[From Bruce Nevin (2001.01.15 11:18 EST)]
Bill Powers (2001.01.14.0132 MST)--
>I think we get some insight into what logic is for, as a level of control.
>Without perception of the logic, what could turn off one of the lower
>control systems, the one that needs to have its reference level reset? We
>want to have our cake and eat it, too. It is only logic that resolves this
>dilemma, by recognizing that (P and ~P) is unconditionally false, and
>choosing that reality as the reference condition.
It sounds like you are arguing that conflicts like M vs. ~M can only be resolved by logic. Perhaps when we are operating on the logic level it looks that way.
It seems to me that there are at least three kinds of systems that apprehend a threat and respond to it.
1. Fight-or-flight mechanisms.
Consider a simple organism, a slug perhaps, that is hungry and feeding. Introduce a disturbance that could be due to a predator--vibration of the surface on which the slug and food rest, a touch on its projecting sensory stalks, a puff of air. The slug stops feeding, pulls in its stalks, and contracts its body. There is a logic in this, but is a logic level of perceptual control required for it? If pre-made "decisions" preferring life over short-term livelihood have evolved in very simple organisms, is there some reason that they would have been abandoned in vertebrate, mammalian, primate, or human evolution? For fight-or-flight situations, would not delegation upward to a logic level be far too slow in emergencies? If a mechanism exists that evaluates threats to life with this immediacy (can I defeat this or should I run?), is there a reason for it not to continue to operate in parallel with slower mechanisms that formulate a rational strategy?
2. Logic.
The victim hears "give me your money or I'll shoot you" and sees the gun. To understand this would seem to require the perception M ^ S on a logic level. (I'm substituting S for ~L hereafter. ~L is one imaginable causal consequence of S.)
A logical disjunction (or other relation) in itself has no existential significance, no visceral import. It is the disjoined propositions, in this case M and S, that are connected to lower perceptions that matter. Put another way, there is no basis within logic for preferring either M or S. The evaluation that reaches a conclusion happens outside of logic. Logic only specifies that there is a choice, and what the alternatives are. (Logic also allows inclusive adjunction of additional propositions without limit, as this does not affect the truth value of the original statement. One of the hallmarks of creativity is the ability to defer closure, to store in memory what seems like a solution and continue looking for alternatives that might be better.)
3. Imagination.
The existential import of M and of S comes from playing out their ramifications in imagination. Imagination develops consequences of keeping or giving up the money, and consequences of the robber shooting him or not shooting him. (These are causal consequences based on remembered experience, like "if it rains, things exposed to it get wet," not logical consequences, like "P; P->Q; Q" which hold given that P is TRUE, irrespective of the existential content of P and Q.)
It seems to me that systems of all three kinds respond to a threat at the same time, each in their own fashion, and that each contributes input to the other two.
For each imagined consequence in (3), there is a visceral evaluation of the sort that is involved in (1) above. The looking for alternatives that I mentioned under (2) is a function of imagination in (3). The evaluation of any logical consequence in (2) depends upon the connection to experience in (3); and the preference of one imagined consequence over another depends in part on whether you like it or not, which seems to me to be an evaluation of the sort that we see in (1); but the basis for desire vs. aversion may be something like "net error" in imagined control of the variables involved.
With (1), the "visceral" arousal is immediate, perceptual scanning and heightened attention follows, whose inputs are interpreted by higher cognitive processes, whose interpretation of sensory inputs includes a perceived character of the emotional arousal (fear, delight, anger, relief). I thought this account was well accepted, and it seems to me to fit with what has been proposed previously on CSG-net about emotion and attention.
All the advice one has heard to take a deep breath, count to ten, look before you leap, is counsel to wait long enough for higher and slower processes to catch up. By that time, the interpretation ("He's got a gun! I haven't a chance! Give up the food -- umm, money, and get away!" or "This is for my daughter! I don't know how, but he's not taking it!") may already have been made, and then it's up to logic to fashion a reasonable path to it. That's the way it looks to me, remembering heart-pounding situations of both kinds that I have been in.
Does an evaluation of "M & L" as FALSE precede a decision for flight? ("Give up the goodies and get away!"). Or, more tellingly, does an evaluation of
"M & L" as TRUE precede a decision to fight? ("This is for my daughter's medical treatment! I don't know how, but he's not taking it!"). And if so, why? They can't both be purely logical conclusions. OK, you said "given other premisses," but whence those other premisses? They're not in the robber's announcement of a contingency. They come from memory and are connected to the contingency by (3) imagination. By the time imagination comes up with them, the desire/aversion evaluation of (1) is already attached. In the history of "heroic" behavior it is common for people to act on the basis of such evaluation regardless of the somewhat tardy voice of reason saying that it doesn't make sense.
By the time higher and slower processes catch up, the victim's evaluation or attitude has already been set, and it's up to logic to fashion a reasonable path to it--or to override it if the person purposefully lets the initial surge pass, takes a deep breath, counts to ten, and looks before she leaps --the conditions, perhaps, for going up a level.
