Why I am not a cognitive psychologist · Philosophy Forum

Regret One Among Many

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
All Else is mere speculation to a Heterosexual. You cannot fathom what it is like to BE a homosexual or bisexual, since you never dealt with those kind of attractions and emotions (I assume you haven't atleast)
We DO NOT all THINK and FEEL the way you do...please get that through your head. There is no "mental slate" that we all share. We are ALL very very different, as are our perspectives.
There are [b]GAY VIRGINS...do you NOT know this ? There are tons of young boys who masturbate over the thought of other men...there are tons of young women who masturbate over the thought of other women.
Masturbation is a "behavior" or practice that is common and found in both Heterosexuals ANd homosexuals
How could you ever truly know what the person is thinking about when he or she masturbates ? Can you TRULY and SINCERELY conclude the sexual orienation of a VIRGIN through Behavioral means ?
Behavior will not HELP you here. That is my POINT...[/b]

You make assumptions as to a mental state. These assumptions are entirely without support or evidence. Without behavior, verbal (speaking) or otherwise, there is no basis to assume anything. I also disagree with you on your stance on sexuality. You have no means of knowing how anyone not the sexuality you currently are "feels" either. You cannot claim that it is any different or in any manner the same as any other form of sexuality. You also have no monopoly on experience in the matter given that you claim there is a difference. I don't care about sexuality, and as such I won't go further into the subject.

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
1) Killing of the mother is not observable is there are no witnesses....
2) I think you misunderstand my point. If I kill a woman because I think she is ugly...or if I kill a woman because she killed my mother first....they are BOTH the SAME ACTIONS being done for DIFFERENT reasons.
Can you disclude the reasons behind them ? Are my ACTIONS all that matter ?Yes or No.....

Yes, I believe the action is all that should matter. I do not believe in the insanity defense, because I think the action is such that it matters not why or what state of mind the individual was in.

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
You contradict yourself a LOT Regret, give me a break....
Explain to me your use of the term Free Will then....

Free will is the ability for action to occur without externally imposed dictation of such action. When we act, we limit our future action by coming into contact with the consequences of that action. If the consequences were reinforcing, then the probability of it occurring again increases, and similarly if the consequence was punishing, the probability of it occurring then decreases. Each time an action is reinforced or punished the probability of that behavior being repeated alters and becomes more predictable. Free will is wholly present at birth, but our actions limit our free will by limiting our behaviors due to experience. We basically give up small amounts of free will by making choices, such is unavoidable, learning limits our ability in areas while broadening our ability in other areas. Free will is present, but we make choices that have consequences, consequences impact freedom regardless of the beneficial or harmful nature of the impact.

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
Do you really want me too ?

Once again, if you can do so without relying on behavioral evidence and then inferring it, yes.

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
Give me the link to your stance on the soul....

Originally posted by Regret
Mormons believe the soul is all there is, it is the body and spirit combination that is a living being. The body does nothing that the spirit is not a part. There is no aspect of the two that can in any manner be distinguished from the other while one is living. The idea that the spirit in some way is separate from the body is laughable from such a stance, when a person exhibits any behavior, one is seeing the soul behave, living is a state that a Mormon refers to as being a soul. This in no way infers some "mind" or any other interal reference, as a typical reference to soul or spirit infers. The body and spirit are what one sees when one looks at another, there is no supernatural "aura" or other non physical material, a living being is the body and spirit. Spirit will never be discovered and thought of as "spirit", spirit is the energy, the spark, that causes life, or rather the functioning of cells that keeps the body living.

Regret One Among Many

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
Understood, but Regret's point is that Behaviors all that matter. He is explaining why he is not a Cognitive Psychologist, and just flat out admitted that he disregards thoughts and desire, because they mean nothing to him.
I find that approach SEVERELY flawed.

They do not mean "nothing" to me. All I have stated is that behavior is all that is observable and all we have evidence for. If someone says, "I feel happy", or they behave in a manner described as happy, we then have evidence and support for the assumption that they are happy, without such there is no reason to believe the person is happy. Then take this and approach all mentalism the same way, it applies to all hypothetical internal states. All that we have when speaking of any individual outside ourselves is the behaviors they exhibit and no evidence to internal states other than an assumption that since we have what we believe are mentalist items these behaviors are related to something similar in the subject we are studying.

