A question

[Jim_Dundon]

[Jim Dundon 05.26.07. 1000edt]

[Martin Taylor 2007.05.25.13.44]

[Jim Dundon 05.25.07.1134edt]

[Arbitrary extract follows]

How do we know its a perception? Are we supposed to just know? Where did the word/concept/perception come from.? What need did its creation satisfy? What drove the production of the word? How do we know we have the right word? What came first, the verb or the noun? Perceiving must have come before the noun percept so what force drives the noun to preeminance?

Jim, I find your messages extremely confusing. Are actually saying that organisms without language have no perceptions? A baby controls NOTHING? A chimpanzee controls NOTHING?

I am saying that they do, and we know that they do, because we create and work with that terming. The experience " They control" is our languaged experience. After we language/create that fact, we step aside, as you have done, and pretend, because of social expediency, that we did not do it. We tell ourselves and each other that they are independant facts, and they are, because we say so, and we can say so because we languaged/created the words/percepts with whch to say so.

Language is an important part of human experience, and as such is an important aspect of some control systems. But you seem to be saying more than this -- that without language there cannot be control systems or perceptions to control.

Martin,

Remove all of this languaging "that without language there cannot be control systems or perceptions to control" and all associated words, concepts, percepts, and tell me what you have remaining.

Lets put it another way:

Forbid your self the use of the words control, systems, perceptions, and prove to me that I am wrong. Prove to me that "chimpanzees and children control perceptions" without using those words and/or symbols which represent them.

We could not say "we just know" because those words would then point to nonexistant concepts. It would be "just know ____."

I promise to be patient

This absurd claim is about the only sense I can make of your writing.

You did a good job

But maybe you don't think it's absurd. Although I find this hard to believe,

I know and that's OK.

maybe it really is what you are tryng to get across. Are you? If so, on what basis do you justify the claim?

See above

Martin

best,

Jim d

[Marc_Abrams3]

from [ Marc Abrams (20000314.1452) ]

from a PCT point of view, what would the difference(s) be between
"biological" and "Psychological" perspectives?

Marc

[R_Marken]

[From Rick Marken (2000.03.14.0730)]

Marc Abrams (20000314.1452) --

From a PCT point of view, what would the difference(s)
be between "biological" and "Psychological" perspectives?

I think you may be asking about the PCT view of the relative
merits of biological versus psychological explanations of
behavioral phenomena (like Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD).
I would say that either explanation (or both) could have merit.
The behavior we see could be the result of biological or
psychological processes or both. A child may be shouting, for
example, because it is deaf (biological explanation) and is
trying to produce acoustical outputs it can hear. Or it could
be shouting because it is in some kind of internal conflict
(psychological explanation) and is unable to control its
acoustical inputs; or it could be shouting because it has
not developed the skills (which involve both a psychological
component, in terms of development of control organizations,
and a biological component, in terms of the development of
muscular capabilities) needed to control its inputs in a way
that is less disruptive to others.

I think a competent therapist will always consider the
_possibility_ that the observed behavior has a biological
basis. There are obvious ways to test for certain biological
problems (like deafness). Failure to consider the possibility
of a clear and simple biological basis for an observed
behavior can have consequences that are just as unfortunate
as assuming that a behavior _is_ biologically based. I know,
for example, of children who were subjected to years of
discipline programs (under the assumption that the observed
behavior was psychologically based) when all that these kids
needed was a hearing aid.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates mailto: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken

[Marc_Abrams3]

from [ Marc Abrams (2000.03.14.1424) ]

[From Rick Marken (2000.03.14.0730)]

Marc Abrams (20000314.1452) --

> From a PCT point of view, what would the difference(s)
> be between "biological" and "Psychological" perspectives?

I think you may be asking about the PCT view of the relative
merits of biological versus psychological explanations of
behavioral phenomena (like Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD).

No, Actually I want to know it there is a difference from a PCT
perspective on "biological" and "Psychological" views. A control loop is a
control loop is a control loop. No?

What makes one control loop "biological" and another "psychological"?

If by biological we actually mean "physical" what form does "psychological"
control loop take take?

Thanks for the attempt Rick.

