Martin,
The answers are quite on your level. Thanks.
We could make it shorter if you agree. There are some agreements between us and some disagreements. Disagreements are mostly :
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Whether reference at 11.level can set into HPCT or not ? I said NO. I'm interested what is your answer ? -
Whether control is more succesfull or unseccesfull with »control of behavior« or »control of perception« ? I say that »control of behavior« is useless and organisms can't survive. But with »control of perception« orgsnisms can survive. I'm interested what is your answer ?
I also answered to your explanations. Biut I think that you understand everything better than you showed it in your answers.
···
From: csgnet-request@lists.illinois.edu [mailto:csgnet-request@lists.illinois.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Taylor (mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net via csgnet Mailing List)
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 9:51 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Demonstration of control of behavior
[Martin Taylor 2014.11.19.15.28]
On 2014/11/19 4:31 AM, “Boris Hartman” (boris.hartman@masicom.net via csgnet Mailing List) wrote:
Martin,
MT :
To me, behaviour is output, but not only at the level of muscle movements. It is output at ANY level of the hierarchy. so I agree with Rick. You can and often do control the behaviour of others.
HB :
I don’t see the connection ? What outputs on different levels of hierarchy has to do with »control of behavior« ? What does it mean to »control behavior« in HPCT and what does it mean to you to »control behavior« of the others HPCT ? I’m really not used to such a thinking from you You didin’t seem to me that you were inclined to self-regulation and behavioristic terminology ? I’m used to quite precise PCT thinking from you.
Good. Why not imagine that maybe what I have written continues the same?
The message I sent a couple of hours ago might have an answer to your question. But here it is again in maybe different words. What I mean by “control of behaviour” is just the same as what I mean by “control of” anything else. The control unit has a perceptual signal corresponding to the thing that is said to be controlled. It has a reference value for that perceptual signal, and if the perceptual signal differs from the reference value, an error value goes to an output function that produces output.
HB : The problem with using terms »control of behavior« is that is full of other meanings. So you have to be carefull when you use it. In one meaning with »control of behavior« you will not be able to »control« anything outside, so you will not survive.
There’s no more to it than that. Of course, if control is successful, the output has effects in the environment that alter the perception of the thing controlled so that the perception approaches its reference value. If control is not successful, it doesn’t. But it is control either way, successful or not. And it doesn’t matter whether the environmental correlate of the perception is something you call “behaviour” or something you call “the brightness of a light” or “the mood of my wife”.
HB : It matters. The problem is that »environmental correlates« are not »put« into nervous system just like that, but as the perceptions, which will be continued to be exposed to »disturbances from inside the control system« and in nervous system itself. So the »environemntal correlates« gets it’s own meaning in different persons differently. They are not just »put« into control system as something objective outside. »Behviour«, and »mood of your wife« has differnt meaning to you as to others. It’s not the same. In Bill obviosly behavior got other meaning than in you.
MT :
Almost everyone (Boris excluded) seem to agree that the experimenter does control the subject’s behaviour, and is able to do so only because the subject continues to control for having the knot where s/he wants it. Why not for the sheep?
HB:
I’m not agreeing, not only because Bill and Rick wrote that LCS environment can’t control »HPCT« or LCS control and can not be controlled, but because I think that nobody can’t »control behavior (output)«. Only »perception can be controlled« in the sense Kent used terminology for »possible perceptual collective control«.
I don’t think anyone on this list disagrees with the fact that only perception can be controlled. But I think also that most people on this list also recognize that if controlling perception does not thereby control things that matter in the outer world, the controller won’t live very long.
HB:
That’s why means of control are used, such as output (behavior) as consequence of »inside ccntrol«. In this way people can survive. With »controlling behavior« they can’t. So the evolution obviously knew what it was doing by introducing »control of input«. So it’s not »control of behavior«, it’s »control of perception« that make people survive.
Beside that subject can left experiment whenever he/she wants. So he/she decides which perception to control in any moment ? The only who can set the references is HPCT himself. Nobody others can. Any other HPCT is just disturbance to other HPCT as any other disturbance in physical environment.
