# Brief notes of the Euro CSGNET workshop

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/brief-notes-of-the-euro-csgnet-workshop/1971>\
**Category:** CSG1998\
**Created:** [June 23, 1998, 10:57am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/brief-notes-of-the-euro-csgnet-workshop/1971 "1998-06-23T10:57:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Kennaway2](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/a87d85/32.png) [@Richard\_Kennaway2](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Richard_Kennaway2)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 1998, 10:57am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/brief-notes-of-the-euro-csgnet-workshop/1971/1 "1998-06-23T10:57:51Z")

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[From Richard Kennaway (980623.1151 BST)]

I didn't take complete notes, so this is just some random recollections.  
My apologies to anyone I may seem to have forgotten.

There were 14 participants:

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stefan Balke  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bobby Balman  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Christine Forssell  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Dag Forssell  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Christian Heidel  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Richard Kennaway  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Lloyd Kleindinst  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Franz Plooij  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bill Powers  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mary Powers  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Christian Wenner  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rupert Young  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Marion Zocher  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Wolfgang Zocher

The venue, Schloss Kroechlendorff, is a large 19th century country house,  
now modernised and converted to a conference centre, in a secluded corner  
of north-east Germany, a few miles from the town of Prenzlau. An ideal  
setting offering an environment free of distractions.

Franz Plooij gave an overview of the work he has done on baby development  
over the last 11 years. In his research he has found that babies go  
through "difficult" periods in the first 18 months of life at predictable  
times, following which they make significant advances in their abilities to  
perform various tasks. He considers that these periods correspond to the  
development of new levels of control in the hierarchy speculatively  
proposed in B:CP (or more precisely, the current 11-level version). He has  
written a book for parents based on this work (English title: "Why they  
cry").

Franz also gave an interview for German television, for a popular science  
programme. (The rest of us weren't present.)

Bill Powers presented a simulation of a five-level control system for an  
inverted pendulum. He also presented another simulation which demonstrated  
a learning algorithm, whereby a control system can learn to control just by  
observing its own error signal. It looks like magic, if only I understood  
it. Bill, is this written down anywhere in the literature? Or anywhere  
not in the literature?

I presented a simulation of a six-legged insect with a two-level control  
hierarchy, the bottom level for controlling joint angles in its legs and  
the top level for controlling body position. Variable disturbances can be  
applied (including shooting off some of the bug's legs), and the bug  
maintains control. Future developments will be to make the bug walk. It  
would also be nice to build it.

Wolfgang Zocher presented a model of eyeball tracking, with a comparison to  
the observed behaviour of real eyeballs.

Christian Wenner presented results of experiments on muscle activity and  
reaction time.

Stefan Balke spoke about experience of applying the RTP.

Rupert Young spoke about his model of how the eye can bring a selected part  
of the retinal image onto the fovea.

There was a demo of Scilab, a public domain mathematical calculation tool  
similar to Matlab, available from INRIA for PCs and unix machines.

Dag Forssell is setting up a PCT web site at [forssell.com](http://forssell.com). He also  
distributed pre-publication copies of Bill Powers' new book, my copy of  
which is at home and I can't remember the title. But I can say it's a good  
read.

There was a discussion about the possibility of setting up a PCT journal,  
but I'll leave it to the prime movers in that project to announce something  
when they're ready to. Its first issue would be the proceedings of the  
workshop.

There were also informal discussions around dinner/beers/barbecue. A  
frequent topic was, why is (almost) no-one interested in PCT? How do we  
get them interested? How do we get PCT recognised?

Lastly, my thanks to Wolfgang and Marion Zocher for organising the meeting.

-- Richard Kennaway, [jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk](mailto:jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk), [http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/](http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/)  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;School of Information Systems, Univ. of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![R\_Marken](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@R\_Marken](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/R_Marken)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 1998, 4:34pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/brief-notes-of-the-euro-csgnet-workshop/1971/2 "1998-06-23T16:34:38Z")

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[From Rick Marken (980623.0830)]

Richard Kennaway (980623.1151 BST)

Thanks very much for the summary of the Euro CSG Workshop. It  
sounds like there were some great talks; I'm really sorry I  
missed it. I sounds like you had a great time.

> There were also informal discussions around dinner/beers/barbecue.  
> A frequent topic was, why is (almost) no-one interested in PCT?  
> How do we get them interested? How do we get PCT recognised?

This is really the great fun of CSG meetings for me; getting  
together with fellow PCTers so that we can collectively cry  
in our beers over the lack of interest in and recognition of PCT.  
Of course, the reason for the lack of interest and recognition  
is well understood but no less frsutrating because of it; to do  
PCT properly one has to be willing reexamine the foundations of  
their discipline. For most people, this would mean starting their  
careers all over again, from scratch. Not many people are willing  
to do this so most of those who do get interested in PCT tend look  
at it from the perspective of what they already know about "how  
organisms work". Eventually, the efforts required to fit PCT into  
this Procrustean bed become too painful and PCT is either abandoned  
or carried on in name only, leaving those few of us who are still  
willing to study behavior in ways not even dreamed of in  
conventional philosophies of life to Test for Controlled Variables  
in blissful isolation and cry in our beers in collective dismay  
at CSG meetings around the globe;-)

Best

Rick

> **···**
>
> --  
> Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313  
> Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net  
> [http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken](http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken)