I don't think psychologists in general use language that way. Behaviorists may. When I was a graduate student in psychology 55 years ago behaviorism had a bad reputation, at least at Carnegie Mellon but I suspect at other places that emphasized theories of cognition.
After a year I switched to the grad program in math because I couldn't cope with the ambiguities. I was young --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 3:32 PM David Eric Smith <desm...@santafe.edu> wrote: > This is where there is a style of use of language that may be unique to > Nick among all humans, or may be a tribal custom among the psychologists, > but which the common man needs to be aware exists, so that he knows that > the way Nick/psychologists use words will be directly opposed to the way > the common man has always used them. > > If that question disappears for you under those circumstances, then I can > simply admit that a pleasure is just the behavioral transition that occurs > upon the achievement of set of circumstances, and escape the tautology by > defining a goal as the organization of behavior that points to a set of > circumstances. > > > So, in archery, the way the archer points the bow (organization of > behavior) is the “goal”, and the event of an arrow’s hitting a bullseye is > somehow not a goal. Nick didn’t happen to use the word “function” in the > clip above; I have no idea what he would say a “function” is, but in the > earlier posts, it was as bizarrely glossed to me as this glossing of goal, > so I can’t even come up with a guess for how to imitate it. > > The plugging in of an address for the supermarket to the GPS while sitting > in the car in the driveway (organization of behavior) is the goal, not the > event of my arriving at the supermarket. > > For me as a mechanic, the bullseye as a position for arrows is the goal > (applied to an object), or the event of the arrow’s arriving there is a > goal (applied to an outcome of a behavior) that serves as a selection > criterion among directions in which a bow might be pointed. My pointing > the bow one way versus another is to me a function for attaining that > goal. The event of arriving at a supermarket is the goal that serves as a > criterion for selection of which GPS location I plug in; the act of > plugging in that address is then a function for attaining that goal. > > I know that, in response to this, Nick will reply with a sequence of > English-language words that I find even more unparseable than the ones > above. > > The meditators do this too. If I comment that, as a mechanic, I am > interested in what would get people to be more restrained in the use of > excesses of power when they find themselves in possession of such, to try > to unwind the death spiral that is leading to the dissolution of the > society, I know that the meditators will say “Poor child, lost in samsara, > he doesn’t realize that all these things he refers to are just illusion.” > If I say to them that this is what I expect them to say, the meditators > get annoyed at me because they think I am insulting them. They say “when > we say, over and over again, in the first pages of every piece of our > literature, and again every three pages after that, that `all that is > illusion’ “, we don’t mean that all that is illusion. You strawman us. > Seriously? > > I guess that’s how either discipline-specific or idiosyncratic speech > habits work. What is unexplainably self-evident to one person is > mystifying to somebody else. > > Eric > > > .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: > 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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