Up a level from what conflict? From two: present M vs. imagined ~M, and present ~S vs. imagined S. And there's no need to be governed by a logical M ^ S in order for these conflicts to arise. To see this, just consider the parent about to defend the child's medical fees. There is no logical path from M ^ S to that defense, since M & S probably fails to give the money to the doctors. But from the pair of conflicts M vs. ~M and ~S vs. S there can be diverse paths to defend both M and ~S against disturbance by the robber, and these can be taken even if the contingency M ^ S is understood and accepted as TRUE. This is born out by testimony of survivors of attacks who have said things like "I figured I didn't have a chance, I'd get killed anyway, but I couldn't just *give* it to him!" In such cases a logical conclusion from an accepted contingency does not determine behavior. In such cases, some other process makes the decision, and that "irrational" process seems related to emotion.
In this reference to parallel systems, a logic system and a faster and more primitive "irrational" system, linked by imagination, I am not urging that either of them is superior or should be suppressed, rather, that each has its aptitudes and its awkwardnesses, and that we seem to use them all in a coordinated way.
> the basic question [...]
>is how imagination fits into this picture. I think it's clear that
>imagination is serving here as a mental model. According to this model, the
>actions which accompany keeping your money ACTUALLY CAUSE YOU TO GET SHOT.
>Here I use the term "actually" as it is used in physics. In physics, we say
>"this hard table-top is actually mostly empty space," meaning not "really"
>but "as we theoretically imagine it."
>
>This changes the control systems by creating a link (in imagination)
>between the actions of one and the perceptions of the other. When I try to
>run the model so as to make it keep my money (say, by running away), I get
>shot (in the back).
What does "creating a link in imagination" mean? A link between in principle any arbitrary pair of control systems, such that the action output of one suitably affects the perceptual input of the other, without the loop being closed through the environment. The systems where the imagination shunt is closed (substituting memory for perceptual input) would have to be at a sufficiently low level to serve in place of the environment for both higher-level systems. Looking at the diagram again on p. 221 of B:CP, the action output of a control system (perhaps combined in the reference input function with other, remembered signals or with action output signals from other control systems) gets shunted away from the comparator of each lower-level system that it goes to and over to replace the perceptual input signal that is passed up from each such system. (It must be for each next-lower system so that the perceptual input signals for each of them is distributed upward correctly, differently for each.)
Perhaps there is a trial-and-error process of controlling various combinations of perceptions with the imagination shunt closed and using various combinations of remembered reference values until error drops to tolerable levels. This would be a cheap form of temporary reorganization that might be done instead of reasoning at the logic level and might be a precursor to more permanent reorganization. (And something more general but of this sort has been proposed as a function of dreaming.)
There is no room in this for a conflict between two control systems that are both controlling M (one controlling through the environment and the other controlling through the imagination loop set in many lower-level systems). It is not plausible that we grow an entire parallel to the existing system that is controlling M. It must be a conflict between two systems that are setting the reference for controlling M. One is setting the reference value to keep the money for various purposes, the other is setting the reference value to give up the money as means of keeping the robber from shooting us. Both the purposes for spending the money and the robber shooting us are imagined. The only real-time perceptions related to M are the wallet in the pocket and the words of the robber referring to money. Perhaps the person imagines keeping the money so as to pay for lunch tomorrow but being shot, and then the person imagines going hungry tomorrow but not being shot.
>If I didn't already have a logical system for grasping
>the basic relationship, ~(M & ~S), I would have to reorganize fast. I would
>probably freeze and end up with (~M & S). [Substituting S for ~L, etc.]
Yes. A like conclusion has been drawn about even faster (and more primitive) fight-or-flight systems storing "canned responses" to stereotyped situations. (I sent a post about research into this a few years ago.) There is a tradeoff between speed and accuracy. Stereotypes are inaccurate by being too inclusive. The startled jump may be funny most of the time but sometimes it may save you from harm. The systematic understanding of how to balance a sailboard is no match for the acquired skill, but it enables a close enough approximation for long enough at a stretch that over time you can learn and refine the required reference perceptions for skilled performance, provided you have the commitment (a matter of emotion and imagination, I think) to persist.
>This is probably why we think
>about such things, so we can do our reorganizing in advance.
If the victim in our scenario had done this, the choice to give up the money would be just a matter of remembering. Or the choice to drop to the pavement and from that unexpected and seemingly powerless position to use the most powerful muscles in her body to sweep the robbers feet from under him, disable the gun arm, kick him in the groin, etc.--something that little old ladies have learned to do with training and forethought.
Having worked things through, reached conclusions, and (as in that last example) developed skills, all of this is in memory, ready to be connected to current experience through imagination on the basis of fast "gut" evaluations. The slower logic-level processes are not needed.
>>I wonder if people have more difficulty going up a level when emotion is
>>involved with their perceptions. I think that's true. What do you think?
>
>I think that when one's attention is on a lower-level problem, it becomes
>difficult to shift it to a higher-level viewpoint.
So it might be a good thing to be able to divide or temporarily redirect attention without suppressing, ignoring, or denying emotions, which are often involved in "grabbing" one's attention. Attention follows emotion, which is aroused when perceptions do not match expectations (references). The ability to hold a perception in memory, attend to something else, and then return to compare the two, seems important.
Bruce Nevin
···
At 03:21 AM 01/14/2001 -0700, Bill Powers wrote: