Thanks, Brent. Glen, First, thank you for taking the time to look at the longer works. We all have many demands on our time and attention, and I appreciate the good faith effort you apparently made to try to understand a bit better where I was coming from. I do not have much time but I'll try to give you some response. Please forgive any typos. >>>I doubt that any further communication could be fruitful. You appear to be more interested in the "correctness" of your view than you are in how the world works. If you go back and look you will see that at no point, in my response to you did I defend the conclusions of my paper. I have not yet had a chance to (or for that matter, a need to, since you have not attacked the "correctness" of my views as much as you have questioned the terminology.) I simply explained in my response that you were working under misunderstandings about what the paper was about and what it was attempting to do. Unfortunately, as you can see below, you still are: >>> And it is odd that you cite Chomsky since your opening sentence implies that "human language" is understandable in terms of processes shared with other species, a position that Chomsky would certainly not agree with. I do not "cite" Chomsky, at least not in agreement. As I said in my previous comment, I "address" his arguments. I disagree with both his hasty critique of behaviorism and his ideas on language. By pointing you to the exact pages on which you could find my views of communication and Chomsky's critique, I'd hoped to avoid another such misunderstanding but alas... Please stop pushing against an open door. I am not your intellectual "enemy". I actually agree that some of behaviorism's insights were too hastily abandoned. It's as if after a few (admittedly very clever) critiques everyone threw up their hands in intellectual surrender and ran away from behaviorism as fast as they could. Yet, having said that, this doesn't mean that I think we must defend behaviorism exactly as it was or even necessarily begin our analysis from its conclusions. >>What if the problem is not as intractable as it seems? What if there were a science that could manage many of these issues, but for some historical reason it was misrepresented and ignored. The issue is very much like the creationists vs. the evolutionary biologists, except where behavior is concerned, the psychological creationists are the majority party. It sounds like we are natural allies against the "creationists", as you call them, although we may not agree about the best mode of attack. I should say though that my objective is not to analyze, measure, or manipulate behavior (for which Skinner's terminology might, as you suggest, be useful) as much as it is to explain why we are aware of our behavior. >>>Yet there appears little substantive difference between your terminology and the language of unconditioned elicitation. And as far as "association" goes, you point to the role of temporal contiguity in Pavlovian conditioning! So let's get past arguments over terminology and labeling and begin a discussion about the subjective experience of emotion, the experience of color, language, intentionality, self-awareness, reflection, and metacognition Let's talk about the structure of an explanation of consciousness and we can argue over what color to paint the structure later. As I said in my original email, I would love to finally be able to begin to address with you the merits of the arguments themselves. (There is no need to read the longer 160 page work, the shorter paper is a more than sufficient basis for beginning a discussion.) If at the end, of that good faith discussion we can come to an agreement on the structure of an explanation of consciousness but then realize that the same conclusion has been reached before or could be better explained with other terminology then so be it. At least we would have successfully restored a forgotten treasure. But merits, merits always merits. >>>I am guessing you are ignorant of these, and wish to remain so. On the contrary, (in the context of discussing and explaining consciousness not defending Skinner or behaviorism) I would love to hear more, but only in a dialogue of mutual respect and good faith responses to each other's positions – not caricatures of the other's position. I'm not sure where your aggression and antagonism comes from (especially when we apparently agree on much), but it is really not conducive to productive discussion. I'm sorry that you do not think that finally beginning such a discussion on the merits would be fruitful, but do let me know if you change your mind. Best regards,

Most people don't "wish to remain ignorant" of anything, its simply a matter of priorities. We can't all fully understand and be interested in everything, and non of us can get anywhere near a comprehensive survey all of the 20K works documented in Chalmers' bibliography. So I think it could really help if there is a good unified, concise reference of what most people accepted as the best way to think of things, so at least more of all this would be approachable by more of us. Almost nobody agrees on every issue. But if there is anything at all that you do agree on, it is great to create a super camp to more concisely represent such (so that both of your camps don't have to repeat such) and so on. And for that where you have different beliefs or interests, that's what competing sub camps are for. Brent Allsop

