Gregg,
In regards to a science of animal behavior, we're dealing with a functional change in the animal (i.e., object) - environment (i.e., field) relation that is mediated physiologically....and yes, with a particular focus on changes in the nervous system, (though any of the other 10 organ systems can and do play a role in mediating such behavior, the nervous system certainly plays a central "organizing" role in all this).
Furthermore, the scientist can "dig deeper" into the "functional levels of biological organization" and investigate the organs that play a role in the mediation of any given behavior, (e.g., the brain), the tissues, (e.g., nervous tissue), the cells, (e.g., the neuron), the organelles, the biochemicals, etc.
Indeed, the scientist can even investigate the energy involved in all this.
Such things can all be observed and measured, per the scientific method.
No one could reasonably dispute that such things are (in principle) easily amendable to the scientific method, in my opinion.
But I must confess (if you haven't guessed already) that I've long been deeply skeptical of a "science of mind" (e.g., orthodox cognitive psychology) --- "science" in the modern way that term is used, (i.e., observation, measurement, data, testable & falsifiable predictions, etc.). That is, empirical science...
Yes, psychologists can "define" mental "stuff" in such a way as to make them amendable to the scientific method, but that ends up begging the question as to whether or not psychologists end up actually investigating the very thing that they intended to investigate in the first place.
For example, what exactly is meant by "information" in the context of "neuro-information processing"? What --- scientifically-speaking ---- makes things more parsimonious here than simply using a term like "energy"? I still can't figure that one out!
It appears to me that psychology all too often seems to pick the methodology first (i.e., the scientific method), and then "define" its object of study in such a way as to "fit that method", (therefore making a metaphysics out of method). But that just strikes me as a "cart-before-the-horse" approach.
There can certainly be instances where perfectly legitimate "non-scientific" methodologies are more justifiable.
Basically, though I'm very much "pro-science", I'm equally, "anti-scientism".
So I'll just leave it there for now, my skepticism out in the open!
~ Jason Bessey
On Saturday, February 17, 2018, 9:59:54 AM EST, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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Thanks for your considerations, Jason.
Given your point about the different vantage points of Skinner and Rogers, you might find Ken Wilber’s epistemological quadrant analysis to be of interest:
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201510_positioning-2Dour-2Dknowledge-2Din-2Dfour-2Dquadrants&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=rC0A243tzEEQJf1OdAjUC7mQ-tifErhBXcM8eHaqq1o&s=0hMbhcgVwxp8og9K4QCdgYJs8yZiwAMJcTB7B9JwrjQ&e= .
For the record, I am not “insisting” that everything in psychologyhas to be reconciled right here, right now. I am explaining the language game and metaphysical picture that I developed via the ToK that I argue allows one to untangle past tangles. Animals (from my vantage point, we should definitely specify animals,not organisms) behave in very different ways from cells and plants. We can start by plainly calling that “animal behavior.” My point is that animal behavior evolves, in a straight forward way, into “mental behavior.” Mental is an adjective that labels the ways in which animals behave so differently from cells and plants.
To see this, we can ask, plainly: What is it that causes animals to behave so differently? Descriptively, they behave as units, in real time that have functional effects. And we can ask, What is the organ system that allows for that? The nervous system. Then we can ask: How does the nervous system do that? And the answer, at the broadest level is, “process information.” Once we realize that the broad definition of “cognitive” is neuro-information processing, lots of puzzle pieces fall into place. We can see that animal behavior is a specific kind of behavior that can be described by the adjective mental (i.e., mediated by neuro-information processing…BTW, all “cognitivist” models, including situated cognition, embodied cognition, etc. assume a small “i” neuro-information processing model. By small “i,” I mean “nonsymbolic”).We can contrast this to the conceptual problems that are readily identified in how psychology is currently framed.
One final point about all of this that is relevant from my position is the applied side. That pertains to what are the models of application that stem from the science of human psychology. The outgrowth of the ToK, the UTUA framework, sets the stage for how to train professional psychologists to operate from a fully integrated science of human psychology. This allows them to transcend the various fragmented schools of thought (e.g., behavioral, cognitive, psychodynamic, and humanistic) and operate from a larger perspective that assimilates and integrates key insights into a more coherent whole.
