Thoughts in relation to AI learning...
Parents tend to be a bit obsessed with setting limits. Setting limits is sometimes necessary, but parents tend rely too much on reacting to limit crossings. If you trained a robot by only reacting to limit crossings then the robot might well spend all it's time bouncing off the limit.
Think of a limit as a border on a region of acceptable behavior. The Kazdin method relies on incrementally (in small behavior shaping steps) drawing the child toward the optimal point in that region of acceptable behavior. If you train a robot this way, then the robot will tend stay sufficiently close to the optimal location, well away from the limits.
I still don't think you are reinforcing separation. You are not giving them a tangible or intangible reward when they separate. Also, I don't see that the mere act of separating them will alienate them from each other.
But I can see that it's plausible that there might be a better strategy than separating them.
You mention inner motivation, competing children, conflict/violent outbreaks. I don't think you yet have a proper analysis of this violent behavior.
I don't think of competition as bad in and of itself. Kids can compete to improve in the direction you want them to improve and you can direct sometimes this process merely by directing your attention toward the preferred behavior.
The violent conflicts are probably not caused by inner motivation. It probably the kids motivating each other's behavior. The problem is that, like inner motivation, it's not ...
One thing you did not discuss is fading. Fade tokens to just use praise and positive attention. Fade constant praise to occasional random praise. Random reinforcement makes a habit more robust and less prone to extinction. (I think of fading as moving toward occasionally reminding the kid that the behavior is evidence of his good character, his virtues, but I a not sure that is explicit in Kazdin's book.)
A central idea is catch them being good and reinforce. Then, after a period of constant reinforcement, fade. If the target behavior does not happen t...
The term punishment kind of tricky in this context. Kazdin is a behaviorist writing a parenting book. In behaviorism, the term has a different meaning from it's typical use by parents.
In behaviorism, "positive" means adding something, and "negative" means taking something away. A reinforcement increases a behavior, a punishment decreases a behavior. So in behaviorism efficacy is built into the definition, if it does not decrease behavior then it's not a punishment.
In parenting, punishments are typically used incorrectly, overused, ...
Another issue with punishment is that it amounts to an attempt to replace a behavior with nothing (as was pointed out the the main article). Behaviors exists because they have a function, but mere elimination means the function is not addressed. Tends to be better to replace the behavior with something that has the same function. For instance, replace an unwanted behavior that functions to get attention with a wanted behavior and give that attention, so that the wanted behavior fulfills the existing function.
And as you point out, punishment tends to train avoidance of the parent and sneakiness.
In summary, punishment has bad side effects and it's not a tool for building up a system of wanted behaviors.
Good point, I was trying to briefly summarize Marcuse's view but I did not do a good job.
Marcuse view was that we think of ours as a materialist culture, but we are beyond the need for material goods in the sense that our productive capacity far exceeds our needs (but of course, we distribute unevenly so that there are still some in material need.). Demand is driven by emotional needs rather than material needs. And the stuff we buy often does not satisfy the emotional need, hence demand becomes unbounded.
But a musical instrument is perhaps something t...
Trying to channel Marcuse from memory, here goes: We have a finite need for money. We need it for is adequate food and shelter. But unsatisfied emotional needs can be effectively unbounded. It's possible for the culture to convert the things that money can buy into something that we seek because of unsatisfied emotional needs. From hence flows the unbounded need for money.
Marcuse would substitute "capitalist" for "culture". But perhaps it's just something about human nature. Perhaps it's the dopamine system in our brains. Not sure why it works this way (assuming it does indeed work this way).
As you point out, Szilard took steps to keep his nuclear chain-reaction patent secret from the Germans. He later took steps that led the US government to start preventing the open publication of scientific papers on nuclear reactor design and other related topics. (The Germans noticed when the journals went quiet.)
Right after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he thought the US government was putting out too much public information on the A-bomb. He even thought the Einstein-Szilard letters should remain secret. His idea at the time was the US government should...
I focused on behaviorism, but I just wanted to mention that The Incredible Years is a good evidence-based book that is not based soly in behaviorism. Kazdin's are the best books on behaviorism as applied to parenting. Incredible Years integrates a bunch of methods including behaviorism.
