No abstract

The explanatory system developed by Skinner culminated in the formulation of an explanatory mechanism that should address the behavior as an analogy between natural selection of Darwin and operant conditioning. Skinner believed that this analogy would be enough to sort the behavioral disciplines into three explanatory levels: phylogenetic, ontogenetic and cultural. However, before Darwin’s theory became a universal paradigm for biology, it was necessary to find a substrate on which selection could act in order to test the limits and scope given by Darwinian formulation, i.e., Mendel’s discoveries about genetic transmission of hereditary characters. Beyond neodarwinist synthesis, the Experimental Analysis of Behavior still does not have a biological basis for the test of the Skinner hypothesis about the selection of operant behavior as an analogue of natural selection. In addition, there is not a mathematical model to predict the distribution of variability of individual repertoire in an analogue of Hardy-Weinberg Law. What is the impact of these inconsistencies on the theory of selection by consequences? Before accepting the analogy between operant conditioning and natural selection, it is necessary to understand the laws of variation and retention of behavior and to explain how this sensitivity occurs and how it affects behavior.

Refletir sobre uma psicologia do cérebro não faria sentido sem levar em conta um conjunto de práticas mais ou menos recentes e que cercam o campo vasto das neurociências. É consenso na literatura que a revolução tecnológica das neuroimagens contribuiu à exploração do sistema nervoso central e ao tratamento de questões ligadas à prática clínica em neuropsicologia, por exemplo. Contudo, a observação do debate teórico-conceitual em torno das neurociências não tem demonstrado um desenvolvimento equivalente ao que se tem obtido em ramos mais aplicados da pesquisa neurocientífica. O desenvolvimento de um espectro de teorias distribuídas nos polos da clássica dicotomia entre globalismo e localizacionismo tem dificultado a conciliação entre a análise experimental do comportamento e as neurociências. Todavia, a constituição de uma análise funcional do comportamento pode ter sua eficácia enormemente suplementada pela consideração das variáveis biológicas que lhe são subjacentes. Esta suplementaridade entre o conhecimento do analista do comportamento e as neurociências parece conduzir para um necessário comprometimento da psicologia comportamental com a pesquisa biológica.

This preprint presents a theory on how discriminative learning can affect the emergence of creativity. A popcorn popping is almost magical. And yet, the science of popcorn is safe and clear about the steps until the pop: the components, processes, and results of making popcorn. Nature has its own way to produce surprise in the form of “pops” (i.e., emergence, qualitative shifts). Emergent features spread throughout the life of taxa and individuals. A pop can be sudden and chaotic. And so is creativity. There is no incompatibility between creativity and naturalistic endeavors in science. Creativity is no god given gift blown inside humans. When creativity is defined by originality and spontaneity, it describes a feature with no past or present. I briefly summarize how one can see non-random innovation, no free occurring spontaneity, and non-heuristic effectiveness as features of behaviors that are not necessarily considered creative. Those three features reveal how traditional views of creativity undermine its real determiners and how it can be objectively defined and observed.

This paper aims to identify the Darwinian and Non-Darwinian influences upon WilliamJames's theory about the naturalization of mind presented on his book Principles of Psychology. This effort intends to include the identification of William James' original proposals to of a naturalized and scientific approach of Mind. We identified some general aspects of evolutionary ideas in William James' book on the Principles of Psychology: a) his evolutionary ideas were influenced by his readings of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer; b) James assimilates these influences in an original way, reconciling the generality of evolution as a natural phenomenon (inspired by Spencer-Lamarck) with the probabilistic and selective principles of Darwinian evolution; c) James departs from the philosophical problem of intentionality and mental causality to propose a natural theory for the origin of thought as a source of variability, and conscience as a selection agent and efficient cause of habits formation duringt the ontogenesis of organisms; d) James defines two processes for psychogenesis (random variation and adaptation), whose origins are phylogenetic and ontogenetic, respectively; and e) It proposes a material basis (nervous system) and a causal principle (i.e. consciousness forming habits from the selection of reflex instincts and actions) to deal with the evolutionary origin of consciousness as a biological function. We conclude that the Principles of Psychology written by William James incorporates evolutionary ideas that are not exclusively Darwinian.and that James appropriates this matrix of influences and proposes an original enterprise for psychological science, integrating a new probabilistic-selective causal principle, a psychobiological mechanic for consciousness as a unified agent and a biological function, and a comparative perspective that would allow the study of psychological functions in nonhuman animals given the factual generality of zoological evolution.