[From Rick Marken (920825.1330)]
First, a quick question to the net (especially Gary Cziko and Dennis
Delprato):
Does anyone know of any written critique of Behaviorism which explicitly
cites the following problem (that Gary mentioned some time ago) :if
human behavior is controlled by the environment (as claimed by Behaviorists)
then Behaviorists themselves should not be able to exert control over people
(as they say that they can -- and should) because they are under control?
What I want is a critique that points out that control cannot be exerted
by agents that are controlled. I have never seen any detailed critique
of Behaviorism from this perspective. The critiques I've seen usually
just say "there is so a mind" to which the Behaviorists reply "is not" to
which the cognitivists reply "is so" and so on -- a process called
philosophical psychology.
A random note -- it seems that the trendiness in science is somewhat
self-correcting. The following was posted to sci.cognitive:
I am writing an article on AI Winter Refugees: un(der)employment
among AI professionals.
Looks like ai has run its course. I guess that's why we're seeing
new words -- artificial life might work for a few years (ai worked
for about 7); neural nets should have peaked in a couple if they have
the staying power of ai. I hope chaos and fuzzy logic don't create
even larger unemployment lines. I just wish PCT could have it's shot
at fame -- if it's just another trendy science we would at least have
a few years of fun. But I think it would prove to be a wonderfully
enduring surprise. Ah well.
Best regards
Rick
PS. Tom. Good luck with the hurricane. But I must admit that it's nice
to see that at least ONE bad thing is not happening in LA.
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Richard S. Marken USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
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