Environmental variables

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.23.23.37]

We can probably come to an agreement on how words apply to anything

that we both can point to, numbers included. We can agree about the
results of operations on numbers, pointing to those operations and
results. We can agree what numbers apply to measurements using a
ruler. But I can never know whether your experience of them is the
same as mine, and I find it very hard to find words that would come
anywhere close to describing my experience of number using words
that ultimately relate back to words that refer to things to which
we can both point.
Martin

···

[Philip 8/22/14 9:09]

Martin Taylor:

      There is no way that we can say that any perception in one

person is the same as a perception in someone else. My
perception of “blue” may not be yours…

Philip:

      In the realm of colors, perhaps there's a way to ambiguate

the name of a color from the experience of the color itself.

      But if we both pointed to, say, the 6-inch, or perhaps the

7.416407865-inch mark on a ruler? What is the experience of a
number?

      On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 8:26 PM, Martin

Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
wrote:

          [Martin Taylor

2014.08.22.22.57]

                  [From

Rick Marken (2014.08.22.1940)]

                      Martin

Taylor (2014.08.22.14.41)–

                                  RM:  I think I mistakenly read

this to mean that you were saying
that control also involves
reducing the variability of the external
environment. But, in fact, you
never said that; you were
correctly implying that control
involves reducing the variability
of * perceptual aspects of the
environment* , keeping them
from varying around their “desired
states”.

                      MT: That's true, but as you often point out,

controlling a perceptual (internal) variable
also implies reducing the variability of the
corresponding environmental variable.

                    RM: I would rather say that controlling a

perceptual variable implies controlling the
environmental correlate of the perceptual
variable. The reason for this slight change in
terminology is to emphasize the fact that there
may be no environmental variable that
corresponds to the controlled perceptual
variable. For example, in B:CP (p. 112 of 2nd
edition) Bill gives the example of controlling
for the perception of the taste of lemonade.
That perception is a construction (by a
perceptual function) “…derived from the
intensity signals generated by sugar and acid
(together with some oil smells)… the mere
intermingling of these physical components has
no special physical effects on anything else,
except the person tasting the mixture.” The same
is true of many other perceptions that we
control, such as the perception of variability
(if we can perceive it). The variability of
independent events that happen with different
probabilities is an aspect of these events that
we can perceive but it has no more physical
significance than some other aspect of these
events that we can perceive, such Morse code
patterns.

          The problem with this, and it is a bone I have picked with

Bill as well, is that the same is true of EVERY
perception. Bill seemed to take an internally inconsistent
view, saying on the one hand that all we ever know is our
perception, no matter what kind of perception it might be,
and on the other hand that there were some privileged
environmental variables that are “real” and some that are
not. Since all perceptions are equally constructed by the
operation of layers of perceptual functions on the firing
patterns of neurons connected to sensors, on what grounds
can one say a perception such as “intensity” is of an
environmental variable more real than the taste of
lemonade?

          The argument that the taste of a given glass of lemonade

is different for every person cannot hold water There
is no way that we can say that any perception in one
person is the same as a perception in someone else. My
perception of “blue” may not be yours, just as my
perception of the trustworthiness of the neighbourhood
loan shark or municipal politician may not be yours.

          My preferred position on this is, I think, more consistent

than Bill’s. I assume that there exists a “real world”
that influences my sense organs and on which I can act in
ways that influence the inputs to my sense organs. I know
not what is in that world, but my nervous system
constructs a perceived reality by operations on those
sensory inputs (plus all the history of operations on
earlier sensory inputs). Every perception thus produced
defines some function of present and past states of the
environment that have and had some influence on my
sensors. Those functions describe a presumed reality “out
there”, no one function, no one presumed environmental
variable thus constructed having any priority over any
other.

          In this, I believe internally consistent, view, the

brightness of a light, the taste of lemonade, the
willingness of my dog to follow me, the autocratic
tendencies of my political leaders, all have equal
validity as existing states of the external environment. I
call them Complex Environmental Variables, because they
are environmental variables defined by complex perceptual
functions. There’s no way to say that second, fifth, or
ninth-level perceptions are of environmental variables
more or less real than each other.

          As for the taste of lemonade having no special physical

effects on anything else, except the person tasting the
mixture, that is true of every uncontrolled perception. If
the person is not controlling the perception of the taste
of the lemonade, any taste will do. But if the taste is a
controlled perception and it doesn’t match its reference
value, the person will act, and those actions definitely
will have effects on something else, perhaps only by
adding sugar to the mixture, perhaps by throwing the glass
at the poor waiter who brought this foul tasting mixture.

          I have disagreed with Bill on this for a couple of decades

without changing his opinion, and I don’t imagine my
argument will change anyone else’s opinion. All the same,
I thought it worth putting “out there” for the
consideration of anyone who might be interested.

              Martin

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.24.00.25]

I think we understand one another, and it  is such a small "angels

on a pin-head" point that I don’t feel like digging into the very
slight difference in emphasis that I think does remain. It will
probably remain a disagreement that shows up from time to time in
the wording of some statement or other, but probably not in an
understanding of PCT.
But…
I understand how reorganization tends to produce orthogonal control
systems (as in the demo you link), and much more complex structural
relationships besides. But I strongly disagree with your “looking
for the lost key under the street lamp” description of what
perceptual functions “PCT” says are developed and maintained through
reorganization.
As I understand it, the function of reorganization is to produce a
structure that controls certain perceptual variables in ways that
result in keeping other variables that are important to life and the
propagation of the species near their genetically determined
reference levels. One can easily control all sorts of variables, but it cannot be true
that the sole criterion for constructing perceptual functions is
that the resulting perceptions are easy to control well. After all,
apparently Nero was an acceptable musician, and could control his
instrument (certainly not a fiddle) more easily than he could
control his perception of the physical security of Rome. But he
could perceive Rome burning, just as he could perceive what notes he
was playing.
Martin

···

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.23.1900)]

            Martin Taylor

(2014.08.22.22.57)–

                      RM: I would rather say that controlling a

perceptual variable implies controlling the
environmental correlate of the perceptual
variable…

            MT: The problem with this, and it is a bone I have

picked with Bill as well, is that the same is true of
EVERY perception. Bill seemed to take an internally
inconsistent view, saying on the one hand that all we
ever know is our perception, no matter what kind of
perception it might be, and on the other hand that there
were some privileged environmental variables that are
“real” and some that are not.

          RM: I think Bill's point was that the environment in

PCT is simply the current model of physics and chemistry.
This is the model of what is on the “other side” of our
sensory receptors. The sensory receptors are the first
step in the perceptual process. The physics model of the
environment does suggest that the sensory receptors
transduce certain physical variables into neural impulses;
for example, the cone cells in the retina seem to
transduce electromagnetic energy of a particular
frequency, into neural impulses. Perhaps this is what you
think of as the “privileged” physical variables; the
variables that are in the physics model.

        RM: According to PCT, the perceptions

that are constructed are those that result in the best
control.

[PHILIP_JERAIR_YERANO]

[philip 8/25/14 13:20]

MT:

As I understand it, the function of reorganization is to produce a structure that controls certain perceptual variables in ways that result in keeping other variables that are important to life and the propagation of the species near their genetically determined reference levels.

PY:

I’m being very serious here. Is there any concept of the electromagnetic structure of DNA being a controlled variable?

Also, we consider that only level 1 systems produce physical forces, whereas higher level systems produce reference values. I’m confused about human behavior as concerns a special case. This case is where we use physical force to push a button on a machine, but our machine doesn’t translate this force into some other physical force per se; but rather, for instance, into acoustic or electromagnetic waves. I mean, look, it becomes pure geometric patterns at this point, not F=ma. And furthermore, at this point, regarding the imaginary internal model of the environment - which PCT obviates in the “non-special case” of “ordinary” behavior - I think this imaginary internal model becomes much more meaningful than the raw perceptual signal itself (because sound and electromagnetism are invisible). And so, at this point, we might consider the fact that we are no longer applying actions directly to the environment, but purely to our internal models of reality. We’re just imagining we’re doing something to something imaginary and invisible. The 200-ton obelisk get’s lifted as a side effect of what we’re really thinking about doing - interacting with invisible field forces. In this special case, we imagine that we wouldn’t be directly matching the environment to internal references, but rather we’d be matching purely imagined models to internal references. Think of it like this: the guys who built the pyramids didn’t use mathematical sofware to envision the force fields because they didn’t need to run 80 trillion computations. They just knew the right shape to use; they had the correct imaginary model.

http://www.human-resonance.org/pyramid.html

This site has information about the relation between phi and the pyramids, as well as the relation between phi, schumann resonance, alpha brain waves, and DNA.

