Behaviorists see free will as unmeasurable stimuli, with God as a reinforcement schedule
Evidence
Richard Herrnstein, one of Skinner’s most-accomplished students, later his colleague in Harvard’s Psychology Department, and a luminary of radical behaviorism, once explained to me that any action regarded as an expression of free will is simply one for which “the vortex of stimuli” that produced it cannot yet be adequately specified. We merely lack the means of observation and calculation. I was a twenty-three-year-old student, and the term was new and startling to me. I never forgot that conversation, perhaps because it came as close as any to summarizing the behaviorist’s conception of God. Indeed, there was a time when if you took the elevator to Skinner’s lab on the seventh floor of the Psychology Department, the first thing you would see was a sign reading “God is a VI,” a variable interval of behavioral reinforcement plucked from the vortex. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1166
Categorization
- CANDY: The ‘God is a VI’ elevator sign is a wonderfully absurd, tweetable anecdote that crystallizes behaviorist metaphysics in one line.
- XREF: The ‘vortex of stimuli’ anticipates the algorithmic ‘stimulus fields’ of modern prediction markets — the intellectual bridge Zuboff draws to surveillance capitalism. — connects to: Behaviorism holds that free will is just ignorance of behavioral determinants — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1164; Early behaviorists saw knowledge requiring the forfeit of freedom — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1159; The physics view of behavior treats freedom as mere unexplained ignorance — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1315 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Skinner treats free will as a fiction covering ignorance
#corroborates(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1160 - Early behaviorists saw knowledge requiring the forfeit of freedom
#expands(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1159 - The physics view of behavior treats freedom as mere unexplained ignorance
#qualifies(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1315