Behavior: The Phlogiston of PCT (1998)

wmansell · December 16, 2014, 9:37am

[From Bruce Abbott (2014.12.15.1750 EST)]

Perhaps I can clarify the issue of what a control system controls by means of a non-biological example. An automobile cruise control has a sensor whose signal represents the speed of the vehicle. In PCT terms this sensor provides the cruise controlâ€™s perception of the carâ€™s speed. Cruise control compares the value of this signal to a reference value that represents the desired vehicle speed. If the perceived speed is below the reference speed, then the system increases engine power to accelerate the car, thus reducing the error; if the perceived speed is below the reference speed, then the system decreases engine power to slow the car, again reducing error.

If the values measured by the speed sensor are in reasonable correspondence to the carâ€™s actual speed, then the measured speed of the car will be equal to the carâ€™s actual speed, and by controlling the perceived speed, the cruise control will also control the carâ€™s actual speed, keeping it near the desired value.

Of course, what the designers of cruise control and the drivers who use it actually want is for the cruise control to control the carâ€™s actual speed. Therefore, the designer takes care to design the speed sensor to that its readings reflect the carâ€™s actual speed and not the temperature of the engine or the state of the headlights or some combination of vehicle speed and engine oil pressure.

The same is true of biological control systems. To accurately control, say, the angle of the elbow joint, the system controlling that position must have access to a signal or signals that, singly or together, provide a reasonably accurate reading of actual joint angle. It would make no sense for the control system involved to have a perception of joint angle that bears no relation to actual joint angle.

If this is true, why did Bill Powers take such pains to emphasize that control is control of perception? There are at least two reasons. First, it is worth remembering that the system controls the perception of a variable because sensors can fail. For example, assume that cruise control has been set to a desired speed of 60 KPH. If the speed sensor of a cruise control unit fails in such a way that it senses a speed of 30 KPH when the car is actually doing 60 KPH, the system will see a large error and increase engine power in an attempt to bring the car up to a perceived speed of 60 KPH, at which time the car actually will be going much faster.

A second reason for emphasizing that control systems control perceptions is that many perceptions do not have a simple direct equivalent in the real world. According to HPCT, they are built up from lower-level perceptions and may be complex functions of them. (However, through proper testing it should be possible to infer what real-world variables are being sensed and how the resulting perceptual signals are being combined to produce the higher-level perception.) And in some cases, the perceptual signal may bear little or no relation to environmental variables – as when a person witth schizophrenia hallucinates interacting with a friend who is not actually there.

In talking about the real world out there beyond our senses, I am behaving as a naÃ¯ve realist. Of course, as Bill often noted, all we can know are our own perceptions; we have no direct access to reality. It is possible that everything I perceive is a fiction – that the â€œreal worldâ€? doees not exist. Yet I believe that we would behave at our peril if we embraced the idea that our perceptions are mere illusions. In my experience, when I perceive a hammer coming down squarely and sharply on my thumb, this perception is invariably followed by perceptions of intense pain and visible signs of damage to the thumb. The best explanation I have for this reliable correlation between these perceptions is that I possess a real body with a real thumb, that there was a real hammer, and that hammer strikes to the thumb produce damage that is sensed by my bodily sensors and relayed as perceptual signals to my brain. But even if there is no reality behind those perceptions, I still must deal with the fact that one set of perceptions (seeing the thumb being struck by the hammer) is quickly and reliably followed by another set of perceptions (pain etc.) for which I have a reference value of zero, and by controlling my perception of the hammer, I can thereby keep my perception of pain near its reference value of zero.

When Bill said that â€œitâ€™s all perception,â€? it was not an assertion that there is no reality out there beyond our senses. Rather, it was a reminder that all we can know about that reality is what is given to us by our perceptions. We can only control that which we can perceive. To the extent that a given perception corresponds to a variable in the real world, controlling that perception will also control that real-world variable.

