Fred: Here is some writing for the proposal, which I will try to fax to
you with my fax-modem. Don't try to fax me back -- I have to set up my
system specially to receive faxes, and also I have only one phone line.
Proposal for the organization of a
Center for the Study of Living Control Systems
Introduction
In late July of 1994, the tenth annual meeting of the Control Systems
Group took place at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. For ten
years, members of this interdisciplinary group have been exploring,
improving and teaching a new general theory of behavioral organization
called Perceptual Control Theory. The fields of application have been
diverse; they have included biochemistry, clinical psychology, control
engineering, economics, educational theory, experimental psychology,
linguistics, management consulting, marriage counselling, molecular
biology, neuroscience, organizational design, philosophy, physiology,
psychotherapy, rehabilitation, school reorganization, and sociology.
Scientists and other professionals in all these fields have found in
Perceptual Control Theory not only a common language that communicates
across the boundaries of their specialties, but a fundamentally new
insight into the nature of behavior that seems to thrown new light on
essentially every branch of the behavioral sciences.
The work leading to PCT began in the early 1950s at the V.A. Research
Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Two physicists, William T. Powers and
Robert K. Clark, and one clinical psychologist, the late Robert L.
MacFarland, set out to explore the concepts of negative feedback control
as put forth by Norbert Wiener, Arturo Rosenbleuth, and Julian Bigelow
in their pioneering book, _Cybernetics: control and communication in the
animal and the machine_. This happened during a brief window in history
when the analog computer was the most widely-used tool for simulating
living systems. Soon the digital computer took over, leading the
mainstreams of behavioral science (and even Cybernetics) into a very
different approach to the function of the brain and the nature of
behavior. But the original three researchers persisted, publishing their
first work on a "General feedback theory of human behavior" in 1960 --
just in time to see the scientitic world swinging onto a new path and
declaring control theory out of date.
The original group disbanded, but Bill Powers continued to develop the
basic ideas, lecturing occasionally and publishing a few papers,
encouraged by a few people such as Donald T. Campbell who urged him to
continue the work and keep it alive. In 1973, Powers published
_Behavior: the control of perception_, which attracted a much wider
audience. Here and there, scientists began to pick up on the basic
concepts, often astonished to find how long they had been in existence
and how difficult it had been to achieve acceptance of them among
conventional behavioral scientists. Year by year as Powers continued to
publish, lecture, and give seminars at psychology departments, the
number of serious adherents grew, until in 1985 there were enough
interested people in one place at one time to decide to form the Control
Systems Group, or CSG.
In the ten years of its existence, this group has grown from 15 members
to 60 scattered across the United States and Canada. About four years
ago, a discussion group was begun on the internet; the list now includes
around 130 residents of 19 countries, only perhaps 20 of whom are part
of the original CSG. As a result of this wider discussion, the first
European Workshop on Perceptual Control Theory was held in June, 1994
under the auspices of the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, attracting
participants from England, Wales, Scotland, France, and Germany, as well
as members of the American CSG. The next meeting, as well as research
proposals for cooperative work in prosthetics and rehabilitation
medicine in the UK and United States, are now being planned. As this is
being written, paper collection is underway for a special issue of the
International Journal of Human-Computer Systems devoted entirely to PCT
and edited by the senior psychologist of the Defense and Civil Institute
for Envirnmental Medicine of Toronto, Canada. In the United States, a
special two-day seminar on PCT is being planned (by a Dean of Education
at an Eastern University) for the next meeting of the National
Educational Research Association. A prominent and widely-cited cellular
biologist is organizing a new institute for biochemical research and has
announced that he plans to use PCT as a major organizing principle for
the work of that institute. In Houston, Texas, a program for using PCT
to assess performance before and after surgery for spinal injuries is
under development; the neurosurgeon in charge has postponed all major
surgeries until the new system is in place. In Phoenix, Arizona, a group
of school principals and other administrators has been applying PCT to
discipline problems in inner-city schools, with remarkable results. A
member of the CSG, Edward Ford, has been travelling around the country
by invitation, teaching teachers, parents, and school boards how to
apply the principles of PCT. There seems suddenly to be a ferment of
interest in PCT spreading more rapidly and more widely than ever before
in its 40-year history.
All this has come about without any plan or any organized attempt to
gain publicity -- all but accidentally. One person has taught another.
All the members of the CSG and of the internet group selected
themselves, having heard or read something about PCT and wanting to know
more. There are signs, however, that this unorganized approach will not
suffice much longer, and that the demand for education and research in
PCT will very soon exceed the informal capacities now available. That is
why we are planning a Center for the Study of Living Control Systems,
and why we are asking support to make it a reality.
The mission of the Center
The Center for the Study of Living Control Systems will serve to
organize the teaching of PCT, to coordinate research on PCT at colleges
and universities in the United States and abroad, to conduct scientific
meetings, workshops, and practicums on PCT, and to plan curricula
leading to advanced degrees in which PCT plays a major part. It is hoped
that the Center will be able to provide facilities for visiting scholars
and researchers where members of diverse disciplines can come together
to do real work on the nature of living control systems. It is hoped,
too, that the Center can provide public education on the meaning of PCT
in practical affairs, in industry, in the management of organizations.
By the nature of its subject matter, the Center will have, we hope, a
limited lifetime. Perceptual Control Theory is a theory of life; it is a
tool to be used wherever the phenomena of life are studied. The primary
purpose of the Center is to sharpen this tool to make it as useful as
possible, to put the tool into the hands of knowledgeable users, and to
pave the way for meainstream research to take over the use of this tool.
At some point in the future, in 10, 15, or 20 years, PCT will be taken
for granted in all the sciences of life. There will then be no more need
for a Center for the Study of Living Control Systems than there is for a
Center for the Study of the Roundness of the Earth.