Best Regards,

Phil

···

On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.24.00.25]

I think we understand one another, and it  is such a small "angels

on a pin-head" point that I don’t feel like digging into the very
slight difference in emphasis that I think does remain. It will
probably remain a disagreement that shows up from time to time in
the wording of some statement or other, but probably not in an
understanding of PCT.

But...

I understand how reorganization tends to produce orthogonal control

systems (as in the demo you link), and much more complex structural
relationships besides. But I strongly disagree with your “looking
for the lost key under the street lamp” description of what
perceptual functions “PCT” says are developed and maintained through
reorganization.

As I understand it, the function of reorganization is to produce a

structure that controls certain perceptual variables in ways that
result in keeping other variables that are important to life and the
propagation of the species near their genetically determined
reference levels.

One can easily control all sorts of variables, but it cannot be true

that the sole criterion for constructing perceptual functions is
that the resulting perceptions are easy to control well. After all,
apparently Nero was an acceptable musician, and could control his
instrument (certainly not a fiddle) more easily than he could
control his perception of the physical security of Rome. But he
could perceive Rome burning, just as he could perceive what notes he
was playing.

Martin

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.23.1900)]

            Martin Taylor

(2014.08.22.22.57)–

            MT: The problem with this, and it is a bone I have

picked with Bill as well, is that the same is true of
EVERY perception. Bill seemed to take an internally
inconsistent view, saying on the one hand that all we
ever know is our perception, no matter what kind of
perception it might be, and on the other hand that there
were some privileged environmental variables that are
“real” and some that are not.

          RM: I think Bill's point was that the environment in

PCT is simply the current model of physics and chemistry.
This is the model of what is on the “other side” of our
sensory receptors. The sensory receptors are the first
step in the perceptual process. The physics model of the
environment does suggest that the sensory receptors
transduce certain physical variables into neural impulses;
for example, the cone cells in the retina seem to
transduce electromagnetic energy of a particular
frequency, into neural impulses. Perhaps this is what you
think of as the “privileged” physical variables; the
variables that are in the physics model.

                      RM: I would rather say that controlling a

perceptual variable implies controlling the
environmental correlate of the perceptual
variable…

        RM: According to PCT, the perceptions

that are constructed are those that result in the best
control.

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.25.17.50]

No, but it could be, if someone were to create a device that

provided a visible, audible, or other kind of presentation that
corresponded to it. You can’t control what you can’t sense, but
sometimes you can control what you can sense, whether the sensing is
direct or by way of intermediaries. In Napoleonic times, the general
sensed the way the battlefield was changing by way of couriers who
came with information and went with instructions.
The control system that produced the forces got its reference values
from one that was perceiving whether the button had been pushed or
not. That one got its reference value from some other control
system, perhaps one controlling for the level of the music that
would be produced by the box with the button. The “level of music”
control unit perceives nothing except the level of the music, and
does nothing except produce an output that changes according to the
discrepancy between the perceived level of music and the reference
level of music. How the level changes when this output is
distributed to lower-level systems is none of its business. If the
system as a whole has been effectively reorganized, the “level of
music” output will provide a reference value to such systems as one
that perceives whether a button has been pushed, or perhaps one that
perceives the rotation state of some knob, or something like that. It really doesn’t matter what happens in the external environment.
What matters is what happens at the sensory inputs. Nothing in the
control structure (hierarchy) can deal with what cannot be sensed
(or is not built on what has been sensed over the lifetime of the
organism).
Imagination is often useful, but it is irrelevant in the case at
hand, unless the person pushing the button enjoys imagining all the
transformations of energy flows, solving Maxwell’s equations,
figuring out how the loudspeaker diaphragm is pulsing, and so forth.
People often do enjoy such esoterica, but they don’t usually
interfere with normal everyday control of things like pushing a
button to turn on a radio.
Oh, yes we are. The physical force on the button is it. All else is
how changes in one part of the environment influence changes in
other parts of the environment until those changes get to our
sensors. Nice if you want to build theories about what is happening,
but not helpful to the person just wanting to hear the latest pop
song.
I’ll bet not one in a thousand or even one in a million of the
people who turn on a radio think at all about the very clever things
generations of scientists have imagined and generations of engineers
have produced to provide the noise the people want to hear.
But they did know when their perception of what the shape should be
matched their reference for what it should be. That’s what they
needed, apart from all sorts of engineering know-how about preparing
the outline, shaping and moving big stones, and so forth. Even
there, after reorganization, they needed no imagination to do the
job.
Martin

···

[philip 8/25/14 13:20]

MT:

      As I understand it, the function of reorganization is to

produce a structure that controls certain perceptual variables
in ways that result in keeping other variables that are
important to life and the propagation of the species near
their genetically determined reference levels.

PY:

      I'm being very serious here.  Is there any concept

of the electromagnetic structure of DNA being a controlled
variable?

      Also, we consider that only level 1 systems produce

physical forces, whereas higher level systems produce
reference values. I’m confused about human behavior as
concerns a special case. This case is where we use physical
force to push a button on a machine, but our machine
doesn’t translate this force into some other physical force
per se; but rather, for instance, into acoustic or
electromagnetic waves.

      I mean, look, it becomes pure geometric patterns at this

point, not F=ma.

      And furthermore, at this point, regarding the imaginary

internal model of the environment - which PCT obviates in the
“non-special case” of “ordinary” behavior - I think this
imaginary internal model becomes much more meaningful than
the raw perceptual signal itself (because sound and
electromagnetism are invisible).

      And so, at this point, we might consider the fact that we

are no longer applying actions directly to the environment,

but purely to our internal models of reality.

      Think of it like this: the guys who built the pyramids

didn’t use mathematical sofware to envision the force fields
because they didn’t need to run 80 trillion computations.
They just knew the right shape to use; they had the correct
imaginary model.

http://www.human-resonance.org/pyramid.html

      This site has information about the relation between phi

and the pyramids, as well as the relation between phi,
schumann resonance, alpha brain waves, and DNA.

Best Regards,

Phil

      On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Martin

Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
wrote:

          [Martin Taylor

2014.08.24.00.25]

                  [From Rick Marken

(2014.08.23.1900)]

                      Martin

Taylor (2014.08.22.22.57)–

                                RM: I would rather say that

controlling a perceptual variable
implies controlling the
environmental correlate of the
perceptual variable…

                      MT: The problem with this, and it is a bone I

have picked with Bill as well, is that the
same is true of EVERY perception. Bill seemed
to take an internally inconsistent view,
saying on the one hand that all we ever know
is our perception, no matter what kind of
perception it might be, and on the other hand
that there were some privileged environmental
variables that are “real” and some that are
not.

                    RM: I think Bill's point was that the

environment in PCT is simply the current model
of physics and chemistry. This is the model of
what is on the “other side” of our sensory
receptors. The sensory receptors are the first
step in the perceptual process. The physics
model of the environment does suggest that the
sensory receptors transduce certain physical
variables into neural impulses; for example, the
cone cells in the retina seem to transduce
electromagnetic energy of a particular
frequency, into neural impulses. Perhaps this is
what you think of as the “privileged” physical
variables; the variables that are in the physics
model.

          I think we understand one another, and it  is such a small

“angels on a pin-head” point that I don’t feel like
digging into the very slight difference in emphasis that I
think does remain. It will probably remain a disagreement
that shows up from time to time in the wording of some
statement or other, but probably not in an understanding
of PCT.

          But...

                  RM: According to PCT, the

perceptions that are constructed are those that
result in the best control.

          I understand how reorganization tends to produce

orthogonal control systems (as in the demo you link), and
much more complex structural relationships besides. But I
strongly disagree with your “looking for the lost key
under the street lamp” description of what perceptual
functions “PCT” says are developed and maintained through
reorganization.

          As I understand it, the function of reorganization is to

produce a structure that controls certain perceptual
variables in ways that result in keeping other variables
that are important to life and the propagation of the
species near their genetically determined reference
levels.

