Emotions

[Marc_Abrams1]

Hi Folks,

From [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.0001)]

Happy New Year everyone.

Yes, there is a reason for my posting this material
at this time. I wanted to start the New Year off on the right foot and what
better way to do that then to have my ‘coming-out’ party. You gotta start
somewhere and here is my beginning.

This effort will be the basis for my HPCT/SD project
and hopefully my life’s work. I want to thank Bill P. for coming back to me
after a rough period and I hope he finds my ideas worthwhile and interesting
(or at least some of them :-)), as I hope everyone on this list does.

I apologize for this excruciatingly long post but I
could not figure out a better way of breaking it up into smaller pieces while
retaining the focus

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE POST BEFORE REPLYING. IF YOU NEED
CLARIFICATION< PLEASE ASK FOR IT. THANKS

I thank you for your indulgence a priori and welcome
your criticisms, review and comments.

There are several reasons and ‘purposes’ for this
effort:

1. The more precisely we can define the various model
   functions, the better the model

should be in being able to ‘predict’ what kind of perceptions and goals people
might be walking around with, given a particular set of inputs. The better we understand
what kind of perceptions people walk around with and how they come to them, the
better we will be able to deal with the goals they have and actions they
ultimately take which are all functions of those perceptions. Even if it turns
out that there are simply too many degrees of freedom to ‘predict’ anything
with any great accuracy, the enhancements should help therapists and
individuals better understand why people perceive what they do and feel the way
they do.

2. I think that both emotions and imagination/memory
   are key factors in human behavior and need to be included in any model that
   purports to explain it.

3. I believe very strongly that an SD model just
   might be the right tool that allows a systematized view and synthesis of a
   great deal of the research that has been going on in neuroscience at the
   molecular level, and would allow someone other than a molecular biologist to
   ‘see’ the control and regulation that is going on. It would also work in the
   opposite direction as well. It could provide the micro folks with a way of
   seeing where they need to dig.

4. It’s fun and
   interesting.

I would like to make a few things clear at the
beginning. Our current understanding of neurophysiology (i.e. the functional
aspects) lags way behind our knowledge of neurobiology (the entities involved
in neuroscience). We simply know a great deal more about what exists than we do
about why they exist. This of course presents both problems and opportunities.
I see it as a chance of a lifetime.

Much of what you will read here from me will be
conjectures and speculation, from me and others I have read and studied. But
this is all a necessary first step in working toward a construction of a new
theory of emotions. You cannot invent what you cannot conceive, so we must be
able to imagine an outcome before one can be invented. This effort is an
attempt by me to throw some ideas on the table and see what flies and what
doesn’t. This is an opening salvo.

PLEASE! Try not to assume anything here. I have
tried to outline my reasons for posting and my intentions for doing so the best
I can. If I am not clear on any of these points now or in the future please ask
for clarification

To begin, we must define what it is I’m talking
about. When I speak of ‘emotions’ I am talking about both a cognitive state and a physiological one as well.
Simply put, I will spend the greater part of the rest of my posts explaining
what I mean by this, but emotions are both a
cause and an effect of our
sensory inputs and imagination. Please notice I said ‘a’ and ‘an’. They are
neither the entire cause nor the entire effect, but they provide enough ‘input’
to both to be major parts of our control processes, that is, the construction
of perceptions, the setting of reference conditions, and our output or error
correction.

In fact ‘negative emotions’ in part corresponds to,
and are proportional to our error signals and they are biochemical in nature
(neuropeptides). Positive emotions are also biochemical in nature and
correspond to hedonic acts, thoughts (imaginings) and the side effects of satisfying
‘drive’ states. Emotions are our primary ‘conscious motivation’ for our
actions. These ‘peptides’ can be, and are released by involuntarily as well as
voluntarily perceptions, reference conditions, error, and output. This of
course varies from individual to individual. I believe most physiological
‘behavior’ is controlled, with ‘behavior’ here being the actions of any
physiological system or entity in the body

The control processes, that is: the construction of
perceptions, the setting of reference levels, and the actions we ultimately
take, are not done in a vacuum. At any point in time we are in a particular
‘mood’. A mood being a particular feeling state, which can change from moment
to moment, but is always with us, and provides the internal ‘context’ or milieu for control processes to take
place. That is, our ‘actions’ are exposed to disturbances in the external
environment. Why are our perceptions and reference conditions NOT exposed to disturbances in our
internal environment? I believe they are, and are one of the reasons for
putting emotions in the model.

Btw, a side note here. When you add imagination into
the mix of emotions and control, you begin to understand how and why
‘motivation’ exists and ‘drives’ takes place. That is, a drive or motivation
can be characterized, and satisfy three functions;

They direct perceptions toward or away from a
specific goal.

They
organize our perceptions into a coherent (if not rational :-)) goal oriented
sequence

They increase general alertness, energizing
the individual to act.

Both emotions and motivation
utilize the ANS (Autonomic Nervous System) and the neuroendocrine system.

Emotions are Allostatic in nature. Allostasis is an
alternative term and is used in place of Homeostasis. A brief explanation is in
order.

    Homeostasis

was coined by W.B. Cannon in 1927, (1) and IS NOT the ‘biological’ equivalent
of a control process. Homeostasis is a set of processes that try’s to maintain
an ORGANISM at ‘equilibrium’. You can say a particular physiological process is
homeostatic (i,e,
contributing to the equilibrium of the organism) and that process might very
well be a control process, but it doesn’t need to be. Homeostatic processes are
generally negative feedback loops that have a specific UNCHANGEABLE ‘set point’ or reference
condition. Allostasis (2) is
a negative feedback process with a variable
reference condition. For my purposes, allostasis provides a more accurate
picture of what is going on physiologically and biologically and it is the term
I will be using in my work.

Emotions are partly responsible for two distinct but
integrated allostatic processes in our bodies. One is physiological, the other
is cognitive. We can and do have intrinsic
variables of each type. That is, ‘intrinsic’ variables are ultimately physiological/biological.
They are also both voluntary and involuntary, and could be either physical or cognitive. Intrinsic variables are usually
involuntary, but there are exceptions. Intrinsic cognitive variables are
usually voluntary*.* Intrinsic
cognitive variables may not always be ‘life threatening’ in the same sense you
might consider a physical variable like thirst. The consequences for being out
of cognitive equilibrium may not be life threatening, but we all know it can be
devastating to someone who has a
mental illness or has anxiety concerns, stress, and paranoia.

In 1884 William James, in a seminal paper titled; What * is an
emotion?* (3). He describes an emotion as having three components. A
stimulus (S), an emotional response ®, and a subjective emotional feeling
(F). James felt we feel (F) because of ® and that ® follows from (S). This
has turned out to be true, but not the complete story.

Walter Cannon in 1927 (1) came out with his seminal paper on emotions titled; The James-Lange theory of emotion: a critical
examination and an alternative theory. Here Cannon theorized that our emotions were cognitively based first
and than ‘felt’ physiologically, and like James, this also turned out to be
true, but not complete.

In 1962, D.L. Schacter
and J.E. Singer introduced the idea that both the Cannon and James models
happened simultaneously. Another big step forward but still not complete.

There are, and have been
many variations to these themes over the years, but NONE has addressed one of the most important properties of
emotions. THEY ARE CONTROLLED. I
am of course talking about control not in the sense of them being fully
voluntary but in the sense of them being REGULATED,
that is, PCT style control.

My definition of
emotions:

OUR EMOTIONS/FEELINGS ARE
IMPORTANT SIDE EFFECTS OF OUR SENSORY INPUTS AND OUR ATTEMPTS TO CONTROL THEM,
COGNITIVELY, PHYSIOLOGICALLY, VOLUNTARILY, AND INVOLUNTARILY, AS WELL AS THE
SATISFACTION WE FEEL AFTER HEDONIC ACTS

I agree with James,
Cannon, and Schacter. So if I agree, how is my theory of emotions any different
from theirs or any of the other variations that currently exist?

The differences revolve
around four very important points.

1. Unlike any of the above, my model has TWO
   environments. One is external, the other is internal, AND it has six main internal senses, not
   5, more on this later.

2. Number one only becomes important when you are dealing with a CONTROL
   PROCESS called HPCT. You see, all of the emotional models above are based on a
   simple stimulus -> response model. Something happens in the environment and
   we react to it. We on CSGnet know better than that. We know that our
   perceptions are not only constructed internally, but our reference conditions come from within as
   well, all of which take place in an internal
   environment. Our emotions are a part of that control process

3. Emotions are ‘caused’ by biochemical’s (neuropeptides) responding to
   and proportional to our error signals and hedonic acts or thoughts.

4. Unlike these other theories, this
   one will ultimately have a model!

If
Bill would have it, I would like to call it the HPCT theory of Emotions. If
not, Gregory wins and I’ll call it MATE Only kidding. I have a looooooooong
way to go before I can call it anything besides a bunch of ideas.

A
few additional thoughts;

Our
mind and imagination can be considered our sixth sense. It is an admirable
fill-in for any of our other sensory modalities that we might have missed, and
can and does fill-in whole perceptions for use in any number of things.

Do
you remember the TV commercial for Memorex audio tape? Where they ask the
question “Is it live or is it Memorex” after showing you someone singing and
then moving to a picture of a glass that ultimately breaks because of the high
frequency.

All
sensory input is NOT created
equal. Our visual modality DOMINATES
our other senses and we will ‘deny’ the existence of another sensory input if
our ‘visual’ tells us something different.

