"Glen M. Sizemore"  wrote in message
news:...
> > operant behavior (which is synonymous with purposeful
> > behavior) involves causation produced by one entity that
> > produces effects in another entity. Now we're getting
> > somewhere.
> 
> 
> 
> > JM: I'm very much in agreement with the mechanistic nature
> > of your approach that is indicated here.
> >
> > > In any event, operant behavior is
> > > "directed toward the future," even though its causes lay in
>  the past (as
> > > causes must).
> >
> > JM: Yes. I use somewhat different terminology but I agree.
> > We have to employ the future tense.
> >
> > GS: Hmmm. I was focusing more on the fact that the past is the
> > locus of explanation - or at least a large part of it. The current
> > environment certainly exerts an effect (as in operant stimulus
> > control), but these discriminative stimuli are effective because
> > of the role they have played in the organism's past.
> 
> JM: I'm having a hard time figuring out how this gets us closer to defining
> purpose.
> 
> GS: Well, we tend to talk about "purpose," and related
terms, when talking
> operant behavior.

Operant behavior is just learned behavior.  I'm looking for a
definition that
is applicable to *all* purposeful behavior.  

 True, some people extend the terminology to other types of
> behavior but, especially with humans, most of what we are observing when we
> talk about purpose is operant behavior

You are attempting to qualify an absolute distinction based on
relative criteria.

, and the "causes" of operant behavior
> involve contact with contingencies in the person's past.

Time only moves in one direction.  (So you are only stating the
obvious here.)

 We tend not, for
> example, to talk about "purpose" when we are talking about
the dilation if
> one's pupil when the light is turned off. I am basically an eliminativist
> when it comes to such terms, but I do not eliminate the behavioral phenomena
> that are said to require such terms. There's a lot more I could say here,
> but I'll keep it at that for the time being.

I think you've already said enough.  It's pretty obvious you're just
pretending not to notice that, obviously, operant behavior can only
logically be considered a subset of all forms of purpose.

Now I know that logic, it seems, is out of fashion in the disciplines
of evoloutionary theory but if operant behavior is a subset of
purposeful entities (which it, obviously, is) then it is only logical
that it would be nonsense to describe purpose as operant behavior.

So why do you keep beating this dead horse? 

> 
> >
> > JM: Putting it all together and along the same lines of
> > what you stated above, I would say that purposefulness
> > involves causation being produced by one entity, the
> > purposeful entity, that will (future tense) produce
> > effects in the effected entity.
> >
> > GS: Well, this is not necessary.
> 
> JM: Not necessary? If you are saying it's not necessary to be explicit?
> 
> GS: No, I'm saying that the behavior need not have any future effects, or at
> least, the same effect that resulted in the establishment of the behavior.

Here it seems you are starting to think like a scientist again.  This
is an interesting statement.  Now you are starting to think in terms
of a causal entity producing causation that achieves effects on
another entity or entities.  (this is how *real* scientists think). 
But what is most impressive of all is that you are starting to think
in terms of the similarity (sameness) of the two entities (causal
entity and the effected entity).  Nevertheless this statement is,
firstly, wrong, and secondly, dismissive.  How do you know it need
not, " have the SAME effect. (emphasis mine).  I'm sure you never
thought about this before.  Why don't you do this.  Try to demonstrate
or prove the validity of this notion.  Your inability to prove it
will, hopefully, give you a better appreciation of the real issue
herein.



> I am not eliminating the phenomena from consideration, just the
> mentalism.

Huh?



A clue:
In order to achieve the most
scientifically accurate definition of purpose we have to
employ relativistic rather than absolutistic notions of
such things as what is or is not an entity, causation, etc.)



> JM: Does purpose involve causation coming from an entity and to another or
> not. Just answer this question.
> 
> GS: If one "entity" is an organism, and one is the
environment, then "yes."
> To quote the first line of Skinner's book Verbal Behavior: "Men
act upon the
> world, and change it, and are changed in turn by the consequences of their
> action."

forget it.

Jim
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