          One can easily control all sorts of variables, but it

cannot be true that the sole criterion for constructing
perceptual functions is that the resulting perceptions are
easy to control well. After all, apparently Nero was an
acceptable musician, and could control his instrument
(certainly not a fiddle) more easily than he could control
his perception of the physical security of Rome. But he
could perceive Rome burning, just as he could perceive
what notes he was playing.

              Martin

[PHILIP_JERAIR_YERANO]

Hmm, I’m not sure I agree with you. It seems the main point you’re trying to make is that anything we imagine about what’s happening in the environment simply doesn’t matter because you can always “rephrase the question” as something that relates only to sensory information. And this is true for most things. The only case I can imagine that this wouldn’t be true is when you’re contemplating what goes on inside the atom.
I imagine that there’s something different about what people want and what matter “wants”. You bring up the example of music on the radio. What people want to hear is just a matter of memory and preference, as PCT says everything is. It’s just a reference with a specific origin in time. But what the atom “wants” is timeless and eternal. I guess I think that mind and matter can both be seen as manifestations of imaginary desire. But PCT-style in all cases, if you know what I mean (in that it’s all about input).

And then you said this in reference to the pyramid builders’ knowledge of what the “right shape” should be.

MT:

they did know when their perception of what the shape should be matched their reference for what it should be. That’s what they needed, apart from all sorts of engineering know-how about preparing the outline, shaping and moving big stones, and so forth. Even there, after reorganization, they needed no imagination to do the job.

PY:
Could you explain more about what you’re trying to say here? Notice that in the first sentence you say, “they knew when their perception of what the shape should be (-this is a reference-) matched their reference for what it should be”. I don’t think you meant to imply a reference for the reference. But supposing you might have, this would imply a controlled perception of the reference value. But it seems you were trying to make a totally different point instead. Suppose however that phi is what everything is supposed to be, independent of what anybody says, because we see it in the stars. Then we’d hypothetically be trying to figure out exactly how to describe, in terms of the most universal number, what our reference should be (the reference of the reference).

···

On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Martin
Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
wrote:

          [Martin Taylor

2014.08.24.00.25]

          I think we understand one another, and it  is such a small

“angels on a pin-head” point that I don’t feel like
digging into the very slight difference in emphasis that I
think does remain. It will probably remain a disagreement
that shows up from time to time in the wording of some
statement or other, but probably not in an understanding
of PCT.

          But...

          I understand how reorganization tends to produce

orthogonal control systems (as in the demo you link), and
much more complex structural relationships besides. But I
strongly disagree with your “looking for the lost key
under the street lamp” description of what perceptual
functions “PCT” says are developed and maintained through
reorganization.

          As I understand it, the function of reorganization is to

produce a structure that controls certain perceptual
variables in ways that result in keeping other variables
that are important to life and the propagation of the
species near their genetically determined reference
levels.

          One can easily control all sorts of variables, but it

cannot be true that the sole criterion for constructing
perceptual functions is that the resulting perceptions are
easy to control well. After all, apparently Nero was an
acceptable musician, and could control his instrument
(certainly not a fiddle) more easily than he could control
his perception of the physical security of Rome. But he
could perceive Rome burning, just as he could perceive
what notes he was playing.

              Martin

                  [From Rick Marken

(2014.08.23.1900)]

                      Martin

Taylor (2014.08.22.22.57)–

                      MT: The problem with this, and it is a bone I

have picked with Bill as well, is that the
same is true of EVERY perception. Bill seemed
to take an internally inconsistent view,
saying on the one hand that all we ever know
is our perception, no matter what kind of
perception it might be, and on the other hand
that there were some privileged environmental
variables that are “real” and some that are
not.

                    RM: I think Bill's point was that the

environment in PCT is simply the current model
of physics and chemistry. This is the model of
what is on the “other side” of our sensory
receptors. The sensory receptors are the first
step in the perceptual process. The physics
model of the environment does suggest that the
sensory receptors transduce certain physical
variables into neural impulses; for example, the
cone cells in the retina seem to transduce
electromagnetic energy of a particular
frequency, into neural impulses. Perhaps this is
what you think of as the “privileged” physical
variables; the variables that are in the physics
model.

                                RM: I would rather say that

controlling a perceptual variable
implies controlling the
environmental correlate of the
perceptual variable…

                  RM: According to PCT, the

perceptions that are constructed are those that
result in the best control.

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2104.08.25.23.29]

That's not my point. My point was that when you are doing a muscular

action (pushing a button) that results in a reduction in error of a
controlled perception (hearing your music), for that control
system substructure it is irrelevant how effects of the muscular
action are transformed and propagated through the environment to
become music you hear. If you are simultaneously controlling other
perceptions in imagination, then you are doing that as well as
turning on the radio by your muscular action.
Such as …
Or designing a radio that will, when built, allow a button pushed by
someone you never met to provide them with music you would never
want to listen to.
That depends on how you look at it. What the atom is capable of
doing may be timeless and eternal, but what it “wants” seems to me
to be quite variable, depending on how its valence electrons are
being shared among its neighbours, if any. Having said that, if we
look at what was on that golden disk sent out with the Voyager
spacecraft, much of it was based on the idea that the reality that
woul be observed by anyone clever enough to collect the spacecraft
would include the same mathematical relationships we know, and the
same periodic table of the elements (If I remember correctly).
I wrote nonsense, didn’t I! I should have written “they knew when
their perception of what the shape is matched their reference for
what it should be”.
“What it should be” refers to imagination. Planning is control in
imagination. If they wanted a square shape, that was something they
imagined. But they didn’t have to imagine how to make a square shape
once they had found out how to do it and had perhaps been taught the
technique in school. That’s control of a program-level perception in
Bill’s hierarchy.
One can imagine all sorts if things, but I wonder whether it is
possible to imagine anything that is not, at base, composed of
things you have experienced, possibly fitted together in ways you
have not experienced. Whether your imagining proves to have some
connection with your control of your perceptions is something else
again. Mathematics makes possible some really wild connections. My
favourite example is the extraordinary chain starting from some
laboratory observations to the prediction of some flashes of light
in an underground chamber because there was a flash in the sky
(Supernova in one of the Magellanic clouds a few years back). If you
can create similar wonders by contemplating the golden ratio,
fantastic. I’m not going to try. Incidentally, why is one named irrational number more universal than
another? Isn’t “e^(i*pi) = -1” rather a dramatic indicator that e
and pi might be rather universally important?
Martin

···

On 2014/08/25 7:13 PM, PHILIP JERAIR
YERANOSIAN wrote:

  Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with you. It seems the main point you're

trying to make is that anything we imagine about what’s happening
in the environment simply doesn’t matter because you can always
“rephrase the question” as something that relates only to sensory
information.

  ... when you're contemplating what goes on inside

the atom.

    I imagine that there's something different about what people

want and what matter “wants”. You bring up the example of music
on the radio. What people want to hear is just a matter of
memory and preference, as PCT says everything is. It’s just
a reference with a specific origin in time. But what the atom
“wants” is timeless and eternal.

    And then you said this in reference to the pyramid

builders’ knowledge of what the “right shape” should be.

MT:

        they

did know when their perception of what the shape should be
matched their reference for what it should be. That’s what
they needed, apart from all sorts of engineering know-how
about preparing the outline, shaping and moving big stones,
and so forth. Even there, after reorganization, they needed
no imagination to do the job.

PY:
Could you explain more about what you’re trying to say here?
Notice that in the first sentence you say, “they knew when their
perception of what the shape should be (-this is a
reference-) matched their reference for what it should be”.

    I don't think you meant to imply a reference for the

reference. But supposing you might have, this would imply a
controlled perception of the reference value. But it seems you
were trying to make a totally different point instead. Suppose
however that phi is what everything is supposed to be,
independent of what anybody says, because we see it in the
stars. Then we’d hypothetically be trying to figure out
exactly how to describe, in terms of the most universal
number, what our reference should be (the reference of the
reference).

          On Monday, August 25, 2014, Martin Taylor <mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net              >

wrote:

              [Martin Taylor

2014.08.25.17.50]

[philip 8/25/14 13:20]

MT:

                    As I understand it, the function of

reorganization is to produce a structure that
controls certain perceptual variables in ways
that result in keeping other variables that are
important to life and the propagation of the
species near their genetically determined
reference levels.

PY:

                    I'm being very serious here.  Is there any

concept of the electromagnetic structure of DNA
being a controlled variable?

