Conditioning

The Pavlov way

I will be publishing my notes, as in this example, on topics around mind control as I continue to read and study. I do not for a moment pretend that these words are original ideas - they are not. Some will be summaries of what I’m reading, others montages of bits and pieces as I attempt to tie together neuroscience, psychology and philosophy. They won’t be well rounded pieces. They will be musings at best. I just want you to be aware least you attempt to measure my notes against others writing well crafted essays. If I spark an idea or remind you of something important, then my publishing of these notes will have had some value and therefore worth the effort.

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It was Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, the Nobel-prize winning physiology scientist, who formulated the principles of classical conditioning. Pavlov and his K-9 subjects, as you would remember from school no doubt, discovered that involuntary actions, like digestion, can be triggered by a stimulus, like a bell, that has no natural relationship to the involuntary action. By simply pairing the sound of a bell with the delivery of food the relationship becomes so closely tied that simply ringing the bell (without any food around) starts the salivation and digestion process. The idea of a preceding condition to elicit or alter a behaviour had broad implications, not the least of which was in the area of mass conditioning. 

In 1919 Vladimir Lenin wanted to use Pavlov’s discoveries to control the masses. For Lenin to execute his dream of building a better world he needed to control the people, and he saw Pavlov’s conditioning as a key. Lenin said “I want the masses of Russia to follow a pattern of thinking and reacting, along the Communist pattern. All of them.” There had to be a way to condition people to fall into predetermined patterns of thinking and behaving. Lenin believed that men could be made to conform to whatever ideology he thought best for them. 

Pavlov clarifies with Lenin, “Do you mean that you would like to standardize the population of Russia? Make them all behave in the same way?” 

“Exactly …” replies Lenin.

The goal was to standardise the masses, to unify them into a homogenous single entity. Pavlov had a rather mechanistic view of humanity, that people could be programmed, their minds and thoughts patterned in a way that their lives could be controlled. This patterning or programming happens through life experiences of the environment - causing conditioning reflexes, or “natural instincts”. Therefore if you controlled the environment and experiences, you could control the person. 

The Soviet’s desire to control human behaviour, or patterning and standardising the masses, became a large scale experiment of conditioning reflexes. The government provides the stimulus, the people become conditioned to automatically behave in a certain manner. Pavlov was given the freedom, the protection, the staff and the money to pursue this research for all it was worth. The research was to yield a theoretical and practical basis for suppressing critical function and verification in human thought that was not in agreement with the State. But can human rebellion and dissent be suppressed?

What the Soviet Pavlovian theorists were attempting was

“an oversimplification of psychology. Their political task is to condition and hold man’s mind so that its comprehension is confined to a narrow totalitarian concept of the world. It is the idea that such a limitation of thinking to one withholds any other form Lenin-Marxist theoretical thinking must be possible for two reason: first, if one repeats often enough its simplification, and second, if one withholds any other form of interpretation of reality.” (Meerloo, 2016)

Interestingly Pavlov found some environmental conditions that were conducive to conditioning. One of which was isolation, a tactic taken up by the totalitarians of the 20th Century, physically isolating political prisoners or groups of people. Limiting travel and exposure to outside ideas and the way others live, has been a foundational requirement for the totalitarian regime to more effectively brainwash their citizens. 

Reward is another condition that increases the effectiveness of conditioning (which is more in the realm of operant conditioning¹, the work of B. F. Skinner where rewards and punishment shape habitual behaviour), and then the use of language (a huge topic and I’ll write progressively about this in the future, especially in the use of neurolinguistic programming).

Look at what’s happening in the current situation: Isolation (in groups and individually, restricted movements, and restricted access to all the information on the internet or at least heavily curated while bombarding people with a single message via mainstream media); Rewards for those who “do the right thing”, like being able to meet together, go to a coffee shop, etc.; Language like “Stay Home, Save Lives”, the alternative being “Leave Home, Murder People” (more on this in other notes). We can see the Pavlovian model of classical conditioning and Skinners operant conditioning form the basis of attempts to control the masses. There are, however, other sophisticated methods around the use of language, targeting the fast processing modes of the brain, all of which lean heavily on fear as the prime mover - but more on this in future notes.

The Soviets wanted a people who automatically acted precisely inline with the dictates of Lenin-Marxist philosophy by being classically conditioned to reflexively behave that way. Reflexes that don’t require higher order “thinking” or critical analysis before responding - it’s a reflex - no prefrontal cortex required².

In what way are our current societies reflexes being classically conditioned? That is, what have they paired to control our feelings and behaviours? Think about masks, daily covid case counts, signage/images (social distancing dots on the ground for example), there are unconscious conditionings happening to us (as opposed to the more overt operant conditioning where you are obviously punished or rewarded to reinforce certain behaviours).

I’d love to know your thoughts…

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Meerloo, J. A. M. (2016). The rape of the mind: The psychology of thought control, menticide, and brainwashing. (Facsimile of the original 1956 Edition); San Diego, California; Progressive Press.com

Classical vs. Operant Conditioning

1. One of the simplest ways to remember the differences between classical and operant conditioning is to focus on whether the behavior is involuntary or voluntary.

Classical conditioning involves associating an involuntary response and a stimulus, while operant conditioning is about associating a voluntary behavior and a consequence.

In operant conditioning, the learner is also rewarded with incentives, while classical conditioning involves no such enticements. Also, remember that classical conditioning is passive on the part of the learner, while operant conditioning requires the learner to actively participate and perform some type of action in order to be rewarded or punished.

For operant conditioning to work, the subject must first display a behavior that can then be either rewarded or punished. Classical conditioning, on the other hand, involves forming an association with some sort of already naturally occurring event.

Today, both classical and operant conditioning are utilized for a variety of purposes by teachers, parents, psychologists, animal trainers, and many others. In animal conditioning, a trainer might utilize classical conditioning by repeatedly pairing the sound of a clicker with the taste of food. Eventually, the sound of the clicker alone will begin to produce the same response that the taste of food would.

In a classroom setting, a teacher might utilize operant conditioning by offering tokens as rewards for good behavior. Students can then turn in these tokens to receive some type of reward, such as a treat or extra playtime. In each of these instances, the goal of conditioning is to produce some sort of change in behavior.

(https://www.verywellmind.com/classical-vs-operant-conditioning-2794861)

2. Artistic license here - you would need your prefrontal cortex of course, but it seems some people just react as if they didn’t have a brain at all!