As
you can hopefully tell from this post, the construction of perceptions and
reference conditions are of extreme importance to me. This will require, I believe a rethinking of the hierarchy as it currently
exists. I don’t think you can easily separate and develop one area without
working on and developing the others. I bring this up because all three, that
is, emotions, memory, and the construction of perceptions need to be considered
as whole, not separate parts. What I am speaking of here is the detailing or
exploding of the input function in the PCT model. Nothing more, nothing less.

I think I’ve put enough
on the table for the time being. I have a number of other things in mind that
deal with the specific model of emotions that I have in mind but I want to see
what the level of interest there is in CSG land for these preliminary ideas and
thoughts.

Marc

[David_Goldstein1]

Message
From [David Goldstein (2004.01.01.0735 EST)]

About [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.0001)]

Happy New Year to everyone.

Marc,

I read your post.

I can see that you have put a lot of work into it.

At this point, all I can say is that I am not sure what I think about it.

Can you give a concrete example of your ideas in an everyday, life situation?

This might help me, and others, better understand what you are saying.

Thanks,

David

David M. Goldstein, Ph.D.

···

From:
Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet) [mailto:CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu] ** On Behalf Of** Marc Abrams
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 2:33 AM
To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu
Subject:
Emotions

From [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.0001)]

Happy New Year everyone.

Yes, there is a reason for my posting this material at this time. I wanted to start the New Year off on the right foot and what better way to do that then to have my ‘coming-out’ party. You gotta start somewhere and here is my beginning.

This effort will be the basis for my HPCT/SD project and hopefully my life’s work. I want to thank Bill P. for coming back to me after a rough period and I hope he finds my ideas worthwhile and interesting (or at least some of them :-)), as I hope everyone on this list does.

I apologize for this excruciatingly long post but I could not figure out a better way of breaking it up into smaller pieces while retaining the focus

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE POST BEFORE REPLYING. IF YOU NEED CLARIFICATION< PLEASE ASK FOR IT. THANKS

I thank you for your indulgence a priori and welcome your criticisms, review and comments.

There are several reasons and ‘purposes’ for this effort:

1. The more precisely we can define the various model functions, the better the model
   should be in being able to ‘predict’ what kind of perceptions and goals people might be walking around with, given a particular set of inputs. The better we understand what kind of perceptions people walk around with and how they come to them, the better we will be able to deal with the goals they have and actions they ultimately take which are all functions of those perceptions. Even if it turns out that there are simply too many degrees of freedom to ‘predict’ anything with any great accuracy, the enhancements should help therapists and individuals better understand why people perceive what they do and feel the way they do.

2. I think that both emotions and imagination/memory are key factors in human behavior and need to be included in any model that purports to explain it.

3. I believe very strongly that an SD model just might be the right tool that allows a systematized view and synthesis of a great deal of the research that has been going on in neuroscience at the molecular level, and would allow someone other than a molecular biologist to ‘see’ the control and regulation that is going on. It would also work in the opposite direction as well. It could provide the micro folks with a way of seeing where they need to dig.

4. It’s fun and interesting.

I would like to make a few things clear at the beginning. Our current understanding of neurophysiology (i.e. the functional aspects) lags way behind our knowledge of neurobiology (the entities involved in neuroscience). We simply know a great deal more about what exists than we do about why they exist. This of course presents both problems and opportunities. I see it as a chance of a lifetime.

Much of what you will read here from me will be conjectures and speculation, from me and others I have read and studied. But this is all a necessary first step in working toward a construction of a new theory of emotions. You cannot invent what you cannot conceive, so we must be able to imagine an outcome before one can be invented. This effort is an attempt by me to throw some ideas on the table and see what flies and what doesn’t. This is an opening salvo.

PLEASE! Try not to assume anything here. I have tried to outline my reasons for posting and my intentions for doing so the best I can. If I am not clear on any of these points now or in the future please ask for clarification

To begin, we must define what it is I’m talking about. When I speak of ‘emotions’ I am talking about both a cognitive state and a physiological one as well. Simply put, I will spend the greater part of the rest of my posts explaining what I mean by this, but emotions are both a cause and an effect of our sensory inputs and imagination. Please notice I said ‘a’ and ‘an’. They are neither the entire cause nor the entire effect, but they provide enough ‘input’ to both to be major parts of our control processes, that is, the construction of perceptions, the setting of reference conditions, and our output or error correction.

In fact ‘negative emotions’ in part corresponds to, and are proportional to our error signals and they are biochemical in nature (neuropeptides). Positive emotions are also biochemical in nature and correspond to hedonic acts, thoughts (imaginings) and the side effects of satisfying ‘drive’ states. Emotions are our primary ‘conscious motivation’ for our actions. These ‘peptides’ can be, and are released by involuntarily as well as voluntarily perceptions, reference conditions, error, and output. This of course varies from individual to individual. I believe most physiological ‘behavior’ is controlled, with ‘behavior’ here being the actions of any physiological system or entity in the body

The control processes, that is: the construction of perceptions, the setting of reference levels, and the actions we ultimately take, are not done in a vacuum. At any point in time we are in a particular ‘mood’. A mood being a particular feeling state, which can change from moment to moment, but is always with us, and provides the internal ‘context’ or milieu for control processes to take place. That is, our ‘actions’ are exposed to disturbances in the external environment. Why are our perceptions and reference conditions NOT
exposed to disturbances in our internal environment? I believe they are, and are one of the reasons for putting emotions in the model.

Btw, a side note here. When you add imagination into the mix of emotions and control, you begin to understand how and why ‘motivation’ exists and ‘drives’ takes place. That is, a drive or motivation can be characterized, and satisfy three functions;

1.    They direct perceptions toward or away from a specific goal.
   

2.     They organize our perceptions into a coherent (if not rational :-)) goal oriented sequence
   

3.    They increase general alertness, energizing the individual to act.
   

Both emotions and motivation utilize the ANS (Autonomic Nervous System) and the neuroendocrine system.

Emotions are Allostatic in nature. Allostasis is an alternative term and is used in place of Homeostasis. A brief explanation is in order.

        Homeostasis was coined by W.B. Cannon in 1927, (1) and IS NOT the ‘biological’ equivalent of a control process. Homeostasis is a set of processes that try’s to maintain an ORGANISM at ‘equilibrium’. You can say a particular physiological process is homeostatic (i,e  , contributing to the equilibrium of the organism) and that process might very well be a control process, but it doesn’t need to be. Homeostatic processes are generally negative feedback loops that have a specific *UNCHANGEABLE* ‘set point’ or reference condition. *  Allostasis* (2)   is a negative feedback process with a *variable* reference condition. For my purposes, allostasis provides a more accurate picture of what is going on physiologically and biologically and it is the term I will be using in my work.

Emotions are partly responsible for two distinct but integrated allostatic processes in our bodies. One is physiological, the other is cognitive. We can and do have intrinsic variables of each type. That is, ‘intrinsic’ variables are ultimately physiological/biological. They are also both voluntary and involuntary, and could be either physical or cognitive. Intrinsic variables are usually involuntary, but there are exceptions. Intrinsic cognitive variables are usually voluntary*.*
Intrinsic cognitive variables may not always be ‘life threatening’ in the same sense you might consider a physical variable like thirst. The consequences for being out of cognitive equilibrium may not be life threatening, but we all know it can be devastating to someone who has a mental illness or has anxiety concerns, stress, and paranoia.

In 1884 William James, in a seminal paper titled; What * is an emotion?* (3). He describes an emotion as having three components. A stimulus (S), an emotional response (R), and a subjective emotional feeling (F). James felt we feel (F) because of (R) and that (R) follows from (S). This has turned out to be true, but not the complete story.

Walter Cannon in 1927 (1) came out with his seminal paper on emotions titled; * The James-Lange theory of emotion: a critical examination and an alternative theory.* Here Cannon theorized that our emotions were cognitively based first and than ‘felt’ physiologically, and like James, this also turned out to be true, but not complete.

In 1962, D.L. Schacter and J.E. Singer introduced the idea that both the Cannon and James models happened simultaneously. Another big step forward but still not complete.

There are, and have been many variations to these themes over the years, but NONE has addressed one of the most important properties of emotions. THEY ARE CONTROLLED. I am of course talking about control not in the sense of them being fully voluntary but in the sense of them being * REGULATED, that is, PCT style control*.

My definition of emotions:

OUR EMOTIONS/FEELINGS ARE IMPORTANT SIDE EFFECTS OF OUR SENSORY INPUTS AND OUR ATTEMPTS TO CONTROL THEM, COGNITIVELY, PHYSIOLOGICALLY, VOLUNTARILY, AND INVOLUNTARILY, AS WELL AS THE SATISFACTION WE FEEL AFTER HEDONIC ACTS

I agree with James, Cannon, and Schacter. So if I agree, how is my theory of emotions any different from theirs or any of the other variations that currently exist?

The differences revolve around four very important points.

1.    Unlike any of the above, my model has *TWO*
   

environments. One is external, the other is internal, AND it has six main internal senses, not 5, more on this later.

2.    Number one only becomes important when you are dealing with a CONTROL PROCESS called HPCT. You see, all of the emotional models above are based on a simple stimulus -> response model. Something happens in the environment and we react to it. We on CSGnet know better than that. We know that our perceptions are not only constructed internally, but our *reference* conditions come from within as well, all of which take place in an *internal* environment. Our emotions are a part of that control process
   

3.    Emotions are ‘caused’ by biochemical’s (neuropeptides) responding to and proportional to our error signals and hedonic acts or thoughts.
   

