother to come closer. The gosling learns to do so pretty quickly. We can see that the mother approaching reinforces the goslings behavior, and all we have done is provided a description of the above events. That's it. Done. Simple. Straightforward. Scientific. All that said, the answer to why X is a reinforcer, is best answered in one of two ways, by reference to an evolutionary past or a developmental past. Typically, the best answers are found in the past history of the organism. After pavlov has trained his dog to drool when it hears the bell, I can use the bell to reinforce the dog. The bell IS a reinforcer, because it increases the rate of behaviors which it follows. Why is the bell a reinforcer? Because it was paired with the food in the past of the animal. Again, that not only explains the origins of the behavioral phenomenon, but all concurrent neural phenomenon as well. As for the need of memory to make that work, that's just crazy talk. Descartes (and others before and since) told us that we need to take memories of the past and apply them to current stimulation to make sense of it. That is just plain wrong. What we need is a system modified over time. You complexity people should be all about this! No where in a neural network model, for example, is to be found a memory (a remembrance) of the past events which shaped the system. The system changes as a result of past events, and now it does something differently than it did before. The neuronal structure of the rat in the skinner box has been changed as a result of past events. At one point, it was a rat that did not discriminate with its lever pressing behavior whether a light was on or off, and now it is a rat that does discriminate with its lever pressing behavior whether a light is on or off. Surely you are not suggesting that the rat need remember the past history of reinforcement for that to be true?!? Eric P.S. Relative to Roger's story about the Farmer... yes, we often self-stimulate (cough, cough) - our behaviors sometimes chain, with the end of one behavior being a part of the causal chain leading to the next behavior. As such, the chain of "thoughts" "in the farmer's head" need not be treated as any different than the chain of "actions" "of the mechanics body" as they change a tire. On Mon, May 3, 2010 01:27 PM, Russ Abbott <[email protected]> wrote: >>Thanks for your answers Eric. I like your answer to Q1 that the >unit of observation is at the functional level -- where functional refers to an >act that changes the relationship between an entity and its environment. > > >Since almost every change can be divided into smaller changes, that >doesn't really solve the problem. The answer also depends on the ability to >characterize what an entity is. But for now, I'm satisfied. > > > >With regard to the issue of reinforcement, I'm not so willing to go >along. You said, > >>X is a >reinforcer if behavior Y increases in future frequency when it >is followed by X. > > > >The problem I have with it is that it doesn't tell me why X is a reinforcer >of Y. It makes the being-a-reinforcer-of a primitive relation. As you >said, > >> > >In that sense, "reinforcer" is a description of the >effect, >not an explanation for the effect. > > > >Do you really want to leave it at that? Science is definitely happy to come >up with empirically establishable relationships. But it never stops there. I >always attempts to ask why that relationship holds. Are you really saying that >behaviorists refuse to ask that question? > >For example, consider the >implications of the fact that the reinforcer occurs after the >thing being reinforced? How can that possibly be? It seems to imply that the >entity being reinforced has a mechanism that enables it to relate the >reinforcement to the action being reinforced. Otherwise how could the >reinforcement have any effect at all since it follows the act being reinforced. >So right there one seems to be postulating some sort of internal mechanisms >that are both (a) able to remember (understood loosely and not necessarily >conceptually) the act that was done so that the subsequent reinforcement can be >related to it as well as (b) change the frequency or conditions under which >that act is performed. One should presumably then ask how those internal >mechanisms work. >> > > >-- Russ > > >>On Mon, May 3, 2010 at >6:27 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#>> wrote: > > >>Russ, >Good questions. These are indeed "obvious vulnerabilities" that >behaviorists are familiar with. Of course, if I just said what I thought, then >the answers would seem more solid, but I will try to give a flavor of the >broader reality of the field, not just my opinion. > >Your Q1: How big (or >small) is a behavior? -- This is a major historic difference between different >people's behaviorisms (a phrasing I assume is equivalent to saying that X is a >major historic difference between different people's versions of quantum >theory). Watson, for example, the sort-of founder of behaviorism, really wanted >to talk about things like the flexing or not flexing of individual muscles. >This was criticized, even by most behaviorists, as "muscle twitchism", though a >few still like it. The modern analysis, following from Skinner, uses the >"operant" as the level of analysis. An operant is, roughly, a set of movements >that do something, like "press a lever". The justification of this level of >analysis is largely that regularity seems to appear at that level. We can >predict and control the rate of lever pressing. In fact, as will appeal