              No, but it could be, if someone were to create a

device that provided a visible, audible, or other kind
of presentation that corresponded to it. You can’t
control what you can’t sense, but sometimes you can
control what you can sense, whether the sensing is
direct or by way of intermediaries. In Napoleonic
times, the general sensed the way the battlefield was
changing by way of couriers who came with information
and went with instructions.

                    Also, we consider that only level 1

systems produce physical forces, whereas higher
level systems produce reference values. I’m
confused about human behavior as concerns a
special case. This case is where we use
physical force to push a button on a machine,
but our machine doesn’t translate this force
into some other physical force per se; but
rather, for instance, into acoustic or
electromagnetic waves.

              The control system that produced the forces got its

reference values from one that was perceiving whether
the button had been pushed or not. That one got its
reference value from some other control system,
perhaps one controlling for the level of the music
that would be produced by the box with the button. The
“level of music” control unit perceives nothing except
the level of the music, and does nothing except
produce an output that changes according to the
discrepancy between the perceived level of music and
the reference level of music. How the level changes
when this output is distributed to lower-level systems
is none of its business. If the system as a whole has
been effectively reorganized, the “level of music”
output will provide a reference value to such systems
as one that perceives whether a button has been
pushed, or perhaps one that perceives the rotation
state of some knob, or something like that.

                    I mean, look, it becomes pure geometric

patterns at this point, not F=ma.

              It really doesn't matter what happens in the external

environment. What matters is what happens at the
sensory inputs. Nothing in the control structure
(hierarchy) can deal with what cannot be sensed (or is
not built on what has been sensed over the lifetime of
the organism).

                    And furthermore, at this point, regarding

the imaginary internal model of the environment

• which PCT obviates in the “non-special case”
  of “ordinary” behavior - I think this imaginary
  internal model becomes much more meaningful than
  the raw perceptual signal itself (because sound
  and electromagnetism are invisible).

              Imagination is often useful, but it is irrelevant in

the case at hand, unless the person pushing the button
enjoys imagining all the transformations of energy
flows, solving Maxwell’s equations, figuring out how
the loudspeaker diaphragm is pulsing, and so forth.
People often do enjoy such esoterica, but they don’t
usually interfere with normal everyday control of
things like pushing a button to turn on a radio.

                    And so, at this point, we might consider the

fact that we are no longer applying actions
directly to the environment,

              Oh, yes we are. The physical force on the button is

it. All else is how changes in one part of the
environment influence changes in other parts of the
environment until those changes get to our sensors.
Nice if you want to build theories about what is
happening, but not helpful to the person just wanting
to hear the latest pop song.

                    but purely to our internal models of reality.

              I'll bet not one in a thousand or even one in a

million of the people who turn on a radio think at all
about the very clever things generations of scientists
have imagined and generations of engineers have
produced to provide the noise the people want to hear.

                    Think of it like this: the guys who built

the pyramids didn’t use mathematical sofware to
envision the force fields because they didn’t
need to run 80 trillion computations. They just
knew the right shape to use; they had the
correct imaginary model.

              But they did know when their perception of what the

shape should be matched their reference for what it
should be. That’s what they needed, apart from all
sorts of engineering know-how about preparing the
outline, shaping and moving big stones, and so forth.
Even there, after reorganization, they needed no
imagination to do the job.

              Martin

http://www.human-resonance.org/pyramid.html

                    This site has information about the relation

between phi and the pyramids, as well as the
relation between phi, schumann resonance, alpha
brain waves, and DNA.

Best Regards,

Phil

                    On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at

9:41 PM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
wrote:

                        [Martin

Taylor 2014.08.24.00.25]

                                [From Rick

Marken (2014.08.23.1900)]

                                    Martin Taylor

(2014.08.22.22.57)–

                                              RM: I would rather

say that controlling a
perceptual variable
implies controlling
the environmental
correlate of the
perceptual
variable…

                                    MT: The problem with this, and

it is a bone I have picked with
Bill as well, is that the same
is true of EVERY perception.
Bill seemed to take an
internally inconsistent view,
saying on the one hand that all
we ever know is our perception,
no matter what kind of
perception it might be, and on
the other hand that there were
some privileged environmental
variables that are “real” and
some that are not.

                                  RM: I think Bill's point was

that the environment in PCT is
simply the current model of
physics and chemistry. This is the
model of what is on the “other
side” of our sensory receptors.
The sensory receptors are the
first step in the perceptual
process. The physics model of the
environment does suggest that the
sensory receptors transduce
certain physical variables into
neural impulses; for example, the
cone cells in the retina seem to
transduce electromagnetic energy
of a particular frequency, into
neural impulses. Perhaps this is
what you think of as the
“privileged” physical variables;
the variables that are in the
physics model.

                        I think we understand one another, and it 

is such a small “angels on a pin-head” point
that I don’t feel like digging into the very
slight difference in emphasis that I think
does remain. It will probably remain a
disagreement that shows up from time to time
in the wording of some statement or other,
but probably not in an understanding of PCT.

                        But...

                                RM: According

to PCT, the perceptions that are
constructed are those that result in
the best control.

                        I understand how reorganization tends to

produce orthogonal control systems (as in
the demo you link), and much more complex
structural relationships besides. But I
strongly disagree with your “looking for the
lost key under the street lamp” description
of what perceptual functions “PCT” says are
developed and maintained through
reorganization.

                        As I understand it, the function of

reorganization is to produce a structure
that controls certain perceptual variables
in ways that result in keeping other
variables that are important to life and the
propagation of the species near their
genetically determined reference levels.

                        One can easily control all sorts of

variables, but it cannot be true that the
sole criterion for constructing perceptual
functions is that the resulting perceptions
are easy to control well. After all,
apparently Nero was an acceptable musician,
and could control his instrument (certainly
not a fiddle) more easily than he could
control his perception of the physical
security of Rome. But he could perceive Rome
burning, just as he could perceive what
notes he was playing.

                            Martin

[PHILIP_JERAIR_YERANO]

[philip 8/26/14 10:40]

MT:

My point was that when you are doing a muscular action that results in a reduction in error of a controlled perception for that control system substructure, it is irrelevant how effects of the muscular action are transformed and propagated through the environment.

PY:

What do you mean it’s ‘irrelevant’? I’m thinking you’re referring to the general control system architecture, where a control system does not need to compute the effects of the muscular action on an internal model of the environment to predict its output. But surely transformations and propagations happening in the environment cannot be irrelevant.

And what do you mean that “planning is control in imagination”?

MY:

Planning is control in imagination. If they wanted a square shape, that was something they imagined. But they didn’t have to imagine how to make a square shape once they had found out how to do it and had perhaps been taught the technique in school

PY:

It seems, again, like you’re trying to remove imagination from the equation by invoking the processes of learning and reorganization.

···

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 8:56 PM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2104.08.25.23.29]

  On 2014/08/25 7:13 PM, PHILIP JERAIR

YERANOSIAN wrote:

  Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with you. It seems the main point you're

trying to make is that anything we imagine about what’s happening
in the environment simply doesn’t matter because you can always
“rephrase the question” as something that relates only to sensory
information.

That's not my point. My point was that when you are doing a muscular

action (pushing a button) that results in a reduction in error of a
controlled perception (hearing your music), for that control
system substructure it is irrelevant how effects of the muscular
action are transformed and propagated through the environment to
become music you hear. If you are simultaneously controlling other
perceptions in imagination, then you are doing that as well as
turning on the radio by your muscular action.

Such as ...

  ... when you're contemplating what goes on inside

the atom.

Or designing a radio that will, when built, allow a button pushed by

someone you never met to provide them with music you would never
want to listen to.

    I imagine that there's something different about what people

want and what matter “wants”. You bring up the example of music
on the radio. What people want to hear is just a matter of
memory and preference, as PCT says everything is. It’s just
a reference with a specific origin in time. But what the atom
“wants” is timeless and eternal.

That depends on how you look at it. What the atom is capable of

doing may be timeless and eternal, but what it “wants” seems to me
to be quite variable, depending on how its valence electrons are
being shared among its neighbours, if any. Having said that, if we
look at what was on that golden disk sent out with the Voyager
spacecraft, much of it was based on the idea that the reality that
woul be observed by anyone clever enough to collect the spacecraft
would include the same mathematical relationships we know, and the
same periodic table of the elements (If I remember correctly).

    And then you said this in reference to the pyramid

builders’ knowledge of what the “right shape” should be.