Marc

[R_Marken]

[From Rick Marken (2000.03.14.1240)]

Marc Abrams (2000.03.14.1424) Me:

If by biological we actually mean "physical" what form does
"psychological" control loop take take?

I think of the biological aspect of a control loop as the
physical make-up of the loop; the organic materials (neurons, etc)
that make up the loop. The psychological aspect of the control loop
is its _functional organization_.

So you can have a loop that's made out of a nice, normal set of
biological components but is organized so that it functions as,
say, a positive feedback loop (and, thus, doesn't control).
This unpleasant organization would result, for example, if the
perceptual and reference neurons both ended up making excitatory
connections to the error neuron. The same, normal set of neurons
would function as a control system if the perceptual and reference
neurons made inhibitory and excitatory connections, respectively,
to the error neuron. Same biology, different psychology.

So normal biological components can be functionally organized
to produce a successful or an unsuccessful control system; biology
and psychology can be independent. But bad biology can affect
functional organization. If the perceptual neuron, for example,
doesn't fire at all (as in deafness) it can't function
properly as part of a control organization. So psychological
(functional organization) problems can be caused by bad biology.
And it also seems to be true that bad biology can result (at
least as a side effect) from poor functional organization
(psychology); a positive feedback functional organization, for
example, could "break" the output devices (muscles and glands)
that are part of such an organization; psychology (positive
feedback organization) leads to bad biology (broken muscles
and glands)

Does this help?

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates mailto: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken

[Martin_Taylor]

[Martin Taylor 2000.03.14 17:34]

From [ Marc Abrams (2000.03.14.1424) ]

> [From Rick Marken (2000.03.14.0730)]
>
> Marc Abrams (20000314.1452) --
>
> > From a PCT point of view, what would the difference(s)
> > be between "biological" and "Psychological" perspectives?
>
> I think you may be asking about the PCT view of the relative
> merits of biological versus psychological explanations of
> behavioral phenomena (like Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD).

No, Actually I want to know it there is a difference from a PCT
perspective on "biological" and "Psychological" views. A control loop is a
control loop is a control loop. No?

What makes one control loop "biological" and another "psychological"?

If by biological we actually mean "physical" what form does "psychological"
control loop take take?

Thanks for the attempt Rick.

Here's another attempt within PCT (not accepting that one control
loop is biological and another psychological, but treating behaviour
effects as being influenced "biologically" or "psychologically":

Assert (1) that "biological" refers to physiological properties that
affect the operation of control loops. For example, different
chemical balances might affect the precision of perceptual systems
(Rick's example of deafness might be added here as an extreme of a
"biological" effect) or they might affect the gain of control loops.
Small changes in loop gain can affect the stability of control loops,
and may sometimes be manifest in large changes in behaviour. In
effect, "biological" changes alter the control loops themselves and
their range of performance.

Assert (2) that "psychological" refers to the action of control
hierarchies with different high-level reference values.
"Psychological" changes in behaviour refer to changes in the
interactions of control loops when their reference values change.
(Altered disturbance values may have similar effects, sometimes).

With these assertions, in "psychological" changes, the loops don't
change but the data values of the signals in them change, whereas in
"biological" changes, it is the structure and performance of the
loops that change--and perforce the data must change as a consequence.

Well, it's an attempt. The issue, I think, is that PCT is a
thoroughgoing mechanistic theory, and "biological" refers to the
physical machine. That identification seems to leave little room for
anything to which "psychological" might refer. I'm identifying
"psychological" with the changing state of the "biological" machine.

You may differ.

Martin

[Marc_Abrams3]

from [ Marc Abrams (2000.03.14.1901) ]

Thanks Rick and Martin. Both helpful.

I tend to like Martin's summary which I do not think differs from Rick's
intent. Am I right in assuming this Rick?

Martin said:

Well, it's an attempt. The issue, I think, is that PCT is a
thorough going mechanistic theory, and "biological" refers to the
physical machine. That identification seems to leave little room for
anything to which "psychological" might refer. I'm identifying
"psychological" with the changing state of the "biological" machine.

Marc

[David_Goldstein1]

[From David Goldstein(2000.03.1907)]

Yes, it does help. Thanks.