Bruce

···

From: Warren Mansell (wmansell@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) [mailto:csgnet@lists.illinois.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 8:59 AM
To: Boris Hartman
Cc: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Behavior: The Phlogiston of PCT (1998)

Hi Boris, I agree with all of these quotes (obviously!). None of us are questioning that behaviour is the control of perception. I just can’t see the proposal that behaviour is the control of perception rules out that behaviour, or other environmental variables, can be controlled. It doesn’t follow logically. What follows logically, to me, is that if we see non-perceptual variables being controlled (to various degrees of success) that will ALWAYS be because their perception is being controlled through one or more other agents’ behaviour…My understanding is that Bill explained to us that control is ALWAYS implemented through the control of input of a negative feedback system of some kind, not that nothing other than perception can ever be controlled (even slightly!). To the degree that the perception of the environmental variable covaries with the environmental variable (as in Bill’s 2008 weightings in his conflict demos) then that control sys tem controls that environmental variable, which is shared by other systems AND is the cause of the conflict to some degree. It will never be exact but will often be refined through reorganisation.

I am writing this post, but I don’t want it to distract from the other one as that is a bit more meaty!

Warren

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 10:35 AM, “Boris Hartman” csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:

Hi Rick,

Text bellow…¦.

From: Richard Marken (rsmarken@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) [mailto:csgnet@lists.illinois.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 1:07 AM
To: cs gnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Behavior: The Phlogiston of PCT (1998)

[From Rick Marken (2014.12.14.1605)]

Martin Taylor (2014.12.14.17.25)–

MT: With the observable fact that the sun goes around the earth, one can look at it in a different way and imagine a new theory, that the earth rotates and that THEREFORE to one standing on the rotating earth it looks as though the sun goes round the earth. Such a break with observable truth can cause a lot of pain to the proponents of the new theory that denies the obvious fact.

MT: So it has been with Pow ers and his theory that what is controlled is NEVER something in the environment, but is always a perception of that thing, and THEREFORE it looks as though behaviour controls the thing in the environment. Is it a wonder that Powers’s beautiful theory of PERCEPTUAL CONTROL has trouble making headway when it contradicts such an directly observable fact as that behaviour controls things in the environment?

RM: This is the most completely incorrect description of what PCT is about that I have ever read. I will give a more detailed explanation later but this was such a huge disturbance that I just had to react immediately. The statement that Powers’ theory says “that what is controlled is NEVER something in the environment” is completely false. It says nothing of the kind.

< /u>

HB :

Martin’s description of PCT is the most correct description I ever saw beside Bill’s. As Martin said once or twice : you should go and sleep and read it again. If you’ll think that you are still right than I’m inviting *barb, all PCT thinkers and IAACT to contribute for protection of PCT. I’ll start with some Bill’s thought, although there are evidence of his briliant theory everywhere in his work :

Bill P :

What are you experiencing is not object outside you, but a set of neural signals representing something outside you. You don’t need to look inside your head to find perceptions : When you look at your hand, you’re alredy looking a t them.

Bill P :

Our only view of the real world is our view of the neural signals the represent it inside our own brains. When we act to make a perception change to our more desireble state – when we make perception of the glass chhange from “on the table” to " near the mouth" – we have no direct kknowledge of what we are doing to the reality that is the origin of our neural signal; we know only the final result, how the result looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes, and so forth.

Bill P :

That is why we say in PCT that behavior is the process by which we control our own perceptions.

Bill P :

It means that we produce actions that alter the world of perception, and that we do so specifically to make the state of that world conform to the reference conditions we ourselves have choosen (to the extent we change the perceptions of our actions).

Bill P :

It means that we produce actions that alter the world of perceptions.

Bill P :

If you change perception you change the world arround as it appears to be.

Bill P :

Half of the jokes in the world are about one person assuming that everyone else sees the world the same way.

Bill P :

The two problems go together : the problem of reaching agreement with each other about reality and the problem that all perception is fundamentaly private.

Bill P :

Using the internal point of view, we can understand many aspects of behavior by seeing control as control of perception rather than of an objective world. We can make sense not only of other people’s behavior, but of our own, using the same concept of perceptual control.

Bill P :

A control system controls what it senses, and what it senses is the result of applying a continuous transformaton process to the elementary sensory inputs to the nervous system.