Best,
Gregg
From: tree of knowledge system discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of nysa71
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2018 8:50 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Do Animals Have Emotions? A Debate (Between Advocate & Skeptic)
Gregg,
It's a "struggle" if we insist that everything in psychology has to be reconciled right here, right now. Having broad areas in a given field that are currently difficult to reconcile is hardly unique to psychology. I previously mentioned quantum mechanics and relativity theory in physics as an example. If they try to reconcile the two under the "Standard Model", you just get gibberish. There are some promising leads, (e.g., string theory), but the jury is still out.
Indeed, allowing these two areas to develop relatively independently of each other over the course of the 20th century has put them both in a much better position to be reconciled under a grand unified theory.
So if psychologists currently find themselves in the predicament of having different domains of inquiry that are currently difficult (if not currently impossible) to reconcile, then they can hardly be faulted for that. Physicists, for certain, are in no position to be casting stones, that's for sure! The supposed "king of the sciences" has got its own problems!
So perhaps, along the same lines, it's not a bad idea to have a "bottom-up" approach and "top-down" approach develop relatively independent from each other for the time being --- the former dealing with the behavior of organisms in a mechanistic "non-mentalistic" manner, and the latter dealing with the human mind, perhaps grounded in the phenomenological.
That alone would be challenging enough, but I suspect far more achievable for the foreseeable future.
In regards to "subject / field" relational change, it would appear that your "Skinner vs. Rogers" reference is a good example of what I'm getting at.
From the "Skinnerian" perspective, the organism-as-a-whole is effectively treated as "an object", thus making its behavior as a change in the object / field relation.
I looked up Rogers on Wikipedia, and there was a list of his "19 propositions". Proposition #1 caught my attention, because it seemed to nicely capture (at least in part) what I was attempting to express by contrasting an "object / field relation" with a "subject / field relation":
- "All individuals (organisms) exist in a continually changing world of experience (phenomenal field) of which they are the center."
Rogers is effectively treating the person as "a subject", with achange in the relation between the subject (the individual-at-the-center) and the subject's experiential / phenomenalfield.
So it's hardly surprising to me that Skinner and Rogers weren't seeing eye-to-eye. But they could've both been equally correct, in principle, simply because they were coming at things from completely opposite vantage points.
It's like someone looking at a building from the outside-in (Skinner) vs someone looking at the same building from the inside-out (Rogers). Of course things are going to look different to both individuals, even though they're both looking at the same building.
~ Jason
On Friday, February 16, 2018, 3:47:54 PM EST, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Jason,
I under emphasized your framing regarding bottom up and top down. I can see that from those frames, I think you are making good points. Certainly, we can move from physics into physiology and try to explain what we can from that vantage point. And we can start from human phenomenology and work our way down.
Perhaps one area I am struggling with is that such angles are what is already out there. That is, one can be a Watsonian behaviorist or neurophysiologist that works mechanistically on animal responses as complex reflexive mechanisms (or whatever the specific mechanical terms). Academic psychology did this for several decades.
Then we have folks like Carl Rogers who start with human phenomenology, which presumably would be an example of top down perspectives. And we get Skinner and Rogers engaged in a wide ranging series of debates. Each having very interesting things to say, of course, but ultimately what is clear is that we have different models of mind that are operating from very different language games that appear to be incommensurate. One of the driving themes of the ToK is the capacity to harmonize bottom up and top down conceptions, but conceptually and in terms of professional application.
But I should acknowledge that there is value in considering the bottom up and top down perspectives.
I am interesting in learning more about how you are thinking of “subject” field relational change…..
Best,
Gregg
From: tree of knowledge system discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of nysa71
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2018 1:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Do Animals Have Emotions? A Debate (Between Advocate & Skeptic)
Gregg,
First, note that I wrote, "...such skepticism ought to be embraced when moving from the bottom-up in the ToK." I should also add that I'm approaching the "bottom-up" (indeed, in the spirit of Pepper's analysis), in astrictly mechanistic manner with a particular focus on the organism's behavior and the physiological changes that mediate that behavior.
"Behavior" being a functional change in the object / field relation.