4.    Unlike these other theories, *this* one will ultimately have a model!
   

If Bill would have it, I would like to call it the HPCT theory of Emotions. If not, Gregory wins and I’ll call it MATE Only kidding. I have a looooooooong way to go before I can call it anything besides a bunch of ideas.

A few additional thoughts;

Our mind and imagination can be considered our sixth sense. It is an admirable fill-in for any of our other sensory modalities that we might have missed, and can and does fill-in whole perceptions for use in any number of things.

Do you remember the TV commercial for Memorex audio tape? Where they ask the question “Is it live or is it Memorex” after showing you someone singing and then moving to a picture of a glass that ultimately breaks because of the high frequency.

All sensory input is NOT created equal. Our visual modality DOMINATES our other senses and we will ‘deny’ the existence of another sensory input if our ‘visual’ tells us something different.

As you can hopefully tell from this post, the construction of perceptions and reference conditions are of extreme importance to me. This will require, I believe a rethinking of the hierarchy as it currently exists. I don’t think you can easily separate and develop one area without working on and developing the others. I bring this up because all three, that is, emotions, memory, and the construction of perceptions need to be considered as whole, not separate parts. What I am speaking of here is the detailing or exploding of the input function in the PCT model. Nothing more, nothing less.

I think I’ve put enough on the table for the time being. I have a number of other things in mind that deal with the specific model of emotions that I have in mind but I want to see what the level of interest there is in CSG land for these preliminary ideas and thoughts.

Marc

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1117)]

From [David Goldstein (2004.01.01.0735 EST)]

Can you give a concrete example of your ideas in an everyday, life

situation?

Hi David, Why not give me an example you're comfortable with and feel you
understand well. I think that might make it easier for both of us.

Is there anything in particular you're having a difficult time with or have
questions about?

I do have some concrete ideas on how all this might look in a model, but I
would really prefer to get some feedback on the basic concepts and iron
those out before plunging ahead. I don't want to get ahead of myself, and
here it would be very easy to do. I know, I already did it by writing and
throwing out about 10 posts prior to this one.
In fact this was going to be the first of three long posts. This was my
intro, followed by a post on the physiology of the model and the last one
devoted to the model itself. Again, _way_ ahead of myself.

Marc

[David_Goldstein1]

from [David Goldstein (2004.01.01.1142 EST)]
from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1117)]

Marc,

I'll think I wait for the other two installments to your ideas.
At this point, my only reaction is that your ideas are too abstract and
not detailed enough.
I don't really understand what they are, where they are going or how
they work.
I don't understand how they are the same or different from other ideas I
am familiar with about emotions, including those of Bill Powers.
This is why I asked for you to provide some concrete examples.
I would like to understand your ideas better.

By the way, my two favorite books on the topic of emotions are the
following.
(1) Emotions and life by Robert Plutchik (2003)
(2) How the Brain Talk to Itself by Jay E. Harris (1998)
Does your review of the field include either of these books? If not, it
might be worthwhile to take a look.

David
David M. Goldstein, Ph.D.

[Bruce_Gregory4]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.01.011228)]

Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1117)

From [David Goldstein (2004.01.01.0735 EST)]

Can you give a concrete example of your ideas in an everyday, life

situation?

Hi David, Why not give me an example you're comfortable with and feel
you
understand well. I think that might make it easier for both of us.

How about my example of the Traffic Incident? Memory presumably plays a
role in establishing a reference for the appropriate rate of closure on
traffic ahead (essentially zero if the traffic is heavy). Let's say I
experience a surge of adrenalin when the car cuts in front of me.
Presumably this results in an emotion. What is your sense of how these
memories and emotions might be incorporated into an HPCT model of the
incident?

Bruce Gregory

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no
one was listening, everything must be said again."

                                                                                Andre Gide

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1209)]

>From [David Goldstein (2004.01.01.1142 EST)]

I'll think I wait for the other two installments to your ideas.

You might be waiting a long time. I did away with the physiological part
because it was irrelevant to CSGnet, and I will _not_ post a model until I
get some feedback, pro and con to what I have already proposed.

You don't seem to understand, I have _NO_ 'proposal' to make to CSGnet. I am
_NOT_ asking for your approval or disapproval here of my ideas. I am asking
for comments on them. I will develop a theory of emotions whether you like
what I say or not. I was hoping for some critical feedback, nothing more,
nothing less. This is a body of work I plan on doing for the rest of my
life, not till next week.

At this point, my only reaction is that your ideas are too abstract and
not detailed enough. I don't really understand what they are, where they

are going or how

they work.

A fair comment, and if this is the consensus of opinioin on CSGnet than I
have come to the wrong place with my initial ideas on emotions.

I don't understand how they are the same or different from other ideas I
am familiar with about emotions, including those of Bill Powers.

Sorry, you need to figure this out for yourself. I'm not about to do a
'comparison' chart. I thought I spelled it out pretty clearly, that is, how
my thoughts differed from those that have already been stated by others. I
didn't specifically adddress Bill's work becuse if you know what Bill
presented in his emotion chapter than it would be pretty obvious what my
difference were with him. I aksed you point blank if you had any specific
concerns. You are not being specific enough about ideas you don't seem to
understand. I can't address them if you don't tell me specifically what it
is that is troubling you.

This is why I asked for you to provide some concrete examples.
I would like to understand your ideas better.

You would understand my ideas better if you were working with an example
_you_ were comfortable and knowledgeable about.

By the way, my two favorite books on the topic of emotions are the
following.
(1) Emotions and life by Robert Plutchik (2003)
(2) How the Brain Talk to Itself by Jay E. Harris (1998)

I assume by 'favorite' you mean they are theories you subscribe to, yes?
If so, I can see how my post was a _big_ disturbance for you, and you have
every right to feel that way, because it is. I am _very_ familiar with
Plutchik's work, not so with Harris. What is it about my work that Harris
can help me with? What key insights do you think he has to offer? I'm always
open. What am I missing that either of those two have covered?

Does your review of the field include either of these books? If not, it
might be worthwhile to take a look.

I could send you a bibliography of the works I have studied and you can then
decide for yourself what kind of body of work my ideas are based on. But at
this point I think that would be counterproductive. I'm not interested in
focusing in on my theory vs. their theory kind of arguments. I really don't
care what theory of emotions you subscribe to, if there is an idea that you
disagree with and have any data to back up your argument, let it rip.
Otherwise, lets just move on. I am not prepared to write a book or journal
article yet. I'll let you know when I am.

Marc

Marc

[Bill_Powers]

[From Bill Powers (2004.01.01.1052 MST)]

Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.0001)–

Much of what you will read here
from me will be conjectures and speculation, from me and others I have
read and studied. But this is all a necessary first step in working
toward a construction of a new theory of emotions. You cannot invent what
you cannot conceive, so we must be able to imagine an outcome before one
can be invented. This effort is an attempt by me to throw some ideas on
the table and see what flies and what doesn’t. This is an opening
salvo.

That’s fine, and it looks as though you’ve done a pretty fair survey of
the field. It’s important to find a level of treatment that’s neither so
general that it doesn’t say anything, or so detailed that it leaves all
sorts of loose ends. I don’t think you’re being too general, but there
may be some problems with loose ends.

The basic requirement of a working model is that it must provide an
explanation for the state of every variable in the model. This means that
you can’t just say that peptides cause feeling states; you have to say
what determines the concentrations of the peptides, and so on. This
process of accounting for the states of variables in the model is
complete only when it results in closed loops of causation or in tracing
causes to independent variables outside the system being analyzed. Any
variable that is not a function of other variables in the model is
automatically presumed to be an independent variable that can be set
arbitrarily to any value. If you don’t have all variables accounted for
in this way, it’s impossible to construct a runnable model.

To begin, we must define what it is
I’m talking about. When I speak of ‘emotions’ I am talking about
both a cognitive state and a physiological one as
well.

This requires still more definition, mainly what you mean by a
“state.” A theory of emotions has to deal with emotional states
in two distinct ways: first, as physical processes, and second as
subjectively experienced phenomena. This in turn requires you to offer
a proposal about the relationship between the physical processes and the
subjective experiences. For example, in PCT, I proposed that subjective
experiences are experiences of neural signals in afferent pathways, and
that these signals arise from sensory receptors and subsequent neural
computations. Proposals about these things determine a large part of any
model you then construct on these basic definitions

Simply put, I will spend the
greater part of the rest of my posts explaining what I mean by this, but
emotions are both a cause and an effect of our sensory
inputs and imagination.

As you can see, this statement doesn’t clearly distinguish emotions as
physical processes from emotions as subjective experiences. And it’s a
bit confusing for another reason: considering just perception, it appears
to be saying

emotion ---> sensory inputs --->

emotion

where the arrows indicate (partial) causation. This requires further
explanation. “Sensory input” includes things like light or heat
or pressure or sound – can an emotion also affect those sensors? Or do
emotions affect sensors that detect physiological states rather than
external variables?

Please notice I said ‘a’ and
‘an’. They are neither the entire cause nor the entire effect, but they
provide enough ‘input’ to both to be major parts of our control
processes, that is, the construction of perceptions, the setting of
reference conditions, and our output or error
correction.

I think this is an overgeneralization of your thesis, which overlooks the
many control behaviors that go on without any discernible emotion, like
standing upright or sharpening a pencil or even writing a check. Ignoring
counterexamples is what leads theorists to start imagining data they
don’t actuually possess (well, there is an enotion but it’s below the
threshold of perception, for example). Any time you have to imagine data
to make a theory work you’re in trouble, so that’s something to avoid
from the start.