Bill P :

Stabilization against disturbances means that “controlled quantities” is affected both by independent influences and by actions of the system itself, and that the system’s actions systematically oppose the effects of disturbances on the controlled quantity. If system is to stabilize some quantity it must sense that quantity and it must have an internal standard against which to compare the outcome of that sensing process – a reference with respect to which the sensedd quantity can be judged as too little, just right, or too much. The action of the system is based on that judgement, not on the sensed quantity itself nor on the reference itself nor on the disturbances. Departures of the controlled quantity from the reference level are what lead to the actions, that limit those departures to a small or even negligible size.

BP :

REALITY [Directly perceived] : The world as subjectively experienced, including mental activities, feelings, concepts, as wel as the subjective impression of three-dimensional outside universe. [External] : A directly-perceived set of hypotheses, beleifs, deducations, and organized models purporting to explain directly perceived reality in terms of underlying phenomena and laws.

BP :

Human beings do not plan actions and then carry them out; they do not respond to stimuli according to the way they have been reinforced. They control. They never produce any beahvior except for the purposes of making what they are experiencing become more like what they intend or want to experience, and then keeping it that way even in a changing world. If they plan they perceptions, not actions.

BP :

Negative feed-back control is the basic principle of life.

BP :

A hierarchy of perceptions that somehow represents an external world, and a large collection of Complex Environmental Variables (as Martin Taylor calls them) is mirrored inside the brain in the form of perceptionsÂ«.

Briefly, then: what I call the hierarchy of perceptions is the model.

When you open your eyes and look around, what you see – and feel, smell, hear, and taste – is the model. In fact we never experience ANYTHING BUT the model. The model is composed of perceptions of all kinds from intensities on up.

KM :

Perceptual control theory holds that human behavior consists of controlling perceptions, not actions. In other words, peopleâ€™s actions are merely a by-product of their attempts to stabilize their perceptions in conformity with their own desires and preferences.

RM:

Actually the other player (like everyone else) is controlling their own perceptions, not their actions.

IAACT :

Despite appearances, there is only one side! — symbolizing perhaps the illusion of regarding external action as what is â€œrealâ€? and leading to (after close observation, experience, testing, and reflection) the â€œrealityâ€? (a perception) of behavior as the control (or â€œheartâ€? as in the IAACT mission statement) of perception.

MT: How much less of a wonder is it when even someone who worked with Powers for decades argues repeatedly and forcefully for the truth of the so-called “observable fact” that Powers went to such lengths to show was just an illusory natural consequence of the truth of his theory.

RM: Actually, I argued for the “so-called observable fact” of control right in front of Bill for at least 25 years (for example, see my paper Marken, R. S. (1988) The Nature of Behavior: Control as Fact and Theory. Behavioral Science, 33, 196- 206, reprinted in “Mind Readi ngs”) and Bill not only never chided me for doing so but adopted the phrase “the fact of control” as the subtitle to his last book. Therefore, I would suggest that the only illusion here is that Powers went to any lengths at all to show that the “observable fact of control” is just an illusory natural consequence of the truth of his theory.

HB :

And I can’t beleive that you are defending your wrong position. For at least 14.000.000 years people thought like you that they can control their e nvironment with behavior. And than Bill happened. But I know that somewhere is PCT Rick…

I’ve argued many times when Bill was with us that he is giving protection to your Â»behavioral excursionsÂ«. But you were Â»Powers friendÂ« as you are probably today. I suppose that nobody will act to stop your confussion and misleading on CSGnet.

And for the controversary of your Â»double thinkingÂ«, tell me what are the differences about your oppinion to Richard (previou post) and your oppinion to Martin (your last post)?

Best,

Boris

Best

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.

Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

–

Dr Warren Mansell
Reader in Clinical Psychology
School of Psychological Sciences
2nd Floor Zochonis Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Email: warren.mansell@manchester.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8589

Website: http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/131406

See teamstrial.net for further information on our trial of CBT for Bipolar Disorders in NW England

The highly acclaimed therapy manual on A Transdiagnostic Approach to CBT using Method of Levels is available now.

