RM: Why do you think collective control is going on here [with neurons]?
RM: Bruce never answered
BN: I did reply, rather late, but in another topic:
BN: Control systems act to reduce the effects of disturbances on inputs that they control. Control systems in environmental proximity inevitably disturb one another’s controlled inputs in the course of controlling their own. What is observed as collective control emerges as environmental stabilities which, over time, may come to be used within environmental feedback paths.
RM: Control systems that disturb each other’s controlled inputs are not necessarily (or even likely to be) in conflict (see, for example, Tom Bourbon’s model of actual two-person interactions that is described at the beginning of Chapter 7 in The Study of Living Control Systems). “Collective control” as defined by you, Martin and Kent, depends on systems being in conflict over the state of the same controlled variable. If, however, there is no conflict between the neurons – as is possibly, if not more likely, the case – the stability of the neurons’ environment is not the result of “collective control”. Indeed, it is more likely the result of control by a separate control system that controls that environment for all neurons in the population.
BN: Such environmental stabilities may themselves come to be perceived and their stable availability in feedback paths may then be a controlled perception by all or some of the engaged control systems…
RM: This illustrates a problem I have with this kind of unchecked theorizing – unchecked by carefully collected experimental evidence. It just leads to more and more unchecked theorizing until you’ve got yourself a great story that is impossible to check. This is why I focus on trying to knock out the first step of these stories, which, in this case is the idea that “collective control” (as defined by you, Martin and Kent) of some form or another is what stabilizes social environments.
BN: There is no separate controller that determines which neurochemicals are released or reabsorbed in which parts of the nervous system, and the synapses that release or reabsorb them are distributed throughout the nervous system.
RM: That doesn’t mean that there is a conflict between the neurons.
BN: It is obvious to me that collective control is the conceptual tool for figuring out how it is done, determining what data are needed, and framing how to test, model, and demonstrate what is going on.
RM: And it is obvious to me that the idea of “collective control” (as defined by you, Martin and Kent) constrains you to what seems to me to be the least likely control theory explanation of the observed stability of the neuron’s environment. I assume you have data showing which aspect of the neurons’ environment is stabilized. If so I’d like to see it because I’d like to know whether the evidence is that this variable is stabilized or controlled. If it’s just stabilized then it may be just a side effect of the controlling done by the neurons. If it’s controlled then what is the evidence that it is not controlled by a system that controls that variable for all the neurons in the collection?
Best, Rick
–