MT:

        they

did know when their perception of what the shape should be
matched their reference for what it should be. That’s what
they needed, apart from all sorts of engineering know-how
about preparing the outline, shaping and moving big stones,
and so forth. Even there, after reorganization, they needed
no imagination to do the job.

PY:
Could you explain more about what you’re trying to say here?
Notice that in the first sentence you say, “they knew when their
perception of what the shape should be (-this is a
reference-) matched their reference for what it should be”.

I wrote nonsense, didn't I! I should have written "they knew when

their perception of what the shape is matched their reference for
what it should be".

"What it should be" refers to imagination. Planning is control in

imagination. If they wanted a square shape, that was something they
imagined. But they didn’t have to imagine how to make a square shape
once they had found out how to do it and had perhaps been taught the
technique in school. That’s control of a program-level perception in
Bill’s hierarchy.

    I don't think you meant to imply a reference for the

reference. But supposing you might have, this would imply a
controlled perception of the reference value. But it seems you
were trying to make a totally different point instead. Suppose
however that phi is what everything is supposed to be,
independent of what anybody says, because we see it in the
stars. Then we’d hypothetically be trying to figure out
exactly how to describe, in terms of the most universal
number, what our reference should be (the reference of the
reference).

One can imagine all sorts if things, but I wonder whether it is

possible to imagine anything that is not, at base, composed of
things you have experienced, possibly fitted together in ways you
have not experienced. Whether your imagining proves to have some
connection with your control of your perceptions is something else
again. Mathematics makes possible some really wild connections. My
favourite example is the extraordinary chain starting from some
laboratory observations to the prediction of some flashes of light
in an underground chamber because there was a flash in the sky
(Supernova in one of the Magellanic clouds a few years back). If you
can create similar wonders by contemplating the golden ratio,
fantastic. I’m not going to try.

Incidentally, why is one named irrational number more universal than

another? Isn’t “e^(i*pi) = -1” rather a dramatic indicator that e
and pi might be rather universally important?

Martin

          On Monday, August 25, 2014, Martin Taylor <mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net              >

wrote:

              [Martin Taylor

2014.08.25.17.50]

[philip 8/25/14 13:20]

MT:

                    As I understand it, the function of

reorganization is to produce a structure that
controls certain perceptual variables in ways
that result in keeping other variables that are
important to life and the propagation of the
species near their genetically determined
reference levels.

PY:

                    I'm being very serious here.  Is there any

concept of the electromagnetic structure of DNA
being a controlled variable?

              No, but it could be, if someone were to create a

device that provided a visible, audible, or other kind
of presentation that corresponded to it. You can’t
control what you can’t sense, but sometimes you can
control what you can sense, whether the sensing is
direct or by way of intermediaries. In Napoleonic
times, the general sensed the way the battlefield was
changing by way of couriers who came with information
and went with instructions.

                    Also, we consider that only level 1

systems produce physical forces, whereas higher
level systems produce reference values. I’m
confused about human behavior as concerns a
special case. This case is where we use
physical force to push a button on a machine,
but our machine doesn’t translate this force
into some other physical force per se; but
rather, for instance, into acoustic or
electromagnetic waves.

              The control system that produced the forces got its

reference values from one that was perceiving whether
the button had been pushed or not. That one got its
reference value from some other control system,
perhaps one controlling for the level of the music
that would be produced by the box with the button. The
“level of music” control unit perceives nothing except
the level of the music, and does nothing except
produce an output that changes according to the
discrepancy between the perceived level of music and
the reference level of music. How the level changes
when this output is distributed to lower-level systems
is none of its business. If the system as a whole has
been effectively reorganized, the “level of music”
output will provide a reference value to such systems
as one that perceives whether a button has been
pushed, or perhaps one that perceives the rotation
state of some knob, or something like that.

                    I mean, look, it becomes pure geometric

patterns at this point, not F=ma.

              It really doesn't matter what happens in the external

environment. What matters is what happens at the
sensory inputs. Nothing in the control structure
(hierarchy) can deal with what cannot be sensed (or is
not built on what has been sensed over the lifetime of
the organism).

                    And furthermore, at this point, regarding

the imaginary internal model of the environment

• which PCT obviates in the “non-special case”
  of “ordinary” behavior - I think this imaginary
  internal model becomes much more meaningful than
  the raw perceptual signal itself (because sound
  and electromagnetism are invisible).

              Imagination is often useful, but it is irrelevant in

the case at hand, unless the person pushing the button
enjoys imagining all the transformations of energy
flows, solving Maxwell’s equations, figuring out how
the loudspeaker diaphragm is pulsing, and so forth.
People often do enjoy such esoterica, but they don’t
usually interfere with normal everyday control of
things like pushing a button to turn on a radio.

                    And so, at this point, we might consider the

fact that we are no longer applying actions
directly to the environment,

              Oh, yes we are. The physical force on the button is

it. All else is how changes in one part of the
environment influence changes in other parts of the
environment until those changes get to our sensors.
Nice if you want to build theories about what is
happening, but not helpful to the person just wanting
to hear the latest pop song.

                    but purely to our internal models of reality.

              I'll bet not one in a thousand or even one in a

million of the people who turn on a radio think at all
about the very clever things generations of scientists
have imagined and generations of engineers have
produced to provide the noise the people want to hear.

                    Think of it like this: the guys who built

the pyramids didn’t use mathematical sofware to
envision the force fields because they didn’t
need to run 80 trillion computations. They just
knew the right shape to use; they had the
correct imaginary model.

              But they did know when their perception of what the

shape should be matched their reference for what it
should be. That’s what they needed, apart from all
sorts of engineering know-how about preparing the
outline, shaping and moving big stones, and so forth.
Even there, after reorganization, they needed no
imagination to do the job.

              Martin

http://www.human-resonance.org/pyramid.html

                    This site has information about the relation

between phi and the pyramids, as well as the
relation between phi, schumann resonance, alpha
brain waves, and DNA.

Best Regards,

Phil

                    On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at

9:41 PM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
wrote:

                        [Martin

Taylor 2014.08.24.00.25]

                        I think we understand one another, and it 

is such a small “angels on a pin-head” point
that I don’t feel like digging into the very
slight difference in emphasis that I think
does remain. It will probably remain a
disagreement that shows up from time to time
in the wording of some statement or other,
but probably not in an understanding of PCT.

                        But...

                        I understand how reorganization tends to

produce orthogonal control systems (as in
the demo you link), and much more complex
structural relationships besides. But I
strongly disagree with your “looking for the
lost key under the street lamp” description
of what perceptual functions “PCT” says are
developed and maintained through
reorganization.

                        As I understand it, the function of

reorganization is to produce a structure
that controls certain perceptual variables
in ways that result in keeping other
variables that are important to life and the
propagation of the species near their
genetically determined reference levels.

                        One can easily control all sorts of

variables, but it cannot be true that the
sole criterion for constructing perceptual
functions is that the resulting perceptions
are easy to control well. After all,
apparently Nero was an acceptable musician,
and could control his instrument (certainly
not a fiddle) more easily than he could
control his perception of the physical
security of Rome. But he could perceive Rome
burning, just as he could perceive what
notes he was playing.

                            Martin

                                [From Rick

Marken (2014.08.23.1900)]

                                    Martin Taylor

(2014.08.22.22.57)–

                                    MT: The problem with this, and

it is a bone I have picked with
Bill as well, is that the same
is true of EVERY perception.
Bill seemed to take an
internally inconsistent view,
saying on the one hand that all
we ever know is our perception,
no matter what kind of
perception it might be, and on
the other hand that there were
some privileged environmental
variables that are “real” and
some that are not.

                                  RM: I think Bill's point was

that the environment in PCT is
simply the current model of
physics and chemistry. This is the
model of what is on the “other
side” of our sensory receptors.
The sensory receptors are the
first step in the perceptual
process. The physics model of the
environment does suggest that the
sensory receptors transduce
certain physical variables into
neural impulses; for example, the
cone cells in the retina seem to
transduce electromagnetic energy
of a particular frequency, into
neural impulses. Perhaps this is
what you think of as the
“privileged” physical variables;
the variables that are in the
physics model.

                                              RM: I would rather

say that controlling a
perceptual variable
implies controlling
the environmental
correlate of the
perceptual
variable…

                                RM: According

to PCT, the perceptions that are
constructed are those that result in
the best control.