Meroe: Glen, You put me in mind of the dinner guest who barges in and quickly swallows only a few hors d' oeuvres before summarily storming out, rudely and loudly complaining that the promised meal was not filling and, in any case, he'd eaten something somewhat similar at another dinner occasion and wondered why this meal had a different name and wasn't exactly like the first. Glen responds: OK, I see the analogy. True, I was somewhat straightforward, but speaking of cuisine, you know what they say about one's proximity to kitchens when one is overly-sensitive to heat.. Meroe (at first quoting me): >>I must say that much of what is said in the camp statement seems >>naïve, hasty, and needlessly idiosyncratic Glen, it is a paragraph, a camp statement. Forcibly, it will gloss over some issues and simplify others so that the reader can get the gist and if curious explore further. Now, you've obviously put some thought into your response and I do appreciate that, but I wish that you had taken the time to read the longer explanations of the theory in A Brief Explanation (7-pages), or my original (160-page) work, From Dust to Descartes which would have answered many of your assumptions. Needless to say I do not have the time to present the ideas of a 160-page work here or in a simple camp statement. I would have expected someone of your obvious intelligence to understand this and seek additional information before lighting fires. Nevertheless, I will attempt to briefly address some of your points here in the interest of the seriousness of your response. Glen responds: "Lighting fires" seems a little extreme, but I suppose I could have been more tactful. But after reading, at least much of, your 7-page explanation, and examining parts of your 160 page work, I would stand by much of what I said. And I have my own reasons to be angry. It is considered poor scholarship to miss too much of the literature, especially if one's paper is large. But this does not hold for the literature in behavior analysis or behaviorism. Ignoring this literature is not noticed - it is part of the institutionalized misrepresentation and de facto censorship by most of the "intellectual community." That is a windmill with which I sometimes do battle. Meroe (at first quoting me): >>Why invent this new terminology of "detection" and >>"reaction," when there is an existing science with which you could make contact? Let me start by explaining why the terms Detection, Reaction, and Association are used and not some of the other terms used in the discipline. I had several objectives when I started working on From Dust to Descartes. 1. I wanted to start from first principles. Sometimes when you have been banging your head for a few centuries on an intractable problem, it is helpful to start from zero. Glen responds: What if the problem is not as intractable as it seems? What if there were a science that could manage many of these issues, but for some historical reason it was misrepresented and ignored. The issue is very much like the creationists vs. the evolutionary biologists, except where behavior is concerned, the psychological creationists are the majority party. Meroe: I wanted to start assuming nothing more than a world of consistent "If X then Y" reactions and see how far I could get without assuming anything else. 2. I also wanted an argument that was accessible to the lay person and that used nothing more than the received wisdom of current science and philosophy. Not only do I think that the subject is so important that every one should be able to understand it, but I also didn't think that evolution had made any big, complicated jumps. If we just started from simple reactions and went slowly and methodically enough we should be able to eventually get to self-awareness. I believe that DRA does this and nothing in your comments, which hardly touch on the theory's merits, suggests otherwise. Furthermore, I felt that it should be easier to debate and discuss these issues using terms and experiences that were more accessible. The word "Detection" was chosen as a way of analogizing between those chemical (if then) reactions and sensation without the reader immediately rejecting the analogy because of all of the assumptions of subjective experience than usually go along with the word "sensation." So I wouldn't have used a term like "unconditioned elicited responses" because 1) I was starting from more basic first principles 2) and I also wanted it grounded in simple chemical reactions. Glen responds: But unconditioned elicited responses are "if-then"; if the stimulus occurs, the response occurs. But I guess what you are saying is that your "first principle" is more basic because it simply starts with if-then (causation) and not "if stimulus X - response y. But, nonetheless, the first place you go is basically to elicited responses, at least as far as I can tell. Further, I guess that your use of "chemical reactions" is meant to keep the illusion that you are starting from "first principle" of a physico-chemical nature. However, it is clear that what would be manipulated and measured, were you to manipulate and measure anything would be stimuli and responses. Meroe: I was not trying to explain consciousness in