Regret One Among Many

Originally posted by Atlantis001
About if a machine that behaves exactly as a human don´t have conscious experience. I think the chinese room argument clarifies this when it is said that you can do the same task of the computer even if you lack any understanding of Chinese.
It is, a computer just associates symbols, conscious experience don´t need to be mentioned to the machine works(I mean, consciousness is not required).
You can emulate a behavior without the conscious experience associated to it. Like a camera that registers image but do not "see", or microphones which cannot "hear".
As if do dogs, elephants or other organism has conscious experience, I think that it is something that we cannot know considering the usual empiric definition of proof. We can just try to guess how they experience the world.
The existence of conscious experience is proved. You are testifying the fact that you have conscious experience. Yet you can´t prove that you have conscious experience to me or another person(just to yourself). It is non-empiric but it is a truth since you can testify your own conscious experience. Unless you are denying your own existence, something that you are constantly verifying all the time.
Its only my view anyway.

Conscious experience has no proof. I do not claim it does. There is no evidence that man doesn't just associate symbols (consciousness may not be required.)

The man in the computer is not a logical proof for this concept. All interactions are merely the proper response to the proper stimuli.

Atlantis001 The one without a name

Originally posted by Regret
Conscious experience has no proof. I do not claim it does. There is no evidence that man doesn't just associate symbols (consciousness may not be required.)
The man in the computer is not a logical proof for this concept. All interactions are merely the proper response to the proper stimuli.

I think I understand your point of view. But why do you think we cannot prove conscious experience since we experience it all the time ?

As I see, conscious experience is something that we know a priori since we are born. We know that we are alive. Thats how I see.

Regret One Among Many

Originally posted by Atlantis001
I think I understand your point of view. But why do you think we cannot prove conscious experience since we experience it all the time ?
As I see, conscious experience is something that we know a priori since we are born. We know that we are alive. Thats how I see.

But what makes you believe that anything that behaves similar to a man, regardless of origin and method of creation, is missing this "conscious experience"? There is no method of distinguishing organic behaving entities from inorganic behaving entities when it comes to the possibility of "conscious experience". I hesitate in stating that we have this and a man-made machine that behaves exactly as a man does not, such is not necessarily logical. From my perspective, it is possible that you and the machine are the same and neither actually has this, or both have it.

Personal experience is limited in scope to the physical, conscious experience is not necessarily what we believe it is, thus a conclusion to evidence is extremely subjective and prone to error to to the erroneous nature of human physicality. An arm is lost, yet there is ghost pain, erroneous perception of self. Various mental illness are merely erroneous perception of self. These errors lead one to be skeptical of personal experience such as this as evidence.

Atlantis001 The one without a name

Originally posted by Regret
But what makes you believe that anything that behaves similar to a man, regardless of origin and method of creation, is missing this "conscious experience"? There is no method of distinguishing organic behaving entities from inorganic behaving entities when it comes to the possibility of "conscious experience". I hesitate in stating that we have this and a man-made machine that behaves exactly as a man does not, such is not necessarily logical. From my perspective, it is possible that you and the machine are the same and neither actually has this, or both have it.
Personal experience is limited in scope to the physical, conscious experience is not necessarily what we believe it is, thus a conclusion to evidence is extremely subjective and prone to error to to the erroneous nature of human physicality. An arm is lost, yet there is ghost pain, erroneous perception of self. Various mental illness are merely erroneous perception of self. These errors lead one to be skeptical of personal experience such as this as evidence.

I am not saying that a machine that behaves similar to a man do not have conscious experience. I am saying that we don´t know if it indeed has, so saying that it has is beyond our scope and is just an assumption.

Perhaps not just an assumption, it is a consequence from empiricism I know. But that point of view ignores something that we know that exist, and which is conscious experience. We know that it exist and when this point of view ignores its existence it is ignoring evidence, and that is an inconsistence. It ignores something that exists, that is observable.

But I am not disagreeing that behaviorism can work completely in a practical level. I only think that it can´t be used to describe what 'self' is, but it describe perfectly its effects. Remembering that I see that way because there is an inconsistence I am not just defining an alternate point of view without reason.

Mindship Snap out of it.

Originally posted by Atlantis001
We know that it exist and when this point of view ignores its existence it is ignoring evidence...

Nice and concise.

Within this odd tendency of ours is the key to God's sense of humor, I'm certain of it. 💃

debbiejo Dreamer

I believe we should have a party..you, Atlantis and myself, oh and shaky....He has the Buddha bush..........I'll bring omega 3, 6 and 9 food!! 😄

Regret One Among Many

Originally posted by Atlantis001
I am not saying that a machine that behaves similar to a man do not have conscious experience. I am saying that we don´t know if it indeed has, so saying that it has is beyond our scope and is just an assumption.
Perhaps not just an assumption, it is a consequence from empiricism I know. But that point of view ignores something that we know that exist, and which is conscious experience. We know that it exist and when this point of view ignores its existence it is ignoring evidence, and that is an inconsistence. It ignores something that exists, that is observable.
But I am not disagreeing that behaviorism can work completely in a practical level. I only think that it can´t be used to describe what 'self' is, but it describe perfectly its effects. Remembering that I see that way because there is an inconsistence I am not just defining an alternate point of view without reason.

