Blobs, Causes, and Loops

[From Fred Nickols (970909.2015 EST)]

Bruce Abbott (970908.1305 EST)

<snip>

Consider the following theoretical statements:

(1) The fish approach the blob on the bank because they have received food
    in the past when approaching the blob on the bank.

(2) The fish approach the blob on the bank because this is the way they
    control for the delivery of food.

Are these actually incompatible statements? Is one correct and the other
incorrect? My answer is "no" to both questions. The first describes the
so-called "reinforcement" effect and requires a knowledge of the fishes'
history of experience; the second describes the result: a functioning
control system.

I have a sense of what BruceA is trying to do and I am sympathetic (BillP
seems similarly inclined and RickM does not). It is not my intent to join
in that discussion; I'll leave it to the experts and trust I will be able to
follow it closely enough to derive something from it. However, I would like
to raise some issues related to the tag end of BruceA's posting (see above).

Both statements include the word "because." In the first statement, the use
of because attributes bank-approaching behavior to the past experience of
receiving food. In the second statement, the use of "because" attributes
bank-approaching behavior to controlling food delivery.

I tend to view what we're dealing with here as a loop, a cycle of events, a
circle, not a straight line. Find for me the starting point of a circle.
Better yet, this group loves the rubber band experiment a great deal. Find
for me the starting point of a rubber band.

I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that we human beings act to control the
perceived consequences or effects of our behavior. In turn, it also seems
to me that the perceived consequences of our behavior have an effect on the
reference structures against which we attempt to control our perceptions.
It's what we ancient Navy fire control technicians used to call a "rat-race"
loop. (Thank you, Ford Instrument Division of Sperry Rand Corporation for
the MK47 MOD6 electro-mechanical analog fire control computer!)

I'm not as up on Skinner as I once was, and it's been 22 years since I read
B:CP, but for me the big difference between Bill Powers' and B. F. Skinner's
views of the world is essentially this:

        Skinner shied away from speculating about what went on
        inside the organism and stuck with trying to formulate
        a view of behavior that was predicated on what could be
        observed externally, independently of what was going on
        internally. The shortcomings of treating the organism
        as a "black box" need no comment from me. In Skinner's
        formulation, the behavior loop is open. Stretched out
        as a straight line, beginning of course with stimulus,
        it reads S-->R-->R (stimulus, response, reinforcement).

        Bill Powers articulated a full-blown theoretical view of
        what was going on inside the organism and how that relates
        to what goes on outside as well. It is clearly a closed-
        loop view of behavior.

Personally, I think that the behaviorists' view and the B:CP view fit better
than RickM will ever admit and not nearly as well as BruceA would like them
to fit. Language is only a surface difficulty; there are very different
views of the world at work in the Skinnerian and B:CP perspectives. Fitting
them together is a chore I'll gladly leave to BruceA because he's trying to
pull off a win-win game in an area where the other players are bent on a
win-lose outcome. In my experience, that leads to neither; it leads instead
to a lose-lose outcome.

So, y'all keep up the debate and the discussion; I'm profiting from it, even
if I can only half follow it most of the time. In the meantime, I'll remind
myself from time to time that we're dealing with competing explanations of
behavior and let it go at that (Remember: I'm not a scientist...)

[:slight_smile:

Regards,

Fred Nickols
nickols@worldnet.att.net

[From Rick Marken (970910.0800)]

Fred Nickols (970909.2015 EST) --

I have a sense of what BruceA is trying to do and I am
sympathetic (BillP seems similarly inclined and RickM does not).

I guess you hadn't read Bill Powers (970909.1748 MDT) and
(970910.0138 MDT) when you wrote this. In particular, take a
look at Bill Powers (970910.0138 MDT):

What I am saying here, Bruce, is that the behaviorist account,
which you present as a simple factual description of observations,
is nothing of the sort. It is a biased account slanted toward
encouraging the listener to conclude that the environment is
controlling behavior -- that behavior is controlled by its
consequences, which is exactly the opposite of the truth.

This doesn't sound like sympathy toward Bruce A's position to me.
It sounds more like it took Bill one day longer than it took me
to lose patience entirely. And you certainly don't have to take
Bill or my word for it; use the demos to see that the behaviorist
account is wrong and the PCT account is right.

it also seems to me that the perceived consequences of our
behavior have an effect on the reference structures against
which we attempt to control our perceptions.

This is a poor way of describing it. In a hierarchical
control model, when a higher level system is not getting the
perceptual consequences it wants it will change the reference
for a lower level control system; this is the normal disturbance
resistance process of control. The way you stated it here it
sounds like perceived consequences can have an effect on the
very reference against which thery are compared; as though
food pellet input rate can have an effect on the reference for
what this rate should be. If this were true, there would be no
control. Since organisms do control, your statement of the model
must be wrong.

Personally, I think that the behaviorists' view and the B:CP view
fit better than RickM will ever admit

I don't understand why people want to believe this. What's to
fit? If PCT is right then (as Powers said in his Science article
in 1973) the behavioral sciences have been laboring under an
illusion for the last 100 years. The basic conclusion of
behaviorism is that behavior is output controlled by the
environment; the basic conclusion of PCT is that behavior is
input controlled by the organism. I can't see how these two
points of view can be made to "fit" together. And why try?

I'll remind myself from time to time that we're dealing with
competing explanations of behavior and let it go at that

I think that it is a _very_ big mistake to look at it this way.
PCT and behaviorism are _not_ really competing explanations of
behavior. They are, first and foremost, competing explanations
of what behavior _is_. Behaviorism views behavior as a dependent
variable that is caused by independent variables inside or outside
of the organism. Behaviorism doesn't recognize the fact that some
of these variables are neither independent nor dependent variables
but are, rather, controlled variables.

Behaviorism doesn't try to explain the behavior of controlled
variables because it doesn't even know they exist. PCT, on the
other hand, was developed specifically to explain the behavior of
controlled variables. A side benefit is that the PCT model also
explains why behaviorists have been able to see behavior (control),
incorrectly, as a cause-effect process for all these years.

Most people come to PCT thinking it is an alternative explanation
of behavior, where the "behavior" they want to explain is the kind
seen by behaviorists. These people will not "get" PCT until they
are willing to revise their notion of what behavior _is_. PCT was
developed, not as an alternative to behaviorism, but as an
explanation of a phenomenon that behaviorism never noticed (or
tried to imagine away): the phenomenon of purposeful behavior,
also known as control.

Best

Rick

···

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

[From Bruce Gregory (970910.1200 EDT)]

Rick Marken (970910.0800)

Most people come to PCT thinking it is an alternative explanation
of behavior, where the "behavior" they want to explain is the kind
seen by behaviorists. These people will not "get" PCT until they
are willing to revise their notion of what behavior _is_. PCT was
developed, not as an alternative to behaviorism, but as an
explanation of a phenomenon that behaviorism never noticed (or
tried to imagine away): the phenomenon of purposeful behavior,
also known as control.

Nice. The big shift occurs when you adopt a new model of what
behavior is. Until you take that step, you never seem to "get"
what PCT is all about.

Bruce