Check www.pctweb.org for further information on Perceptual Control Theory

< br>

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2015.0.5577 / Virus Database: 4235/8740 - Release Date: 12/15/14

_Boris_Hartman · December 17, 2014, 4:48pm

Hi Bruce,

BA :

When Bill said that “it’s all perception,” it was not an assertion that there is no reality out there beyond our senses. Rather, it was a reminder that all we can know about that reality is what is given to us by our perceptions. We can only control that which we can perceive. To the extent that a given perception corresponds to a variable in the real world, controlling that perception will also control that real-world variable.

HB :

I don’t see any problem in choosing your “naïve realistic view” to describe what you think is happening out there. The only problem I see is in using term “control” so many times in so many relations. And I wonder how “controlling perception will also control real-world.” Through what ? One possible answer is through “control of behavior” as that is what everybody with common sense think, like Rick for example. And I’m afraid that his next step of proving how he was right about his theory of “control of behavior” controlling “the aspect of environment”. I hope Bruce that you don’t agree with this.

The only way I see from Bill’s diagram to “control” anything outside organism is “feed-back function”. At least that’s all I can see outside organism, that organism is producing. So is the “feed-back function” also a controlling process ? Or just a consequence of internal control ?

Did you mean maybe the effect of internal control… is what is assumed to be happening in outer world ?

I can agree with no problem that we have all right to give names to what is outside, as we can never check it directly. I don’t know how many different names is there for the animals in different languages. Bruce and Rick and Warren believe (imagine) that there is another “controlled aspect of environment”, me and Martin believe that there is “nothing controlled outside”.

I personally believe that everything what happened in outer environment is just “side-effect” on environment as consequence of actual “perceptual control” that happens in organism.

So I see a problem if we use in both cases term “control”.

It seems that we all agree that everything is “perception” and that environment is “represented” with perceptual signal :

Bill P :

What are you experiencing is not object outside you, but a set of neural signals representing something outside you.

So important for me is that we agree about mainframe of PCT and that is :

Bill P. :

Our only view of the real world is our view of the neural signals that represent it inside our own brains. When we act to make a perception change to our more desireble state … we have no direct knowledge of what we are doing to the reality that is the origin of our neural signal; we know only the final result, how the result looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes, and so forth…

HB :

So we know only what is happening inside our “skin” borders, from perception to final result : another perception or to events in nervous system composed of perceptual signals, but we can imagine (model) what is happening inside and outside. And that is usually very different in people, because they imagine different things under the same terms, the interpretation of “outer events” is sometimes so different that we must ask whether people were really “looking” at the same event. For example :

```
 description of accidents,
```
```
 witnesses on court,
```

 somebody sees the normal natural event as “attack” of aliens on Earth,

 if you ask the people going out of cinema, you will mostly hear quite different stories what they have been watching

 the opinion of political parties are almost always different … and so on.

I think that when simple control events are in question it’s easy to come to agreement about what is happening, but when “Complex environmental perceptions” are in question, the divergence is sometimes so incredible that total relativity has to be confirmed. So I think that simplified cases like tracking, driving a car and so forth can’t be representative for the complexity of hierarchical control going on inside organisms. Only the main principles.

And we must include here the problem that PCT and neither anybody of us, understand the model of internal structure of organisms well enough to judge scientifically what is really happening inside. So I hope I manage to present the problem of “exact” perceiving of “outer world” in addition to Bruce’s.

Bill P.:

The two problems go together : the problem of reaching agreement with each other about reality and the problem that all perception is fundamentaly private.

HB :

Perceptions are the problem of the internal structure of individual organism and diversity of perceptual hierarchical constructions is such that always some agreement is needed. And so will be probably also in this case.

I respect both. Bruce’s and Martin’s opinion as I think they are both right, as far as “reality” is concerned and the name for “real environmental variable” or whether there is “controlled aspect of environment controlled” or “controlled variable” or there is “nothing controlled”. We can imagine whatever we want and say whatever we want. We can never check it directly.