Behavior analysis does not disbelieve or state that thoughts, consciousness, all the internal mentalist concepts do not exist, we only state that evidence does not support the concepts scientifically. The evidence is entirely subjective, without current possibility of objective evidence.

Also, the evidence present in mentalist schools of psychological thought typically has problems crossing cultural bounds, so mentalist psychology with strong support in western societies frequently fails to remain valid in eastern an mideastern societies. This casts doubt on evidence found in these schools of thought. The evidence for mentalist concepts is more credible than for religion, but the evidence is of the same nature minus an external impetus believed to be the source of the perceptual experience.

This, clinging to weak evidence, is the reason that psychology is held as a "soft" science. While not denying the possible existence of these concepts, behavior analysts recognize the lack of validity that is present in the evidence and take the proper scientific stance that the evidence neither confirms nor denies the existence of such concepts but that truly scientific study of the concepts is not possible.

Compare the stance to the topic of theism and you will find that theists claiming scientific support offer similar arguments to those claiming support for mentalist concepts.

Lack of scientific support does not mean something does not exist, it only means that silence on the subject should be held by science until such a time as the phenomenon can be properly studied. It means that the concepts are beliefs, not facts.

Atlantis001 The one without a name

Originally posted by Regret
Behavior analysis does not disbelieve or state that thoughts, consciousness, all the internal mentalist concepts do not exist, we only state that evidence does not support the concepts scientifically. The evidence is entirely subjective, without current possibility of objective evidence.
Also, the evidence present in mentalist schools of psychological thought typically has problems crossing cultural bounds, so mentalist psychology with strong support in western societies frequently fails to remain valid in eastern an mideastern societies. This casts doubt on evidence found in these schools of thought. The evidence for mentalist concepts is more credible than for religion, but the evidence is of the same nature minus an external impetus believed to be the source of the perceptual experience.
This, clinging to weak evidence, is the reason that psychology is held as a "soft" science. While not denying the possible existence of these concepts, behavior analysts recognize the lack of validity that is present in the evidence and take the proper scientific stance that the evidence neither confirms nor denies the existence of such concepts but that truly scientific study of the concepts is not possible.
Compare the stance to the topic of theism and you will find that theists claiming scientific support offer similar arguments to those claiming support for mentalist concepts.
Lack of scientific support does not mean something does not exist, it only means that silence on the subject should be held by science until such a time as the phenomenon can be properly studied. It means that the concepts are beliefs, not facts.

If we not deny the existence of mentalist concepts I agree. It is a matter of interpretation, a lot of different schools of thought with distinct stances, not any being necessarily right or wrong.

Originally posted by debbiejo
I believe we should have a party..you, Atlantis and myself, oh and shaky....He has the Buddha bush..........I'll bring omega 3, 6 and 9 food!!

If there will be gifts..........its a christimas party, right ?

Originally posted by Mindship
Nice and concise.
Within this odd tendency of ours is the key to God's sense of humor, I'm certain of it. 💃

I know what you mean.

Regret One Among Many

Originally posted by Atlantis001
If we not deny the existence of mentalist concepts I agree. It is a matter of interpretation, a lot of different schools of thought with distinct stances, not any being necessarily right or wrong.

Behavioral principles are direct, observable and repeatable, they are as solid as any physics principle. On the subject of mentalist concepts, it is not a matter of interpretation of the evidence, it is a lack of evidence. The only evidence presented for mentalist concepts are behaviors used to infer the existence of internal mental concepts, not direct and observable evidence.

Mindship Snap out of it.

Originally posted by debbiejo
I believe we should have a party..you, Atlantis and myself, oh and shaky....He has the Buddha bush..........I'll bring omega 3, 6 and 9 food!! 😄

🍺 kicking youpi 🤘

debbiejo Dreamer

Originally posted by Mindship
🍺 kicking youpi 🤘

Mithra Party, Mithra Party!!

Time to get cheery and talk about the gods..........oh, and philosophy, psychiatry, and metaphysics, anything mind stimulating and out there is welcome...spiritual talents, astral projection...and chicken wings..........Oh and how I cann't wait for 2007 cause 2006 was a *****. 😄

newyear Yes Atlantis you get presents.........