terms of Pavlovian conditioning or the simple behavioral responses of other creatures (although the first sentence of the camp statement may imply that). Glen quips: Errrummyeah. Pardon me for overemphasizing what is usually referred to as the "topic sentence" of a paragraph. Meroe: I was really trying to explain consciousness in terms of simple chemical reactions. The word "Detection" I think offered a way to do that. "Reaction" was another way of analogizing to the emotions from simple chemical reactions but, again, without the implications of subjective experience. Glen responds: Since when, at least up until recent times, would the terms "stimulus" and "response" have conjured up implications of subjectivity? At least in ways that "detection" and "reaction" do not? In fact, it seems to me that "detection" encourages "subjectivity" more than "eliciting stimulus," for "detection" implies some pre-behavioral phenomenon that leads to "reaction." The stimulus does not produce a response (or a "reaction"), it first produces "detection" and that somehow leads to "reaction." Meroe: The same with "Association" – a way of suggesting memory in a mechanical way without the baggage of subjective experience before I was ready to explain it. As I worked through From Dust to Descartes, I wanted to be able to introduce the concepts of sensation, emotion, and memory without the reader getting caught up on subjective experience which I intended to address later. I will readily agree that there may be better terms that could have been chosen , but my intention was to get people would focus on the arguments more than on what these things are called. In your case, at lease, I appear to have failed but I can say unequivocally that starting from Skinner or any one else's analysis with terms like "unconditioned elicited responses" would not have met either of my original objectives. Glen responds: Yet there appears little substantive difference between your terminology and the language of unconditioned elicitation. And as far as "association" goes, you point to the role of temporal contiguity in Pavlovian conditioning! Meroe (at first quoting me): >>it seems to be a somewhat preliminary >>discussion of topics that have been written about for more than a >>century, and have been systematized during the more than 70 year >>history of behavior analysis. Glen, you have read a paragraph summary of a 160-page paper. I should hope that all of your analysis is not so conclusory. As I state in Dust to Descartes, all of the ideas presented can find their seconds (or better said their "firsts") in other theorists (I have hundreds of citations). This is a strength not a weakness of the theory. The uniqueness of the argument comes in the way the ideas are put together and the conclusions reached. Glen responds: My argument is that much of what you say is not terribly original at all. I admit that I have not read your 160 page paper, but perusing it does not do anything to further the view that it is terribly original. Meroe: The arguments against behaviorism (the "creative" or "productive" nature of language, unmanifested mental states, the holistic nature of mental states) are addressed throughout the work particularly in discussions of subjective experience. Glen responds: I'm not sure I see how any of this is "an argument against behaviorism," though I admit that I can not be sure I understand everything you say above. Meroe: Chomsky's arguments against Skinner, for instance, are addressed on pg. 69-70 of From Dust To Descartes. Glen responds: Chomsky never read Verbal Behavior, and neither did you, and neither did the many people that cite Chomsky as destroying Skinner's position. There have been a few rebuttals to Chomsky's "review." Have you read them? I didn't think so. And it is odd that you cite Chomsky since your opening sentence implies that "human language" is understandable in terms of processes shared with other species, a position that Chomsky would certainly not agree with. But, above, you disavow that verbiage, so I'm not sure where that leaves your argument. Meroe: Glen, I am more than willing to continue this discussion. It is always enjoyable to debate such issues with intelligent and knowledgeable colleagues. However, I must insist that if we do so we discuss the merits of my theory not Aristotle's, Hume's or Skinner's or what you imagine my theory to be. Although I am more than willing to address the arguments raised against behaviorism as they are applied to DRA, I am not going to defend or attack Skinner or anyone else. I'm including links to the longer works which should serve as the basis of any future discussion. http://www.scribd.com/doc/22188289/A-Brief-Explanation-of-Consciousness http://www.scribd.com/doc/20518609/From-Dust-to-Descartes-An-Evolutionary-and-Mechanical-Explanation-of-Consciousness Best Regards, MET Glen Responds: I doubt that any further communication could be fruitful. You appear to be more interested in the "correctness" of your view than you are in how the world works. The most prominent position that holds that the behavioral observations said to require "mind" are best explained by basic processes shared by many species is radical behaviorism, bolstered by the natural science called behavior analysis. I am guessing you are ignorant of these, and wish to remain so.

