behavior in general.

Here is to the elimination of your poor philosophy.

I can only show pity over the ashes of those who are challenged in
mathematical sciences. You are nothing but a bunch of fools.

You do not have the capacity to understand that we are not knocking
down "imaginery straw men". You do not understand that your
metaphysical commitments are at best laughable and otherwise deserve
only condemnation.

You are the shadow men. You are those whose behaviors do consist of
foolish mimickery of a few worthless books full of useless verbiage
and philosophical naivete. Indeed, your verbal behavior could be
simulated by a humble HMM. How ironic it is that your theories of mind
can explain only your own lowly minds.

You are the last of their kind, a disaster of environmental
contingencies coupled with genetic defects. Do you think I call
David-animal sub-human without reason?

You are dismissed now, <H.

Do not come back.

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 01:10:36 GMT, Lester Zick wrote:

behavior in general.

????

All I've ever seen is specific behaviours, some which can be grouped into
less specific classes, some of which classes can be grouped into even less
specific classes, and so on. But just what "behaviour in general" might be, I
haven't the faintest idea.

The result of differences between material differences and differences

Don't bother; it's not supposed to make sense.

There's many of these obviously self-instructed anti-behaviorists
pouting around and spewing nonsense. Apparently it's safer to knock
down imaginary straw men than it is to learn something. If there
weren't so many different ones, I'd say they're trolls. They never do
get specific about who these behaviorists really are, but when you
tell them they're boneheads, they accuse you of being a behaviorist.

Drawing parallels between this behavior and any number of
fundamentalist something-or-others is left as an exercise for the
reader.

In other words the only way behaviorism has to analyze behavior is to
characterize various behavioral forms in purely nominal terms
amounting to nothing more than simplistic and naive distinctions like
public, private, emitted or whatever. And what makes such distinctions
significant? Because behaviorists can reliably define words like these
without reference to behavior in general.

lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net (Lester Zick) wrote in message
news:<3feb8787.2647984@netnews.att.net>...


In other words the only way behaviorism has to analyze behavior is to
characterize various behavioral forms in purely nominal terms
amounting to nothing more than simplistic and naive distinctions like
public, private, emitted or whatever. And what makes such distinctions
significant? Because behaviorists can reliably define words like these
without reference to behavior in general.


In our grandfather's and great-grandfather's day, this approach made
some sense. Today, however, we have available a large variety of tools
for making measurements not possible 50-80 years ago, so we can ask a
much wider range of questions. In addition to this, our philosophers
are more willing to consider broader viewpoints.

The 1950s and beyond marked the beginning of a true reformation
(although I prefer the word renaissance) in thinking about the
operation of the brain. No need to look backwards to outdated liturgy
anymore.

In article <1461e0ed.0312260938.31d46d04@posting.google.com>, abwatson
albertbwatson@yahoo.com> writes
lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net (Lester Zick) wrote in message
news:<3feb8787.2647984@netnews.att.net>...


In other words the only way behaviorism has to analyze behavior is to
characterize various behavioral forms in purely nominal terms
amounting to nothing more than simplistic and naive distinctions like
public, private, emitted or whatever. And what makes such distinctions
significant? Because behaviorists can reliably define words like these
without reference to behavior in general.


In our grandfather's and great-grandfather's day, this approach made
some sense. Today, however, we have available a large variety of tools
for making measurements not possible 50-80 years ago, so we can ask a
much wider range of questions. In addition to this, our philosophers
are more willing to consider broader viewpoints.

The 1950s and beyond marked the beginning of a true reformation
(although I prefer the word renaissance) in thinking about the
operation of the brain. No need to look backwards to outdated liturgy
anymore.

You and the other silly people making similar statements do not realise
that you are showing those who have experience in neuroscience and AI
that you just don't have practical experience or accredited training in
these fields. If you did you'd appreciate how the way that we've been
encouraging
people to talk about these matters is as central to applied
work/research today as it was 10, 20, 30 or 50 years ago.

