From Greg Williams (920517)
Gary Cziko (920515.2115)
Greg Williams (920515) says:
My central claim is that the moment-to-moment operation of an individual's
control structure is NOT MIRACULOUS, but rather a function of its past history
(perhaps in a probabilistic way -- I have no desire to get into questions
about "absolute" determinism).
Who could argue with this? How could an individual's control structure be
anything but a "function of its past history?"
Anyone who buys into state-determined dynamical models won't argue. Some who
don't, will. Some of the latter postulate "miraculous" (non-history-
determined) alterations in organismic physiology due to a "self" and/or "God,"
among other (non-physical?) things. I was just trying to make sure that
everyone realizes that such postulations are ADJUNCTS to PCT.
But what kind of function is it? You've raised the possibility that it is
a probabilistic function. But what about a chaotic function? I find
chaotic systems particularly intriguing in this respect because they are
completely deterministic, and yet in a sense curiously independent of past
history since after a while the initial starting point has no bearing on
the present state of the system.
You raise an important point here -- that even though PCT gives no support to
the notion of a transcendental "self" capable of (the traditional sort of)
"free will" (since an individual's current behavior/acts are due to his/her
current control structure, which is a function of the individual's history),
the theory also notes, in opposition to Skinner and cohorts, that (in general)
SIGNIFICANT contributions to that history are due BOTH to external AND
internal events. And even without chaos, the inaccessibility of internal
events to external observers makes Skinner's optimism about prediction of (and
deliberate precise influence of -- what he termed "control" of) the behavior
of OTHER organisms seem greatly exaggerated. Chaos might make Skinner seem
VASTLY overoptimistic, but that's just icing on the cake.
So, one can use PCT to argue against the feasibility of one's successfully
being DELIBERATELY influenced along certain lines by others. The would-be
manipulators will have a tough time because they have access mainly to
EXTERNAL events. Nevertheless, if the would-be manipulators have SOME access
to one's control structure (maybe just by asking questions of or "getting to
know" the person or, at a more sophisticated level, by employing tests for
controlled variables), deliberate influence might be considerably more
successful.
P.S. Greg, did I ever send you the Mackay argument for "free will in a
mechanistic universe" (of something like that). If so, what do you think
of it?
I did look at it and concluded that the argument hinged on an idiosyncratic
notion of free will, namely (if I recall correctly) choice made under
conditions of incomplete information relevant to the choice. With regard to
the traditional philosophical debates about free will, I think many would
grant that MacKay's kind of "free will" exists, but that it is NOT traditional
free will (which is NOT "having to guess"). Having a sort of roulette wheel in
your head to help make choices does not count as having free will in the
Western religious tradition. Being a state-determined dynamical system (even
one with probabilistic rules connecting successive states, or a chaotic one)
counts as NOT having free will, traditionally. The crux is the notion of a
"free agent" which "transcends" (is capable of breaking the rules of) physics
(state-determination) by making "absolutely self-willed" (and thereby morally
culpable) choices.
It might be enlightening to think about modeling the illusion of (traditional)
free will. Dick Robertson has made a start on this in the last (I think)
chapter in INTRODUCTION TO MODERN PSYCHOLOGY: THE CONTROL-THEORY VIEW. I doubt
that cockroaches harbor the illusion, so I doubt that free will is how it
feels to be ANY kind of living control system; I wonder whether monkeys think
they can arbitrarily decide whether to move their little finger?
Greg