Glen, You put me in mind of the dinner guest who barges in and quickly swallows only a few hors d' oeuvres before summarily storming out, rudely and loudly complaining that the promised meal was not filling and, in any case, he'd eaten something somewhat similar at another dinner occasion and wondered why this meal had a different name and wasn't exactly like the first. >>I must say that much of what is said in the camp statement seems >>naïve, hasty, and needlessly idiosyncratic Glen, it is a paragraph, a camp statement. Forcibly, it will gloss over some issues and simplify others so that the reader can get the gist and if curious explore further. Now, you've obviously put some thought into your response and I do appreciate that, but I wish that you had taken the time to read the longer explanations of the theory in A Brief Explanation (7-pages), or my original (160-page) work, From Dust to Descartes which would have answered many of your assumptions. Needless to say I do not have the time to present the ideas of a 160-page work here or in a simple camp statement. I would have expected someone of your obvious intelligence to understand this and seek additional information before lighting fires. Nevertheless, I will attempt to briefly address some of your points here in the interest of the seriousness of your response. >>Why invent this new terminology of "detection" and >>"reaction," when there is an existing science with which you could make contact? Let me start by explaining why the terms Detection, Reaction, and Association are used and not some of the other terms used in the discipline. I had several objectives when I started working on From Dust to Descartes. 1. I wanted to start from first principles. Sometimes when you have been banging your head for a few centuries on an intractable problem, it is helpful to start from zero. I wanted to start assuming nothing more than a world of consistent "If X then Y" reactions and see how far I could get without assuming anything else. 2. I also wanted an argument that was accessible to the lay person and that used nothing more than the received wisdom of current science and philosophy. Not only do I think that the subject is so important that every one should be able to understand it, but I also didn't think that evolution had made any big, complicated jumps. If we just started from simple reactions and went slowly and methodically enough we should be able to eventually get to self-awareness. I believe that DRA does this and nothing in your comments, which hardly touch on the theory's merits, suggests otherwise. Furthermore, I felt that it should be easier to debate and discuss these issues using terms and experiences that were more accessible. The word "Detection" was chosen as a way of analogizing between those chemical (if then) reactions and sensation without the reader immediately rejecting the analogy because of all of the assumptions of subjective experience than usually go along with the word "sensation." So I wouldn't have used a term like "unconditioned elicited responses" because 1) I was starting from more basic first principles 2) and I also wanted it grounded in simple chemical reactions. I was not trying to explain consciousness in terms of Pavlovian conditioning or the simple behavioral responses of other creatures (although the first sentence of the camp statement may imply that). I was really trying to explain consciousness in terms of simple chemical reactions. The word "Detection" I think offered a way to do that. "Reaction" was another way of analogizing to the emotions from simple chemical reactions but, again, without the implications of subjective experience. The same with "Association" – a way of suggesting memory in a mechanical way without the baggage of subjective experience before I was ready to explain it. As I worked through From Dust to Descartes, I wanted to be able to introduce the concepts of sensation, emotion, and memory without the reader getting caught up on subjective experience which I intended to address later. I will readily agree that there may be better terms that could have been chosen , but my intention was to get people would focus on the arguments more than on what these things are called. In your case, at lease, I appear to have failed but I can say unequivocally that starting from Skinner or any one else's analysis with terms like "unconditioned elicited responses" would not have met either of my original objectives. >>it seems to be a somewhat preliminary >>discussion of topics that have been written about for more than a >>century, and have been systematized during the more than 70 year >>history of behavior analysis. Glen, you have read a paragraph summary of a 160-page paper. I should hope that all of your analysis is not so conclusory. As I state in Dust to Descartes, all of the ideas presented can find their seconds (or better said their "firsts") in other theorists (I have hundreds of citations). This is a strength not a weakness of the theory. The uniqueness of the argument comes in the way the ideas are put together and the conclusions reached. The arguments against behaviorism (the "creative" or "productive" nature of language, unmanifested mental states, the holistic nature of mental states) are addressed throughout the work particularly in discussions of subjective experience. Chomsky's arguments against Skinner, for instance, are addressed on pg. 69-70 of From Dust To Descartes. Glen, I am more than willing to continue this discussion. It is always enjoyable to debate such issues with intelligent and knowledgeable colleagues. However, I must insist that if we do so we discuss the merits of my theory not Aristotle's, Hume's or Skinner's or what you imagine my theory to be. Although I am more than willing to address the arguments raised against behaviorism as they are applied to DRA, I am not going to defend or attack Skinner or anyone else. I'm including links to the longer works which should serve as the basis of any future discussion. http://www.scribd.com/doc/22188289/A-Brief-Explanation-of-Consciousness http://www.scribd.com/doc/20518609/From-Dust-to-Descartes-An-Evolutionary-and-Mechanical-Explanation-of-Consciousness Best Regards, MET

