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Does B.F. Skinner say We Are Free?

By 1419 in 1419's Diary
Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 08:39:40 AM EST
Tags: freewill, determinism, behaviorism, b.f.skinner, michael crawford, research (all tags)

Michael Crawford asked about B.F. Skinner's position on freewill. I provide an answer from a Radical Behaviorist (aka "Skinnerian") perspective.

Another commentator made a statement about Skinner's research methods, which is also touched upon lightly.


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No.

Based on clear statements of misunderstandings about how Dr. Fred Skinner performed his research and reasonable enough questions about how Dr. Skinner came to, or supported, his philosophical claims against freewill I will briefly comment on these areas.

First, Dr. Fred Skinner talked extensively about the assumption of lawfulness in his subject matter (behavior). This assumption is common to the sciences, and Dr. Skinner wanted to assume it to what had before, and continues to be, assumed as a "non-lawful" or freely willed subject matter.

This assumption of lawfulness is similar to, but not identical to his proclamation of the nonexistence of freewill. Perhaps sticking to a "logical correctness" Dr. Skinner might have said "There is no evidence for freewill so I believe it cannot be said either way", but not wanting to be equivocal Dr. Skinner took the bolder "atheistic" position of declaring that God, or Will, was dead. Freewill, the negation of which was the premise for his scientific endeavors, was also the hobgoblin that haunted the houses of his philosophical opponents.

Skinner's position might be summarized in this way (although I am not sure Dr. Skinner ever himself did so in this way): "With every lawful relationship I can prove in animal or human behavior, I am showing that the behavior of living organisms obeys laws just as other disciplines in science describes their subjects in a lawful way." Thus, the affirmation of determinism being before an assumed premise is a progressively proved fact.

The opponents of determinism might -and have - argued that freewill exists even if it can be proved not to exist in some cases. But this is a wild goose chase (or perhaps it is an albatross?) that must be dealt with elsewhere.

Dr. Skinner began his research on the humble rat. This was almost certainly a deliberate choice since Thorndike had chosen to do work on cats. Perhaps it was a subtle animal metaphor for parallel reseach ("rat and mouse" games?). Thorndike taught his cats to escape from "puzzle boxes" and Skinner wanted to establish a way to measure behavior precisely and observe relationships in that behavior. Skinner's animal research is entertainingly, and fairly scientifically, replicated in Sniffy The Virtual Rat. Sniffy is a computer simulation of operant and classical (aka "Pavlovian " or "respondent") conditioning in a rat. Sniffy is commercial software, but there is a free download version of the demo version.

http://www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/0534633609_sni ffy2/sniffy/download.htm

What is particularly powerful, and perhaps the reason why Skinner's legacy is fruitful and we largely hear of Thorndike merely as a close relative of the work of Skinner's, is his clean and consistent analytical structure.

Skinner argued against hypothetical structures and "conceptual" devices that acted to largely discourage research or explain what was difficult or impossible to explain otherwise. Skinner might argue that freewill was one such device used to explain the difficult or impossible to explain world we live in. By accepting the idea of freewill we simply stop looking for answers. Skinner argued against this style of explanation in a large number of his published books and articles (Skinner 1950 for example). That Chomsky would offer up an explanatory system not based on empirical research and have an elaborate theoretical system based on nothing more than "rational insight" would simply be another instance of the very thing that differentiated Skinner from Thorndike (and Thorndike's work is relegated to the garbage heap of science history as Chomsky will be too) and other contemporaries.

Skinner's research methods stand beyond reproach. They have been replicated tens of thousands of times and have penetrated multiple disciplines.
I have personally replicated his basic research in the rat and pigeon. The single subject research design (also known as "small n") is one of his signature approaches widely used in such areas a testing medications, learning theory and other empirical research disciplines. Even Skinner's most vocal critics usually don't risk chipping their teeth on the stony firmness of Skinner's laboratory research. However, where they do criticize Dr. Skinner is in his analytical extensions of this work to the outside world (what is known as "external validity"). How much research can be extrapolated to the world outside the laboratory is hard to say and is still being discovered. So far, for Skinner's work, it appears the answer is "a lot".

Skinner, B.F. (1950) Are Theories Of Learning Necessary? Retrieved on October 9th, 2006 from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Theories/

For a general introduction to Radical Behaviorism see "About Behaviorism" which also covers the area of freewill.