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.26.16.54]

 Predicting output isn't part of

PCT, as usually considered. Acting is.
If I discuss a situation in which imagination is used, how am I
“trying to remove imagination from the equation”? The only reason I
mentioned it was to point out that within PCT imagination is
required. It just isn’t required when you want to hear music and
have learned to get it by pushing a button.
Martin

···

[philip 8/26/14 10:40]

MT:

        My

point was that when you are doing a muscular action that
results in a reduction in error of a controlled perception
for that control system substructure, it is irrelevant how
effects of the muscular action are transformed and
propagated through the environment.

PY:

        What do you mean it's

‘irrelevant’? I’m thinking you’re referring to the general
control system architecture, where a control system does not
need to compute the effects of the muscular action on an
internal model of the environment to predict its output.
But surely transformations and propagations happening in
the environment cannot be irrelevant.

  Not irrelevant to the analyst

considering how the entire control loop works. Irrelevant to the
one doing the controlling.

        And what do you mean that

“planning is control in imagination”?

MY:

        Planning

is control in imagination. If they wanted a square shape,
that was something they imagined. But they didn’t have to
imagine how to make a square shape once they had found out
how to do it and had perhaps been taught the technique in
school

PY:

        It seems, again, like you're

trying to remove imagination from the equation by invoking
the processes of learning and reorganization.

      On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 8:56 PM, Martin

Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
wrote:

          [Martin Taylor

2104.08.25.23.29]

              On 2014/08/25 7:13 PM, PHILIP JERAIR YERANOSIAN

wrote:

              Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with you. It seems the main

point you’re trying to make is that anything we
imagine about what’s happening in the environment
simply doesn’t matter because you can always “rephrase
the question” as something that relates only to
sensory information.

          That's not my point. My point was that when you are doing

a muscular action (pushing a button) that results in a
reduction in error of a controlled perception (hearing
your music), for that control system substructure it is
irrelevant how effects of the muscular action are
transformed and propagated through the environment to
become music you hear. If you are simultaneously
controlling other perceptions in imagination, then you are
doing that as well as turning on the radio by your
muscular action.

          Such as ...

            ... when you're contemplating

what goes on inside the atom.

          Or designing a radio that will, when built, allow a button

pushed by someone you never met to provide them with music
you would never want to listen to.

                I imagine that there's something different about

what people want and what matter “wants”. You bring
up the example of music on the radio. What people
want to hear is just a matter of memory and
preference, as PCT says everything is. It’s just
a reference with a specific origin in time. But what
the atom “wants” is timeless and eternal.

          That depends on how you look at it. What the atom is

capable of doing may be timeless and eternal, but what it
“wants” seems to me to be quite variable, depending on how
its valence electrons are being shared among its
neighbours, if any. Having said that, if we look at what
was on that golden disk sent out with the Voyager
spacecraft, much of it was based on the idea that the
reality that woul be observed by anyone clever enough to
collect the spacecraft would include the same mathematical
relationships we know, and the same periodic table of the
elements (If I remember correctly).

                And then you said this in reference to the

pyramid builders’ knowledge of what the “right
shape” should be.

MT:

                    they

did know when their perception of what the shape
should be matched their reference for what it
should be. That’s what they needed, apart from
all sorts of engineering know-how about
preparing the outline, shaping and moving big
stones, and so forth. Even there, after
reorganization, they needed no imagination to do
the job.

PY:
Could you explain more about what you’re trying
to say here? Notice that in the first sentence you
say, “they knew when their perception of what the
shape should be (-this is a reference-) matched
their reference for what it should be”.

          I wrote nonsense, didn't I! I should have written "they

knew when their perception of what the shape is matched
their reference for what it should be".

          "What it should be" refers to imagination. Planning is

control in imagination. If they wanted a square shape,
that was something they imagined. But they didn’t have to
imagine how to make a square shape once they had found out
how to do it and had perhaps been taught the technique in
school. That’s control of a program-level perception in
Bill’s hierarchy.

                I don't think you meant to imply a reference for

the reference. But supposing you might have, this
would imply a controlled perception of the reference
value. But it seems you were trying to make a
totally different point instead. Suppose
however that phi is what everything is supposed to
be, independent of what anybody says, because we see
it in the stars. Then we’d hypothetically be trying
to figure out exactly how to describe, in terms of
the most universal number, what our
reference should be (the reference of the
reference).

          One can imagine all sorts if things, but I wonder whether

it is possible to imagine anything that is not, at base,
composed of things you have experienced, possibly fitted
together in ways you have not experienced. Whether your
imagining proves to have some connection with your control
of your perceptions is something else again. Mathematics
makes possible some really wild connections. My favourite
example is the extraordinary chain starting from some
laboratory observations to the prediction of some flashes
of light in an underground chamber because there was a
flash in the sky (Supernova in one of the Magellanic
clouds a few years back). If you can create similar
wonders by contemplating the golden ratio, fantastic. I’m
not going to try.

          Incidentally, why is one named irrational number more

universal than another? Isn’t “e^(i*pi) = -1” rather a
dramatic indicator that e and pi might be rather
universally important?

              Martin

                        On Monday, August 25, 2014, Martin Taylor

<mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
>
wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.25.17.50]

[philip 8/25/14 13:20]

MT:

                                  As I understand it, the

function of reorganization is to
produce a structure that controls
certain perceptual variables in
ways that result in keeping other
variables that are important to
life and the propagation of the
species near their genetically
determined reference levels.

PY:

                                  I'm being very serious here. 

Is there any concept
of the electromagnetic
structure of DNA being a
controlled variable?

                            No, but it could be, if someone were to

create a device that provided a visible,
audible, or other kind of presentation
that corresponded to it. You can’t
control what you can’t sense, but
sometimes you can control what you can
sense, whether the sensing is direct or
by way of intermediaries. In Napoleonic
times, the general sensed the way the
battlefield was changing by way of
couriers who came with information and
went with instructions.

                                  Also, we consider that only

level 1 systems produce physical
forces, whereas higher level
systems produce reference values.
I’m confused about human behavior
as concerns a special case.
This case is where we use physical
force to push a button on a
machine, but our machine
doesn’t translate this force into
some other physical force per se;
but rather, for instance, into
acoustic or electromagnetic
waves.

                            The control system that produced the

forces got its reference values from one
that was perceiving whether the button
had been pushed or not. That one got its
reference value from some other control
system, perhaps one controlling for the
level of the music that would be
produced by the box with the button. The
“level of music” control unit perceives
nothing except the level of the music,
and does nothing except produce an
output that changes according to the
discrepancy between the perceived level
of music and the reference level of
music. How the level changes when this
output is distributed to lower-level
systems is none of its business. If the
system as a whole has been effectively
reorganized, the “level of music” output
will provide a reference value to such
systems as one that perceives whether a
button has been pushed, or perhaps one
that perceives the rotation state of
some knob, or something like that.

                                  I mean, look, it becomes pure

geometric patterns at this point,
not F=ma.

                            It really doesn't matter what happens in

the external environment. What matters
is what happens at the sensory inputs.
Nothing in the control structure
(hierarchy) can deal with what cannot be
sensed (or is not built on what has been
sensed over the lifetime of the
organism).

                                  And furthermore, at this

point, regarding the imaginary
internal model of the environment

• which PCT obviates in the
  “non-special case” of “ordinary”
  behavior - I think this imaginary
  internal model becomes much more
  meaningful than the raw perceptual
  signal itself (because sound and
  electromagnetism are invisible).

                            Imagination is often useful, but it is

irrelevant in the case at hand, unless
the person pushing the button enjoys
imagining all the transformations of
energy flows, solving Maxwell’s
equations, figuring out how the
loudspeaker diaphragm is pulsing, and so
forth. People often do enjoy such
esoterica, but they don’t usually
interfere with normal everyday control
of things like pushing a button to turn
on a radio.

                                  And so, at this point, we

might consider the fact that we
are no longer applying actions
directly to the environment,

                            Oh, yes we are. The physical force on

the button is it. All else is how
changes in one part of the environment
influence changes in other parts of the
environment until those changes get to
our sensors. Nice if you want to build
theories about what is happening, but
not helpful to the person just wanting
to hear the latest pop song.

                                  but purely to our internal

models of reality.

                            I'll bet not one in a thousand or even

one in a million of the people who turn
on a radio think at all about the very
clever things generations of scientists
have imagined and generations of
engineers have produced to provide the
noise the people want to hear.

