In college, B. F. Skinner started writing about the stream of consciousness and attempted to become a novelist and expert in this area of psychology. When his ambition failed, he reacted with a radical rejection of the conscious life; although his conflicts with consciousness were not just a personal idiosyncracy.
Skinner went on to become one of the most reknowned behaviorists and his rejection of personal experience became a major theme of the behavioral movement and a major theme of the twentieth century until today. It is a paradox for conscious humans to deny consciousness. Yet, behaviorism claimed to study perception and attention without consciousness. Skinner further claimed that consciousness was not a matter of reality, but of words.
Hence, presents the predicament of today’s researchers in the mind and consciousness of humanity. If a father of a highly influential movement in psychology and culture such as behaviorism states your work is not based in reality, then you’ll likely take one of two paths: you prove them right or you prove them wrong. In my case, and in my current research, I find the person behind the behavior to be the root, the passion, and the underlying impetus of the observable behavior.
Behavior is simply behavior and, although behaviorism may explain a great deal of task-oriented or perpetual and historic characteristics, scientists and resarchers today are awaiting the jury’s decision: should we bow down to scrutiny of all theoreteical orientations or allow the masses to familiarize themselves to this type of behavior and beyond into the consciousness.