Here's a neat pictorial outline of the Incredible Years Program:
http://r2lp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/pyramid-in-color.jpg
Here's the book on Amazon:
The Family-Teaching Association certifies group homes in the use of evidence-based parenting methods. Everyone involved has to be trained and meet standards. These group homes have replaced what use to be call orphanages. A resident family-teaching couple has the role of parent for a group of kids. The organizations managing the group homes also provide support for troubled families as part of an overall system to deal with severe problems related to bad parenting.
So, at least, there is a licensing system geared to addressing the consequences of bad p...
Actually if it works as well as I claim, psychotherapy for kids might be less effective. It involves changing the kid's environment. Psychotherapy can't do that. You have to get the parents to be willing to change and give them training.
On the contrary, the fact that psychotherapy works at all is evidence that the operant conditioning methods I am pushing are not the whole story, and of course operant conditioning is not the whole story.
By your definition, medicine is not a sound science because stability overall in detail is not to be expected due to genetic variability.
I agree about psychology as a whole. How about the practical part of behaviorism, operant conditoning?
It's quantifiable and reasonably good at forecasts.
Surely you realize that stability across individuals if not really to be expected overall in detail. People don't always react the same in detail because of genetic difference (as an example). Stabilty is likely not evidenced for the most extremely genetically different individuals, and it is not to be expected. Environment and culture can lead to variations as well. Stability is not to be expected in...
(how do I make those bars on the right indicating what I am replying to?)
"But it made me feel uneasy because it didn't (seem to) address the real issue. It looked like an easy way out. It did work but it also cost quite some time each time."
You can always address the real issue at some other time. The key is merely short-term timing, you don't want to react immediately in a way that reinforces the unwanted behavior with attention. Later, when the kid is not engaging in unwanted behavior your can address the real issue for hours on end if you w...
In evidence-based parenting, the reason for pretending to ignore in response to unwanted behavior is that adult attention is a positive reinforcer. It has nothing to do with authority or feelings about interference. It has everything to do with what works.
The research indicates that the best approach is to direct attention to wanted behavior and away from any harmless unwanted behavior that can be ignored.
The strategy of signaling that you notice, smiling at, gamifying, in response to unwanted behavior is grossly counterproductive.
See:
Studies indicate that the normal range of parenting styles have little impact. But the normal range is grossly sub-optimal. So, this research says nothing about the impact of optimal parenting.
Scientific research on parenting has provided superior evidence-based methods that have not been widely adopted by parents due to poor technology transfer in this area. In fact., it's normal for parents chronically employ methods that have been known for decades to be counterproductive.
Certain behaviors are called "behavior traps". Once they are learne...
I would make a different argument than Pinker's in favor of the notion that parenting matters.
Studies show that the normal range of parenting has a limited impact on outcomes. I will grant that.
The normal range of parenting styles is dominated by sub-optimal parenting, so studying the normal range tells you nothing about the impact of optimal parenting methods. Scientific research has provided evidenced-based parenting methods that are superior to those commonly practiced, but the technology transfer has mostly failed, in particular when it comes to getti...
Well, I gave some specific references (Incredible Years, Triple P, Kazdin Method, Everyday Parenting by Kazdin). Have you checked them out?
Kazdin runs the Child Conduct Center at Yale and former president of the American Psychological Society. Incredible Years is a program developed at U of Washington.
What does it take to turn off your BS detector? I speculate that I can provide it.
There is also the Parent Management Oregon Model (PTMO) that originates with Patterson at U of Oregon. Patterson wrote the first evidence-based parenting book for a general au...
Turns out that some parents do require a mandatory license for parenting. A parent can end up before judge and be required to take a parenting course. These courses are all (as far as I can tell) evidence-based, developed and evaluated using sound science. Programs like: Incredible Years, Triple P, Kazdin Method.
Ironically, most parents, even those who read lots of parenting books, never encounter a parenting book that is primarily evidence-based. Most parenting books are opinion-based. The most recent evidence-based book that I know of is "Everyday Parenting" by Kazdin.
The wikipedia on the SIA points out that it is not an assumption, but a theorem or corollary. You have simply shown this fact again. Bostrom probably first named it an assumption, but it is neither an axiom or an assumption. You can derive it from these assumptions:
Those twins studies constitutes a low-power measurement of effects of whatever it is that parents in the broad population happen to be doing during the time period of the study. It should not be confused with a measurement of the effects of best practice. Many professional and parent-mediated interventions have been shown to have significant effects in random controlled trials or by other means that are not confounded by genetics. As a broad estimate, any intervention that health insurance will pay is such an evidence-based intervention and there are mo... (read more)