                                  Think of it like this: the

guys who built the pyramids didn’t
use mathematical sofware to
envision the force fields
because they didn’t need to run 80
trillion computations. They just
knew the right shape to use; they
had the correct imaginary model.

                            But they did know when their perception

of what the shape should be matched
their reference for what it should be.
That’s what they needed, apart from all
sorts of engineering know-how about
preparing the outline, shaping and
moving big stones, and so forth. Even
there, after reorganization, they needed
no imagination to do the job.

                            Martin

http://www.human-resonance.org/pyramid.html

                                  This site has information about

the relation between phi and the
pyramids, as well as the relation
between phi, schumann resonance,
alpha brain waves, and DNA.

Best Regards,

Phil

                                  On Sat, Aug

23, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Martin Taylor
mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
wrote:

                                      [Martin

Taylor 2014.08.24.00.25]

                                              [From

Rick Marken
(2014.08.23.1900)]

                                                  Martin

Taylor
(2014.08.22.22.57)–

                                                      RM: I

would rather
say that
controlling a
perceptual
variable
implies
controlling
the
environmental
correlate of
the perceptual
variable…

                                                  MT: The problem

with this, and it
is a bone I have
picked with Bill
as well, is that
the same is true
of EVERY
perception. Bill
seemed to take an
internally
inconsistent view,
saying on the one
hand that all we
ever know is our
perception, no
matter what kind
of perception it
might be, and on
the other hand
that there were
some privileged
environmental
variables that are
“real” and some
that are not.

                                                RM: I think

Bill’s point was
that the environment
in PCT is simply the
current model of
physics and
chemistry. This is
the model of what is
on the “other side”
of our sensory
receptors. The
sensory receptors
are the first step
in the perceptual
process. The physics
model of the
environment does
suggest that the
sensory receptors
transduce certain
physical variables
into neural
impulses; for
example, the cone
cells in the retina
seem to transduce
electromagnetic
energy of a
particular
frequency, into
neural impulses.
Perhaps this is what
you think of as the
“privileged”
physical variables;
the variables that
are in the physics
model.

                                      I think we understand one

another, and it is such a
small “angels on a pin-head”
point that I don’t feel like
digging into the very slight
difference in emphasis that I
think does remain. It will
probably remain a disagreement
that shows up from time to
time in the wording of some
statement or other, but
probably not in an
understanding of PCT.

                                      But...

                                              RM:

According to PCT, the
perceptions that are
constructed are those
that result in the
best control.

                                      I understand how

reorganization tends to
produce orthogonal control
systems (as in the demo you
link), and much more complex
structural relationships
besides. But I strongly
disagree with your “looking
for the lost key under the
street lamp” description of
what perceptual functions
“PCT” says are developed and
maintained through
reorganization.

                                      As I understand it, the

function of reorganization is
to produce a structure that
controls certain perceptual
variables in ways that result
in keeping other variables
that are important to life and
the propagation of the species
near their genetically
determined reference levels.

                                      One can easily control all

sorts of variables, but it
cannot be true that the sole
criterion for constructing
perceptual functions is that
the resulting perceptions are
easy to control well. After
all, apparently Nero was an
acceptable musician, and could
control his instrument
(certainly not a fiddle) more
easily than he could control
his perception of the physical
security of Rome. But he could
perceive Rome burning, just as
he could perceive what notes
he was playing.

                                          Martin

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.28.00.01]

In my understanding that function is NEVER in the environment. It is

ALWAYS and ONLY in the perceiving organism. The shorthand form “function in the environment” refers to a
projection of the internal operations that produce perceptions of
things in the environment onto those things. If you have a
perceptual signal created from an operation 2*(distance to San
Diego) + 3*(Aunt Lucy’s Age), there thereby exists a CEV that is
formed by that function. If you don’t have such a perceptual
function, nothing in the environment will create such a CEV.
I went into all this in my small manifesto [Martin Taylor
2014.08.22.22.57] i which I said that I thought that the “physical”
variables that directly influence the sensor systems should have no
privileged position. They, like everything else perceived as being
in the environment, are constructed by the operations inside the
organism that lead to perceptual signals.
At least that’s my position. The Complex Environmental Variable is
presumed to exist in the environment because we assume an
environment does actually exist, but the fucntion that defines it is
entirely within the organism. When a perceptual signal exists, so
does a CEV. That doesn’t prevent me from using a shorthand form of
wording when I think that I will be understood as I intend, even if
I turn out to be wrong, as on this occasion.
Martin

···

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.27.2040)]

              Martin Taylor

(2014.08.27.13.48)

              MT: The Complex ENVIRONMENTAL Variable is a function

in the environment of some variables in the
environment. It corresponds to a perception inside an
organism (a person, perhaps). If the variables are the
environmental correlates of what the peripheral
sensors send into the organism, then that’s what they
are. But they don’t have to be. The point is that
changing the value of the CEV will also change the
value of the corresponding perceptual signal. It is
something you perceive to be in the environment.

            RM: The only disagreement I have is that it is not

necessarily true that what you call the Complex
Environmental Variable is a function * in the
environment* of some variables in the environment.
The function that relates the variables is not
necessarily in the environment.

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.28.0820)]

···

Martin Taylor (2014.08.28.00.01) –

MT: In my understanding that function is NEVER in the environment. It is

ALWAYS and ONLY in the perceiving organism.

The shorthand form "function in the environment" refers to a

projection of the internal operations that produce perceptions of
things in the environment onto those things. If you have a
perceptual signal created from an operation 2*(distance to San
Diego) + 3*(Aunt Lucy’s Age), there thereby exists a CEV that is
formed by that function. If you don’t have such a perceptual
function, nothing in the environment will create such a CEV.

RM: We are completely on the same page!

RM: So what did you think of my little electronics demo of a test for a CEV? I was kind of happy with it, modest though it is, because I’ve always had difficulty with electronics, probably as a result of my having inserted a key into an electrical outlet when I was about 3. From that point on I’ve had a rather shaky relationship with electricity.

Best regards

Rick

I went into all this in my small manifesto [Martin Taylor

2014.08.22.22.57] i which I said that I thought that the “physical”
variables that directly influence the sensor systems should have no
privileged position. They, like everything else perceived as being
in the environment, are constructed by the operations inside the
organism that lead to perceptual signals.

At least that's my position. The Complex Environmental Variable is

presumed to exist in the environment because we assume an
environment does actually exist, but the fucntion that defines it is
entirely within the organism. When a perceptual signal exists, so
does a CEV. That doesn’t prevent me from using a shorthand form of
wording when I think that I will be understood as I intend, even if
I turn out to be wrong, as on this occasion.

Martin

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

            RM: The only disagreement I have is that it is not

necessarily true that what you call the Complex
Environmental Variable is a function * in the
environment* of some variables in the environment.
The function that relates the variables is not
necessarily in the environment.

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.28.13.35]

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.28.0820)]

When my children were quit small, maybe 2 and 5, the younger managed

to shock himself by messing with an unprotected outlet while his
sister was watching. She became afraid of outlets. He didn’t. Make
of that and your own experience whatever you will.

As for your demo, I think we may be on the same page, but not

necessarily in the same paragraph. Yes, it’s a nice demo of the
great difficulty of discovering controlled variables in an organism
that has perceptual functions you neither have nor have imagined.

But I have problems with this: "But this demo also serves as a nice

demonstration of the point that the perception that a control system
controls does not necessarily correspond to a variable in the
environment. In this demo, the only relevant variables in the
environment are the sound vibrations and light waves. The linear
combination of sensed values of these variables is not in the
environment any more than any other linear or non linear combination
of these variables is out there."

But that variable is in your environment, which includes the robot,

because you made the robot so that it created it, and you could
actually measure it with a voltmeter if you wanted. Maybe it’s not
in the robot’s environment, but maybe it is, since you created it in
your mind, which is in the robot’s environment.

There's an alternative view, proposed, I think, by Wolfram. It is

that everything in the environment is (not is described by)
functions of variables in the environment. Our perceptions and
ability to control simply approximate some of the simpler ones. They
work because the approximation is adequate.

I don't see how it is possible to distinguish this view from a view

that asserts that there is indeed something “out there” that
impinges on our sensors and is influenced by our outputs. If there
is something “out there”, its components must interact in some
consistent fashion in order to produce consistent effects of our
outputs on our inputs. We take advantage of this consistency in
scientific research by seeing how doing different things to what we
perceive as being in the environment and seeing how what we perceive
changes as a consequence of our actions. Using mathematics, we make
long chains of inference about what might be out there and how it
all fits together, but sometimes these changes get dislodged and
replaced by others that describe the same results better or over a
wider range of conditions.

