At 8:40 AM -0500 2/27/07, Pollak, Edward wrote:
Paul Brandon wrote "Pigeons have been taught to report internal
states, such as whether they are being affected by a psychoactive
drug. Can we say that they are 'conscious' of being in that state?
If not, what is missing beyond the tautological observation that
they are not human?"
I don't believe you need to invoke consciousness for that. The
perceptions are simply being used a discriminative stimulus. It's no
different than asking the pigeon to peck a key when it sees a red
light.
That was the point ;-)
Then Michael Scoles asked "Is consciousness about being aware, or
aware of me, or aware of what's me and what's not me? If it is the
latter, is it anything more than a figure-ground discrimination
problem?"
First off, to the extent that awareness = consciousness, the issue
becomes tautological. But I would argue that consciousness involves
thinking about the fact that something is either me or not me.
Merely reacting to "me" and "not me" differently does not imply
consciousness, only stimulus discrimination.
Might thinking also be a behavior under stimulus control?
Sounds like the old god-of-the-gaps argument: one attributes
consciousness when more specific controlling variables are not
apparent.
Peter Harzem Peter wrote about his cats: "Here is another
interesting observation--Lying: If I come home, feed them and go
out, when my wife comes home they ask her for food; if I stay at
home after feeding, when she comes home they do not ask for food!"
Skinner would, of course, say that this is merely discrimination
learning. The cats learn that meowing will get them fed but only in
the absence of the person who previously fed them.
To be specific, a conditional discrimination.
Peter's wife is the discriminative stimulus for begging, but only
when Peter is not present.
--
The best argument against Intelligent Design is that fact that
people believe in it.
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ *
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