Pavlov: and the desolate reductionism of science
Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2024 9:53 am
Pavlov constructed his famous experiement conditioning dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell.
He discoered what is know as the Conditioned Reflex
What Pavlov missed in his conclusion is that there was a conscious being between the bell and the salivary glands of the dog's mouth. He reduced the act to a "conditioned response".
However what really happened is that on hearing the bell, the dog remembers that when a bell rings he gets food. He then thinks about food and anticipates it. This is called imaginition. The act of that conscious stimulation is what makes his mouth water. It is my view that Pavlov should never have been allowed any where near dogs or other sensitive animals.
The warm, sensitive, thinking and imaginitive animal is taken out of the equation and thought of as a black box of behaviourlism.
It will be noted that, xperiments on orphaned children, involving drilling a hole in their cheeks and applying electric shocks, were continued by his assistant Nikolay Krasnogorsky.
Nice...
He discoered what is know as the Conditioned Reflex
What Pavlov missed in his conclusion is that there was a conscious being between the bell and the salivary glands of the dog's mouth. He reduced the act to a "conditioned response".
However what really happened is that on hearing the bell, the dog remembers that when a bell rings he gets food. He then thinks about food and anticipates it. This is called imaginition. The act of that conscious stimulation is what makes his mouth water. It is my view that Pavlov should never have been allowed any where near dogs or other sensitive animals.
The warm, sensitive, thinking and imaginitive animal is taken out of the equation and thought of as a black box of behaviourlism.
It will be noted that, xperiments on orphaned children, involving drilling a hole in their cheeks and applying electric shocks, were continued by his assistant Nikolay Krasnogorsky.
Nice...