On Fri, 21 Nov 2003, joanna bujes wrote:
> If a computer can do anything without a humanly-programmed set of
> instructions, we can start talking. However, a computer without a
> program is like a car without gasoline. It just sits there and does
> nothing. Another way of getting at this is to say that machine
> "Intelligence" starts at the point where a computer can come up with
> something that lies outside the permutations of its instruction set.
> Problem is, it can't. Some humans, on the other hand, can overcome their
> conditioning.
>
> Joanna
>
Radical behaviorists have a reasonable point on this (where's Jim F?): how do we know that people "can overcome their conditioning"? People's lives are long and complex, and reinforcement contingencies may not be apparent to the casual observer at one point in time. What looks like "overcoming conditioning" could in fact be predictable responses to past learning. (--e.g., people insisting they have free will: couldn't that just be because people are continually reinforced for claiming independence and freedom? So even the claims of personal autonomy are--evidence that human behavior is "programmed" by past reinforcement?)
Miles