[DS:] Physiology/ psychology, it seems everyone at this forum wants to keep these two things separate.
[Krimel] Not guilty. I bring this up all the time but always get sidetracked by the mystics in the crowd who insist aht any effort along these lines is inheriently SOM. Or by the nut case who insist that physiology is irrelevant because experience somehow has a psychic component. [DS:] The reason Pavlov is studied by every freshman psychology student is because his observations about physiology have great import to psychology. You are right, he didn't consider himself to be a psychologist but that didn't stop history from judging him to be among the best of them, and he most certainly saw and wrote convincingly about the connection between physiology and behaviour. Skinner using the same metaphysical assumptions believed that behaviour is the response to physical causes. He didn't need to study physiology (although I have a dim recollection that physiology was his stated major at Harvard) to believe that, the positivists, Comte and Wundt influenced lab psychologists like Pavlov and Skinner and most current scientists with their insistence that behaviour has physiological causes. Skinner did thousands of experiments, and it's the principle that I'm pointing too not the specific variable. He believed he could condition any behaviour to any stimulus and, if memory serves, once conditioned Eric Fromm to curse out loud in response to puffs of air during a public debate. [Krimel] I was pointing to an error in the text you linked to us. I think it still stands as an error. Pavlov was a physiologist. He won a Nobel prize for his work in physiology. He did write and do studies relevant to psychology but so did Descartes who is also studies by first year psychology students. I think Wundt's influence on Pavlov, which you point out, was mainly to reinforce Pavlov's insistence that we was not a psychologist. I don't think Wundt had all that much influence on Skinner at all. Skinner did believe that classical and operant conditioning takes place and shapes nearly all of our behavior both inside and outside the lab. He is linked to the urban legend of the psych class that conditions their instructor to lecture from the hall outside the class by nodding and attending to him as he moved ever closer to the classroom door. But again, you said he studied physiology which he did not in any great detail. His bachelor's degree was in English. Both his M.A. and Ph.Ds were from Harvard in psychology. [DS:] It certainly is my own theory that those who can recite the Gettysburg address do so using learned reflexes. If you have another theory, one that is better than saying, "it happens by magic". Please let me know for I have never seen one. Your comment about clarity is fair and I will try harder in future. [Krimel] OK but my point once again is that this is an improper use of the term reflex. The study of both reflexes and memory are quite rich. There is plenty of literature out there to look into before one sets about constructing new theories to explain either of them. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
