[From Bill Powers (940818.1830 MDT)]
direct post to selected contributors
Here is a possible next section in Fred Good's outline for our proposal.
It introduces some new considerations that may suggest rewrites of the
preceding sections. Please contribute to this and say what you think of
it. If Fred pulls this off, the pipe dream may suddenly start looking
like a reality, and call for some concrete decisions and committments
from those who claim to be supporters of PCT. We all have to start
thinking of what we would really do if suddenly $2,000,000 appears with
the go-ahead to carry out the plan. Life could not continue as it is
now.
V. Methods.
The transition from the current state of research in PCT to a fully
functioning Center will require achieving a series of intermediate goals
as well as a change of focus. Those interested in this field have, over
several decades, become used to working in relative isolation most of
the time, on small or nonexistent budgets, in whatever time could be
spared from the requirements of making a living and a career. Those who
have worked the longest are nearing or have passed retirement age, and
while still productive are no longer driven by the ambitions and hopes
of youth, or equipped with its energy. When the Center reaches the point
of becoming fully operational, it should be under the command of a
younger generation with the elders serving in an advisory capacity.
The first business of the Center, therefore, must be that of passing the
torch so that all that is of value in the knowledge and lore of PCT
might be preserved in the generation that will carry on the work into
the 21st Century.
The first step: internal education
As matters stand now, there are perhaps six or eight people who
understand both the general principles of PCT and the detailed
mathematical and practical approaches to systematic quantitative
research in this field. Following closely behind them is a larger group
which has a good grasp of principles, but little experience with
modeling and experimentation of the kind needed. And the largest group
of those interested has only a subjective and practical knowlege of PCT,
with a limited ability to apply it in new areas. This situation is the
result of the realities of life: a group that meets only once a year has
little chance for systematic teaching and learning, so that progress up
the ladder of understanding is very slow. There is no basic textbook,
there is no curriculum of background studies, there is little time for
concentrated learning, and for younger members there has never been any
way to devote full time to the study of PCT while developing a career
and supporting a family.
The first step toward creation of a Center for the Study of Living
Control Systems must therefore be to bring together a substantial number
of those interested and turn them into experts with the skills and
knowledge required to initiate and carry out PCT research -- or at least
put them well on the road toward this end. A core group of ten to twenty
people is needed. These people will be required to go through
considerable inconvenience and to make a committment that may have
repercussions on their careers and income, because the training period
should go on for the equivalent of at least a full school year.
Our of this initial training period there should emerge a new generation
of PCT researchers ready to teach others and to take up the threads of
research that have been started during the last 20 years. The temporary
college may well become a permanent one, the physical and intellectual
nucleus of the Center. The experiences of this year of teaching will
lead to the writing of a textbook and the creation of a curriculum which
can be adopted by other centers of education. The infrastructure
developed during this year will become the mechanism for coordinating
research and applications, for organizing interdisciplinary meetings
both national and international, and for organizing applications of PCT
in schools, businesses, and other places. The physical plant will become
a place for visiting scholars and researchers to carry out projects and
establish collaborations. In short, we should emerge from this initial
year with a Center that is nearly in operational condition.
It should be mentioned that the "students" who will take part in this
project will not be any ordinary kind of students. Most of them will
have degrees in some discipline, and some will have had ten or twenty
years' experience as university professors, or the equivalent in some
profession. We will encourage the participation of some new college
graduates or candidates for advanced degrees, but the initial cadre will
be largely composed of experienced people -- who happen to have lacked
the particular training needed for a technical understanding of PCT. The
lack of this training can be understood if it is realized that these
people will come from fields such as educational research, linguistics,
sociology, biochemistry, economics, clinical and experimental
psychology, and organizational development. Although the emphasis will
be on filling in the technical aspects of an education in PCT, the
course will greatly benefit from the experience of the students, so in
some respects it will resemble a workshop. These rather overqualified
students will be well-equipped to write a textbook on the very subjects
they have just finished assimilating, and to make it an
interdisciplinary textbook as well.
The sponsor is going to have to be firmly convinced of the long-term
value of PCT research, because a considerable financial outlay will be
needed to make this project feasible. In effect, we will be setting up a
temporary college, which will require a physical location, equipment,
and administrative support. We may need to hire teachers -- for example,
a mathematics teacher, a teacher of basic servomechanism technology, and
a teacher of computer programming. It will be necessary to support some
or all of the attendees as well as those teachers without an independent
income with a sufficient salary to maintain their families while this
educational period is going on. And preparing the curriculum is going to
take on the order of six months, during which time the teaching group
will require support and a place to work.
Furthermore, the real test of the Center will come only after the first
year; the initial group of students will turn around and become those in
charge of the Center and the teachers of the next group, which will
surely include many applicants from outside the Control Systems Group.
As students return to their institutions, there will be increasing
interest in learning about PCT; it will quickly become important to
provide curriculum materials to colleges and universities if only to
avoid swamping the Center.
So the total support that the sponsor must contemplate providing will
have to cover not just the first year, but two or three years following,
perhaps for a total of as much as five years. After the first year or
two, the Center may be able to generate income through charging for the
main courses, and for consulting with schools, businesses, and
governments concerning problems to which PCT may offer solutions. But
the sponsor should consider that this must be a relatively long-term
committment.