[From Jim Dundon 2006.05.07.1204EDST]
[From Bill Powers (2006.05.06.0810 MDT)]
Jim Dundon [2006.05.05.2323EDAT]
It might help if you could explain why it is important that gravity be an essential part of a control system's operation.
OK. This is a lengthy post, so I hope it helps. I will make a few comments on your points as they're made and finish up with a more thorough and integrated commentary.
What is important to me is that I say something meaningful and intelligent, maybe even important. I take a backseat to everyone else in this CSG group. My technical background and educational level do not compare with others on this net. I am way out of my element when it comes to talking about neurons, dendrites, synapses, etc. so part of my motivation is to compensate by bringing into play in perhaps an amateurish way some things which I have given considerable thought to. More about this later.
I can think of
lots of control systems that are not concerned with gravity,
I made it a point to say 'living control systems' because I thought that they were recognized to be different. I'm not sure if you overlooked that or if your comments reveal a PCT perspective that says there is no difference. I need you to clarify that. I cannot say that your comments are inaccurate because they are accurate if we think of concern as a conscious condition because blood has no consciousness with which it may exercise concern. Maybe in the PCT view all control systems concern themselves with something. If that is how you use the word concern in PCT then I have to be told that. Working from that end and up into the complete human being it may mean that you believe the conscious actions of humans is no different a control system principal than the pH of blood. If that is true that I have to consider whether or not you are force fitting principles in order to maintain the purity of PCT, it's "it must be true at all times and places" nature. So back to my original question why did you use the word concern and did you notice that I said living control systems, and not control systems?
for
example the body'stemperature control systems, or biochemical control systems for regulating the pH of the blood,
These systems do not live independently of each other or the human body, nor do they exist nor could they exist independently of the environment in which they live. I appreciate the autonomous theme of PCT but failure to recognize the dependence of all of these systems on the environment, failure to recognize the impact of evolutionary history on the dependent nature of our bodies is not necessary in order to experience a measure of autonomy.
When Cybernetics was introduced in recognition of the similarities between control systems that were being developed by humans and humans themselves the terminology that was developed to fit with machinery may not be completely adequate in dealing with living control systems. The "evolution" of inanimate control systems does not compare exactly with the evolution of living control systems. For now I am going to do my best to make all your terminology fit but I'm still going to raise questions when I have difficulty.
I'm getting the impression that PCT views various control systems as isolated systems. So when you say the body's temperature or the blood pH as not being concerned with gravity I have to agree, if I isolate the system. I need gravity to work with. My blood needs me to work with gravity in order to exist. What I do not see is the body's temperature or blood pH as existing outside of the body. They are part of a body which has as its evolutionary history the influence of many forces one of which is gravity. Blood flow in the body is influenced by gravity. The body's temperature is a product of both internal and external, current and evolutionary influences. I do not find it necessary to separate these systems from one another. I in fact am compelled to see them as part of an integrated whole. The conceptual maintenance of them as separate systems is an imagined condition. They do not exist independently. They would not exist without their evolutionary history.
or the orienting control
systems that work just as well in orbit or free space as on the ground.
The control systems that work in free space are not living control systems. I know of no orienting control system in free space that was not put there by living control systems on planet Earth who understood how to control for sensory inputs of overcoming gravitational forces.
The control systems which work just as well in free space as on the ground have been designed by living control systems which have as part of their evolutionary history, gravity, and all the while accepting and modifying an environment by working with gravity. They were launched into space with an understanding of gravitational forces. They were launched from the planet Earth by overcoming gravitational forces. This was accomplished by living control systems which have been able to formulate relationships between mass and energy because gravity has played a role in the design of the organism.
All of that notwithstanding let's take a look at a nonliving, orienting control system in free space. You said orienting so I believe you meant with respect to its environment. Otherwise both of the reference signal and a disturbance would have to be self generated.and produce a lot of conflict. So let's imagine that there can be the sudden appearance of an orienting nonliving control system in space. If it is in space with nothing else there can be no orienting. No orienting, no control, no control system. So there must be something else for it to orient itself with so to keep it simple let's imagine there to be a planet or a star. Let us say that it is the only other item in the universe. In order to orient itself with respect to the star or planet it would have to know that it's there. It would have to be close enough to be perceived. Over time gravitational forces would bring the two together, unless I don't understand enough about gravity under these conditions. Perhaps they could be far enough apart that gravitational force would be irrelevant for ever in which case it could be ignored. What then would the orienting control system orient. They could only orient distance or perhaps a certain portion of its surface to face the star or planet but if it were doing that and nothing else on the scene there would never be a disturbance consequently no control, consequently no control system. If there were disturbances that might move the orienting system requiring control for position. It would have to overcome its own inertia in some way and this can be viewed from an Einsteinian point of view to be equivalent to experiencings gravity.
