# applications, behaviorist

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/applications-behaviorist/13086>\
**Category:** CSG1995\
**Created:** [August 20, 1995, 4:11pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/applications-behaviorist/13086 "1995-08-20T16:11:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![\_Avery\_Andrews](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/_/848f3c/32.png) [@\_Avery\_Andrews](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/_Avery_Andrews)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 1995, 4:11pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/applications-behaviorist/13086/1 "1995-08-20T16:11:21Z")

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[Avery Andrews 950819.1115]  
&nbsp;&nbsp;(Rick Marken (950819.0830))

\>Yes. But behaviorists wouldn't say that you need any physical power to  
\>control behavior; all you need are the reinforcers.

Which, for many reinforcers, implies that you have enough power to  
prevent the subjects from just taking them off you. But maybe the  
behaviorists didn't notice that? At any rate, I take the point.

\>I'm not sure that the first observation (that what we typically call  
\>'behavior' is a side effect of controlling) implies the second (that you  
\>'extinguish' a behavior the reorganization system might replace the  
\>extinguished behavior with a less desireable one).

Given that I say `might', not `will', and that reorganization is  
partly random, and partly genetically constrained, but in no case  
set up for the convenience of potential manipulators, the second  
point does seem to me to follow from the first.

\>I don't think any  
\>behaviorist would disagree with the second observation; but they would  
\>be clueless about the meaning of the first.

How would behaviorism predict the second observation? This being  
different from whether behaviorists would be surprised by it, since  
they, or at least many of them, presumably do have a lot of practical  
experience of behavior (I know some of them do, I paid one recently  
to tell me how to keep our cat from returning to our old house, and  
what he said worked).

The rest of the post requires more thought for a sensible answer ....

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au