CSGNET Digest - 24 Nov 2005 to 29 Nov 2005 (#2005-263)

CSGnet Archive CSG2005
1

Hi Rick. Hope you are well.
For a long time, I have pointed people to Bill's paper, entiled "On Purpose" (1986) which starts on page 237 of "Living Control Systems." That is the paper which enabled me, after several years of frustration trying to understand BCP and other writings on PCT, to get grounded and begin to understand what PCT is about.
I am currently trying to write the first part of an article for Perry who has an assignment to write a chapter for some text book on counselling methodologies. I am trying, a la R. Buckminster Fuller, to simply explain how PCT came about and how it fits into the evolution of science (particularly the living sciences). There are plenty of bits and pieces here and there, but I've yet to find something which explains underlying issues such as the difference between developing and testing models and such things as "best practices" research which dominates educational reseach and research in counselling. What we have found in teaching teachers is that most of them cannot even answer some rather simple questions such as what is the scientific method and what do we mean by research, much less the difference between statistical analysis and modelling. I'm not sure that I could have done any better before I began to become interested in PCT.
By the way, that brings up a question which I just asked Llloyd about in an email. Is PCT a teleological explanation? Or is it that what PCT is saying is that goals and purposes are precisely the difference between life and non-life. Or am I getting mixed up in semantics? Or perhaps, I'm just plain mixed up!
Take care.
Fred Good

···

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Subject: CSGNET Digest - 24 Nov 2005 to 29 Nov 2005 (#2005-263)

  There is 1 message totalling 49 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Teaching PCT

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Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 15:27:53 -0800
From: Rick Marken <marken@MINDREADINGS.COM>
Subject: Teaching PCT

[From Rick Marken (2005.11.28.1530)]

I'd appreciate getting some suggestions about teaching PCT from those of you
out there who are and/or have taught PCT to college undergraduates. I'd
like to know:

1. How do you do it? That is, how do you incorporate it into a course (if
the course is not specifically about PCT, which I imagine it is usually
not). Do you teach PCT as a special little topic, the subject of one or two
lectures, say, or do you try to build the whole course around it?

2. What do use as the reading material on PCT? I would like something short
and not too difficult. I like Powers' introduction (at
http://www.brainstorm-media.com/users/powers_w/whatpct.html) but I would
also like something that has Mary's terrific diagram of the hierarchy,
which, I think, could be a great basis for introducing topics in cognition.
Is there some nice intro to PCT that is appropriate for undergrads and has
the hierarchy diagram in it?

3. How do you teach the standard curriculum? With a straight face? With eyes
rolling? :wink:

Thanks

Rick
--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

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End of CSGNET Digest - 24 Nov 2005 to 29 Nov 2005 (#2005-263)
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2

[Bjorn Simonsen (2005.11.29,20:50 EUST)]
Received from Fred Good (2005.11.29. 17:35 EUST)

Is PCT a teleological explanation? Or is it that what PCT
is saying is that goals and purposes are precisely the difference
between life and non-life. Or am I getting mixed up in semantics? Or
perhaps, I'm just plain mixed up!

Pardon me for mixing myself up in your question to Rick. If I am doing
something wrong, I'll withdraw from this thread.
The first time I learned about teleological explanations was when I read
Robert Wiener's (Rosenblueth and Bigelow's) essay "Behavior, Purpose and
Teleology". I remembered the concept from early days in school, but that was
all. It is needlessness to come with definitions, but I do it nevertheless.
The Webster tells us that teleology is 1.) the study of final causes. 2.)
the fact or quality of being directed toward a definite end or of having an
ultimate purpose, especially as attributed to natural processes. 3.) a
belief, as that of vitalism that natural phenomenon are determined not only
by mechanical causes but an over all design or purpose in nature opposed to
mechanism. 4.) the study of evidence for this belief.

Point 3 and 4 are not interesting to me. I remember many discussions about
almighty God and the free will for human beings.

Robert Wiener taught me that the concept teleology was well known among
engineers. And he used examples from electrical amplifiers. He said that
Meaningful active Behavior could be divided in two subgroups. The one with
feedback and the other without feedback. Wiener mentioned an amplifier as an
example where some output energy goes back to the Input function and called
it positive feedback.
Positive feedback is added to Input quantities, Positive feedback doesn't
correct them.
Then he mentioned negative feedback where the signals are used to confine
Output Quantities.
As in PCT.
Wiener mentioned that the concept teleology is used in classification of
Behavior synonymous "Purpose" controlled by negative feedback". Earlier he
said the concept "Purpose" was used together with an addition of the vague
concept "final cause".

Away from chat.

If we define teleology as 2.) the fact or quality of being directed toward a
definite end or of having an ultimate purpose, especially as attributed to
natural processes, I think PCT has a teleological explanation.

I think purpose is usable concept in both life and in non-life.

Bjorn

3

[From Rick Marken (2005.11.29.1220)]

Bjorn Simonsen (2005.11.29,20:50 EUST)--

Fred Good (2005.11.29. 17:35 EUST)
Is PCT a teleological explanation?...

Pardon me for mixing myself up in your question to Rick.

No problem! Thanks for the help. I agree with you completely.

The only correction I would make is that it's Norbert Wiener, not Robert
Wiener.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

--------------------

This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and
may contain privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use,
disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended
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