We could imagine that the only other thing in space would be another orienting control system. I suppose we could make them so far apart that gravitational forces could be ignored but I'm not sure for how long because they would have to have some sense of each other they would have to be in close enough proximity to sense each other's presence in which case there were probably be a gravitational influence over time that would require some correction. If not they would eventually make contact there would be nothing left for them to control. No control, no control system. If we had them control for distance to each other they couldn't do that unless a gravitational force created error. If we had them control something else as simple as lining up a laser beam between them eventually they would crash and cease to be. They would no longer be control systems. Also we would require that they control some parameter or they would not be control systems in which case one of the things they must control for is distance otherwise they will eventually collide. If it is possible for them to be in free fall around each other gravity is still at work and influencing whatever other condition they are controlling. If we place them in space along with numerous other bodies and had them control for a straight path they would be controlling against gravitational influences. If we had them control for no change in relative position they would have to control for gravitational influences. This is not the same as saying they need gravity for control but it is saying that they must deal with it. If on the other hand they were living control systems who had evolved under the influence of gravitational forces they would now need gravitational forces in order to control.
Of course if a control system operates to change position or
angle, there are inertial forces that result from linear or angular accelerations (as you point out), so a gravity-like force is involved -- but that's just a property of the world the control system lives
Living control systems require those things which they evolved requiring. Take a fish out of water it will die. Hold a cow underwater it will die. Take blood out of the human and both cease to exist as control systems.
Do principles of control exist without environments? If control systems do not control they do not exist. If they control they control sensory inputs. By your own definitions you have established a need for an environment. In the case of living control systems evolution history has dictated many of the reference signals. Part of the environment of land-based living control systems is a condition or parameter or thing or perception called gravity. We need it. We need it or a substitute for control..
in, and I can't see any special connection with the principles of control. Gravity isn't needed for control systems to work.
Again I point out that I said living control systems. And for the sake of continuing this discussion I would like to say that gravity is needed for land-based living control systems. Although I didn't even originally say needed, what I did say was that their behavior involved acting against the forces of gravity. I really don't think that was an adequate statement now because I would now clarify it more by saying that some of the actions of living control systems must be against the forces of gravity. In B:CP you point out that control is indicated by a human standing erect that is of course against the force of gravity. If we take a human out of the context of gravity eventually that human will cease to exist, and cease to control, cease to be a control system. This is not an immediate effect but an eventual one. So let me restate again maybe more intelligently, certainly more knowledgeably, that a living control system which has evolved in the context of gravity needs gravity or a substitute in order to exist.
It may be that gravity is not needed for every control system to work, but it is certainly needed for some living control systems to work. The carpenter, the farmer, even the astronaut to name a few. Perhaps we could imagine a spaceship and ourselves in a perpetual state of freefall, but, even that would require gravity. But if we were to just travel through space inside a container forever, with all of our needs supplied, we would have to generate oxygen, food and water, find a way to deal with waste matter, overcome boredom, we would have to provide containers and all kind of systems to compensate for the fact that gravity is no longer at work for us. Or we could keep our feet planted squarely on the earth and let it continue to do the things that it always has and gain a great measure of freedom by working with it.
You have mentioned in your books how freedom to store the effects of labor and to move on to other activities is one of the advantages of living control systems, you have called it amplification. If you look at the effect of gravity on land-based living control systems I believe you'll see that it affords much of the amplification you speak of. Imagine a world with no gravity. It doesn't exist except in imagination.
You've all been kind and I trust you will continue to do so with my amateurish attempts to talk about these things.
My view of scientific hypotheses is that the person who comes up with them is main person responsible for testing them, and a very important part of testing them is trying to find ways to prove they are wrong. It seems to me that you're trying to prove that your idea about gravity is right and leaving the counterexamples and tests to others, which isn't my notion of how the game is played.
You're right!
I plead guilty. This is an area in which I need to develop skills and discipline. I am committed to doing so. If I understand you correctly I have this prove that living land-based control systems can live without gravity. I would have to say that that would require living without the substitutes that would be required to replace what gravity does for us in which case it sounds like it might involve some destructive testing and I might get my ass into some really hot water. And it might take me more time than I have, perhaps more time than the accumulated lifespans of all humans to ever exist to find that one human who can live without gravity. That's a tall order. Unless of course I believe in the resurrection of spirits. But that's going a little too far out of the scientific realm. If I understand you correctly that is what is required. If I'm wrong please explain how.
Gravity of course was a result of Newton's parsing and naming of the human experience, a percepting, an experiencing naming. That percept, that unit of experience, can be viewed as isolated but that is an imagined condition for the sake of facilitating greater utilization. If we hold on to the imagination of isolation as real, does this not compare to what Rick Marken calls in one of his books the neurotic controlling of an imagination. If the imagined isolation of systems becomes controlled, is this not neurotic in the same sense?
