G
Glen M. Sizemore
Guest
"Daryl McCullough" <stevendaryl3016@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f2vhkj01slc@drn.newsguy.com...
Glen M. Sizemore says...
Well hell! How can you argue with that sort of scholarship?!? Bravisimo! You're
not even going to ask me what I meant that Dennett's view was consistent
with a behavior analytic/Skinnerian view but says so much less? Don't care,
right? Anyway, though, someone else may have more curiosity and intellectual
honesty than you, so I'll draw attention to one of the parts of the post to
which your "reply" was largely non-responsive:
"But, more importantly, let me ask: if Dennett's philosophical observations
were to be considered in designing an experimental program to study pain
(especially in non-human animals), what would such a program look like?
Here's
where Dennett's 'style' is revealed as being derivative, but so much less."
Already his/your view conflates elicited behavior (reflexes) and operant
behavior (and these are almost certainly affected differently by drugs). In
any event, were you to take your view and attempt to parlay it into a
science, you would eventually have to turn to actual procedures. Yes, you
would no doubt (as I now see) adopt the pattern of calling the actual
procedures "operational definitions" of "awfulness" ("incorrigibility" is an
assumption) and you would have to include some notion of "pain detection and
intensity estimation" and specify its "operational definition." That is, you
would have to generate reflexes (by simply presenting stimuli) or operant
escape responses (by arranging negative-reinforcement contingencies) as well
as generating "reports of pain." In humans, the last is already generally
handled by culture (though, in the human case, this would likely add
considerable variability across subjects that wouldn't be present in
non-humans). Further, you would have to develop some way to tell if the
reflexes you are measuring (if you go with reflexes) are actually reflexes
or, at least, if they remain so over the entire course of the experiment (a
reflexive response could turn into operant escape or, more likely, operant
avoidance). What would you measure in these experiments? There are many
other issues, but since this piece demolishes your rubbish I'll leave it
there for now since I intend to go after some of your other garbage. Anyway,
the main point is that, even if you claim that Dennett's position is
philosophy, not science, there exists a philosophical position (Skinner's)
that covers the same ground and translates directly into a scientific
investigation of pain in all its diversity.
Wow! More of your "scholarship."
news:f2vhkj01slc@drn.newsguy.com...
Glen M. Sizemore says...
Well hell! How can you argue with that sort of scholarship?!? Bravisimo! You're
not even going to ask me what I meant that Dennett's view was consistent
with a behavior analytic/Skinnerian view but says so much less? Don't care,
right? Anyway, though, someone else may have more curiosity and intellectual
honesty than you, so I'll draw attention to one of the parts of the post to
which your "reply" was largely non-responsive:
"But, more importantly, let me ask: if Dennett's philosophical observations
were to be considered in designing an experimental program to study pain
(especially in non-human animals), what would such a program look like?
Here's
where Dennett's 'style' is revealed as being derivative, but so much less."
Already his/your view conflates elicited behavior (reflexes) and operant
behavior (and these are almost certainly affected differently by drugs). In
any event, were you to take your view and attempt to parlay it into a
science, you would eventually have to turn to actual procedures. Yes, you
would no doubt (as I now see) adopt the pattern of calling the actual
procedures "operational definitions" of "awfulness" ("incorrigibility" is an
assumption) and you would have to include some notion of "pain detection and
intensity estimation" and specify its "operational definition." That is, you
would have to generate reflexes (by simply presenting stimuli) or operant
escape responses (by arranging negative-reinforcement contingencies) as well
as generating "reports of pain." In humans, the last is already generally
handled by culture (though, in the human case, this would likely add
considerable variability across subjects that wouldn't be present in
non-humans). Further, you would have to develop some way to tell if the
reflexes you are measuring (if you go with reflexes) are actually reflexes
or, at least, if they remain so over the entire course of the experiment (a
reflexive response could turn into operant escape or, more likely, operant
avoidance). What would you measure in these experiments? There are many
other issues, but since this piece demolishes your rubbish I'll leave it
there for now since I intend to go after some of your other garbage. Anyway,
the main point is that, even if you claim that Dennett's position is
philosophy, not science, there exists a philosophical position (Skinner's)
that covers the same ground and translates directly into a scientific
investigation of pain in all its diversity.
Wow! More of your "scholarship."