A few additional thoughts;

Our mind and imagination can be considered our sixth sense. It is an
admirable fill-in for any of our other sensory modalities that we might
have missed, and can and does fill-in whole perceptions for use in any
number of things.

But imagination can never actually substitute for sensory perception in
real control processes. Only when no action is needed can you simply
imagine successful control. The reason is twofold: first, we never
imagine the properties of the environment accurately enough to forgo
actual perceptions, and second, we have no way of imagining all the
disturbances that are present.

I think I’ve put enough on the
table for the time being. I have a number of other things in mind that
deal with the specific model of emotions that I have in mind but I want
to see what the level of interest there is in CSG land for these
preliminary ideas and thoughts.

Yes, I don’t mean to descend on you unfairly just as you’re getting
started. Just pointing out things to keep in mind.

Best,

Bill P.

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1256)

Bill, while I was typing this in response to Bruce and I heard your message
come in, and I'll respond to it right after this one.

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.01.011228)]

How about my example of the Traffic Incident?

Sounds good to me.

Memory presumably plays a role in establishing a reference for the

appropriate rate of closure on

traffic ahead (essentially zero if the traffic is heavy).

Yes, good start

Let's say I experience a surge of adrenalin when the car cuts in front of

me.

Presumably this results in an emotion. What is your sense of how these
memories and emotions might be incorporated into an HPCT model of the
incident?

Ok, lets take it from the top (or bottom if you prefer :-)). First, I need
to elaborate on an idea not previously addressed in my initial post and that
is: What do I mean to say when I say we are paying 'attention' to something?
I mean that when we perceive _anything_, depending on context, mood, and
purpose, we will be more sensitive to certain aspects of our perceptions
(i.e. our environments, both internally and externally) than to others. That
is, our reference conditions will be set lower for these aspects and we will
be more sensitive changes with regard to these aspects, than with others.

_Nothing_ takes place in a vacuum. When the car cuts in front of you, you
are in a particular state of mind and paying attention to certain details.
What happens next will depend _in part_ (how much needs to be determined
empirically) on what you are currently paying attention to and the 'mood'
you are in. Each affects the other. (For example, if I have a tooth ache and
I'm in pain, I might get some relief by focusing my attention elsewhere) For
instance, when driving; are you happily humming along with a song on the
radio? Are you in a heated argument over the cell with your wife? Are you
'tense' because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic, etc, etc, etc. So when this
car cuts in front of you a few things will happen, all simultaneously. Your
focus of attention _MAY_ shift. Depending on how 'distracted' you were at
the time will help determine whether you wind up in the middle of a 3 car
pile up, stop short and get hit from behind, possibly swerve and get out of
the way. or simply lightly apply the brakes and curse under your breath.
Of course there are any number of eventualities here, I am simply trying to
pick a few. So where and how you experience error will depend on what you're
paying attention too (how low your reference levels are for certain aspects
of your perceptions). So it does matter what kind of and where you actually
experience the error. In _this_ case , you will 'experience' it both
cognitively and physiologically. That is, _depending_ on where the error
occurs, you will experience a cognitive Uh Oh! _and_ feel the rush of
adrenaline and other chemicals (neuropeptides) at the same time. The
cognitive aspects may linger long after the physiological has disappeared.
The fact that many control systems, some interconnected and some independent
are involved make this a very complex situation (as is true of all human
behavior). So in the model I would represent this as an internal
disturbance to my input function that comes from and is proportional to the
error signal. Again, this needs to be determined empirically. So while my
perceptions (cognitive) are being colored by my 'mood', my actions or output
is simultaneously being affected and driven by the intensity of my emotions
as well. It is important to understand that at the same time, cognitive
equilibrium and physiological equilibrium are entwined, but separate
systems. All things are ultimately 'physiological'. I am _not_ proposing a
duality here.

I am trying to suggest that 'emotions' are nothing more than an internally
generated disturbance tied to our sensory input that is directly related to
and proportional with the error signal in PCT. Emotions help us focus our
attention, get our bodies ready to respond, and are an allostatic devices.

See Bruce, working out this little example of yours helped me state
something I was having a difficult time putting into words.

Is my position any clearer? To work out the details of specifically how this
should look in a model is what I'm working on. Any ideas of how to represent
this mathematically?

On to Bill's post.

Marc

So what happens in your example _all_ depends on the starting conditions.

[David_Goldstein1]

from [David Goldstein (2004.01.01.1509 EST)]
from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1209)]

Marc,

You have a way of communicating which really puts me off. This will
probably be my last post to you. However, I will answer your questions.

Marc: What is it about my work that Harris can help me with? What key
insights do you think he has to offer? I'm always open. What am I
missing that either of those two have covered?

David: Harris is a Psychiatrist who tries to provide an integrated
picture of psychodynamic approaches to therapy with modern neuroscience.
He is very familiar with the kinds of emotional and thinking problems of
people from being a working/practicing Psychiatrist. He provides a very
detailed picture of the brain at all levels of functioning, which comes
from his medical background. I think his biggist contribution is to
provide a strategy for a new form of therapy based on integrating
psychodynamic and neuroscience approaches.

Plutchik is a more traditional psychologist approach. He has developed
some interesting psychological tests to measure emotions in people. His
book is a comprehensive review of many people's ideas about emotions. He
has shown the connection between emotions, traits, defenses, and coping
styles.

Good luck with your venture.

David
David M. Goldstein, Ph.D.

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1524)]

[From Bill Powers (2004.01.01.1052 MST)]

Yes, I don't mean to descend on you unfairly just as you're getting
started. Just pointing out things to keep in mind.

Bill as long as we stick to the ideas you can't possibly pounce on me hard
enough. No one likes hearing that their ideas have holes in them, but how
else do you improve? How do you advance a concept without exposing it to all
those that might want to confront it. I'm interested in expanding my
understanding not contracting it.

The basic requirement of a working model is that it must provide an
explanation for the state of every variable in the model. This means that
you can't just say that peptides cause feeling states; you have to say

what

determines the concentrations of the peptides, and so on.

This would not be a problem to do. I just thought and continue to think that
on CSGnet this would put people to sleep (including myself at times :-)). In
a paper or book, I understand the significance of providing this data. I
just don't think it woul be helpful here on CSGnet. There are much bigger
and more basic questions that need to be answered before we get to the level
of neuropeptides. I am working this model from top down _and_ bottom up to
hopefully some convergence in the middle. I know what is at the bottom
levels, and I know what is at the top levels. It's the stuff in the middle
that is causing all the problems:-) Either way you look at it from the top
down or bottom up, the same question persists. How do we get there from
here?

This process of accounting for the states of variables in the model is

complete only when

it results in closed loops of causation or in tracing causes to

independent

variables outside the system being analyzed. Any variable that is not a
function of other variables in the model is automatically presumed to be

an

independent variable that can be set arbitrarily to any value. If you

don't

have all variables accounted for in this way, it's impossible to construct
a runnable model.

Yes, this is in SD modeling 101, and thanks for restating it

This requires still more definition, mainly what you mean by a "state." A
theory of emotions has to deal with emotional states in two distinct ways:
first, as physical processes, and second as _subjectively experienced
phenomena_. This in turn requires you to offer a proposal about the
relationship between the physical processes and the subjective

experiences.

For example, in PCT, I proposed that subjective experiences are

experiences

of neural signals in afferent pathways, and that these signals arise from
sensory receptors and subsequent neural computations. Proposals about

these

things determine a large part of any model you then construct on these
basic definitions

I don't generally disagree with you here. But you and I differ on what
'afferent' types and kinds of pathways actually exist. I would also add that
emotions not only come from 'afferent' pathways but come from 'effector'
pathways as well. I also believe as I said my last response to Bruce Gregory
that emotions are internal disturbances, which in the current model do not
exist, as well as the notion that the error signal is tied directly to
emotions. You also say emotions need to be dealt with in two 'distinct'
ways. I say they are not distinct, but one in the same and happen
simulataneously, they need to be dealt with as an integrated process, _not_
as seperate processes.

> Simply put, I will spend the greater part of the rest of my posts
> explaining what I mean by this, but emotions are both a cause and an
> effect of our sensory inputs and imagination.

As you can see, this statement doesn't clearly distinguish emotions as
physical processes from emotions as subjective experiences. And it's a bit
confusing for another reason: considering just perception, it appears to

be

saying

That is _precisely_ my point

     emotion ---> sensory inputs ---> emotion

where the arrows indicate (partial) causation. This requires further
explanation. "Sensory input" includes things like light or heat or

pressure

or sound -- can an emotion also affect those sensors? Or do emotions

affect

sensors that detect physiological states rather than external variables?

Yes, to _all_ the above. For example, is pain an emotion or a
physiological state? I say it's _both_ simulataneously.

I think this is an overgeneralization of your thesis, which overlooks the
many control behaviors that go on without any discernible emotion, like
standing upright or sharpening a pencil or even writing a check.

The key to your statement here is the word 'discernible'. Emotions _do not_
need to be 'discernible' in order for them to affect and effect cognitive
and physiological control processes. When ever you do _any_ activites you do
not do them in a vacuum. Emotions, as I have said, affect your ability to
focus and what you pay attention to.

Ignoring
counterexamples is what leads theorists to start imagining data they don't
actuually possess (well, there is an enotion but it's below the threshold
of perception, for example). Any time you have to imagine data to make a
theory work you're in trouble, so that's something to avoid from the

start.