This is something like Bruce said :

BA :

Of course, as Bill often noted, all we can know are our own perceptions; we have no direct access to reality. It is possible that everything I perceive is a fiction – that the “real world” does not exist. Yet I believe that we would behave at our peril if we embraced the idea that our perceptions are mere illusions. In my experience, when I perceive a hammer coming down squarely and sharply on my thumb…

HB :

Perceptions of pains, perception of hammer, and so forth are subjective perceptions. And you described quite well “Control of perception”, so where is the problem. Everything what you have been experiencing with “hammer accident” are perceptions of the real world. I think this is not a problem here. The problem is whether you “controlled hammer” with “control of perception” or “control of behavior”. Even after the damage of thumb you will live in the world of your perceptions as “correlate” of the real world, so I don’t see what you wanted to say. That hammer was “controlled by behavior” ? Or that you assume that you a real creature ?

Somebody can feel no pain with special disease, or can take care not to strike the thumb. I think this is relative here and unimportant. It seems important to me, that everything is only a perception, and that we can have different interpretations of perceptions of common environment. So also Bruce’s and Martin’s opinion are just their “private perceptions” and interpretations of what is happening outside, as mine is. I’m trying to establish whether term control should be “attached” only to inner processes not to outer, so that interpretations shouldn’t be using so many terms with the same meaning. Or I’m wrong and the terms “control inside organism” has some other meaning than terms “control of aspect of environment” ?

So it’s important to me to understand how internal processes are termed, to distinguish them from “external”. I’m inclined to believe that term “control” is firmly attached to “control processes in organism” and whatever something is happening outside is just a consequence of what is happening inside. So I’m inclined to believe that term control is somehow “reserved” to internal processes, not to external and what is happening outside is just result of internal control. So output is “activated” when “errors” in organism is increased to the level that “output” or “behavior” is switched on. It’s something similar as you Bruce talked about in your Synopsys.

Bill P.:

CONTROL : Achievement and maintenance of a preselected perceptual state in the controlling system, through actions on the environment…

Bill P.:

CONTROL SYSTEM : An organization that acts on its environment so as to keep it’s inner perceptual signal matching an inner reference signal or reference condition.

HB :

In both “definitions” I see the importance of control inside organism and actions that are in “service” or “means of control” or “executors of control ”causing environmental effects, that are sensed and controlled so to maintain homeostasis (preselected state) in organisms, not some “controlled state of some aspect of environment”. So I understand that “real” control is happening inside and output (behavior) is just a result of internal processes. Internal processes control all the time, they never stop as organisms die. But behavior is “switched” from time to time to produce effects in outer environment, so to keep some important or any other maybe less important variables in organism in “limits”.

HB :

My effort is to reach an agreement about understanding of term control that will stop conflicts. I try to do this not only because I assume that Rick will start again with his “control of behavior”, as there is “controlled aspect of environment” and thus nothing else can control that “aspect of environment” but “controlled behavior”, but also for the reason to think about reliability of definitions of basic terms we are using in the context of “outer” and “inner environment”.

My personal stand point is that is better to talk about effects of inner control on real world, as “behavior” is just means of control, so there is no “control” happening outside.

So If I understand all events in inside and outside environment, control of organisms homeostasis is just “prolonged” activity of controlling in nervous system through the external environment with actions. It seems that actions are some kind of “executors of control” which affect environment and that is sensed and controlled again to the desired state in organism.

Bill P :

It means that we produce actions that alter the world of perception, and that we do so specifically to make the state of that world conform to the reference conditions we ourselves have choosen (to the extent we change the perceptions of our actions).

Bill P :

Using the internal point of view, we can understand many aspects of behavior by seeing control as control of perception rather than of an objective world. We can make sense not only of other people’s behavior, but of our own, using the same concept of perceptual control.

Bill P :

A control system controls what it senses, and what it senses is the result of applying a continuous transformaton process to the elementary sensory inputs to the nervous system.

HB :

I’m sorry to repeat Bill’s thoughts so many times, but it seems to me that nobody read it. I see just individual interpretations of PCT without citations that could confirm individual standpoint. The only relevant reference for our discussion as I see it, is Bill’s work. And I think we should cite him as many times is needed, not because he is the author of PCT, but to “equilibrate” our standpoints to his theory not to our believes what PCT is saying.