Can you
explain just what your strategy is here? If you do want to prove that gravity is essential for control, why do you want to prove that?
A lot lot goes into this including my personal history. But before I get into that I think my original statement should be modified. It will probably not meet scientific standards so just consider it a rough draft. It is bound be modified as I learn more about PCT. My goal is to relate gravity and to talk about gravity in the context of PCT. So based on what my understanding of PCT is it looks to me like all living control systems, as whole systems, which are land-based, need gravity for their existence. If they need it for their existence they need it for control because they need control for existence. A control system who never controls never exists as a control system. Living control systems who evolved under the influence of gravity need gravity for control.
A modification of the statement or going beyond the land-based systems might be something that deals with inertia. That is, living control systems require the ability to overcome the inertial resistance to motion of their own masses in order to accomplish error reducing behavior. If this statement is true it may be true only down to a certain level. There may be living microcontrol systems which I don't know about which can live in substrate which have no source of mobility relative to the substrate. My expertise and understanding of microbiology is not adequate here. Throughout my discussion of gravity I am talking about integrated assemblies of whole systems, not conceptually imaginatively isolated subsystems. But even if I say that, I anticipate a problem with my own words because I don't really believe I am as isolated as I can conceive myself to be. Because on reflection I did not will myself into being, I had no say in my biological construction or history and I cannot alter the fact that I will die. I can only live as well as I can, controlling those perceptions that I can, accepting those I can't. One thing I cannot do in reality is eliminate the effect that gravity has on my life.
Now a little personal history. I was indoctrinated at an early age into the notions of heaven and hell. Some part of me believed for a very long time that there was in fact a God that would actually torment people for ever with the pains of fire. This coupled with my real experience of having been burned resulted in a very strong determination to never die. Part of this commitment resulted in my making gravity an enemy to conquer. A lot of time and energy were wasted doing this. Einstein's theory of relativity and the speculation by many of its adherants to the notion of time reversal became for me what Rick Martin would call a neuroses, a controlled imagination. When I now read about time reversal in scientific journals as being seriously considered by grown men, intelligent human beings, I am reminded of how confusing the world can be. How people can believe anything. complete and total nonsense. Most of all I am alarmed by the fact that the people who believe these things are sometimes considered the most intelligent. My son who is 29 years old with a degree in environmental technology still thinks it might someday be possible. When I try to explain to him that we will probably will never traveled beyond our solar system he had difficulty understanding why. He grew up on Star Trek and it still has a hold on him.
The theory of relativity itself says that gravity is an illusion created by the curvature of space-time. To me this shows the subconscious drive to deny gravity, and to move into an isolated frame where it doesn't exist. They are true statements as long as you stay within the limiting system, but it has to ignore much of what goes on in order to be true. To compensate for this, the inertial frame was created, putting gravity back into the picture in the form of acceleration. This allowed for a very heady world were the only thing that mattered were calculations. This heady world of calculations has given us the big bang in which all the matter in the universe is compacted into some minute area. In what? Space doesn't exist yet. These are purely imagined conditions, made possible by the almost unlimited capacity of the brain, held onto as well founded fact by grown men and women, who are willing to close their minds to problems that their own narrow terminology creates. Let ther be electron, let there be photon. The imagined photon and the imagined electron never filled the bill entirely so we had to let there be quantum theory. The new God is the God of nature whose laws are irrefutable. Nature, the new third-party authority, the invented, created, unchallageable, uninditeable third person authority. In reality the theories are anthropomorphically sourced. Their origins are the capacities of embodied minds and strategic unities. I digress.
While I was caught up in the belief that i could avoid death some better part of my psyche would not allow me to overlook reality. Little by little I was able to let go of that system. Part of the work I did in overcoming that was establishing the perception of gravity as a friend. I focused on what it did for me, the role it played in the evolution of the body that I have, the role it plays every day in keeping things in place, the role it plays in allowing me to move things about, the role it plays in keeping the rivers in their course, the role it plays in allowing me to predict well enough to continue to exist. From a PTC perspective it is I who give it meaning.
It could of course play a role as much in my demise as it played its part in a tsunami or a landslide. But in my daily living, my interaction with my world, my controlling of sensory inputs the experiencing named gravity is present, is playing an essential role, even if I have not named it. Of course, if Newton hadn't named and parsed his experience in the way that he did, I would not have been dealing with the concept of gravity and it would not have effected my life the way it did. But he did and it did and I did and:
now I have to figure out a safe way to prove that a land based living control system doesn't need gravity for control. Whew!
thanks again for your patience
Jim D.