All that's going on here is the classic problem of trying to get people
who have picked up half baked ideas to see something that's almost
impossible
to see unless you have control of the necessary contingencies to do so.
These are rarely found outside good undergraduate/graduate programmes.

It will probably achieve little by my saying so, but I'll say it again
anyway - you really are just factually wrong. You will continue to be
wrong probably for as long as you live, and simply because you will
never get into the position where the penny drops.

Zero, for example, keep making references to Kandel. He and others
should look into how the work he is so fond of referring to is actually
*done*. The fundamentals are behavioural, and the analyses are from the
extensional stance.

This newsgroup is about the philosophy or methodology of AI. Silly
people like Zero, Ozkural, Michaels etc just don't understand enough to
be able to see that what Glen, I and a few others have been trying to
get folk to see, is how the good research is actually done, and where
it's effective, why it's effective. It's effective because the approach
is fundamentally behaviourist - it's effective because it applies the
extensional stance.

The scientific method is the extensional stance

(at least as Quine
explicates "the scientific method"). Science is really just another word

For that reason, we eschew our intensional folk psychology when engaged
in "the pursuit of truth" (science).

David Longley <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<bI9JTMDeGI7$EweF@longley.demon.co.uk>...

This newsgroup is about the philosophy or methodology of AI. Silly
people like Zero, Ozkural, Michaels etc just don't understand enough to
be able to see that what Glen, I and a few others have been trying to
get folk to see, is how the good research is actually done, and where
it's effective, why it's effective. It's effective because the approach
is fundamentally behaviourist - it's effective because it applies the
extensional stance.


It's effective because it applies the scientific method. It gives us
new understanding because of the new technologies invented over the
past 50 years, and applied every day in new experiments. New knowledge
bootstraps off older knowledge. You can call it what you like.

In article <1461e0ed.0312262050.37ba21de@posting.google.com>, abwatson
albertbwatson@yahoo.com> writes

David Longley <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<bI9JTMDeGI7$EweF@longley.demon.co.uk>...


This newsgroup is about the philosophy or methodology of AI. Silly
people like Zero, Ozkural, Michaels etc just don't understand enough to
be able to see that what Glen, I and a few others have been trying to
get folk to see, is how the good research is actually done, and where
it's effective, why it's effective. It's effective because the approach
is fundamentally behaviourist - it's effective because it applies the
extensional stance.



It's effective because it applies the scientific method. It gives us
new understanding because of the new technologies invented over the
past 50 years, and applied every day in new experiments. New knowledge
bootstraps off older knowledge. You can call it what you like.


And those new technologies have come from application of the extensional
stance.

The scientific method is the extensional stance (at least as Quine
explicates "the scientific method"). Science is really just another word
for "knowing" and the extensional stance is something we have
collectively learned to do a refinement of our natural folk psychology.
For that reason, we eschew our intensional folk psychology when engaged
in "the pursuit of truth" (science).

For some time now, efforts have been made to show how Radical (Skinner
etc) and Evidential (Quine etc) Behaviourism is pragmatically what
matters when we report effective scientific research. Many people ignore
the rest, or regard it as harmless speculation.

There's many of these obviously self-instructed anti-behaviorists
pouting around and spewing nonsense. Apparently it's safer to knock
down imaginary straw men than it is to learn something. If there
weren't so many different ones, I'd say they're trolls. They never do
get specific about who these behaviorists really are, but when you
tell them they're boneheads, they accuse you of being a behaviorist.

Drawing parallels between this behavior and any number of
fundamentalist something-or-others is left as an exercise for the
reader.

YANK! Got a live one. Quick, before it bleeds out.

LOL!!!!

Thanks, Eray, for providing some comic relief. I haven't read such a
well-done satire on stupid craziness in a long time.

Oops -- I forgot - you actually mean what you say.

LOL again!!!