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Michael seems to be offering the idea that the ability of an organism to be conditioned is prior to having consciousness.?That brings up a question that I have wondered about.? Does an organism need to have phenomenological (1st person, inner, subjective) experience to be conditioned?? For example, does conditioning a pigeon to peck at a cross and not a circle require the pigeon to SEE the difference between cross and circle??Let's call this alternative (a). Or, is conditioning to be explained at the level of input signals and neurological/physiological interactions without any relevance of phenonenological experience??Let's call this alternative (b). It seems to me that Behaviorism as commonly understood implies adoption of alternative (b), and rejection of?alternative (a) --but I wonder whether Skinner, for example, states this position clearly and explicitly, that is whether Skinner is explicit on the causal irrelevance of sensation and perception to behavior in the way he is explcit about the causal irrelevance of emotions, and I would be grateful for any reference to where he or other behaviorists are explicit on the former. Of course, alternative (b) allows one to propose that coordination of respondent conditionings is central to consciousness.?But then other questions become relevant-- such as does the consciousness that arises influence behavior or it is epiphenomenal??If the former, how far on this path will behaviorism venture??Does behviorism become a theory of the emergence of mind from the body, rather than a rejection of mental entities??What are the arguments for applying Occam's razor to mental entities but not to phenomenological experience? I speculate that most non-behaviorists espouse (a).?It is not so clear how one could accept alternative (a) and yet argue that coordination of conditionings are central to consciousness.?&AuthorName=joe becker