But what determines the kind of connections made (excitatory or
inhibitatory)?

And is that a biological or psychological factor?

Before your explanation, I always thought that the Reorganization System,
which was responsible for the development and organization of the Perceptual
Hierrarchy, was the biological component. I thought of the Perceptual
Hierrarchy as the psychological component. The former is experience
independent. The latter is experience dependent.

[Jim_Dundon]

[Jim Dundon 05.24.07.1344edt.]

Bill,

In an account of the beginnings of PCT you nentioned your cooperative effort with some one named Bob to develope word trees and discovered that

"people don't/can't control meanings of words, what they control are perceptions.

"A percept is a unit of experience" BP

If so it must have been identified, given existance, with a phonetic tag, a word.

Every perception exists only by having been identified using a phonetic tag.

These tags are words.

As I see it, a percept is only a percept because of its having been worded, they are simultaneously interdependant. It exists because someone engaged in an experiencing naming act.

How can we control perceptions without controlling the meanings of words, a thing you said we can't/don't do?

best,

Jim D

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2007.05.24.1110)]

Jim Dundon (05.24.07.1344edt.)

How can we control perceptions without controlling the meanings of words, a
thing you said we can't/don't do?

I would imagine we would do it in the same way as it is done by things
that don't talk: things like thermostats, dogs and infants. To see how
perceptions are controlled without controlling the meaning of words
see the first few chapters of B:CP .

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
Lecturer in Psychology UCLA
Statistical Analyst VHA
rsmarken@gmail.com

[Bill_Powers1]

Bill,

In an account of the beginnings of PCT you nentioned your cooperative
effort with some one named Bob to develope word trees and discovered
that

"people don’t/can’t control meanings of words, what they control are
perceptions.
[From Bill Powers (2007.05.24.1304 MDT)]

Jim Dundon 05.24.07.1344edt.–

Yes, that was Bob Clark.

“A percept is
a unit of experience” BP

If so it must have been identified, given existance, with a phonetic tag,
a word.

We seem to have exactly opposite ideas about this. Here is mine:

A perception exists first as a perceptual signal, a train of impulses in
a sensory nerve fiber. At each level, new perceptual signals are created
by combining perceptual signals from the level(s) below.

Words are perceptions – either auditory sounds or visual marks. They,
too, exist as neural signals. At some level in the brain, we use
word-perception signals to stand for other kinds of perceptual signals,
and manipulate the word-signals using the rules of logic, language, and
whatever else applies. Language is not the same thing as direct
experience.

It’s necessary to be able to perceive something before you can name it.
You can perceive and control any perception without first calling it
something. Learning to look behind the words at the experiences to which
they point is an important part of understanding PCT.

The meanings of words are perceptions taken from our own experiences;
words serve as pointers to those recorded perceptions. This is why words
do not have the same meanings for everybody.

Best,

Bill P.

[Jim_Dundon]

[Jim Dundon 05.25.07.1134edt]

[From Bill Powers (2007.05.24.1304 MDT)]

Jim Dundon 05.24.07.1344edt.--

Bill,

In an account of the beginnings of PCT you mentioned your
cooperative effort with some one named Bob to develope word trees
and discovered that

"people don't/can't control meanings of words, what they control are
perceptions.

Yes, that was Bob Clark.

"A percept is a unit of experience" BP

If so it must have been identified, given existance, with a phonetic
tag, a word.

We seem to have exactly opposite ideas about this. Here is mine:

A perception exists first.

Okay. You can now say that only because you have sufficient information in the form of named experiences to be able to name the experience of "there are experiences/perceptions/neural signals taking place that i am not conciously aware of." You can only say that after you have named all those experiences, including the named experience of "not conciuosly aware of." It also now becomes a thing you can use.

This is giving it a place in a time line as being at place earlier than something else, the naming, Not simultaneous. Looks like A causes B, or SR

as a perceptual signal, a train of impulses
in a sensory nerve fiber.