Camp Statement: Subjective experience, language, and consciousness can be completely explained in terms of abilities we share with the simplest of creatures, Glen responds: I completely agree. Unfortunately the statement goes downhill from here. Camp Statement: specifically the ability to detect, react to, and associate (DRA) various aspects of the world. Glen responds: Hmmm.there is a sophisticated science that has developed a conceptually clean, useful vocabulary that has been adopted by many, and is the basis of the only real natural science of behavior there has ever been (ethology showed promise, but its conceptual missteps were too great to be overcome), but the author(s) of this statement appear oblivious to it. Why invent this new terminology of "detection" and "reaction," when there is an existing science with which you could make contact? The simplest kind of behavior is, perhaps, the unconditioned elicited response. The unconditioned elicited response is an analytical unit composed of a class of eliciting stimuli and a class of responses. Errthere's your "detection" and "reaction," but the analysis of this analytical unit was, from the beginning, extremely sophisticated. To this day there are not that many people who are familiar with the sort of careful conceptual analysis of the notions "stimulus" and "response" that was put forth in Skinner's "The Generic Nature of the Concepts of Stimulus and Response." In any event, the unconditioned elicited response is a functionally-defined, analytical unit that is a (but not "the") starting point for the analysis of "learning" and, thus, a starting point for the analysis of the sorts of behavioral observations that have traditionally been discussed in terms of an alleged "mind." The term "associate" and the notion of associationism date at least from Aristotle, but it was, of course, Pavlov that began the systematic exploration of the effects of arranging certain kinds of relationships among stimuli. The analysis of classical conditioning is now quite complex and sophisticated and, as with the very definition of unconditioned elicited behavior, is not well understood by the general public or even by most professionals who are, in one way or another, concerned with the sorts of behavior said to require a "mind." Although many who study Pavlovian conditioning have jumped on the cognitive "science" bandwagon, the alleged cognitive processes allegedly going on are largely superfluous to an analysis that forgoes, for the time being, any attempt at mediationism in order to pursue, directly, relations between experimental arrangements and their behavioral effects. That strategy is, of course, the foundation of the experimental analysis of behavior, nowadays simply referred to as "behavior analysis." In addition to elicited behavior, there is another kind of behavior that is not closely tied (at least at first) to some antecedent stimulus. Such behavior occurs spontaneously (from a behavioral-level standpoint) and is often modifiable by its consequences*. Such behavior is called "operant" behavior a term coined by B.F. Skinner, who founded behavior analysis and the philosophy called "radical behaviorism." The fundamental analytical unit of operant behavior is the "operant" or "operant response class." An operant response class is, like conditioned and unconditioned elicited responses, functionally defined. Whereas elicited behavior is a functionally-defined correlation between a class of stimuli and a class of responses whose occurrence depends on the presentation of the stimuli, an operant is defined, for starters anyway, in terms of all responses that have a particular effect on the environment. In the laboratory, the consequence that defines an operant is generally the closure of a switch mounted on a lever or behind a piece of Plexiglas (i.e., a "pigeon key"), and a response is defined as any thing the animal does that closes the switch. Certain sorts of events (food-delivery, for example) can then be made contingent on these responses, and if the arrangement of such contingencies causes an increase in the frequency of occurrence of members of the response class, the event is called a "reinforcer." When these two-term contingencies are made to function only in the presence of a particular stimulus, and not in its absence, the stimulus exerts control, in conjunction with other variables, over the probability of the response. This is referred to as "stimulus control" and the stimulus a "discriminative stimulus." I have been somewhat long-winded above for a reason; to the extent that "detection," "reaction," and "association" have some overlap with the basic notions that characterize behavior analysis, then, to some extent, one set of terminology is redundant and fails to direct a listener's attention to the relevant data. I would hold that "detection," etc. are not only redundant, they also lack the sort of sophisticated conceptual analysis that surrounds the terms employed by behavior analysis, an undeniably successful natural science of behavior. Finally, before I turn to other aspects of the camp statement, I would say