[From Bill Powers (2002.02.06 MST)]
Jeff Vancouver (2002.02.06.1010 EST)--
[From Bill Powers (2002.02.02)
No definitive answer from here, but I'd guess that there
would have to be a
desire to eat better or at least different food before you'd take the
trouble to write down or memorize the location of a
recommended restaurant.
So is this reflecting a reorganization process or a much more mundane
encoding into memory (but then what function "knows" to address that memory
link?).
Which part do you refer to as "this"? The proposed "Desire to eat better"
would be a reference signal, and the means of doing so might include
writing down the names of good restaurants, or "encoding into memory" the
same information.
The fundamental issue is that association models seem to handle some types
of learning (e.g., incidental learning) more readily than PCT models.
I've also thought that association-like phenomena might explain some kinds
of learning, though I never got around to figuring out how they would fit
into the memory model in B:CP. There's a discussion of associative memory
starting on page 211 or thereabouts, in the section on addressing memories.
Why doesn't everything get associated with everything else, and what would
be the effect of that? But there's probably a good idea in there somewhere.
What
you should (or maybe already) know is that association models no longer
refer to S-R assocations, but rather to S-S and R-C associations.
I never thought they did. Isn't an association the phenomenon of a
perception reminding you of another (past) perception? From the assumptions
underlying the PCT viewpoint, associations don't occur in the environment,
but in the brain. It's hard for me to see how a stimulus (a physical event
outside the organism) could associate with another stimulus, or how a
response, also a physical event in the outside world, could associate with
a consequence in the outside world. Doesn't perception really underlie each
of these pairings? I'm just guessing, since I don't follow that literature.
This change is highly compatible with PCT
Are you sure? Have you considered every aspect of PCT that might be
affected by introducing arbitrary connections of an unspecified kind at
various points in the model? Remember that "association" is the least
specific possible reference to a connection between two variables. It
doesn't say anything about direction or form, or the conditions under which
it is seen, or what the mechanism is. It just says that one variable
somehow has something to do with another variable. That's not saying very
much -- I don't see how you could even describe it sufficiently to put it
into a model.
It is here that I am having trouble.
In particular is the case where some consequence results in a pleasurable
experience (i.e., the releasing of endorphins) where the pleasurable
experience cannot be claimed to be the reduction of a discrepany in a
reorganizing control unit.
I don't see why the _releasing_ of endorphics should be pleasurable.
Pleasure is something we experience, isn't it? In other words, a
perception. If the reference level for the perception(s) affected by
endorphins is set to a high level, then when they are brought to that level
we experience that situation as pleasurable. What else is pleasure but
bringing or having brought a perception to the level we prefer? Any other
definition gets into circularity: why do we seek pleasure? Because we like
it. And why do we like it? Because it gives us pleasure. This is no better
than "What is pleasure? The release of endorphins. And why is the release
of endorphins pleasant? Because it gives us pleasure." As Mary says, slyly,
"Pleasure is Nature's way of telling us we're having a good time." Our
experience of pleasure is _defined_ by matching experience to reference
level. If we had a low reference level for the concentration of endorphins,
we would experience a high level as unpleasant. Endorphins, I would guess,
probably are part of some control loop that nobody has identified yet.
Whatever is being controlled, when control succeeds we feel pleasure. But
we also experience pleasure when we succeed in controlling many other
perceptions, endorphins or no endorphins.
It's not clear to me just what part of the control loop goes with the
concept of pleasure. It might seem to be the error signal, but so far I
have never found a way to allow perception of error signals that didn't
make a working model nonfunctional. The nearest to a solution I have come
is to suppose that we sense the effort to correct the error, in some
circumstances, as unpleasant (and the absence as pleasant). When you're
apprehensive, you feel tense -- literally, you feel your muscles tensing as
if to leap into action. And when the apprehension goes away, you feel
yourself relaxing, which is much more pleasant than the tension was. If the
source of the uncomfortable feeling doesn't happen to be among the
perceptions you're currently conscious of controlling, then the preparation
for action may be the first thing you consciously know about any problem.
And its's subsidence may give you a sense of pleasure without your having
been _aware_ that there was any problem in the first place.
That's a lot of conjecture, of course.
Best,
Bill P.