[Martin Taylor 2010.03.26.10.57]
Just as a data point, here's a real life example of the kind of thing I've been talking about in the thread that I am retitling "Controlling in imagination". I think it ties in with the concept of "Environmental affordances", which is related to what I said yesterday [Martin Taylor 2010.03.25.22.16] about the idea of a world model being probably more useful when the environment is complex.
This morning, my wife and I were about to go out shopping. On the way out of the door, we put the last week's newspapers and a box of paper leave the box and the wire container for the newspapers in the small front lobby. I visualized us returning with bags of groceries and no place to put them while we took off our coats and shoes, so I went back in and put the containers inside, out of the way. I had in my mind a dynamic picture of two future events, one with and one without the containers in the lobby, the second one leading to less error in a perception (a set of perceptions, really) I expected to be controlling an hour or so later when we would return with the groceries.
What I think I was imagining was the environmental affordances for the perceptual controls I expected to be using later. I'm not clear how this fits with the idea that the world model is embodied in the structure of the hierarchy, but it does seem to fit with the idea that environmental affordances are somehow made available for control in imagination, and the results of control in imagination can be used to control for real-time control of a perception that those affordances are improved for other anticipated controlled perceptions. In ordinary language, it's called "smoothing the path".
Martin
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from my office into the recycling bin beside the front door. She said to