-----
Gregg: "The best definition of 'the mind' is to have it refer to the information instantiated within and processed by the nervous system."
--- I suspect psychologists who's own views are grounded in perspectives like "situated cognition", "distributed cognition", and "embodied cognition" might take issue with that.
Gregg: "But, watch a video like this, and tell me you have absolutely no idea what the monkey is feeling."
--- The more pertinent issue, to me, is how we know what "feeling" is in the first place. And we ultimately know what it isphenomenologically. We experience feelings and have language that is associated with that experience.
Or put another way, an example of human verbal behavior that has become associated with human phenomena.
And insofar that "feelings" constitute (in part) what we call "mind", then it is an example of how (in a manner of speaking)the human mind becomes the standard by why which all other (alleged) non-human minds are "measured".
Hence, an example as to what I was referring to in another thread when I suggested that understanding "mind" is best conceivedfrom the top-down in the ToK.
"Mind" being a functional change in the subject / field relation
~ Jason Bessey
On Friday, February 16, 2018, 10:50:58 AM EST, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Folks,
This is a debate, but the vast majority of animal behavioral scientists would argue thatanimals like dogs are sentient and have emotions like fear. This certainly was Darwin’s position. And modern scholars have largely asserted this point. See, for example, the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. It is, of course, the case that the nature of perceptual subjectivity is that it is purely contained and without language, it is enormously difficult to have direct access. But the idea that dogs and cats are zombies like your computer is seen by most philosophers and animal behavioral scientists as not parsimonious and leads to all sort of ethical concerns as well.
But actually the ToK language game deals will all of this ambiguity.
It proclaims, first and foremost, that we do NOT confuse human deliberative self-consciousness with the term “mind.” It is not conceptually sound. Deliberative human self-consciousness and experiential perceptual consciousness are both very different than mental activity per se. They are best conceived of as UNIQUE subsets of mental activity. The vast majority of cognitive-covert mental processes are nonconscious.
The best definition of “the mind” is to have it refer to the information instantiated within and processed by the nervous system. Tje ToK simply makes the point that “Mind” is VERY different from consciousness and even more different from deliberative human self-conscious awareness. If we define the mind-brain system as the computational control center and we conceive of it as an information processing system that takes in inputs, performs computational control processes that controls outputs, then we see overt actions as emerging as the informational interface with nervous system.
If we stay with Descartes old conception where mind equals human deliberative self-consciousness, then our language game is plagued by a very problematic dualism. It takes a little practice, but it is worth it because it allows for conceptual clarity. I will say, though, the idea that dogs have emotions EXACTLY like humans is NOT the case, IMO. What I mean by that is our self-conscious language system embedded in a social field is a game changer. Thus, it is an error to simply presume identical/parallel processes. The way we tell stories is crucial in how we experience emotions. So, there is a feedback loop in humans not present in other animals.
But,watch a video like this, and tell me you have absolutely no idea what the monkey is feeling. To say that, IMO, is overly committing to a radical skepticism. The most parsimonious explanation via behavioral observation, human introspection, neuroanatomy and behavioral and computational neuroscience is to map the monkey’s reactions via the Influence Matrix. It was activated by an unfavorable social comparison and expressed anger/frustration accordingly. And, all I am saying is that you are observing mental behavior in watching the video. The mental behaviors are well conceived of as a process of perceptual inputs, motivational drives, and affective responses.
Exactly what it is like to be the monkey is very hard to say. But, it is hard to say exactly what it is like to be me also.
More later,
G
From: tree of knowledge system discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of nysa71
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2018 10:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Do Animals Have Emotions? A Debate (Between Advocate & Skeptic)
ToK Society,
I'm with the skeptic. And, IMO, such skepticism ought to be embraced when moving from the bottom-up in the ToK. The "skeptic's" points are the points I've repeatedly tried to make in another thread. Calling the third dimension "Mind" is shaky, at best. Calling it "Animal Behavior" is on much more solid scientific ground.
Do Animals Have Emotions? A Debate
~ Jason Bessey
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Do Animals Have Emotions? A Debate
An advocate and a skeptic dispute whether non-human animals have emotions.
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