[From Bill Powers (950315.0739 MST)]
Bruce Buchanan 950314.20:30 (EST) --
This is a self-explanatory open question, inviting comments. The
basic question addressed is that of the role of higher levels (what
is usually understood by volition or Will or intention) in relation
to primary level neurological control systems.
Rather than try to comment from my uninformed position on the "disease"
called causalgia, I would like to encourage you to try your own hand at
providing some PCT answers. I am sure you must realize by now that in
the HPCT model, there is volition, will or intention at _all_ levels,
and that we do not divide the brain's organization just into "primary"
and "higher" levels -- the division is considerably finer than that, and
_all_ the levels are "neurological."
The basic question you raise is that of the connection between the
brain's hierarchy of perception and control and the operation of the
biological "life-support" systems. As a medical man, you undoubtedly
know more than any of us about the ways in which the brain might send
reference signals to organ and hormone systems, how those organ and
hormone systems might be acting as control systems to stabilize various
aspects of the body's functions, and how the body's state might be
represented as perceptual input signals in the neurological control
systems (whether available to awareness or not).
Even I as a layman know of a few examples of "mind over matter" (i.e.,
brain over biochemistry) control, such as the ability to raise and lower
heart rate or blood pressure volitionally. It's a commonplace that an
anxious outlook can lead to physical problems like ulcers, and even that
attitudes like depression can alter the efficiency of the immune system.
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that brain activities can have
profound effects on the details of somatic functions (and I suppose even
on basic aspects of neural functions, looking at neurons simply as
living cells).
The main question is how this happens, assuming it really does happen. A
systems view of the whole organism could be very helpful in
understanding how different levels of organization interact; it isn't
very helpful to say that an increase in seretonin can lead to an
increase in self-esteem, unless you can also say what caused the
seretonin to increase. In the case of causalgia, what told the autonomic
nervous system to raise the sensitivity of the sensory organs? If the
brain can do something directly to alleviate the problem, then it must
have had something to do directly with causing the problem. Not that I
would defend that idea as a general principle.
Are there indeed implications for conscious or deliberate purpose
as an agency with some capacity for control over biological
processes, and not merely an epiphenomenon (i.e. an illusion)? Was
McCulloch mistaken in suggesting that the clinical course of
causalgia might have implications for the relation of the mind
(decision and intention at least) and the physical nervous system?
Or did I perhaps misinterpret him?
I don't think you misinterpreted anything. I've always taken it for
granted that the brain is in a very powerful position in relation to the
whole body, not just overt behavior. After all, when you move even a
finger, you're demonstrating neurological control over biological
processes. I view "conscious and deliberate purpose" as a natural
property of the brain, in fact the basic property because purpose and
control are essentially synonymous. As to consciousness itself, I don't
know what it is; consciousness and purpose are NOT synonymous in PCT.
For a purpose or intention to exist, all that is necessary is for a
reference signal to exist, and that certainly does not require
consciousness. To _know_ that there is a purpose _does_ require
consciousness, but simply to have and carry out a purpose does not.
At any rate, why not try your hand at concocting a PCT hypothesis about
causalgia?
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Bruce Abbott (950314.1900 EST)(writing to Rick Marken) --
In my view, you are mistaking the part for the whole in rejecting
the whole of the traditional approach to learning and behavior
simply because one of its fundamental principles is wrong.
From my point of view, the wrongness of the principle is only a symptom
of the basic problem. To me, the basic problem is the general approach
to learning and behavior that allows making causal statements without
reference to the internal organization of the behaving system.
The concept "the stimulus" is a primary example. A stimulus is simply an
impingement of physical energy on sensory organs. The only properties of
a stimulus that matter are those that result in raising the neuron past
the threshold of firing. Once that has happened, the stimulus itself has
no further influence on subsequent events; everything that happens after
the neuron fires is due to properties of the nervous system and the rest
of the organism. What the organism does during and after the stimulus
event depends entirely on what the organism makes of this signal, what
signal it wants, what other signals are present, what functions are
applied to the signals, and so forth.
That's the point of view I bring to my attempts to understand behavior.
But what do behavioral psychologists do? They treat stimuli not in terms
of actual processes at a sensory interface or in a brain, but in terms
of what they themselves experience of the environment (through their own
senses). They speak of stimulus-objects and stimulus-events as if there
is something about the objects and events they perceive in the
environment that endows them with special properties that relate to
behavior. They speak of masking stimuli, and salient stimuli, and
noxious, aversive, or rewarding stimuli, and stimuli competing for
effects on the organism, and supernormal stimuli, and controlling
stimuli. In short, they speak as if the environment contains special
nonphysical properties that have special effects on organisms.
This I simply can't buy. I just don't believe that the environment
contains any such properties. I think that psychologists are attributing
to the environment properties that belong _inside the organism_. If you
examine the stimulus objects or events themselves, in isolation from
organisms, you find none of these properties; there is no test to reveal
them, and no justification for claiming that they exist as part of
external nature. They are a metaphor that has got out of hand. They are
figments of the imagination.
Do you really, literally, believe that there is something about a pellet
of food that can cause a change in the relationship of behavioral
actions to objects and events in the local environment? When you call a
piece of kibble a "reinforcer", that's what you're literally claiming.
From what I know of you from your writing and programming, I simply
can't accept that you believe literally in reinforcement or in
controlling stimuli or in any of that stuff. And if you don't believe
literally what you're saying, why go on using that language? It's like
an atheist saying "bless you" when you sneeze, or a physicist saying he
hopes that a lot of neutrinos want to enter his apparatus today. People
do say such things in jest, but they would be insulted to hear
themselves described as if they took their own words literally.
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Rick Marken (direct) --
I'll get right onto composing that letter, with enthusiasm.
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Best to all,
Bill P.
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