Best,

Boris

···

From: “Bruce Abbott” (bbabbott@frontier.com via csgnet Mailing List) [mailto:csgnet@lists.illinois.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 11:52 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: Behavior: The Phlogiston of PCT (1998)

[From Bruce Abbott (2014.12.15.1750 EST)]

Perhaps I can clarify the issue of what a control system controls by means of a non-biological example. An automobile cruise control has a sensor whose signal represents the speed of the vehicle. In PCT terms this sensor provides the cruise control’s perception of the car’s speed. Cruise control compares the value of this signal to a reference value that represents the desired vehicle speed. If the perceived speed is below the reference speed, then the system increases engine power to accelerate the car, thus reducing the error; if the perceived speed is below the reference speed, then the system decreases engine power to slow the car, again reducing error.

If the values measured by the speed sensor are in reasonable correspondence to the car’s actual speed, then the measured speed of the car will be equal to the car’s actual speed, and by controlling the perceived speed, the cruise control will also control the car’s actual speed, keeping it near the desired value.

Of course, what the designers of cruise control and the drivers who use it actually want is for the cruise control to control the car’s actual speed. Therefore, the designer takes care to design the speed sensor to that its readings reflect the car’s actual speed and not the temperature of the engine or the state of the headlights or some combination of vehicle speed and engine oil pressure.

The same is true of biological control systems. To accurately control, say, the angle of the elbow joint, the system controlling that position must have access to a signal or signals that, singly or together, provide a reasonably accurate reading of actual joint angle. It would make no sense for the control system involved to have a perception of joint angle that bears no relation to actual joint angle.

If this is true, why did Bill Powers take such pains to emphasize that control is control of perception? There are at least two reasons. First, it is worth remembering that the system controls the perception of a variable because sensors can fail. For example, assume that cruise control has been set to a desired speed of 60 KPH. If the speed sensor of a cruise control unit fails in such a way that it senses a speed of 30 KPH when the car is actually doing 60 KPH, the system will see a large error and increase engine power in an attempt to bring the car up to a perceived speed of 60 KPH, at which time the car actually will be going much faster.

A second reason for emphasizing that control systems control perceptions is that many perceptions do not have a simple direct equivalent in the real world. According to HPCT, they are built up from lower-level perceptions and may be complex functions of them. (However, through proper testing it should be possible to infer what real-world variables are being sensed and how the resulting perceptual signals are being combined to produce the higher-level perception.) And in some cases, the perceptual signal may bear little or no relation to environmental variables – as when a person with schizophrenia hallucinates interacting with a friend who is not actually there.

In talking about the real world out there beyond our senses, I am behaving as a naïve realist. Of course, as Bill often noted, all we can know are our own perceptions; we have no direct access to reality. It is possible that everything I perceive is a fiction – that the “real world” does not exist. Yet I believe that we would behave at our peril if we embraced the idea that our perceptions are mere illusions. In my experience, when I perceive a hammer coming down squarely and sharply on my thumb, this perception is invariably followed by perceptions of intense pain and visible signs of damage to the thumb. The best explanation I have for this reliable correlation between these perceptions is that I possess a real body with a real thumb, that there was a real hammer, and that hammer strikes to the thumb produce damage that is sensed by my bodily sensors and relayed as perceptual signals to my brain. But even if there is no reality behind those perceptions, I still must deal with the fact that one set of perceptions (seeing the thumb being struck by the hammer) is quickly and reliably followed by another set of perceptions (pain etc.) for which I have a reference value of zero, and by controlling my perception of the hammer, I can thereby keep my perception of pain near its reference value of zero.

When Bill said that “it’s all perception,” it was not an assertion that there is no reality out there beyond our senses. Rather, it was a reminder that all we can know about that reality is what is given to us by our perceptions. We can only control that which we can perceive. To the extent that a given perception corresponds to a variable in the real world, controlling that perception will also control that real-world variable.