Brought about by environmental conditions,
after whuch we can choose to name it
This sounds like SR

How do we know its a perception? Are we supposed to just know? Where did the word/concept/perception come from.? What need did its creation satisfy? What drove the production of the word? How do we know we have the right word? What came first, the verb or the noun? Perceiving must have come before the noun percept so what force drives the noun to preeminance?

At each level, new perceptual signals are
created by combining perceptual signals from the level(s) below.

Words are perceptions -- either auditory sounds or visual marks.
They, too, exist as neural signals. At some level in the brain, we
use word-perception signals to stand for other kinds of perceptual
signals,

Exactly. But we can only know/say that after we experience and name the experiences.

and manipulate the word-signals using the rules of logic,
language, and whatever else applies. Language is not the same thing
as direct experience.

Language has its origins in direct experience. The experience must start, as you have indicated, before we can have a word, but it must continue through the naming of that experience. It must continue long enough to be tagged or it cannot be named. That naming is a direct experience. It is emotional. When I am naming it, that naming is an act, when I give birth to the word rain, I am "raining" my experiencing. I am attatching many perceptions, direct body sensations, including those of the sixth or kinaesthetic sense to the word rain. In raining my experience I give birth to, create, burgeon, logos, the word rain. There is a moment of creation. The word becomes a thing I can look at. When it becomes a thing, it is no longer direct. Language is not the same thing as direct experience, but languaging is. Indirect language is rooted in the direct experiencing of languaging. If not where does it come from? Science? God? What command, what reference signal says "language". It looks to me like "I feel chaotic and I want order", or "i want to be more sure of things," or "I want to predict." or "I want to stay alive." it is probably "all of them together, one after the other" F.M. Alexander.

In this touch averse society we are accustomed to denying the physical direct origins of words

To me, if I am using a word I am simultaneously making it, using it, defining it, changing it, and letting it, being it.

It's necessary to be able to perceive something before you can name
it.

Still a time line.
Has SR written all over it

You can perceive and control any perception without first calling
it something.

I agree. But it still sounds like SR because of the time line.

Learning to look behind the words at the experiences to
which they point is an important part of understanding PCT.

Experiences PCT dictates.
Experiences meanings,that you and several others have agreed on shall constitute PCT
That is what I meant when I said your model is limiting your prototype.

The meanings of words are perceptions taken from our own experiences;
words serve as pointers to those recorded perceptions. This is why

we can say

words do not have the same meanings for everybody.

or the same meaning at all levels,to the same person, from moment to moment, day to day, week to week, etc..

If you say why, do you mean the cause? does it not look like what you call a why is also a more detailed description of the what, like little whats or subwhats?

Best,

Bill P.

best

Jim D

[Martin_Taylor2]

[Martin Taylor 2007.05.25.13.44]

[Jim Dundon 05.25.07.1134edt]

[Arbitrary extract follows]

How do we know its a perception? Are we supposed to just know? Where did the word/concept/perception come from.? What need did its creation satisfy? What drove the production of the word? How do we know we have the right word? What came first, the verb or the noun? Perceiving must have come before the noun percept so what force drives the noun to preeminance?

Jim, I find your messages extremely confusing. Are actually saying that organisms without language have no perceptions? A baby controls NOTHING? A chimpanzee controls NOTHING?

Language is an important part of human experience, and as such is an important aspect of some control systems. But you seem to be saying more than this -- that without language there cannot be control systems or perceptions to control.

This absurd claim is about the only sense I can make of your writing. But maybe you don't think it's absurd. Although I find this hard to believe, maybe it really is what you are tryng to get across. Are you? If so, on what basis do you justify the claim?

Martin

[Martin_Taylor2]

[Martin Taylor 2007.05.26.12.38]

[Jim Dundon 05.26.07. 1000edt]

Martin,

Remove all of this languaging "that without language there cannot be control systems or perceptions to control" and all associated words, concepts, percepts, and tell me what you have remaining.

Lets put it another way:

Forbid your self the use of the words control, systems, perceptions, and prove to me that I am wrong. Prove to me that "chimpanzees and children control perceptions" without using those words and/or symbols which represent them.

In other words, communicate with you by e-mail without using words? Would pictures be OK? I don't know whether I could do what you ask purely in pictures, but it's the only way I understand to get across the physical gap between us withut using words (and would be, even if we didn't have the intervening electronic medium).