I agree, and this brings us to a difference of opinion we have about the
notions of memory and imagination. Imagination is involved in _every_
control process. I also think there is a _very_ murky line between what is
'real' and what is imagined, since what we consider real is perceptions made
up of both imagined (remembered) aspects and currently percieved ones. But
even 'currently' perceived ones are not really currently perceived. A case
in point being;

One of the first things an aspiring artist has to overcome is his penchant
for drawing what he thinks he sees rather than what he actually sees. Every
beginners art book I've seen (and I've seen a ton) stress the need to draw
by looking at the object _not_ at the paper. When you draw while looking at
the paper, you are drawing from memory, and it is usually _not_ what the
actual object you are looking at looks like. it is amazing and you should
try it. it takes some time and skill, but a good artist will very rarely
look at his paper if he is painting or drawing a real-life scene.

But imagination can never actually substitute for sensory perception in
real control processes.

Sure it can, and it does.

Only when no action is needed can you simply imagine successful control.

Bill, imagination/memory is part of _every_ perception, and reference
condition. What you say here is simply not true.

The reason is twofold: first, we never imagine the properties of the

environment accurately enough to forgo actual

perceptions, and second, we have no way of imagining all the disturbances

that are present.

Ah ha! here are the issues. Bill it's not about 'imagining' the entire
environemt. it's about imagining aspects of the objects you were not paying
attention to and assuming propertied exist based on prior experience. It's
about 'hearing' a noise and attributing to that noise things that you don't
know for sure are true but you imagine them to be so, again, based on your
experience. It's about when your external sensory receptors are not utilized
to form perceptions (dreams, ideas, thoughts). There are no such things as
'actual' perceptions. A perception is a perception, period.

Second, who said anything about imagining the _entire_ control process or
external disturbances? But yes, internal disturbances to our perceptions do
happen, and they are caused by our emotions.

All this of course must be shown empirically and I fully intend on trying to
do just that,

Marc

[Bruce_Gregory4]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.01.01.1636)]

Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1256)

Ok, lets take it from the top (or bottom if you prefer :-)). First, I
need
to elaborate on an idea not previously addressed in my initial post
and that
is: What do I mean to say when I say we are paying 'attention' to
something?
I mean that when we perceive _anything_, depending on context, mood,
and
purpose, we will be more sensitive to certain aspects of our
perceptions
(i.e. our environments, both internally and externally) than to
others. That
is, our reference conditions will be set lower for these aspects and
we will
be more sensitive changes with regard to these aspects, than with
others.

You seem to be using the term 'reference condition' in a different way
than the term is used in PCT. Your usage seems to involve some sort of
threshold to perceptions. You also seem to be saying that attention is
associated with the gain of a controlled perception. Am I correct?

_Nothing_ takes place in a vacuum.

An aside: I was once startled to hear a NASA spokesman say, "space
astronomy does not take place in a vacuum.'

When the car cuts in front of you, you
are in a particular state of mind and paying attention to certain
details.
What happens next will depend _in part_ (how much needs to be
determined
empirically) on what you are currently paying attention to and the
'mood'
you are in. Each affects the other. (For example, if I have a tooth
ache and
I'm in pain, I might get some relief by focusing my attention
elsewhere) For
instance, when driving; are you happily humming along with a song on
the
radio? Are you in a heated argument over the cell with your wife? Are
you
'tense' because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic, etc, etc, etc. So
when this
car cuts in front of you a few things will happen, all simultaneously.
Your
focus of attention _MAY_ shift. Depending on how 'distracted' you were
at
the time will help determine whether you wind up in the middle of a 3
car
pile up, stop short and get hit from behind, possibly swerve and get
out of
the way. or simply lightly apply the brakes and curse under your
breath.
Of course there are any number of eventualities here, I am simply
trying to
pick a few. So where and how you experience error will depend on what
you're
paying attention too (how low your reference levels are for certain
aspects
of your perceptions).

You seem to be confining error to conscious control. Is that correct?
(Again the use of "reference levels" is confusing.)

So it does matter what kind of and where you actually
experience the error. In _this_ case , you will 'experience' it both
cognitively and physiologically. That is, _depending_ on where the
error
occurs,

For which controlled variable?

you will experience a cognitive Uh Oh! _and_ feel the rush of
adrenaline and other chemicals (neuropeptides) at the same time.

So the feelings associated with adrenaline surges are non-cognitive? Is
the error associated with the attempt to control the level of
adrenaline? Or with something else?

The
cognitive aspects may linger long after the physiological has
disappeared.
The fact that many control systems, some interconnected and some
independent
are involved make this a very complex situation (as is true of all
human
behavior). So in the model I would represent this as an internal
disturbance to my input function that comes from and is proportional
to the
error signal.

The input function to what? The rate of closure with the vehicle ahead?
Apparently the error signal in your tentative model does not only drive
the output but is part of the input as well. It seems that this new
function could lead to instability in control depending on the sign of
the error input.

Again, this needs to be determined empirically. So while my
perceptions (cognitive) are being colored by my 'mood', my actions or
output
is simultaneously being affected and driven by the intensity of my
emotions
as well. It is important to understand that at the same time, cognitive
equilibrium and physiological equilibrium are entwined, but separate
systems. All things are ultimately 'physiological'. I am _not_
proposing a
duality here.

I am trying to suggest that 'emotions' are nothing more than an
internally
generated disturbance tied to our sensory input that is directly
related to
and proportional with the error signal in PCT. Emotions help us focus
our
attention, get our bodies ready to respond, and are an allostatic
devices.

Since attention is not part of the convention PCT model, it seems you
are proposing a new element "attention" that is somehow directed by
error in the hierarchy. Perhaps attention goes to where the error is
greatest?

See Bruce, working out this little example of yours helped me state
something I was having a difficult time putting into words.

Is my position any clearer?

It depends on your answers to my questions!

To work out the details of specifically how this
should look in a model is what I'm working on. Any ideas of how to
represent
this mathematically?

That critically depends on the details of processes you are proposing.

So what happens in your example _all_ depends on the starting
conditions.

That's true of any model, isn't it?

Bruce Gregory

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no
one was listening, everything must be said again."

                                                                                Andre Gide

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1652)]

>From [David Goldstein (2004.01.01.1509 EST)]

You have a way of communicating which really puts me off.

It's nice to know the feeling is mutual.

This will probably be my last post to you. However, I will answer your

questions.

Intersting how you huff and puff but never quite come out and say what in
particular bothers you. But I won't do the same to you. I'll tell you
exactly what puts me off about you and your posts.

You ask for an example of what I am saying and I _graciuosly_ ask you to
provide one _you_ are comfortable with. I even go so far as to explain my
logic of why I posted what I did. So what did I get back in a reply.

In effect you are going to wait until the movie comes out.

You ask how my 'theory' is different then what you know? How do I know what
you do or don't believe? You refer me to two books that are your favorites.
I'm not telling you here about my 'favorite' books or thoughts on emotions.
I trying to develop a theory of emotions from a control theory perspective.

You ask me in many different ways to 'convince' you that what I am saying is
worthwhile for you to think about, and I can't answer that for you. Nor
would I want to. Only you can make that judgement. This is my third response
to you and we still haven't talked about _any_ of the ideas in my post, _OR_
your feelings or thoughts about them. I can't believe everything I said was
too 'abstract'. Isn't there _ONE_ idea you find interesting?

Marc: What is it about my work that Harris can help me with? What key
insights do you think he has to offer? I'm always open. What am I
missing that either of those two have covered?

David: Harris is a Psychiatrist who tries to provide an integrated
picture of psychodynamic approaches to therapy with modern neuroscience.
He is very familiar with the kinds of emotional and thinking problems of
people from being a working/practicing Psychiatrist. He provides a very
detailed picture of the brain at all levels of functioning, which comes
from his medical background. I think his biggist contribution is to
provide a strategy for a new form of therapy based on integrating
psychodynamic and neuroscience approaches.

Plutchik is a more traditional psychologist approach. He has developed
some interesting psychological tests to measure emotions in people. His
book is a comprehensive review of many people's ideas about emotions. He
has shown the connection between emotions, traits, defenses, and coping
styles.

Thanks David, but it would be much more helpful (if that were your intent)
to understand how you feel either of these two gentlemen either agree or
disagree with points I have made. The literature on both of these topics are
vast and there as many ideas as you have people. Not many are looking at
either one through control glasses and I think that is an essential first
step in truly understanding these domains.

Have either of these men talked about emotions disturbing perceptions and
reference conditions? If not why do you think their alternatives are better
than mine? There are _many_ questions I could ask about Plutchik and his
theory, he has done some _excellent_ pioneering work in emotions, but then
we'd be talking about _his_ ideas, and right know I'm not quite ready to go
on the lecture circuit and challenge his approach. The purpose of my
posting, again, is to help clarify my thoughts on control and emotion. I'm
not looking for the good housekeeping seal of approval here. My theory does
not need to be PCT certified, nor am I going to ask either Bill or Rick to
write the intro or foreword to my book (not for a long while anyway :-))What
I am hoping to get here is a Control theoretic view on emotions from people
who have given this area some thought. It is way to premature to start
talking about the pluses and minuses of my theory versus others out there.
My theory doesn't exist yet. I have _loads_ of pieces. Now I need to fit
them together to solve the puzzle.
It would be a lot different David, if I wrote a book or paper and came on to
CSGnet trying to plug or push for the advocacy of it. But that is not my
purpose here. I really want my ideas pounced on an turned to shreds. But not
vindictively. If your going to tell me I'm off base, fine, come back to me
with something more that arm waving and please be specific. This is not
intended to be a mystery novel.

Marc

Marc

[Bill_Powers]

[From Bill Powers (2004.01.01.1648 MST)]

Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1524) –

The
basic requirement of a working model is that it must provide an
explanation for the state of every variable in the
model.

