Following is a short synapses of an article by James Alcock in the May/June 1995 issue of Skeptical Enquirer:I'm posting this to suggest that there might be possible ways in which the human mind might be described and studied positing aspects that might be "outside" Skinner's frame of reference. While the categories are obviously arbitrary and sound overly mechanistic, the overview is interesting and may be useful in describing a most complex organ.
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The Belief Engine
"Our brains and nervous systems constitute a belief-generating machine, a system that evolved to assure not truth, logic, and reason, but survival. The belief engine has seven major components."
1. The learning unit -
"is the key to understanding the belief engine. It is tied to the physical architecture of the brain and nervous system; and by its very nature, we are condemned to a virtually automatic process of magical thinking. "Magical thinking" is the interpreting of two closely occurring events as though one caused the other, without any concern for the causal link."
This natural tendency to link stimuli or events into cause-effect relationship occurs without regard to the "reason" or "truth". (The superstitious sports stars with various talismans e.g.)
"Consider a rabbit in the tall grass, and grant for a moment a modicum of conscious and logical intellect to it. It detects a rustling in the tall grass, and having in the past learned that this occasionally signals the presence of a hungry fox, the rabbit wonders if there really is a fox this time or if a gust of wind caused the grass to rustle. It awaits more conclusive evidence. Although motivated by a search for truth, that rabbit does not live long. Compare the late rabbit to the rabbit that responds to the rustle with a strong autonomic nervous-system reaction and runs away as fast as it can. It is more likely to live and reproduce. So, seeking truth does not always promote survival, and fleeing on the basis of erroneous belief is not always such a bad thing to do. However, while this avoidance strategy may succeed in the forest, it may be quite dangerous to pursue in the nuclear age."
2. The Critical-Thinking Unit
(The only acquired unit) wherein world experience and transmitted teaching counter the magical thinking of the learning unit.
"The infant who smiles just before a breeze causes a mobile above her head to move will smile again and again, as though the smile had magically caused the desired motion of the mobile. We have to labor to overcome such magical predisposition, and we never do so entirely."
3. The yearning unit
Contending that we are not simply passive receivers of information, but that we "...actively seek out information to satisfy our many needs. We may yearn to find meaning in life. We may yearn for a sense of identity. We may yearn for recovery from a disease...Often beliefs that might be categorized as irrational by scientists are the most efficient at reducing these yearnings..."
4. The input unit -
Wherein our "perceptual apparatus" selects and organizes input to form patterns that "make sense" . We are a very good pattern making animal.
5. The emotional response unit
Experiences accompanied by strong emotion are likely to leave strong impressions, often influencing the very perception and memory of events.
6. The memory unit
Of which Alcock writes: "Not only does memory involve itself in the processing of incoming information and the shaping of beliefs; it is itself influenced strongly by current perceptions and beliefs. Yet it is very difficult for an individual to reject the products of his or her own memory process, for memory can seem so "real"."
7. The Environmental Feedback Unit
"If we operate on the basis of a belief, and if it "works" for us, even though faulty, why would we be inclined to change it? Feedback from the external world reinforces or weakens our beliefs, but since the beliefs themselves influence how that feedback is perceived, beliefs can become very resistant to contrary information and experience."
Conclusion:
"Beliefs are generated by the belief engine without any automatic concern for truth. Concern for truth is a higher order acquired cognitive orientation that reflects an underlying philosophy which presupposes an objective reality that is not always perceived by our senses.
The belief engine chugs away, strengthening old beliefs, spewing out new ones, rarely discarding any. We can sometimes see the error or foolishness in other people's beliefs. It
is very difficult to see the same in our own… Critical thinking, logic, reason, science -- these are all terms that apply in one way oranother to the deliberate attempt to ferret out truth from the tangle of intuition, distorted perception, and fallible memory.
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Well wonder of wonders -this article is now on the Internet. (It wasn't the last time I looked about three months ago) Since I already went through the effort of writing this post-I'll leave it. The entire piece can be found at: This Site
bill