to the >complexity crowd, we can predict and control the rate of level pressing even >when there is quite extensive variation in the underlying muscle movements! I >guess it is a bit of a pragmatist thing - you do science where you see that >science can be done. > >Your Q1b: What about conceptual stuff? -- It is >just another thing about behavior. How do you know when someone else >understands a concept? You get them to behave in certain ways. How do you know >when you understand a concept? You get yourself to behave in certain ways. We >can quibble about exactly what ways, but ultimately typing the word "right" is >no different than any other five-part behavior, and so your typing 'h' is, >presumably, not qualitatively different than a rat pressing a bar labeled "h" >if I have reinforced it in the past for pressing the pattern "r" "i" "g" "h" >"t". Pigeons can tell the difference between different cubists, between early >and late Picasso, between pictures with people in them and pictures without >people in them (famously, sometimes better than the experimenter who selected >the slides), etc. So, to the extent that 'cubist' vs. 'impressionist' is a >concept, behaviorists can explain how people get concepts perfectly >well. > >Your Q2: How do you define reinforcement? -- Again, there are >several methods. The biggest problem is that it is easy to slip into >circularity. Skinner's solution is the most popular today, and has certain >virtues over the alternative. Skinner wants to define reinforces by their >effects. X is a reinforcer if behavior Y increases in future frequency when it >is followed by X. In that sense, "reinforcer" is a description of the effect, >not an explanation for the effect. Thus, in applied behavior analysis, it is >common to be stuck trying to fix a problem behavior you know nothing about the >origin of. In a "functional analysis" you would try removing consequences of >that behavior one at a time until you identified the factor(s) that reinforced >the behavior. Thus the reinforcer is identified empirically, rather than >theoretically. -- to appeal to physics again, Einstein would tell us that >gravity is not some separate thing that causes objects in a falling elevator to >converge, gravity is simply the observable fact that objects a falling elevator >converge. > >Your Q2b: How do you distinguish Organism from Environment -- >This question can get very deep very fast in ambiguous cases. Let's face it >though, most cases are not very ambiguous. When I am studying a rat in a >Skinner Box: The organism that fleshy and bony thing that I pick up out of its >cage and walk over to the Skinner box. The Environment is the inside of a >Skinner box. Most cases we deal with on a practical basis are similarly well >defined. I don't need a verbal self-report by the rat to know that food >reinforces its lever presses. I similarly do not need at any point to look >inside the rat. The question of whether or not food reinforces lever presses >(under such and such conditions) is a simple and straightforward scientific >question about behavior. > >Keep um coming if you got more, this is >fun, > >Eric> > > > >On Sun, May 2, 2010 10:44 PM, Russ Abbott ><<#>> wrote: > > > > >> >>I have two >problems with it. > >Turning left may happen to be a low level aspect of some more significant >action. For example, I suspect it would be difficult to say why I am about to >move my right index finger to the left and then down. (It had to do with the >letter "h", which I was striking because it was in the word "right", which I >was typing because ... . Not only that, I knew that striking the letter "h" >would include it in the message I was constructing ... . How can you be >behaviorist about things that are that conceptual?) > > >More important (or at least equally important), all those explanations seem >to depend on the notion of reward or reinforcement. How is reward/reinforcement >defined within a behaviorist framework? I can't immediately think of a way to >talk about what reward or reinforcement means without going "inside" the >subject. > > >Both of these would seem like obvious vulnerabilities in behaviorist >thinking. They must have been raised many times. Behaviorists must have >answers. It's hard for me to imagine what they are. > > > >> >-- Russ> >> >> > > > > >>On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 7:08 PM, >ERIC P. CHARLES <<#1285e59f6016fd80_>> >wrote: > > >>Russ, >The behaviorist's point, first and foremost, would involve >comparing the questions "Why did he choose to turn left?" with the >question "Why did he turn left?" They are the same question, the behaviorist >claims, >except perhaps, at best, that the first question does a little bit more to >specify a reference group of alternative circumstances > and behaviors that our explanation needs to distinguish between. For example, >we might read it as saying "Why did he turn left under circumstances in which >other people turn right?" > >As for the acceptable answer to such a >question... well... there are several varieties of behaviorism, and the >acceptable answers would vary. The stereotypical villain of Intro Psych stories >is a behaviorist who insists on explanations only in terms of immediate >stimuli. However, those are mostly mythical creatures. Most behaviorists have a >bias towards developmental explanations, and as members of this list will >readily recognize, behavioral development is complex. The most standard forms >of behaviorism make heavy use of drooling dogs and lever-pressing rats as their >primary