Here’s another nice piece from JEAB on determinism.
In About Behaviorism (1974), B. F. Skinner addresses how the discussion of self control may appear contrary to a behavioristic formulation suggesting some lack of determination. Or does the behaviorist’s use of ordinary language, or for that matter any of his own behavior, violate his behavioristic account? Had Skinner not decided to write that book? Skinner states the issue in another form:
If human behavior is as fully determined as the behaviorist says it is, why does he bother to write a book? Does he believe that anything matters? To answer that question we should have to go into the history of the behaviorist. Nothing he says about human behavior seriously changes the effect of that history. His research has not altered his concern for his fellow men or his belief in the relevance of a science or technology of behavior. Similar questions might as well be asked of the author of a book on respiration: “If that is respiration, why do you go on breathing?”
I remain unsatisfied with the conclusion that “Nothing he says about human behavior seriously changes the effect of that history.” Certainly the act of writing a book (doing the research) has little impact, but a long exposure to researching behavior and determinism DOES change the effect on that history because it becomes the history.
When that happens, then what?
Does anything matter? Let’s take that question on its own, outside of the context of any particular researcher or philosopher. If determinism is true, then does any investigation matter?
The trouble here is that what is determined and what we mean by “matter” is by no means clear.
What is determined is hard to pinpoint because behavior is part of an open, dynamical system. There are so many things pushing and pulling on a person at any given time, all of those things are determined. They come together in ways that make it damn near impossible to tell what is being determined, in fact it’s so complex we often just chalk it up to choice and free will. I like to think about the weather when trying understanding unpredictable determinism. We can all agree the weather is completely determined by the air, water, land, jet streams, sunlight, etc. etc. and yet we like to say “it has a mind of its own” because what it actually does is hard to predict. By determined we mean that there is no free will or random chance, everything is connected.
What “matters” in a behaviorist philosophy is always relative to the historical values of the person questioning what matters. There is no universal matter. The behaviorist investigates and writes down their investigations because their history (environment, genes) determined it so. This is what Skinner implies with the line “Similar questions might as well be asked of the author of a book on respiration: “If that is respiration, why do you go on breathing?”” You can’t really stop breathing even if you understand it all. You can’t stop believing what you believe and acting according to those beliefs simply because you grok behaviorism.
All in all, nothing matters. Nothing matters in some universal way. It might matter to you and that is determined by your history.
Social Mode 
“Yes” to education for life and education alone. It will be awhile before that changes to something of value other than a preventive measure against dementia or a way to baby-sit millions until we can figure something out (short of forming a large union like TSA, government owned railroad or the postal services).
“No” to everything else. Spot changes are just that, spot changes. They make specific groups emote, they appease angst but they are based on the very things (versions of monocausality) that they were implemented to fix: the struggles to live.
There is need to have a more gentile understanding of natural selection, genetic drift, evolution via selection by consequences, etc. But, until that is possible there is going to be more of the same. It needs to play itself out just like a falling swath of a hill in Malibu. The four (and more) things you mentioned are brewed out of the same soup: literal survival history. It is what makes struggle so indigenous to everything that lives.
If anything is to change rapidly enough to be recognizable, it will have to get much worse much faster. That will open the selection to other variables just like the dying RNC selected to be inclusive and anoint a woman as a VP candidate. That came out of need for survival in the polls and in the rummaging of the politics nationally and locally. So it is with conventions in general (flocking, pooling, swarming), discounting those with opposing ideas or belief systems, skin color, spirituality sense, nationalism, boarders, relationship continuity and the lack of fruitfulness of dichotomies like good vs. evil, gods vs. devil, chevy vs. ford, Broncos vs. Raiders and so on…
There is nothing that a ‘we’ can do which is what is clear during hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and the like. But, as the adage implies, nothing changes unless it is measured. Let’s measure everything starting with behavior of the species with the biggest footprint.
Where is this line between spot changes and “something of value”? What are the qualities of something of value that helps one recognize when its just a spot change?
Where can one get a “more gentile understanding” of the dimensions of behavior? If not from a life of study, such as you have undertaken, then how?
Your argument here seems to suggest that change is possible only by drift (mostly through the concept of selection by consequences – biological and behavioral). Drift implies gradual, non-directed motion. This might be an OK description of the macro characteristics of a species, a planet, a universe and so on. It might even be an ok description of a persons life. A drift of values and behaviors…
I challenge your argument that there is nothing a “we” can do. I challenge your argument both on the concept of “drift” as the major mode of change and on the concept that we are powerless.
Many major changes to the universe, our planet, our species, our own lives come about rapidly, sometimes even out of a “spot” change.
First, a note about time scales. When we talk about change and use words like drift, spot changes, quick, and rapid we have to be talking in similar frames of reference of time and space.
Is drift a word you use relative to human life span? geological time scales? the universe’s life span?
Is a spot change considered something within our life time? shorter than a life time?
a) the birth of our current universe took far less than a second. (not a drift, a bang). Perhaps it was “drifting” towards this bang for a long time (impossible to know).
b) the dinosaurs, after millions of years of drift, were likely wiped pretty quickly (in natural evolutionary time scales)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Tertiary_extinction_event (probably took a couple of generations or more, but the extinction did not take but a fraction of the species genetic span. and the world/environment changed within a generation and altered the lives of every creature on the planet)
c) The Pill changed the course of America and the Catholic church within 2 decades http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/timeline/timeline2.html. Note that fertility and birth rate changed by over 10% within 2 years in the early 70s. A spot change (combined with all sorts of other spot changes) that changed an entire generation (baby boom over, smaller families, liberated youth (no child consequences for sex) Fertility rate data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/statab/t001x01.pdf
d) Computing power. In less than 50 years, the computer has gone from 0 to over 1 billion computers in the world to 75% of the US population using the internet everyday. spot changes resulting include warfare, death of newspapers (another double digit % revenue loss so far this year), genetic finger printing,
These are just 4 of many rapid spot changes that happened. They didn’t drift and they weren’t all entirely from “things getting worse faster”.
Perhaps we should limit our argument to just changes in public policy. Can changes there happen without things getting worse faster? Can voting, protests, organization, running for office, hitting the streets make a difference rapidly enough to be recognizable?
a) US is only ~200 years old. That’s roughly 20 generations. Have we seen recognizable policy changes in the US within 20 generations? And were these changes outside of the drift of civil rights and other long standing issues?
The Fed. The fed came about at the turn of the 20th century. Totally new policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve
This type of system couldn’t even have been conceived before the 20th century in this form.
I’d say the Fed has had an enormous impact on policy and our own individual lives.
Stem Cells. Cloning. In vitro. All these have dramatic policy impacts that aren’t subject to the drift argument because the technology is so new and the demand so high to figure out how to best use this.
b) Consider China. In our lifetime, that whole country has shifted. Was it getting bad so fast that it had to do it? Seems like it was drifting, not sure if good or bad drifting, and now the consequences quickly aligned to push it to where it is.
More examples can be found.
What is it that should be measured that isn’t measured? We have data on everything. Perhaps that data isn’t reported nor popularized, so it appears we don’t have the data.