[From Bill Powers (980615.0440 MST)]
Finally getting back on line after an excellent meeting in Germany. Wolfgang
Zocher found us a fine place and organized the meeting with no problems. A
Proceedings of the meeting will be published, so I don't need to try to
summarize the papers.
Only one major problem. The AC adapter for my laptop, athough rated 110 -
240 volts, came back from Germany fried. So I'm on Mary's computer while I
try to get a new adapter. In the meantime I can't get to any of the files on
my laptop.
I won't comment much on the mail that occurred while I was gone. The
"universal error curve" is just a way of referring to an apparent
phenomenon. People and animals behave AS IF the error-to-output conversion
is two-valued. Of course the same effect could be created by a higher-level
system that changes the reference signal, but that model would be more
complicated in that you'd have to guess at what the system is. If you tried
to fit a model to the observed effect, I'm sure that the behavior of the
parameters would tell you how appropriate a one-level model is.
I would appreciate it if Tracy Harms would summarize "neo-darwinian"
evolutionary theory for us. I wasn't aware that anyone else had proposed a
control-system model of evolution.
Best,
Bill P.