When we ARE using words to communicate, ones such as "prove" and "know" tend to be show-stoppers. Seldom is either appropriate in a scientific context. I don't "know" that the second law of thermodynamics is correct. I don't "know" that in applying it logically to a real-world situation I have taken into account all my assumptions, most of which, I expect, are implicit and unstated. Nevertheless, if I want to examine its consequences, I have to start by assuming either that it is true or that it is not true, both cases representing "facts" for the purpose. Using one or other fact (since the two are not mutually compatible), I have then to ask whether the conseqeuences agree with observations and other "facts" currently taken to be true.

If I have a logical proposition, using accepted principles of logical reasoning, I either can or cannot "prove" the proposition to be true. What I cannot "prove" is that I correctly applied the principles to the proposition.

So, when you ask someone to prove something about the real world, or you suggest that you or someone else "knows" something about the real world, you are simply pre-empting any possible scientific discourse.

···

---------------------

However, I may be misconstruing you. Responding to me, you say:

Jim, I find your messages extremely confusing. Are actually saying that organisms without language have no perceptions? A baby controls NOTHING? A chimpanzee controls NOTHING?

I am saying that they do, and we know that they do, because we create and work with that terming. The experience " They control" is our languaged experience.

This way of putting things suggests to me that you are a person who thinks in words. I understand that such people can exist, but not being one, I find it hard to imagine what that experience would feel like.

It's a bit like trying to imagine how it would feel to be a bat who senses the objects in the world through the quality of echoes of its own voice. Very hard to do. For me, personally, the hardest thing when I think I understand how something works is to find a way to put that experience into words. Words aren't the starting point. They are a means to communicate the experience, and they don't do so very well.

I have yet to find a way to get across to CSGnet what I visualise as the thermodynamic basis of PCT, even though I've used a lot of words in trying to do just that. The words simply don't convey the dynamic imagery with which I think about it.

After we language/create that fact, we step aside, as you have done, and pretend, because of social expediency, that we did not do it. We tell ourselves and each other that they are independant facts, and they are, because we say so, and we can say so because we languaged/created the words/percepts with whch to say so.

You may identify concepts within a theory as "facts", but by doing so you introduce another show-stopper that inhibits the advancement of science. Concepts are necessary at the foundation of a theory, so that one can play with the ways they might go together with each other and with whatever else we "know" about the world. So long as one is doing that, they have to be treated as though they were true (i.e. "facts").

So long as treating theoretical constructs as though they were true seems to account for observations and leads to no inconsistency, then they might as well be treated as "facts". We did indeed create them, quite independently of whether we labelled them for the purposes of communication. But of what are they "independent"? To me, they are independent of any labelling, not independent of the context in which they are used.

Remove all of this languaging "that without language there cannot be control systems or perceptions to control" and all associated words, concepts, percepts, and tell me what you have remaining.

Removing all the language, I have a very good vision of control systems. Remove my concepts and percepts and I might as well be dead (and quite probably that's the only time it will happen, except perhaps when I'm asleep and not dreaming). What are you really asking? That I ignore the imagery that is the foundation of my mental experience? To what end?

-------------------

Or, another possible interpretation:

without language there cannot be control systems or perceptions to control"

Perhaps this is simply saying that unless we talk about a house, a rock, a blue sky, there exist no rocks, houses, or blue skies. It's obvious that the categories we use in order to communcate about them are somewhat arbitrary, but does that mean the things don't exist unless we talk about them? Did no electrons exist a couple of centuries ago? Do you think we created electrons by talking about them?

If living things do do what we label as perceptual control, are we causing them to do so because we create the label "control", or have we recognized a dynamic pattern that was there all along?

I'm sorry. You wanted me to communicate all this without using language. I failed. And I fear my use of langauge has failed, because I don't think what I said will communicate to you very accurately the concepts that I have tried to express in words.

Martin

[Tracy_Harms1]

[Tracy Harms 2007;05,27.06:55 Pacific]

Jim Dundon (05.24.07.1344edt) wrote:

Bill,

In an account of the beginnings of PCT you nentioned
your cooperative effort with some one named Bob to
develope word trees and discovered that

"people don't/can't control meanings of words, what
they control are perceptions.