Exactly so. One controller acts to disturb a perception the other is controlling, so that other acts to reduce the error in that controlled perception. Those acts are its “behaviour”. And that’s how one controller controls the behaviour of another, as Rick’s dog-sheep demo shows.
HB : No. Rick’s interperattion is different.
RM earlier :
What we often notice about behavior are responses to disturbances to controlled perceptions and fail to notice that the responses only occur because people are controlling those perception.
So all LCS are controlling their perceptions, speccialy when disturbances are applyed to some LCS. Nobody lost control, but HPCT with disturbed control, controls differently so to compensate or counter-act disturbances.
And I don’t see how anything in environment could control any HPCT through perceptual input, although there is ambiguos »arrow« on eleven level of control hierarchy, showing that maybe reference could come from outside ? But as far I remember Bill never allowed that possibilty. So in PCT there is no reference in control hierarchy that can be set from outside. So the main problem is : how perceptual input can control behavior without setting also the reference signal, which is by PCT logic always formed inside organism ? Could you use instead of »behavioristic« logic, your precise mathematical PCT logic and clarify how »perception can directly control behavior«, output ?
If I disturb a perception at level N, its output changes references for perceptions controlled at level N-1. So, if I guess right about some level N perception another is controlling and about how a disturbance to that perception will affect its output, I am setting references at level N-1.
HB : Maybe, but show me how you set references to other HPCT ? Which is level N and level N-1 in the case of level 11 ?
Also Rick wrote, that subject has to agree to cooperate in experiment. So whether subject will cooperate in experiment or not is always by his will not by the will of experimenter. The same is with the salt. If you ask somebody to pass you salt and he doesn’t want to do it, it’s obvious that you request doesn’t imply behavior of the person that you asked for salt.
Exactly. They aren’t S-R systems. They control as they will. All these polite requests work only if the other is controlling for something that is disturbed by the request in such a way that the corrective action is to accept the request.
HB : Good. Again something that we agree. J
Even if he does agree that he will do what you want, the references are always set inside control system. It can’t be set from outside,
Except as I described above.
HB : You didn’t describe abput how references are »put« into HPCT on 11.th level. You just described organization of reference signals inside the HPCT. The references can’t be set from outside. This is »Bill’s axiom«. Sorry.  Disturbances applyed to HPCT can cause changes in his references. But that still means that control stays at the controlee. He set (change) references. Nobody or nothing else can. Because at level of predeterminated state references are set genetically.
so to say that environment »control behavior« of HPCT. So I think that you can’t say in any case that environment »control behavior of HPCT«
This is always true.
HB : Fine. Again one agreement.
As Kent wrote once, control stays at controllee. The decission which perception will be controlled stays always at controlee. If this is not so, than there are two control mechanisms for »controlling behavior« :
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one when person agree to pass you salt, and -
one when person disagree to pass you salt.
Controlling is the same, whether it is successful or not. If it is not, then the controller might reorganize, or if there are other environmental effordances for that particular perception to be controlled, the controller might use them. If what I am controlling for is getting the salt, I might ask someone else, or I might just reach across and get it. But if I am really controlling for having the person pass the salt and don’t care about getting the salt, I might ask why he doesn’t want to, or try other means to get him to do it. All of them are attempts at disturbing some perception he controls in such a way as to get the desired perceptual result. It doesn’t always work, but that’s true of all control.
HB : Quite good, only who ever you ask to pass you salt is not controlled by you. He will control however he will on your disturbances. If he is strange personality, he may even shoot you. But you will not »control« for that.
But then the same two control mechanisms exist in the case of »knot experiment«. So if I understand right »double possibility« for »controling the person« there is one control mechanism called »control of behavior« when person agree to pass you salt and the other mechanism called »control of perception« when person disagree to pass you salt…
Not at all. It’s the same both ways. What perceptions the other person is controlling (or their reference values) may differ in the two situations, but there’s no difference in what I am controlling, which is a perception of their behaviour (perhaps as a means of controlling a perception of where the salt is, reference being in my hand).
So if we understood right, there is only one control mechanism in HPCT, »control of perception«. There is no »control of behavior« or »behaviour«… Annd from now om I hope that at least us will use control in terms of »control of perception«. We are quite on the line again.
Boris
Martin