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Poll
We are free
o Yes 14%
o No 42%
o What is freedom? 42%

Votes: 7
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Related Links
o http://www .wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/0534633609_sni ffy2/sniffy/download.htm
o http://psy chclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Theories/
o 1419's Diary


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Does B.F. Skinner say We Are Free? | 34 comments (34 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Remember that professional wrestler named Skinner? (3.00 / 2) (#1)
by givemegmail111 on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 08:57:50 AM EST

His thing was that he was an alligator wrestler. I don't think I ever saw him win a match. He was just cannon fodder for people like Jake "The Snake" Roberts and the Macho Man. This is the best I can do for a picture.

You should write a diary about Skinner, because that would be more interesting than this other Skinner.

Oh, do one about Koko B. Ware too. You could make a whole series about lame WWF wrestlers from the 80's and why Steve Austin is cooler than them.

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Degree of freedom (none / 1) (#2)
by ensignyu on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 09:27:46 AM EST

So maybe we really are machines -- give a certain input, get a certain output. But there seems to be at least some differences between machines that are purely internal. Maybe you have thousands of mice/humans and they act 99.999999...% the same -- but maybe it's that small fraction of leeway that constitutes free will.

Just looking unscientifically at anyone on the street, it's clear that humans act very similarly to each other as opposed to, say, a banana. And both humans and bananas are pretty darn similar compared to an inorganic thing like a toaster. And even a toaster can be expected to follow certain physical laws, just like everything else. So while there's tons of ways where we have no control, it's those small quirks that give us a reason to believe we have at least some level of free will.

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz... (2.00 / 3) (#3)
by the spins on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 09:31:11 AM EST


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Well done and informative IMHO. (none / 0) (#4)
by agavero on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 10:39:40 AM EST


"Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge." Isaac Bashevis Singer
conundrum (none / 0) (#5)
by thekubrix on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 10:42:02 AM EST

PLZ TO BE EXPLAINING:

People against such deterministic ideas as the nonexistence of freewill usually base this on their religious views, yesh?

So they believe God exists. God is omniscient and omnipotent. So if this dewd knows like everything, how can you have freewill?

no one has much of a good answer to free will (none / 1) (#6)
by Delirium on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 10:54:53 AM EST

It's still being debated, obviously, and none of the positions are really that satisfying. Determinism isn't really the issue, either—it's hard to see how quantum nondeterminism, for example, could lead to free will, since adding some random-number generators into a hardwired system doesn't make it not hardwired.

The real "there's no free will" argument is: 1) all action in the universe follows physical laws (some of which may be stochastic); and 2) a mind that simply operates as a physical machine subject to laws of physics cannot be said to have free will.

Many religions and some philosophers solve the "free will problem" by denying #1, and arguing that the mind is somehow free of matter, operating in a way other than that strictly prescribed by physical laws. Many other philosophers solve the problem by denying #2, saying that we can meaningfully speak of humans as having free will even if our minds are simply machines (of some sort) that operate according to physical laws (this position is "compatibilism"). And of course, some philosophers simply deny that free will exists at all.

i don't really care about free will (none / 1) (#7)
by doodeedoo on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 11:16:33 AM EST

i'd be much more interested to know how and why we experience, or appear to experience, consciousness.

Please stop. (none / 0) (#14)
by Gluke on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 11:54:25 AM EST

You're widening my "Related Links" section. Or you can use the anchor tag properly. Your choice.

skinner is only useful (3.00 / 2) (#18)
by army of phred on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 12:28:27 PM EST

in describing animal behavior, and while this may apply to the truly retarded (like kitten for example), normal human behavior and cognitive functioning is much more complex than skinner himself could ever imagine.

"Republicans are evil." lildebbie
"I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about." motormachinemercenary
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No. No. (3.00 / 3) (#19)
by toulouse on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 12:29:57 PM EST

He might mean gratis, he might mean the future is determined or not, but he doesn't mean free.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.


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Question: (none / 1) (#20)
by LilDebbie on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 12:49:19 PM EST

What's your thing with Skinner? Are you yet another "here, critique my thesis" bastages? 'Cause we don't have the attention span for that.

You are only free if you learn to transcend your humanity and become G-d.

My name is LilDebbie and I have a garden.
- hugin -

Does B.F. Skinner say We Are Free? | 34 comments (34 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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