metaphors. In this case we might prefer a maze-running rat. Upon his >first encounter with choice point C, which has vertical stripes, rat 152 turns >left. Why? Because, in the past, this rat has been reinforced (i.e., got to the >peanut butter faster) when it turned left (the critical behavior) at >intersections that have vertical stripes (a discriminative stimuli). The nature >of the contingencies and stimuli can be quite complex, but we have lots of data >about how those complexities reliably produce certain patterns of behavior. >Similarly, we might argue that the person turns left because in his past, under >circumstances such as these, he has been reinforced for turning left. What >circumstances, well, I would have to elaborate the example a lot more: When >following directions which state "turn left at the next light" and at "an >intersection with a light". The individual's choice is thus explained by his >long-term membership in a verbal community that rewards people for doing >certain things (turning left) under certain conditions consisting of a >combination of discriminative stimuli (which are complex, but clearly possible >to define in sufficient detail for these purposes). This training started very >young, for my daughter it formally started at about 1 and a half with my saying >"look right, look left, look right again" at street corners. > >-- >Admitted, the above explanation for the person's behavior is a bit hand-wavy >and post-hoc, but the explanations for the rat's behavior is neither. >Behaviorism, loosely speaking consists of two parts, a philosophy of >behaviorism and an application of behaviorism (applied behavior analysis). We >could take our person, subject him to empirical study, and determine the >conditions under which he turns left. This would reveal the critical variables >making up a circumstance under >which such turns happen. The science also allows us to determine some aspects >of the past-history based on the subjects present responses. Further, just as >we built our rat, we could build a person who would turn left under such >circumstances, and for that person, all the conditions would be known and no >hand-waving or further investigation would be necessary. The fact that we >usually cannot perform these kinds of investigation, is no excuse for >pretending we wouldn't get concrete results if we did. -- > >In the >absence of an observed past history, the behaviorist would rather speculate >about concrete past events than about imaginary happenings in a dualistic >other-realm. > >Personally, I think many behaviorists overdo the role of >conditioning. I have a bias for a more inclusive view of development, such as >that advanced by the epigeneticists of the 60's and 70's, the kind that leads >directly into modern dynamic systems work. Those behaviorists I most like >recognize the limitations of conditioning as an explanation, but argue that >conditioning is particularly important in the development of many behaviors >that humans particularly care about. Pairing the verbal command "left" with the >contingency of reinforcement for turning left, they argue, is just as arbitrary >pairing the visual stimuli "red light" with the contingency of reinforcement >for pressing the left lever in the skinner box. A reasonable position, but I've >never been completely sold. I will admit though that conditioning is important >in unexpected places - you cannot even explain why baby geese follow the object >they imprint on without operant (skinner-box style) conditioning. > >How >was that? > >Eric > >P.S. Returning to Robert's query: It should be >obvious that the above explanation, if accepted as an explanation for the >behavior, is also an explanation for all concurrent neural happenings. > >> > > >On Sun, May 2, 2010 07:34 PM, Russ Abbott ><<#1285e59f6016fd80_>> wrote: > > > > >> >>Eric, Can >you provide an example of an acceptable behaviorist answer to your question >about why a person turned left instead of right. By example, I'm looking for >something more concrete than "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." What might such an >explanation look like? > > >-- Russ >Abbott >______________________________________ > > Professor, >Computer Science > > > California State University, Los Angeles > > cell: > 310-621-3805 > blog: <http://russabbott.blogspot.com/> > vita: <http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/> > > > > > > >______________________________________ > > > > > >> >>On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 4:03 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#1285e59f6016fd80_1285bebc159d5350_>> >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" <<#1285e59f6016fd80_1285bebc159d5350_>> >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 > > > > > > > >>============================================================ > >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at <http://www.friam.org> > > > > > > >> > > > > ============================================================ >FRIAM >Applied >Complexity Group listserv >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. >John's >College >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at <http://www.friam.org> > > >Eric Charles > >Professional Student and >Assistant >Professor of Psychology >Penn State University >Altoona, PA >16601 > > > > > > > > > > > > > >> >> >>Eric Charles > >Professional Student >and >Assistant Professor of Psychology >Penn State University >Altoona, >PA 16601 > > > > > > > > > > > > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
