[Hans Blom, 940923]
Class, now that you have read -- and hopefully understood -- Bill Powers'
"Behavior: the Control of Perception", known to you by now as B:CP, we will
study one term that is frequently used in discussions on CSG. This particu-
lar assignment was triggered by a sentence from Rick Marken's (940922.2000)
posting to Jeff Vancouver (940922):
Locke et al are studying irrelevant side effects of control and they don't
know it.
Your tasks in this assignment are twofold:
1. to show that the term "irrelevant side effects of control" is, within
the theory of B:CP, selfcontradictory.
Hints:
a. irrelevant side effects can be perceived (from the above sentence);
b. irrelevant side effects are not controlled (by definition);
c. B:CP (axiom).
2. to give your personal interpretation of what the term "irrelevant side
effects" could possibly mean in the above sentence.
In order to allow you sufficient time to think, papers are not to be handed
in before a week from now.
Greetings,
Hans Blom
[Martin Taylor 940926 12:30]
Hans Blom, 940923
Your tasks in this assignment are twofold:
1. to show that the term "irrelevant side effects of control" is, within
the theory of B:CP, selfcontradictory.
Hints:
a. irrelevant side effects can be perceived (from the above sentence);
b. irrelevant side effects are not controlled (by definition);
c. B:CP (axiom).
2. to give your personal interpretation of what the term "irrelevant side
effects" could possibly mean in the above sentence.
In order to allow you sufficient time to think, papers are not to be handed
in before a week from now.
3. Sorry, haven't got time to wait.
2. "Irrelevant to the ECU doing the controlling that leads to the side effects."
Side effects are side effects ONLY to the controller with respect to which
they are defined. Other ECUs may well have perceptual functions that detect
(some) of the side effects of any one ECU's actions. It must be very rare
that the actions conseqeunt on the output of an ECU affect ONLY those
variables contributing to the ECU's perceptual signal, and ONLY in the
relationship represented in the perceptual function of the ECU. Any other
effect of those actions is an "irrelevant side effect" to that ECU. Even
though they might prove fatal to the organism within which that ECU resides.
1. The term "irrelevant side effect of control" is not self-contradictory
if one takes a natural definition of "side effect" within the PCT context.
Specifically, an "irrelevant side effect" is an effect on the environment
that produces a result orthogonal to the perception(s) being controlled.
1(Hint c). There is an element of self-reference in B:CP. The term
"behaviour" is usually taken to mean output that affects perception, and
in that sense B:CP is almost a tautology, once one recognizes the existence
of the feedback loop. The term "act" or "action" is usually used when
dealing with all the effects of output, including those that can be detected
only by a perceptual function orthogonal to those involved in the control
system under consideration.
Good to have you back.
Martin