RM: Well, what do you expect; I live in La La Land;-)
EP: When I used the term instrumentalism, I meant an orientation in the philosophy science according to which the goal and task of a theory is just to help to explain the observations. Its counter party is scientific realism which says that the task of a theory is to give a true story about reality.
RM: Then I’m an instrumental scientific realist: I think the task of a theory is to explain observations and the more accurately the theory accounts for the observations the truer the theory is as a story of reality.
EP: Thus, constructivism and realism do not exclude each other. But if you rule realism out then it is extremely difficult talk about truth anymore.
RM: I do not (and did not) mean to rule realism out. Both constructivism and PCT view perception as a construction based on reality. So reality is definitely in there!
RM: I believe that PCT is based on a constructivist view of perception. The research program described in Powers, 1979 and that I hoped to discuss over at Powers’ Model of a Research Program is all about determining what types of perceptions organisms control.
EP: Perhaps your feeling of losing anyone to work with you on developing the research program that Bill proposed is a consequence of your unneeded strong commitment to epistemological idealism and thus setting too strict limits to that program?
RM: It’s more of a perception than a feeling. What I perceive is no one working with me to develop the research program Bill described at the end of Powers, 1979 . My only commitment is to Bill’s scientific legacy. I think what he wanted as his legacy was a revolution in the sciences of life where living systems would be studied with a PCT-based understanding that they are closed-loop control rather than open-loop causal systems. I believe that Bill’s most detailed description of his vision of this revolutionary approach to the study of living systems was is described in Powers, 1979.
RM: But it really isn’t all that detailed. So what I am hoping for is a discussion of Powers’ proposal that would help flesh out his vision – for my own sake as well as for the sake of anyone else who might be interested in pursuing or just understanding a PCT-based research program
EP: I myself would be extremely interested in researching experimentally the types of human perception, but I am too old to totally change my career because I have almost no training and experience in experimental research.
RM: I understand. I am old too (but still not too old…I hope;). But I don’t think one has to be an expert in experimental research to participate usefully in the discussions about Bill’s proposed research program (though having some basic understanding of and/or interest in research methodology is probably a good idea).
Best
Rick