"A percept is a unit of experience" BP

If so it must have been identified, given existance,
with a phonetic tag, a word.

Every perception exists only by having been
identified using a phonetic tag.

There appears to be a premise here that word-use is
universal to experience. In an Aristotelean phrasing
that might be put as "All experience is wordy."

As Bill indicated both in that book and in his reply
to you here, he adopted no such premise. The two
sentences you quoted do not entail that word-use is
basic or all-encompassing to this topic.

Just the opposite: When the word-tree project
indicated that people do not control word-meaning, the
inquiry into control had to point elsewhere. As Rick
said, much of B:CP is about control that has nothing
to do with word-use.

Tracy

____________________________________________________________________________________Get the free Yahoo! toolbar and rest assured with the added security of spyware protection.
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[dmg]

Dear listmates:

Unfortunately, Dag will not be at the conference to document it.

Does anyone have a camcorder we could use?

David

David M. Goldstein,

[dmg]

David Goldstein (2014.08.05.1010)

How does one gain access to the archives?

Dag, do you plan to place the videos of CSG meetings in the archive? Same question for pct resources.

David

···

Sent from my iPhone

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.05.0915)]

···

David Goldstein (2014.08.05.1010)

How does one gain access to the archives?

RM: I don’t know about access to the archives yet. But I do have links to the videos of the talks that were given at the Archive dedication. I’ll post those later today after I’ve tested them out.

Best

Rick

Dag, do you plan to place the videos of CSG meetings in the archive? Same question for pct resources.

David

Sent from my iPhone

–
Richard S. Marken
Author of Doing Research on Purpose
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[Dick_Robertson]

[from Dick Robertson, 2014, 08, 05, 1115 CDT]

Hey, that’s great Rick. i guess i won’t need to upload my talk to the net, then.

And, David, I’m sorry you were not able to make it. Yor were missed. Hope your health improves.

Dick R

···

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 11:10 AM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.05.0915)]

David Goldstein (2014.08.05.1010)

How does one gain access to the archives?

RM: I don’t know about access to the archives yet. But I do have links to the videos of the talks that were given at the Archive dedication. I’ll post those later today after I’ve tested them out.

Best

Rick

Dag, do you plan to place the videos of CSG meetings in the archive? Same question for pct resources.

David

Sent from my iPhone

Richard S. Marken
Author of Doing Research on Purpose
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

–

[apmce]

David Goldstein (2014.08.05.1010)

From ALICE MCELHONE (2014.0805 08:25 EDT)]

HI David and others with the same question. if you were referring to the
Northwestern University Archive, The archivist will take some time to
process all the data he has now
before anyone can gain access to the
archive. When the collection has gone through Dr. Leonard’s process
completely, the collection may be available for qualified scholars to use
for research purposes. It is not open to the public. Access is controlled
by the Archive Department. NU is a member of the world-wide archive
library network, and we were told that the word gets out fast when a new
collection is announced.
I’m not sure if the collection
will have certain parts made visible through NU’s own internal web…I
know right now you can see just an index of Don Campbell’s and J. Allen
Hynek’s collections on the NU archive web. They’re very interesting.
Especially when Bill’s name comes up!
Some of Bill’s books have
been donated to the University Archive non-circulating library to be made
available to NU patrons to use in the reading room only, and not to be
carried outside the building, to protect the copyrights for Bill’s
heirs.
How does one gain access to the archives? When more
information is available I’m sure it will be posted on CSG,
We’re all really excited to have gotten to this point, and very grateful
to Kent Mcclelland for taking the initiative to make it happen. And
grateful too, to the wonderful presenters at the Archive reception. Dr.
Leonard was really impressed! In fact he told us several times
how great it was to receive a collection like this complete with a
built-in base of scholars who are deeply engaged in the work.

So congratulations to you guys, too.

Best,

Alice

···

---

(from David to Dag)

Dag, do
you plan to place the videos of CSG meetings in the archive? Same
question for pct resources.

David

Sent from my iPhone