Controlled by consequences

[From Rick Marken (941127.1520)]

Bruce Abbott (941127.1715 EST) --

[Rick: I've scanned your two posts in which you attempt to "rig" the
environment so that ECOLI4a does not learn the appropriate behavior. When you
succeed, it is because you have broken the contingency between behavior and
its consequences.

Nope. I just CHANGED the contingency. Actions (tumbles) still have
consequences. What I've done is rather like changing the "scheduling" of
"reinforcements". In fact, real live control systems (people) learn to
control the spot in my "rigged" environment just as they do in the "non-
rigged" environment; they learn very quickly to press the mouse button
to cause a tumble when the spot is moving away from the target and to
leave it alone when the spot is approaching the target.

The only thing that fails in my "rigged" environment is the idea that
consequences select behaviors. If consequences actually DID select
behaviors, then real control systems (like people) would behave as
randomly as the "law of effect" model, whose behaviors are selected by
their consequences. But people do just fine. It's not the environment
that's selecting the wrong behavior; rather, it's the psychologists who
are selecting the wrong model (the "law of effect" model of behavior).

When you finally understand control theory, you will understand why
the notion of "selection by consequences" creates as much of a disturbance
to a control theorist as a cross does to a vampire. And, again, if you
find this statement offensive, just remember that it was selected by
previous conseqeunces; blame the consequences, not me;-)

Blamelessly

Rick