Behavior: The Use of Perception (Not!) -Reply

CSGnet Archive CSG1996
1

[Hans Blom, 960125]

(Rick Marken (960124.0830))

Rick, thanks for this extremely clarifying post, of which the two
following statements express my contradictory feelings about PCT very
well:

Many people seem to think that what is significant about PCT is its
emphasis on the fact that organisms deal with a world of experience
(perception) rather than with a world of reality.

That PCT does so -- and the way in which -- was a real eye-opener for
me. The "consider yourself to be a control system" was and is an
intellectually inspiring thought experiment, which has taught me a
lot, like looking at myself as "an engineer from Mars" would :-).

But the real significance of PCT is its emphasis on the fact that
organisms _control_ their experience rather than being controlled by
it. Perceptions (like that of the "relationship between pecking and
incentive delivery") are not "made use of"; they are _controlled_.

And this is where my resistance arises. I see -- and here you may see
things differently -- that we are pushed around by the world at least
as much as we can realize our individual goals. Even in the PCT way
of looking at things, reference settings at intermediate levels of
the hierarchy are a function both of the reference settings at higher
levels of the hierarchy AND of the response to our actions of the
outside world. Just picture some levels of the hierarchy...

This is, for me, the basis of the eternal misunderstanding in many
discussions: what _I_ control is determined by the outside world as
much as by me myself. Is that still "control", or do we want to
refine the explanation? This touches on some basic issues, I think.

Do I make myself clear?

Greetings,

Hans

2

[Martin Taylor 960130 13:45]

Hans Blom, 960125 to Rick Marken

But the real significance of PCT is its emphasis on the fact that
organisms _control_ their experience rather than being controlled by
it. Perceptions (like that of the "relationship between pecking and
incentive delivery") are not "made use of"; they are _controlled_.

And this is where my resistance arises. I see -- and here you may see
things differently -- that we are pushed around by the world at least
as much as we can realize our individual goals.

Would it help to point out once more that although "Behaviour is the
Control of Perception" is the aphorism that defines PCT, nevertheless
it is what happens in the outer world, not perception OR behaviour, that
determines what happens to our bodies. It is the effects of actions
_through_ the outer world, together with all the influences from the
outer world that we do not affect, that determine whether we live or die;
our perceptions don't do that, nor the outputs from our control systems.

Our perceptions are all that we can control, but the outer world
determines whether our control will be effective in keeping us alive.

I wrote a long response on this when Hans first asked his question, going
back to the dawn of life, but it got lost in a disk screwup and I don't
feel like trying to reconstitute it. The basic theme was that "control" or
"retrofaction" is a thermodynamic cooling process, keeping the "inside"
cooler (i.e. more stable) than the "outside." The argument tied into the
Boltzmann approach to entropy, which I tried to summarize in a posting
a couple of years ago in a way that led directly to the concept of
perceptual control.

Maxwell's demon can't be blind.

Martin