This would not be a problem to do.
I just thought and continue to think that

on CSGnet this would put people to sleep (including myself at times
:-)).

I think they can stay awake if we don’t overdo it. For example, I have a
question about your reply to Bruce Gregory, in which you said that the
driver

will ‘experience’ it [the error]
both cognitively and physiologically. That is, depending on where the
error occurs, you will experience a cognitive Uh Oh! and feel the rush
of adrenaline and other chemicals (neuropeptides) at the same
time.

Bruce asked about “experiencing” an error signal, but my
question has to do with where the adrenaline rush came from. Does the
adrenal gland have its own sensory inputs and perceptual system, so it
can detect a near-collision independently of the cognitive systems so it
can respond at the same time that a neural control system
experiences error? Doesn’t there have to be a series of interpretations
of the visual image before the adrenal gland could figure out that a
collision is imminent? The rush of adrenaline and other chemicals,
apparently independently of the cognitive neural systems, is one of those
loose ends I mentioned, and even at the risk of boring the audience, it
really must be explained somehow at least in outline.

That’s probably enough for the moment.

Best,

Bill P.

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1734)]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.01.01.1636)]

You seem to be using the term 'reference condition' in a different way
than the term is used in PCT.

Good point and I'm not sure, I might be. Lets see if we can clarify it. The
word perception in PCT to me is ambiguous. It could mean one sensory
modality (Intensity of light ), or any combination of sensory modalities (a
cat), or any combination of combinations (a man pointing a gun at you). They
can be real (the taste of an orange), imagined (a dream or thought), or
mixed (98% of what we perceive when in a conscious state). A reference
condition in PCT is simply any one of these perceptions in some imagined or
idealized state. So you tell me how am I using it? I am suggesting that
different aspects (intensity, relationships, events, etc) can each have it's
own reference levels and we pay attention to different 'aspects' of larger
combinations.

Your usage seems to involve some sort of threshold to perceptions.

Did I clarify this?

You also seem to be saying that attention is
associated with the gain of a controlled perception. Am I correct?

_Excellent_ question. And yes, and the gain is in part, due to emotions.

You seem to be confining error to conscious control. Is that correct?
(Again the use of "reference levels" is confusing.)

Absolutely _NOT_. I just did not go into the autonomicly controlled
variables in your example. I hope I cleared up the issue on reference levels
above.

> So it does matter what kind of and where you actually
> experience the error. In _this_ case , you will 'experience' it both
> cognitively and physiologically. That is, _depending_ on where the
> error
> occurs,

For which controlled variable?

For any. When you are cognitively going Uh! Oh!, your eyes are focusing on
what is ahead of you, your heart starts beating a bit faster, your foot is
going for the gas or brake, you're tensing up. All of this is hapening at
the same time. It's all happening physiologically, with somethings you have
no control over, some you have a little bit of control over and others you
have a great deal of sway over. For instance, How much you 'tense' up
depends on what kind of thoughts you have. The emotion of fear can, and
does, provide the trigger for the release of CRH (corticotropin-releasing
hormone) which underlies the autonomic responses (heart beat, sweating,
tightening of muscles, both smooth and skelatal)necessay to correct for
error. But a key ingrediant in all of this is how much you will 'panic'.
"Panic" is something you have a good deal of control over and is cognitive.
This of course affects and is affected by our autonomic nervous system

So the feelings associated with adrenaline surges are non-cognitive?

I hope I clarified this for you right above. It is _always_ a combination of
the two.

Is the error associated with the attempt to control the level of

adrenaline? Or with something else?

In a sense yes, all error is associated exclusively with maintaining a
certain reference condition or set point for a perception. The 'control' of
the level of adrenaline is largely involuntary and controlled by our
autonomic nervous system based on feedback from a number of souces,
including 'cognitive'. We can only indirectly voluntarily control the level
of adrenaline by lowering our cognitive contribution to the production of
it. (That is, our imagined excitement) We cannot will it or order it to some
level.

The input function to what?

Of each control process.

The rate of closure with the vehicle ahead?

That's one factor. But what if you're attending to your radio or you're
glancing out the side window at a nice new Ferrari, or any number of things
that could be distracting you. There is a reason why cell phones have been
banned while driving unless, you have headset. You keep on going back to
this idealized model of being in a vacuum, where you deal with _one_ error
at a time. You need to know what you were paying attention to and how high
of a gain you had on aspects of what you were perceiving

Apparently the error signal in your tentative model does not only drive
the output but is part of the input as well.

You are oversimplfying here. I said in two different paragraphs in the same
post;

"Ok, lets take it from the top (or bottom if you prefer :-)). First, I need
to elaborate on an idea not previously addressed in my initial post and that
is: What do I mean to say when I say we are paying 'attention' to something?
I mean that when we perceive _anything_, depending on context, mood, and
purpose, we will be more sensitive to certain aspects of our perceptions
(i.e. our environments, both internally and externally) than to others. That
is, our reference conditions will be set lower for these aspects and we will
be more sensitive changes with regard to these aspects, than with others."

"I am trying to suggest that 'emotions' are nothing more than an internally
generated disturbance tied to our sensory input that is directly related to
and proportional with the error signal in PCT. Emotions help us focus our
attention, get our bodies ready to respond, and are an allostatic devices."

Seems to me what I said, and stand by is, What we pay attention to depends
on mood, context, and purpose and is related to the gain we have for aspects
of our perceptions. Emotions are _related_ to, I did not say they are the
same thing as, error signals, but whatever they are, they are proportional
_to_ the error signals.

It seems that this new
function could lead to instability in control depending on the sign of the

error input.

I don't fully understand the implications of this. I guess thats why some
people get into accidents and why others cause them and are not actually
part of them, while still others walk away unscathed. A lot depends on
initial conditions. You can have a car accident with 'perfect' control
taking place by all parties. All concerned were simply paying attention to
and controlling the 'wrong' variables. I would want to know how that can
happen and how I could possibly avoid that.
It certainly brings up some interesting questions. What does it mean to have
an instability to the control process? Runaway positive feedback? If so, how
would this affect other control processes? Just how important is _one_
control process among thousands going on at the same time, at different
levels?

Since attention is not part of the convention PCT model, it seems you
are proposing a new element "attention" that is somehow directed by
error in the hierarchy. Perhaps attention goes to where the error is
greatest?

Yep, I think so, and I think this is true at _all_ levels. From our DNA on
up.

> Is my position any clearer?

It depends on your answers to my questions!

OK I'll ask again, Is it any clearer?

That critically depends on the details of processes you are proposing.

I'm working on it. It's certainly a lot clearer to me now after responding
to you and Bill than it was before.

> So what happens in your example _all_ depends on the starting
> conditions.

That's true of any model, isn't it?

Yes, but some more so than others. I believe PCT is _extremely_ sensitive to
initial conditions, making it the more complex because those 'initial
conditions' change often and rapidly.

Marc

[Bruce_Gregory4]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.01.01.2037)]

Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1734)

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.01.01.1636)]

You seem to be using the term 'reference condition' in a different way
than the term is used in PCT.

Good point and I'm not sure, I might be. Lets see if we can clarify
it. The
word perception in PCT to me is ambiguous. It could mean one sensory
modality (Intensity of light ), or any combination of sensory
modalities (a
cat), or any combination of combinations (a man pointing a gun at
you). They
can be real (the taste of an orange), imagined (a dream or thought), or
mixed (98% of what we perceive when in a conscious state).

How do you know this? When I look at the keyboard, what portion of my
perception is imagined? How do you know? How is this different from my
claim that none of what I see of the keyboard is imagined? how can we
test your claim and mine?

A reference
condition in PCT is simply any one of these perceptions in some
imagined or
idealized state.

I would say that a perception in some imagined or idealized state is
still a perception and not a reference condition. The error is minimal
when the perception matches the reference condition, but the two remain
distinct.

So you tell me how am I using it? I am suggesting that
different aspects (intensity, relationships, events, etc) can each
have it's
own reference levels

Yes, since we can control each of these.

and we pay attention to different 'aspects' of larger
combinations.

Putting scare quotes around a word is not terribly helpful. What is an
aspect? A lower level perception?

Let me remind you of what you said:

"I mean that when we perceive _anything_, depending on context, mood,
and
purpose, we will be more sensitive to certain aspects of our perceptions
(i.e. our environments, both internally and externally) than to others.
That
is, our reference conditions will be set lower for these aspects and we
will
be more sensitive changes with regard to these aspects, than with
others."

What do you mean by "more sensitive"? Higher gain? Can I translate your
statement as follows: We control certain perceptions at higher gains
than other perceptions. Normally higher gain leads to better control.
Is this what you mean? What does higher gain have to do with setting
reference conditions lower? And how do lowered reference conditions
lead to higher sensitivity?

By the way, I do not find the notion of perception in PCT ambiguous. We
can perceive many things, but that does not make the concept ambiguous.

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no
one was listening, everything must be said again."

                                                                                Andre Gide

[Martin_Taylor2]

[Martin Taylor 2004.01.01.2146]

From [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1734)]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.01.01.1636)]

You seem to be using the term 'reference condition' in a different way
than the term is used in PCT.

Good point and I'm not sure, I might be. Lets see if we can clarify it. The
word perception in PCT to me is ambiguous. It could mean one sensory
modality (Intensity of light ), or any combination of sensory modalities (a
cat), or any combination of combinations (a man pointing a gun at you). They
can be real (the taste of an orange), imagined (a dream or thought), or
mixed (98% of what we perceive when in a conscious state). A reference
condition in PCT is simply any one of these perceptions in some imagined or
idealized state. So you tell me how am I using it? I am suggesting that
different aspects (intensity, relationships, events, etc) can each have it's
own reference levels and we pay attention to different 'aspects' of larger
combinations.