That's like your demo. You don't know what the robot is controlling,

but you have determined that it can hear sounds and that it can see
light. You know this because its output (input to you) changes
consistently if you change one or the other. But you don’t know what
the variable is that the robot is actually perceiving (which really
exists in the robot that is the surrogate for the external
environment) . It’s different for the light in the context of
different noise levels, and different for the noise in varying light
levels.

Suppose the robot also sensed something else you hadn't tested, say

the roughness of the floor, or whether two Hollywood celebrities
were still married, so that in the context of a smooth floor the
“perception controlled by the control system is a linear combination
of s1 and s2: p = k1s1+k2s2”, but as the floor gets rougher a
component of the form k3s3s1*s2 was added in (s3 is a measure of
roughness). This component is added negatively if the celebrities
are still married, positively otherwise.

You might have tested many levels of s1 and s2 on a smooth floor,

and perhaps you might have done some statistical analyses to find
that the results always fitted on a plane in the 3-D space of
output, s1, and s2 (noisy if this is the real world, but well fitted
by a plane). You then say to yourself “I think it’s controlling a
perception of a linear combination of s1 and s2”, and by
deliberately compensating in one robot input for a disturbance at
the other input, you test this hypothesis using the TCV.

Now the robot strays onto a rougher floor for which you yourself

have no sensor, and suddenly your measurements don’t work any more.
You have to keep changing how much light you add to compensate for a
particular sound change. It’s weird, but by trying a variety of
hypotheses you eventually find the truth. And then the celebrities
get divorced!

The robot (environment, to you) changes depending on context you

can’t observe. It’s not a perfect analogy, but I see a relation
between this and shifts such as that from Newtonian to Relativistic
mechanics, or, perhaps better, from phlogiston to entropy.

Anyway, the point is that your robot environment does compute a

function of variables that you have tested as being consistently
manipulable. At least that’s what your perception of a voltmeter
dial would suggest. “Really” what the robot does is allow you to
perceive what you call a “voltage” that has a consistent
relationship with other things you perceive. You perceive that
consistency as the robot computing a function. Wolfram proposes that
the real world does exactly the same. The fact that we can
consistently make a glass of lemonade that we like argues that the
universe does have way that consistently links lemons, water, sugar,
etc. with a perception we create from our various sensor inputs
(would we drink from a lemonade glass that crackled and whistled?).
Whether we create the “taste of lemonade” and impose that variable
on the environment, or whether Wolfram is right and we just discover
it among all the things that the equations of the universe permit,
is a question I know no way of addressing.

So I'm not going to worry any more about it, at least for now.

Martin

···

              Martin Taylor

(2014.08.28.00.01) –

              MT: In my understanding that function is NEVER in the

environment. It is ALWAYS and ONLY in the perceiving
organism.

              The shorthand form "function in the environment"

refers to a projection of the internal operations that
produce perceptions of things in the environment onto
those things. If you have a perceptual signal created
from an operation 2*(distance to San Diego) + 3*(Aunt
Lucy’s Age), there thereby exists a CEV that is formed
by that function. If you don’t have such a perceptual
function, nothing in the environment will create such
a CEV.

RM: We are completely on the same page!

            RM: So what did you think of my little electronics

demo of a test for a CEV? I was kind of happy with it,
modest though it is, because I’ve always had difficulty
with electronics, probably as a result of my having
inserted a key into an electrical outlet when I was
about 3. From that point on I’ve had a rather shaky
relationship with electricity.

                          RM: The only disagreement I have is

that it is not necessarily true that what
you call the Complex Environmental
Variable is a function * in the
environment* of some variables in the
environment. The function that relates the
variables is not necessarily * in the
environment*.

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.29.1250)]

···

Martin Taylor (2014.08.28.13.35)–

MT: But I have problems with this: "But this demo also serves as a nice

demonstration of the point that the perception that a control system
controls does not necessarily correspond to a variable in the
environment. In this demo, the only relevant variables in the
environment are the sound vibrations and light waves. The linear
combination of sensed values of these variables is not in the
environment any more than any other linear or non linear combination
of these variables is out there."

MT: But that variable is in your environment, which includes the robot,

because you made the robot so that it created it, and you could
actually measure it with a voltmeter if you wanted.

RM: You can only measure it by combining the outputs of the appropriate voltmeters using the correct perceptual weighting.

MT: There's an alternative view, proposed, I think, by Wolfram. It is

that everything in the environment is (not is described by)
functions of variables in the environment. Our perceptions and
ability to control simply approximate some of the simpler ones. They
work because the approximation is adequate.

RM: I don’t think there is any problem with believing this in the sense that it doesn’t change the way we would do modeling and testing to understand the behavior of living control systems. We would still want to know what perceptions the system is controlling. But under the Wolfram view the perceptual systems would be viewed as detectors rather than constructors of perceptions. So a system that controls the perception p = .321s1+.867s2, where s1 is sound intensity and s2 is light intensity, has a perceptual function that detects this particular function of variables in the environment, rather than the function .313s1+.857s2 or any of the other infinite possible functions of s1 and s1 that are out there. It’s a strange way to look at things and it’s not the model of the environment that we get from physics and chemistry – and I know Bill wanted to keep PCT consistent with those models, since they work so well. But, again, I don’t think there is any practical problem – in terms of doing PCT research – created by seeing that way.

MT: Whether we create the "taste of lemonade" and impose that variable

on the environment, or whether Wolfram is right and we just discover
it among all the things that the equations of the universe permit,
is a question I know no way of addressing.

MT: So I’m not going to worry any more about it, at least for now.

RM: I’m completely with you on that!

Best

Rick

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2014.08.29.16.29]

I meant that since you constructed the robot to produce a particular

perceptual signal, you could put your voltmeter onto one of the
terminals of the wire that carries that signal.
So far, I agree.
Wolfram says it is.
Agreed.
Great. We confused Philip into thinking this thread had something to
do with PCT, which actually might have been the case initially. It has been a pleasant distraction from more pressing matters, so we
can agree to agree (or to disagree, whichever happens to be the
case), and drop it for now. No doubt it will come back again some
time in the future, as it does seem to have a habit of doing.
Martin

···

[From Rick Marken (2014.08.29.1250)]

            Martin Taylor

(2014.08.28.13.35)–

            MT: But I have problems with this: "But this demo also

serves as a nice demonstration of the point that the
perception that a control system controls does not
necessarily correspond to a variable in the environment.
In this demo, the only relevant variables in the
environment are the sound vibrations and light waves.
The linear combination of sensed values of these
variables is not in the environment any more than any
other linear or non linear combination of these
variables is out there."

            MT: But that variable is in your environment, which

includes the robot, because you made the robot so that
it created it, and you could actually measure it with a
voltmeter if you wanted.

          RM: You can only measure it by _combining_ the outputs

of the appropriate voltmeters using the correct perceptual
weighting.

            MT: There's an

alternative view, proposed, I think, by Wolfram. It is
that everything in the environment is (not is described
by) functions of variables in the environment. Our
perceptions and ability to control simply approximate
some of the simpler ones. They work because the
approximation is adequate.

          RM:  I don't think there is any problem with believing

this in the sense that it doesn’t change the way we would
do modeling and testing to understand the behavior of
living control systems. We would still want to know what
perceptions the system is controlling. But under the
Wolfram view the perceptual systems would be viewed as
detectors rather than constructors of perceptions. So a
system that controls the perception p = .321s1+.867s2,
where s1 is sound intensity and s2 is light intensity, has
a perceptual function that detects this particular
function of variables in the environment, rather than
the function .313s1+.857s2 or any of the other infinite
possible functions of s1 and s1 that are out there. It’s a
strange way to look at things

          and it's not the model of the environment that we get

from physics and chemistry

          -- and I know Bill wanted to keep PCT consistent with

those models, since they work so well. But, again, I don’t
think there is any practical problem – in terms of doing
PCT research – created by seeing that way.

            MT: Whether we

create the “taste of lemonade” and impose that variable
on the environment, or whether Wolfram is right and we
just discover it among all the things that the equations
of the universe permit, is a question I know no way of
addressing.

            MT: So I'm not going to worry any more about it, at

least for now.

      RM: I'm completely with you on that!