that, contrary to popular belief, the theoretical speculations of Skinner and others are quite cogent; the only people that think, for example, that Chomsky's "review" of Skinner's "Verbal Behavior" was LEGITIMATELY devastating (for there is no doubt that it was enormously influential) are those that have not read the book (as Chomsky did not!). *Ultimately, I would argue that behavior should be classified by its locus in a two dimensional space where the axes are "elicitability" and "modifiability." Camp Statement: With these three innate abilities, an organism can begin to form de facto categories (some things are food or a mate; some aren't), develop expectations, and learn. We can see such capabilities in numerous other animals, but there is no need to assume at this point that they have any self-awareness or are anything more than a contiguous collection of chemical reactions, which happen, by evolutionary 'selection', to all work in a coordinated way to further 'their' collective survival. Thoughts are not yet 'about,' or 'directed toward,' anything. Intentionality is an interpretation in the eye of an observer and without language there isn't one. Communication learning, associations of certain sounds with certain DRA experiences, is seen in several animal species. Human language is different in degree but not kind. A language is not shared words/syntax, it is shared or, rather, convergent, experiences which are associated with those words/syntax and which give them their meaning. Just as a vervet monkey learns what to do and emit when it detects an eagle as opposed to a snake, a child learns which detections (hunger, color) to associate with the sounds such as 'I am hungry' or 'I see red.' As previous linguistic associations are applied to new experiences, children are capable of uttering intelligible phrases which they may have never heard before. An organism's subjective experience is also explained in terms of detection, reaction, association, and language. Consciousness--the information that an entity or monad can process about itself and the world--is a continuum with bacteria (or chemical reactions like rust) at one end and human self-awareness at the other. Glen responds: There is much to be praised in the above. However, like the terminology resulting in the acronym DRA, it seems to be a somewhat preliminary discussion of topics that have been written about for more than a century, and have been systematized during the more than 70 year history of behavior analysis. Indeed, to some extent, it seems like an attempt to treat behavioral phenomena from the same perspective as behavior analysis but to shun its sophisticated concepts and rich empirical data base. Surely the author(s) of this camp statement must be aware, at some level, of behavior analysis. [And, incidentally, you can see much of its history of research, as well as theoretical and conceptual issues, here: http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/ ]. That is most puzzling to me. Having said all that, however, I must say that much of what is said in the camp statement seems naïve, hasty, and needlessly idiosyncratic (i.e., "monads," really?). Further, I would ask the adherents of this position to consider the brilliant theoretical and conceptual analyzes offered by Skinner concerning verbal response classes and, in particular, the relation of these analyzes to the topic of "self-awareness." The behavior of humans is certainly understandable as a continuous with other organisms, but there is much that, in humans, achieves a level of complexity that is unmatched by other organisms. In particular, much of the so-called "communication" among non-humans has little relevance to human verbal behavior. In most non-humans, "communication" involves elicited behavior that functions as eliciting stimuli in conspecifics. Human verbal behavior can be viewed as operant behavior in which the reinforcer is mediated through the actions of listeners, and this is the starting point of Skinner's "Verbal Behavior." Self-awareness, then, is viewed as arising when a verbal community arranges contingencies that bring our verbal behavior under stimulus control of other aspects of our behavior. So, differences in "human language" and the "communication systems" of other species are, in fact different in kind, although operant behavior is present in all birds, mammals, bony fishes, and some reptiles, as well as some invertebrates**. Further, "self-awareness" does not follow from species membership, or so the argument goes. Its emergence depends on the arrangement of contingencies that "force" that awareness; it happens when our own behavior becomes discriminative stimuli for verbal responses. Finally, I am not naïve, and I do not think that this little piece can convince the (two?) members of this camp to abandon the concepts of DRA but, admittedly, that is an ultimate goal. However, I think that the initial sentence of the camp statement is something that I agree with; the aspects of behavior said to require a mind is built out of behavioral processes that humans have in common with many organisms. What if that was the basis of the camp statement, but the particulars of what those behavioral processes are take a lower level? That would not be the most satisfying to me, however, and as I suggested, "detection and reaction" are simply subsumed by the notion of unconditioned elicited responses. Anyway, there is much more that I could say, but I have been too long-winded already. Cordially, Glen ** This is not to say that it is necessarily present in all vertebrates - I'm not sure that there are convincing evidence for operant conditioning in amphibians.