Bruce

From: Warren Mansell (wmansell@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) [mailto:csgnet@lists.illinois.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 8:59 AM
To: Boris Hartman
Cc: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Behavior: The Phlogiston of PCT (1998)

Hi Boris, I agree with all of these quotes (obviously!). None of us are questioning that behaviour is the control of perception. I just can’t see the proposal that behaviour is the control of perception rules out that behaviour, or other environmental variables, can be controlled. It doesn’t follow logically. What follows logically, to me, is that if we see non-perceptual variables being controlled (to various degrees of success) that will ALWAYS be because their perception is being controlled through one or more other agents’ behaviour…My understanding is that Bill explained to us that control is ALWAYS implemented through the control of input of a negative feedback system of some kind, not that nothing other than perception can ever be controlled (even slightly!). To the degree that the perception of the environmental variable covaries with the environmental variable (as in Bill’s 2008 weightings in his conflict demos) then that control sys tem controls that environmental variable, which is shared by other systems AND is the cause of the conflict to some degree. It will never be exact but will often be refined through reorganisation.

I am writing this post, but I don’t want it to distract from the other one as that is a bit more meaty!

Warren

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 10:35 AM, “Boris Hartman” csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:

Hi Rick,

Text bellow….

From: Richard Marken (rsmarken@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) [mailto:csgnet@lists.illinois.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 1:07 AM
To: cs gnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Behavior: The Phlogiston of PCT (1998)

[From Rick Marken (2014.12.14.1605)]

Martin Taylor (2014.12.14.17.25)–

MT: With the observable fact that the sun goes around the earth, one can look at it in a different way and imagine a new theory, that the earth rotates and that THEREFORE to one standing on the rotating earth it looks as though the sun goes round the earth. Such a break with observable truth can cause a lot of pain to the proponents of the new theory that denies the obvious fact.

MT: So it has been with Pow ers and his theory that what is controlled is NEVER something in the environment, but is always a perception of that thing, and THEREFORE it looks as though behaviour controls the thing in the environment. Is it a wonder that Powers’s beautiful theory of PERCEPTUAL CONTROL has trouble making headway when it contradicts such an directly observable fact as that behaviour controls things in the environment?

RM: This is the most completely incorrect description of what PCT is about that I have ever read. I will give a more detailed explanation later but this was such a huge disturbance that I just had to react immediately. The statement that Powers’ theory says “that what is controlled is NEVER something in the environment” is completely false. It says nothing of the kind.

< /u>

HB :

Martin’s description of PCT is the most correct description I ever saw beside Bill’s. As Martin said once or twice : you should go and sleep and read it again. If you’ll think that you are still right than I’m inviting *barb, all PCT thinkers and IAACT to contribute for protection of PCT. I’ll start with some Bill’s thought, although there are evidence of his briliant theory everywhere in his work :

Bill P :

What are you experiencing is not object outside you, but a set of neural signals representing something outside you. You don’t need to look inside your head to find perceptions : When you look at your hand, you’re alredy looking a t them.

Bill P :

Our only view of the real world is our view of the neural signals the represent it inside our own brains. When we act to make a perception change to our more desireble state – when we make perception of the glass change from “on the table” to " near the mouth" – we have no direct knowledge of what we are doing to the reality that is the origin of our neural signal; we know only the final result, how the result looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes, and so forth.

Bill P :

That is why we say in PCT that behavior is the process by which we control our own perceptions.

Bill P :

It means that we produce actions that alter the world of perception, and that we do so specifically to make the state of that world conform to the reference conditions we ourselves have choosen (to the extent we change the perceptions of our actions).

Bill P :

It means that we produce actions that alter the world of perceptions.

Bill P :

If you change perception you change the world arround as it appears to be.

Bill P :

Half of the jokes in the world are about one person assuming that everyone else sees the world the same way.

Bill P :

The two problems go together : the problem of reaching agreement with each other about reality and the problem that all perception is fundamentaly private.

Bill P :

Using the internal point of view, we can understand many aspects of behavior by seeing control as control of perception rather than of an objective world. We can make sense not only of other people’s behavior, but of our own, using the same concept of perceptual control.

Bill P :

A control system controls what it senses, and what it senses is the result of applying a continuous transformaton process to the elementary sensory inputs to the nervous system.

