Confusing mush

CSGnet Archive CSG1997
1

[From Dag Forssell (971205.1510)

Bruce Abbott (971204.1020 EST)

Yes. This word "behavior" is a source of constant confusion in discussions
like this, because what most of us mean by "behavior" is not our output
muscle contractions or movements (action), but controlled acts: what we are
"doing." "What am I doing? I'm driving this nail into the wood with my
hammer." This describes both what another person would perceive me doing,
what I would perceive me doing as I watch myself (assuming in both cases
that I am being successful), and a reference for what I am trying to
accomplish (i.e., my intention). Unfortunately, psychologists in general
have not always been careful to distinguish this meaning of "behavior" from
just movements or muscle contractions. In this forum the term is usually
taken to mean output or actions taken, the variable (and often largely
accidental) means to a given end.

Bruce, I have challenged you in the past to show that EAB and psychology
are science, not mush. Here, as I read you, you are clearly saying that the
"science" of psychology is mush; a "science" where the fundamental subject
the science is studying is not defined or not defined in a uniform way.
This is why it all turns into mush. In your field, EAB, behavior is action,
and intention is not recognized. Lay people, being control systems, think
of behavior as you describe, implicitly recognicing control -- as do many
clinical psychologists.

The word behavior is not the source of constant confusion. The source is
psychological theories, too simplistic to begin to represent the dimensions
and functional relationships of behavior. When you try to get by with
oversimplifications, nothing works. What you have called science in the
past turns to mush. "Scientists" start claiming that reality is far too
complex to be understood, and that terms are confusing. Not so. The
"scientists" thinking is mushy and confused, because their basic
"scientific" concepts are inadequate.

Thank you for your acknowledgement of the mushy state of affairs in your
science.

Best, Dag

2

[From Bruce Abbott (971205.2000 EST)]

Dag Forssell (971205.1510) --

Thank you for your acknowledgement of the mushy state of affairs in your
science.

Dag, if you believe that psychology is mush, you will look for and find
evidence of mush, just as, if you think all blacks are lazy, you will note
and well remember those blacks who seemed to be lazy, and treat those who
are industrious as "exceptions," if you notice and remember them at all.

It is true that psychology has been and continues to be in a sorry state and
I have every reason to expect that it will remain so for some time. Believe
it or not, I am among those who recognize this and are trying to do
something about it. At the same time, I think you have little appreciation
for the difficulties involved in conducting good psychological research
(tracking studies are highly misleading in this regard) and even less for
what has been accomplished, despite the high mush-to-science ratio. Just a
little over 100 years ago no one thought a science of psychology was
possible, and virtually everyone thought that human thought and inner
experience were products of a ghostly free agent. Today most educated
people acknowledge that thoughts, emotions, perceptions, memories,
consciousness, and such arise from the physical operation of the brain and
will ultimately be understood purely in terms of physical processes
operating in the brain. This astounding change owes most to psychological
science. Most of the considerable increase in knowledge about brain
function that has occurred in this century has been developed by
psychologists, although the credit is usually given to other branches of
science under titles like biology, medicine, or neuroscience. There are
also many areas of research which, while not as rigorous as physics,
nevertheless have contriubted enormously to our understanding of
psychological development, cognitive and perceptual processes, social
interaction, emotions, and more. There is plenty of mush to go around (and
you don't need to look far to find it), but it is not all mush, not by a
long shot, not as I see it. So thanks for sharing your opinion with us; I
agree up to a point, but think you go too far.

Regards,

Bruce

3

[From Richard Kennaway (971206.1045 GMT)]

Bruce Abbott (971205.2000 EST):

Today most educated
people acknowledge that thoughts, emotions, perceptions, memories,
consciousness, and such arise from the physical operation of the brain and
will ultimately be understood purely in terms of physical processes
operating in the brain.

They may pay lip-service to the idea, but in practice, a lot of people,
including a lot of scientists working in the area, still seem to think
in terms of a naive Cartesian split between "psychological" and
"biological" phenomena as belonging to different universes.

For example, look at the situation with ADHD, lately discussed here.
Because an EEG pattern is found in association with certain behaviours,
those behaviours are labelled "biological" in origin, and the only
possible response to them is concluded to be drugs. I see this time and
again in science-for-the-layman magazines and TV and radio programmes.
Someone finds a biological correlate of a behavioural phenomenon, and
concludes that the cause can't have anything to do with upbringing, it
must be genes or chemicals in the environment. And this is the
scientists themselves saying this, not uninformed journalists.

It seems quite rare for the idea to be taken seriously, with all its
implications, that the human mind is a physical activity of the human
brain.

-- Richard Kennaway, jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk, http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/
   School of Information Systems, Univ. of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.

4

[From Bill Powers (971206.0654 MST)]

Richard Kennaway (971206.1045 GMT) --

It seems quite rare for the idea to be taken seriously, with all its
implications, that the human mind is a physical activity of the human
brain.

I don't think that idea quite answers the need. You might as well say that
a program is "activity in the circuits of a computer." While that's a true
statement, it glosses over the fact that only some organizations of
activity would qualify as a program, while all others would just be nonsense.

The most mysterious fact about computers is that what they do is determined
by _organization_, not physical components. A program can exist, latent, as
magnetic domains on a hard disk, or, running, as stored voltages in memory
chips; it can be printed out as source code or pseudo-code or holes in
pieces of cardboard or alphanumeric characters; it can be translated into
different compiler languages and made to run on different hardware having
different basic operations. Yet through all this, it is "the same program."

Organization has the same kind of existence that matter and energy have,
but it is a separate existence. Organization can be exemplified in specific
arrangements of matter and energy, but it is not tied to any particular
arrangement, energy level, or pieces of matter. As far as any physicist
could demonstrate, it is nonphysical.

So to say that mind is physical activity in a brain takes us only one small
step toward understanding mind. I should think that a mathematician would
be especially sensitive to this problem. What, exactly, is a "proof?" How
can there be such a thing as a proof that is independent of the facts of
nature that we observe with our senses? It always rains in Madagascar; I am
in Madagascar; therefore it is raining where I am. That is a true
statement, even if it never rains in Madagascar. What sort of thing is
that? I say it's a phenomenon of organization, not of physics. In fact, I
say that physics is also a phenomenon of organization.

Answering the question of what mind is seems to depend mainly on what
you're willing to take for granted, or what you take for granted without
knowing it. In my opinion, all the opinions so far offered still leave the
question open.

Best,

Bill P.

5

Compared to economics, political science, sociology and anthropology I think psychologists are holding their own. Its just too bad all of them are ensconced in academic rubrics and professional paradigms that stifle contact with the real world. How about lawyers, accountants, doctors, Corporate CEOs .....etc,etc.??? They are out in the REAL WORLD but, by the time they get there, their academic training has set them into single-minded stone.
so goes my happy thoughts for a sunny Saturday ..... best wishes,
David Wolsk
Victoria, BC Canada

ยทยทยท

at 11:45 06/12/97 David Wolsk added his two sense: At 19:03 05/12/97 -0600, Bruce Abbott wrote:

[From Bruce Abbott (971205.2000 EST)]
It is true that psychology has been and continues to be in a sorry state and
I have every reason to expect that it will remain so for some time.