That really doesn't have much to do with the PCT meaning of "Reference Signal".

An elementary control unit (ECU), myriads of which construct the
hypothesized hierarchy, consists of a loop that has two inputs from
outside the loop. One comes from what we conventionally call "below".
That's an input to a perceptual finction that produces a perceptual
signal (a perception), and as far as the ECU is concerned, it
represents a state of the environment (real or imagined). The other
comes from "above". It is the Reference Signal, and it tells the ECU
what value the (real or imagined) perception should take on. The
difference between these two is the error signal, and if the error is
not zero, it means the ECU should be changing its action on the
environment so as to influence the perception to come closer to its
reference signal.

It doesn't really matter whether the perception is an imagined
perception from an imagined environment that the imagined action
influences or a perception based on data from external and internal
sensors and the action works on a "real' world full of disturbances
so as to influence that "real" perception. The relation of reference
signal to perceptual signal is the same. You could think of the
reference signal as a command, if you want, but the perceptual signal
is an observation.

And yes, I agree with you that the content of perception (and
therefore the value (intensity) of a perceptual signal) is affected
greatly by context and by imagination. When I started piano lessons
again after 50 years of not having had lessons, but playing the piano
nevertheless, one of the hardest things was to learn to hear what I
actually played instead of what I wanted to have played.

As you suggest, that kind of experience could be described as hearing
your imagined reference signals, but I don't think it useful to
describe it that way. What you perceive IS a perception, not a
reference, whether it comes through what Bill called "the imagination
loop" or from external sensors. The "imagination loop" is what I
described two paragraphs above, where the imagined action influences
the imagined environment to create the imagined perception. If a real
action occurs, replicating the imagined action, it influences the
outer environment, and should create a perception THROUGH THE SAME
PERCEPTUAL FUNCTION as the imagined one. In my case, I suspect the
two were being merged, or the imagined one was swamping the "real'
one.

This is not the same thing as contextual (real or imagined) effects
on the value of a perceptual signal (cognitively known as the
interpretation of the world). They happen, too, but always the result
is a perception.

In PCT, a reference signal is not a perceptual signal. It's like a
command to make a perceptual signal take on some value.

Martin

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1951)]

[From Bill Powers (2004.01.01.1648 MST)]

Bruce asked about "experiencing" an error signal,

That was his interpretation of what I said. I was talking about emotions,
not error. I repeat, I believe emotions are _related_ and proportional to
the error signals. But error signals or at least most of them are busy
attending to motor functions and other signalling chores

Doesn't there have to be a
series of interpretations of the visual image before the adrenal gland
could figure out that a collision is imminent?

I'm going to try and keep this real simple. The specific mechanisms for what
I am about to say are not well understood, and I believe a big reason for
this is the lack of a control paradigm in their research on this material.
So there are many interpretations of what I am about to say. If anyone is
really interested in this I have a number of very good, but long reviews on
the subject.

but my question has to do
with where the adrenaline rush came from. Does the adrenal gland have its
own sensory inputs and perceptual system, so it can detect a

near-collision

independently of the cognitive systems so it can respond at the same time
that a neural control system experiences error?

Sort of and sometimes. The adrenal gland is 'operated' by our
sympathetic nevrous system, that is, our spinal column. The innervation of
our spinal column by receptors can and does allow the adrenal gland to
respond. It will also respond to commands from the brain (conjectured to be
the hypothalamus). So in effect, receptors will tell the spinal column that
adrenaline is required, it will signal the adrenal gland _and_ the brain,
where the brain will 'supervise' the adrenaline through the spinal cord
according to physiological and cognitive needs.

Doesn't there have to be a
series of interpretations of the visual image before the adrenal gland
could figure out that a collision is imminent?

Not necessarily, but in _this_ case it probably would. The adrenal gland can
operate solely on the basis of some sensations picked up by mechanical,
chemical or thermal receptors, that go straight to the spinal column. In
effect the brain and adrenal gland are 'notified' at the same time by the
spinal column. Again, this does not preclude the brain from signaling the
adrenal for 'cognitive' stresses.

The rush of adrenaline and
other chemicals, apparently independently of the cognitive neural systems,
is one of those loose ends I mentioned, and even at the risk of boring the
audience, it really must be explained somehow at least in outline.

As I have said, it is not _necessarily_ independent. The brain and adrenal
gland _could_ be signaled simultaneously. _OR_ the brain, due to cognitive
issues alone, can crank up the adrenal.

Let me add a few details here for some clarification;

Neuropeptides and Neurotransmitters regulated by steroid hormones play a
fundamental role in the expression of bodily states including emotions.

There are two main sensory systems that provide information to the brain
about the state of our internal organs. The afferents provided by the
cranial nerves (brain stem), sometimes called the parasympathetic afferent
System (or nervous system), and they carry mainly mechanoreceptors (touch,
pressure) and chemosensory information (smell, taste). By contrast,
afferents that arrive via the spinal nerves(spinal cord), often called the
sympathetic afferent system(or nervous system) convey mainly sensations
related to temperature and impending or ongoing tissue injury, of either
mechanical, chemical or thermal in origin. Both the parasympathetic and
sympathetic are divisions of the Autonomic Nervous System which with the
Somatic nervous System (responsible for our 5 senses) form the Peripheral
Nervous System (PNS) All of these systems are independent anatomically but
fully integrated functionally.

Pain is, at it's root, a visceral sensory modality that goes through the
spinal cord first and then goes on to the brain.
Cognitive processes can also 'cause' pain and get the physiological
responses to it. While fear is a learned cognitive modality.

Marc

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.2313)]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.01.01.2037)]

How do you know this?

confirming this, including some very interesting video tapes you helped
produce.

When I look at the keyboard, what portion of my perception is imagined?

All of it _AND_ none of it. I know it sounds crazy, BUT, I go back to my
example of an art student trying to learn to draw real-life scenes and my
own experience with it, plus a ton of research to this effect. When trying
to learn to draw 3-D or percspectives our imagination often gets in the way
of being able to draw proper proportional perspectives of what is _actually_
out there. When we look at the paper and are drawing we are drawing from
memory. Do you see that? Even if its only for 5 seconds. Whatever we are
drawing while we look at the paper we are getting from our imaginations. So
you must teach yourself, and it isn't easy. To look _at_ the object _while_
you draw. Now when you first try this your all over the place. But you soon
learn to alternate very quickly between paper and object, not spending more
than a few seconds looking at the paper and a large majority of time looking
at the object or objects you want to draw. It works. its amazing, but the
_less_ you look at the paper the _better_ and more realistic the drawing
comes out. This happens for a number of reasons. One of which is your
capability to pay attention to details so much better.

So getting back to the keyboard, You definitely see the keyboard and its
real based on your experience on what a keyboard should actually look like.
But what you actually know or think you know about the _details_ can be and
usually are different than what you either imagine it to be or perceive it
to be at any given time. What happens when you can't actually see something?
Does that stop you from having perceptions about what something looks like?
Hardly, I 'see' things in my thoughts and ideas as well as my dreams. Where
do you suppose they come from? When you 'hear' a voice, can you match it to
perception? Do you actually use all your senses in constructing what you
simply heard? We _love_ to make stories. Schank was and is right on.

How do you know? How is this different from my claim that none of what I

see of the keyboard is imagined? how >can we test your claim and mine?

No need. My claim is that your _knowledge_ about what it is you are looking
at comes from memory. What you are seeing is what you have experienced it ot
be in the past. So I have no quarrel with you on what you think you are
seeing. But what you 'see' is _NOT_ necessarily what you use to construct
your perceptions. I refer to the body of work produced by Chris Argyris for
this purpose and his ladder of inference. In constructing our percpetions we
add layers of interpretations and meanings onto things. As Freud is
purported to have said; "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". That is all I
mean about imagination and perceptions.

I would say that a perception in some imagined or idealized state is
still a perception and not a reference condition. The error is minimal
when the perception matches the reference condition, but the two remain
distinct.

OK, so what is a reference condition then?

> and we pay attention to different 'aspects' of larger
> combinations.

Putting scare quotes around a word is not terribly helpful. What is an
aspect? A lower level perception?

Actually scare quotes are useful here because 'aspects' is open to
interpretation. It all depends on how you think perceptions are constructed.
I like the split hierarchy a lot better than the current one, and the split
is not yet fully developed so I guess according to current thinking, it
would be a lower level.

Before I answer any of the following questions I want to make one thing
clear. I don't believe our perceptions are built the way the current
hierarchy says they are, and contrary to BG I do think the definition of a
perception is ambigous and vague. So I will now go into detail as to why I
don't believe our perceptions are built this way and why I think the
definition is ambiguous at best and just plain wrong at the worst.

