[Martin Taylor 2018.05.22.16.24]
To what is this comment relevant? And looking a little more closely,
what does it mean? Does it mean that being conscious of something
means we are not perceiving it?
The main question is the first, because I cannot see how the
comment, however it might be interpreted, refers to anything I
said.
Yes, but they are not perceptions in the same mind. "p" is a
perception in the mind of somebody we will call “the subject”, q.i
is an imagined perception in the mind of an analyst who also
imagines p, or a perception in the mind of an experimenter who has
no observational access to p. The analyst imagines q.i to be a
property of the environment that corresponds to p, which the analyst
imagines to be a property of the subject. The experimenter perceives
q.i, and observes q.i varying.
Accepting what the analyst says, the experimenter imagines there is
a “p” being controlled, which accounts for the observation that q.i
is being controlled. Of course, if the analyst also imagines that
the subject’s imagination or memory contributes some part of p, then
the observed q.i reported by the experimenter will be related to p
but p will not be a function of q.i alone, in the analyst’s
imagination.
Nowhere are p and q.i perceived as direct observations in the same
mind, which would allow them to be compared and tested to see
whether they were actually the same variable.
I'm not sure how much it is "for convenience's sake" and how much it
is because billions of years of evolution in the real environment
followed by a lifetime of reorganization that we can say that q.i is
the value of a property in the environment. Apart from that, which
is quibble rather than a disagreement, I think we can agree on all
that you say in this last quote, provided you keep straight the fact
that p is truth in the mind of the subject, while the perception of
q.i is truth in the mind of the experimenter, and both are imagined
perceptions whose relationship is a controlled perception in the
imagination of the analyst.
Not all analysts imagine the same thing, of course, so in the mind
of some analysts the imagined relation of q.i and p might be
equality, or even in rare cases, identity. But analysts who use the
control loop diagram often reproduced by Boris as basic, q.i and p
are shown as different, with no necessary relationship between them.
That diagram has been a foundation of “according to PCT” for over 60
years, and I see no reason to change it now Bill P. is no longer
with us.
Martin
···
[Rick Marken 2018-05-22_11:22:20]
[Martin Taylor 2018.05.21.23.16]
MT: So, according to PCT, when we perceive ourselves to
be planning, and to be imagining that we are varying our
influence on imagined variables to bring them to
reference values, we aren’t. It’s all an illusion, and
we are not doing that at all?
RM: According to PCT we are not perceiving ourselves
imagining; we are conscious of ourselves imagining.
…
RM: In theory, imagining involves replaying
a reference signal back into a perceptual
function so that you perceive exactly what you
want to perceive. There is no controlling
involved. So your question should be “I am
replaying a perception in imagination mode.
What is the aspect of the environment that is
being controlled? Can you, an external
observer, observe it?” To which the answer is
"Since the perceptual signal is not being
controlled there is no aspect of the
environment that is being controlled. So there
is no aspect of the environment that
corresponds to it. And an external observer
can’t observe it because there is nothing to
be observed. According to PCT, a perceptual
signal (p) corresponds to the aspect of the
environment that is being controlled (q.i)
when an aspect of the environment is being
controlled.
MT: I wonder what version of PCT disallows the one thing
that Powers argued was the only incontrovertible truth
– our own perceptions.
RM: Powers made that argument in reference to the fact
that scientific observations of what appears to be the
real world are themselves perceptions. So the only
“incontrovertible truths” of science are observations,
which are perceptions. This is something that you don’t
seem to understand when you argue that the perceptual
signal, p, is not equivalent to the controlled
quantity, q.i, because p is a perception and q.i is in the
environment. In fact, both q.i and p are perceptions.
We talk about q.i as though it is an environmental
variable for convenience sake – so that we don’t have to
keep saying “it’s really my perception”. But, in fact, q.i
is a perception in the observer of a variable that the
behaving system is maintaining in a reference state
protected from disturbance. The perceptual variable p is
one component of the theoretical explanation of how q.i is
being controlled (that theoretical explanation being PCT);
p is the theoretical analog of the observer’s perception
of the controlled variable.