[Martin Taylor 951109 17:00]
Bill Powers 951107.1620 MST
My memory of Thorndike's experiments are from grad-school days, and may be
a bit hazy. I'm sure Bruce will correct me if I'm wrong, but what I say here
is in the background of my earlier comments on this whole cat-scientist-
experimenter issue.
What I remember is that Thorndike observed the cat(s) to get out of the
box usually more and more quickly on successive trials. That much has been
mentioned here. What hasn't been mentioned, so far as I remember, is that
he observed each cat to develop some stereotyped behaviour, so that what
it did to get out of the box looked almost the same every time (after it
had learned). But what one cat did every time might be quite different
from what another cat did every time. I remember a line drawing of a cat
kind of leaning against the stick with its hind-quarters. That's what that
cat did every time. Another (I'm using a fictional example now because I
don't remember any other real ones) might rub its nose on the stick as
an affectionate cat may do to a hand, while another might use the stick
as a scratching post...every time.
Now contemplate the following exchange, quoted from the referenced posting
by Bill P. (I'm not adding quote carets this time):
=============start quote===========
Bill
From the cat's point of view, I suppose, what is done is to control
different perceptual variables in different ways until the door opens.
When the cat stops reorganizing it will keep controlling the same
variable the same way until the door fails to open; then it will
reorganize some more until the door opens again.
Bill (earlier)
It should always be possible to discover what the cat is actually
controlling by applying disturbances and seeing if they are resisted,
and of course then going on to complete the Test.
Me.
During rapid reorganization?
Bill.
Well, no, of course not. There would be nothing regular to observe.
Wouldn't we, the experimenters, be able to realize that? We might search
for a while for some regularity, but eventually we'd catch on that the
cat is still reorganizing the rules and isn't actually doing anything
the same way from one trial to the next. In fact, we would probably
conclude that that catc can't find a solution in the form of a regular
control system, and has fallen back on the E. coli method: trial and
error until the door opens, every time.
Me
By hypothesis throught this interchange of messages, the cat
doesn't perceive the contact. So, again by hypothesis, preventing
it from sensing contact will not destroy control--the cat escapes
nevertheless.
Bill.
So you're saying that there is actually no first-level control system.
The cat is escaping every time just by producing random movements until
the door opens.
=============end quoted passage==========
I AM saying that there may be no first-level control system that involves
perceiving the stick as part of the escape mechanism. And I'm not sure
that e-coli works, here, because there's no perception of "hotter-colder"
as the cat approaches the solution of pushing the stick. So when the
stereotyped actions fail to get the door open, it probably will revert
to random behaviour. But so long as the box environment doesn't change,
the stereotyped actions of the cat do get it out.
So far as I know, Thorndike didn't change boxes or sticks so that the
stereotyped actions would fail.
Is there any evidence that the stick enters into the cat's controlled
perception of seeing itself escape from the box? If the cat goes straight
for the stick and performs the same action even when the box and the stick
are changed, I think so. If it performs the same action with more force
when the stick is made to move more stiffly, I think so. But can one
ever be sure? The cat eventually succeeds, but it is the environment, not
the cat, that determines which actions will be successful; and it is the
cat's reorganization to that environment that determines how quickly it
will succeed next time--without reference to whether the stick perception
enters into that reorganization. What works, works, side effect or no.
When you change the cat's
environment, it may well go back to "random" behaviour, changing
its actions until some different side-effect of some different
perceptual control system happens to have the right influence on
the main controlled perception--being out of the box and at the
food.Why should the cat go back to random behavior if it is still controlling
successfully? You seem to equate "disturbance" with "disruption of
control."
Not at all. You talked about changing the box. Your disturbances are to
the feedback functions available in the environment, not to the perceptions.
A disturbance is just a mild perturbation, no larger than is
required to see that the control relationships exist. It doesn't
necessarily change the controlled variable by a perceptible (to the
experimenter) amount.
And so long as the change to the box is small enough, the stereotyped
behaviour will continue to aloow the cat to escape--without control of
the truly effective perception (stick movement). When the change is larger,
the cat doesn't escape, and it looks like loss of control, just as when
your disturbance is too big or too fast in the following situation:
If you're driving and I guess that you're
controlling the lateral position of the car, I can apply a disturbance
to the steering wheel and see that you resist it,...
(continued with)
... and do so quite safely
as long as I make sure you still have control.
which seems analogous to the cat-in-the-box situation provided the box
doesn't change too much.
Rambling on... But I think that the stereotypic behaviour may be quite
reminiscent of what Idries Shah meant when he said that each Sufi master
(including Jesus) had caught a glimpse of reality, but that ALL the disciples
who followed the master's rituals completely missed what the master tried
to teach them. The same rituals that worked for the master would be
extremely unlikely to work for any particular other person, because the
circumstances would be different. Disciples who found part of the master's
truth developed quite different rituals.
Martin