To begin, I will talk about how sensory data is actually constructed into
perceptions. Of course I'm defining perceptions the way 98% of the world
does but I'll live with that quirk. First is the stimulus energy our
receptors pick up from the environments, both internal and external. That
is, light, sound, gravity, pressure, thermal, displacement mechanical, and
chemical. All of these fit into the four receptor classes of photoreceptors,
mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors, and chemoreceptors. (level 1)

When our sense organs pick up the energy, they are than transduced by the
sense organs into electrical signals. Here there is some ongoing controversy
and unfinished business. Some believe that the transduced signals are 'label
lined' that is, each ensory modailty has a unique afferent code that is used
until the signal winds up at its terminus in its primary cortex. A oppossing
view holds that the transduced signals are all alike and it's the patterns
of oscillations at various frequencies that differentiate the two. This
still is unresolved. Another major issue still unresolved is whether the
signals are continuous or discrete. (level 2)

Anyway, depending on the kind of receptor, the transduced signal moves on to
either the spinal cord or brain stem. This signal represents some aspect or
attribute of the sensed energy, such as color, size, etc. The brain stem is
the major exchange point and most likely the location of the comparator
function in PCT. It is largely through the thalamus and hypothalamus that
the signals get sent to various locations in the cortex. (Level 3)

The first stop for the efferent signals in the cortex is the Primary Sensory
Cortex. The Somatosensory cortex is believed to be located in the parietal
lobe. The primary visual cortex is located in the occipital lobe and the
primary auditory cortex is in the temporal lobe. At this point they are
still _not_ perceptions. From the primary cortex's they project to what is
called the unimodal sensory associative area's, located in the parietal,
occipitotemporal, and temporal lobes respectively. It is here that each of
three cortex's combine the different signals for each of the sensory
modalities into entities for each of the respective senses. They are still
not considered perceptions. It is not until they project to the next area,
The multi-modal sensory association area's where you can start calling them
perceptions and not mere signals. There are five hypothesized multi-modal
area's 1) Posterior multi-modal sensory integration area (PMSI) This area
includes visiospatial localization,language, and attention. It's located in
the parietotemporal lobes 2) Anterior multi-modal sensory integration area.
(AMSI)This area includes motor planning, language production, and judgement.
This area is located in the frontal lobe. 3) Limbic multi-modal associative
area. (LMAA)This area is responsible for emotions and memory and is located
in the temporal,parietal, and frontal lobes. 4) Motor associative area.
(MAA)This area is responsible for premotor preperation and programs and is
located in the frontal lobe. And finally, 5) The Primary motor cortex
associative area. (PMAA)This area is responsible for the movement of joints
and is located in the frontal lobe. (Level 4)

So in my world 'perceptions' don't start until the 4th level. They are
incomprehensable signals before than. Even if this particular cortex
organization turns out to be inaccurate. I believe the first 3 are etched in
stone, and I would be the first to say that there are many, many competing
theories on how the cortex actually works and how everything is wired
together, but I like this one for a number of reasons I will not elaborate
on now..

Now to answer Bruce's questions.

What do you mean by "more sensitive"? Higher gain?

Yes. If more amplification will make certain Level 4 aspects different from
the rest. But I believe tha amplification or gain can actually be added at
any point between transduction and Level 4

Can I translate your
statement as follows: We control certain perceptions at higher gains
than other perceptions. Normally higher gain leads to better control.
Is this what you mean?

Yes, with perceptions being defined by my organizational structure above.

What does higher gain have to do with setting reference conditions lower?

Nothing. The setting of reference conditions is a seperate issue.

And how do lowered reference conditions lead to higher sensitivity?

You don't lower a reference condition. You lower or raise the gain _OF_ the
reference condition. I believe that emotions can cause internal disturbances
that can effect the gain of both, perceptions and reference conditions.

By the way, I do not find the notion of perception in PCT ambiguous. We
can perceive many things, but that does not make the concept ambiguous.

OK, I hope I clarified why I think they are, and still do.

Marc

···

from my own experiences as an art student and from tons of research

[Marc_Abrams1]

from [Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1413)]

[Martin Taylor 2004.01.01.2146]

>Good point and I'm not sure, I might be. Lets see if we can clarify it.

The

>word perception in PCT to me is ambiguous. It could mean one sensory
>modality (Intensity of light ), or any combination of sensory modalities

(a

>cat), or any combination of combinations (a man pointing a gun at you).

They

>can be real (the taste of an orange), imagined (a dream or thought), or
>mixed (98% of what we perceive when in a conscious state). A reference
>condition in PCT is simply any one of these perceptions in some imagined

or

>idealized state. So you tell me how am I using it? I am suggesting that
>different aspects (intensity, relationships, events, etc) can each have

it's

>own reference levels and we pay attention to different 'aspects' of

larger

>combinations.

That really doesn't have much to do with the PCT meaning of "Reference

Signal".

Ok, lets take a look at your response. I assume you are talking about my
response to Bruce.

An elementary control unit (ECU), myriads of which construct the
hypothesized hierarchy, consists of a loop that has two inputs from
outside the loop. One comes from what we conventionally call "below".
That's an input to a perceptual finction that produces a perceptual
signal (a perception), and as far as the ECU is concerned, it
represents a state of the environment (real or imagined). The other
comes from "above". It is the Reference Signal, and it tells the ECU
what value the (real or imagined) perception should take on. The
difference between these two is the error signal, and if the error is
not zero, it means the ECU should be changing its action on the
environment so as to influence the perception to come closer to its
reference signal.

Ok, so far so good. No conflicts here.

It doesn't really matter whether the perception is an imagined
perception from an imagined environment that the imagined action
influences or a perception based on data from external and internal
sensors and the action works on a "real' world full of disturbances
so as to influence that "real" perception. The relation of reference
signal to perceptual signal is the same. You could think of the
reference signal as a command, if you want, but the perceptual signal
is an observation.

Sorry. My point was _not_ whether the environment was real or imagined or if
the refernce or perception were imagined, my point was and is that the one
disturbance that a cv passes through is in the external environment. I am
claiming that a perception passes through an 'internal' disturbance I like
to call emotions. It has nothing to do with whether it's real or imagined or
any combination of the two.

And yes, I agree with you that the content of perception (and
therefore the value (intensity) of a perceptual signal) is affected
greatly by context and by imagination. When I started piano lessons
again after 50 years of not having had lessons, but playing the piano
nevertheless, one of the hardest things was to learn to hear what I
actually played instead of what I wanted to have played.

Ok, I am also saying that the 'context' is affected by emotions that are
caused by sensory inputs that are real, imagined or some combination of the
two

As you suggest, that kind of experience could be described as hearing
your imagined reference signals, but I don't think it useful to
describe it that way. What you perceive IS a perception, not a
reference, whether it comes through what Bill called "the imagination
loop" or from external sensors. The "imagination loop" is what I
described two paragraphs above, where the imagined action influences
the imagined environment to create the imagined perception. If a real
action occurs, replicating the imagined action, it influences the
outer environment, and should create a perception THROUGH THE SAME
PERCEPTUAL FUNCTION as the imagined one. In my case, I suspect the
two were being merged, or the imagined one was swamping the "real'
one.

Again Martin, I absolutely agree with you that what we perceive _IS_ a
perception. Real or imagined. Where did I give you the impression that my
thoughts were contrary to this? Please be specific.If you saw it, others
might have as well and I don't want that impression to be given.

This is not the same thing as contextual (real or imagined) effects
on the value of a perceptual signal (cognitively known as the
interpretation of the world). They happen, too, but always the result
is a perception.

Agreed

In PCT, a reference signal is not a perceptual signal. It's like a
command to make a perceptual signal take on some value.

_THAT_ has been my point. I guess when I said that a reference condition is
an idealized perception that some thought I was saying they are the same
thing. That was not my intent. Your explanation is much less ambiguous and I
will adopt it. Thanks. btw, forget about the example I asked for above
think I figured out where it came from.

Marc

[Bill_Powers]

[From Bill Powers (2004.01.02,0616 MST)]

Marc Abrams (2004.01.01.1951)--

Doesn't there have to be a
series of interpretations of the visual image before the adrenal gland
could figure out that a collision is imminent?

...

Sort of and sometimes. The adrenal gland is 'operated' by our
sympathetic nevrous system, that is, our spinal column. The innervation of
our spinal column by receptors can and does allow the adrenal gland to
respond. It will also respond to commands from the brain (conjectured to be
the hypothalamus). So in effect, receptors will tell the spinal column that
adrenaline is required, it will signal the adrenal gland _and_ the brain,
where the brain will 'supervise' the adrenaline through the spinal cord
according to physiological and cognitive needs.

This doesn't answer my question, which is how the adrenal gland could
respond to an impending collision at the same time the cogitive part of the
brain does. For this to happen, the adrenal gland must receive information
that there is a car ahead, that the distance to this car is decreasing
rapidly, and that if nothing is done there will be an event or relationship
called a "collision" and all that such a thing implies. How does that
information get to the adrenal gland? You say

There are two main sensory systems that provide information to the brain
about the state of our internal organs. The afferents provided by the
cranial nerves (brain stem), sometimes called the parasympathetic afferent
System (or nervous system), and they carry mainly mechanoreceptors (touch,
pressure) and chemosensory information (smell, taste). By contrast,
afferents that arrive via the spinal nerves(spinal cord), often called the
sympathetic afferent system(or nervous system) convey mainly sensations
related to temperature and impending or ongoing tissue injury, of either
mechanical, chemical or thermal in origin.

I don't see how pain receptors, receptors for touch, pressure,temperature
smell, taste, or pain could tell the adrenal gland that a collision is
about to happen. A simple connection from a sensor to the gland would be
insufficient, because it is necessary to detect shapes, locations,
velocities, events, and relationships, as well as projecting them into the
near future, in order to apprehend that something bad is about to occur (in
Gregory's example). A single sensory nerve ending could not possibly detect
such things. In fact, I don't see how the pending collision could be known
to any part of the organism without use of perceptual functions that we
would have to class as "cognitive." I see no way for the adrenal response
to occur before or even at the same time as the cognitive response. Please
explain how this could happen.

Best,

Bill P.