Bill P :

Stabilization against disturbances means that “controlled quantities” is affected both by independent influences and by actions of the system itself, and that the system’s actions systematically oppose the effects of disturbances on the controlled quantity. If system is to stabilize some quantity it must sense that quantity and it must have an internal standard against which to compare the outcome of that sensing process – a reference with respect to which the sensed quantity can be judged as too little, just right, or too much. The action of the system is based on that judgement, not on the sensed quantity itself nor on the reference itself nor on the disturbances. Departures of the controlled quantity from the reference level are what lead to the actions, that limit those departures to a small or even negligible size.

BP :

REALITY [Directly perceived] : The world as subjectively experienced, including mental activities, feelings, concepts, as wel as the subjective impression of three-dimensional outside universe. [External] : A directly-perceived set of hypotheses, beleifs, deducations, and organized models purporting to explain directly perceived reality in terms of underlying phenomena and laws.

BP :

Human beings do not plan actions and then carry them out; they do not respond to stimuli according to the way they have been reinforced. They control. They never produce any beahvior except for the purposes of making what they are experiencing become more like what they intend or want to experience, and then keeping it that way even in a changing world. If they plan they perceptions, not actions.

BP :

Negative feed-back control is the basic principle of life.

BP :

A hierarchy of perceptions that somehow represents an external world, and a large collection of Complex Environmental Variables (as Martin Taylor calls them) is mirrored inside the brain in the form of perceptions«.

Briefly, then: what I call the hierarchy of perceptions is the model.

When you open your eyes and look around, what you see – and feel, smell, hear, and taste – is the model. In fact we never experience ANYTHING BUT the model. The model is composed of perceptions of all kinds from intensities on up.

KM :

Perceptual control theory holds that human behavior consists of controlling perceptions, not actions. In other words, people’s actions are merely a by-product of their attempts to stabilize their perceptions in conformity with their own desires and preferences.

RM:

Actually the other player (like everyone else) is controlling their own perceptions, not their actions.

IAACT :

Despite appearances, there is only one side! — symbolizing perhaps the illusion of regarding external action as what is “real” and leading to (after close observation, experience, testing, and reflection) the “reality” (a perception) of behavior as the control (or “heart” as in the IAACT mission statement) of perception.

MT: How much less of a wonder is it when even someone who worked with Powers for decades argues repeatedly and forcefully for the truth of the so-called “observable fact” that Powers went to such lengths to show was just an illusory natural consequence of the truth of his theory.

RM: Actually, I argued for the “so-called observable fact” of control right in front of Bill for at least 25 years (for example, see my paper Marken, R. S. (1988) The Nature of Behavior: Control as Fact and Theory. Behavioral Science, 33, 196- 206, reprinted in “Mind Readi ngs”) and Bill not only never chided me for doing so but adopted the phrase “the fact of control” as the subtitle to his last book. Therefore, I would suggest that the only illusion here is that Powers went to any lengths at all to show that the “observable fact of control” is just an illusory natural consequence of the truth of his theory.

HB :

And I can’t beleive that you are defending your wrong position. For at least 14.000.000 years people thought like you that they can control their e nvironment with behavior. And than Bill happened. But I know that somewhere is PCT Rick…

I’ve argued many times when Bill was with us that he is giving protection to your »behavioral excursions«. But you were »Powers friend« as you are probably today. I suppose that nobody will act to stop your confussion and misleading on CSGnet.

And for the controversary of your »double thinking«, tell me what are the differences about your oppinion to Richard (previou post) and your oppinion to Martin (your last post)?

Best,

Boris

Best

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.

Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

–

Dr Warren Mansell
Reader in Clinical Psychology
School of Psychological Sciences
2nd Floor Zochonis Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Email: warren.mansell@manchester.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8589

Website: http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/131406

See teamstrial.net for further information on our trial of CBT for Bipolar Disorders in NW England

The highly acclaimed therapy manual on A Transdiagnostic Approach to CBT using Method of Levels is available now.

Check www.pctweb.org for further information on Perceptual Control Theory

< br>

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2015.0.5577 / Virus Database: 4235/8740 - Release Date: 12/15/14