[From Bill Powers (960203.1300 MST)]
Remi Cote (960203.0847(EST)) --
He said that etymology of control don't give any explaination of
the word as it is used today. I am from Quebec, so I owned a Petit
Robert (french dicti) Control come from "Contre-role"(1422) A
contre-role is a "registre de verification"A big book in wich
banker rewrite a doble of the figuere so someone could check them
to see if they coincide whit some sort of reference.
That is the term I was referring to, in Americanized form, as "counter-
roll." Come on, you French guys always pretend you don't understand a
foreigner's words if they're the slightest bit wrong. How do you think
we understand you?
Is all these post are copyright free(I give a course at U.de M. and
it may be interesting to share some content with student)?
All writings on the internet are considered (in America, and probably by
international copyright law) to be copyrighted. You have my permission
to quote any of my posts in your teaching work. Especially the part
about you French guys.
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Remi Cote 030296.1309EST --
For a same individual can there be situation in wich he has more
Powerian control, than in other? If yes, is a human who has more
Powerian control is more healthy, more happy, more adapted?
The comparison can only be made relative to a specific controlled
variable. It would be hard to say whether a person who can control for
an upright position is more healthy, happy, or adapted than a person who
can control for keeping warm.
Using the example of fire, a person who can act on the environment to
make fire is happier, healthier, or more adapted than a person who has
to wait for fire to occur naturally -- if we assume that fire increases
health, happiness, or adaptedness.
2) What are the quality of a good Powerian control? Can they be
bad or else, if they are not good they don't exist at all? All or
none kind of thing?
Good control means the ability to maintain some perceived aspect of the
environment (or the organism itself) in a particular desired condition.
If control is poor, then disturbances that tend to change the controlled
variable are not resisted very strongly, so the variable becomes very
different from what the organism wants. Good control means that
disturbances have very little effect, and the controlled variable is
kept in a match with whatever reference condition the person chooses.
Good control doesn't necessarily mean that the result is good for an
organism. If a person decides to control for staying drunk all of the
time, good control means that no matter what disturbances happen (like
other people hiding the liquor bottle), the person manages to stay drunk
anyway. Control theory does not say what we _should_ control. It merely
explains how we control whatever we do control.
3) Does a world with technology represent more frustration for
retrofaction system, or more possibility of frustration, because
the course of or live depend on so much more thing that are out of
Powerian control?
Of course a world with technology doesn't just happen by itself. It
consists of a lot of controlled variables that people have learned how
to control. But as Gousblom said (if I understand your brief review),
learning to control some things can produce new problems as well as
solve old ones. Most of the problems having to do with technology are
not technical problems, but social and psychological problems.
Technology has enabled us to produce enough food to feed everyone in the
world, even now. But hatred, greed, selfishness, and other human
problems prevent the distribution of the available food to those who
need it. The invention of fire -- that is, the ability to create it when
needed -- probably made many human lives better, but it also made arson
possible. Arson is not caused by fire, but by a person who sets a fire
to achieve goals most of us would not want see achieved.
4) Is there a way to escape from the obsession to control thing and
destiny? More precisely, can we stop trying to retrofact?
No. Control is all that makes life possible. If your body stopped
controlling the level of CO2 in your bloodstream, you would die in a few
minutes. If you lost the ability to make your hands move in the way you
want them to move, you would be helpless. In general, if you could not
make anything happen the way you wanted it to happen, you would be
governed by the environment, and the environment does not care whether
you live or die.
What is important is to avoid wasting energy and time trying to control
what can't be controlled. In particular, an obsession to control other
people -- other control systems -- leads to disaster in the long run,
even though it can work for short periods of time (a few lifetimes).
Human beings can control animals and plants because even though animals
and plants are control systems, human beings are much better control
systems and perceive aspects of the world that animals and plants can't
control. But when human beings try to control human beings, the most
likely result is conflict between approximately equal systems. Conflict
uses up resources and efforts by cancelling them out against each other,
and reduces the ability to control other things that are also important.
I trust that you realize I am using "control" MY way in talking with
you. You don't have any contrary definitions, so you know what I mean.
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Bruce Abbott (960203.1155 EST) --
Now here's one for you, Rick. (I can't resist either!) Does the
environment control behavior?
My answer is yes, the environment controls behavior. However, it does
not _determine_ behavior; it only influences it. I am using "control" in
the EAB sense, of course, where it can refer either to determination or
influence, but not to spontefaction.
The environment influences behavior and the organism's own organization
also influences behavior. To see this in more detail we have to
distinguish outcomes from actions. For those aspects of the environment
that are particularly important to the organism, the organism's
influence over the outcomes of action is much greater than the
environment's. In fact, certain outcomes of behavior are powerfully
spontefacted by the organism, so the influence of the environment on
those outcomes is reduced almost to zero and the organism comes close to
determining those outcomes.
"The environment" and "behavior" are collective terms, so nothing said
at that level of abstraction can be strictly true. Some parts of the
environment, which we call disturbances, are independent of behavior and
have a very strong influence on the part of behavior that we call
action. But the same disturbances, because of the action they seem to
elicit, have very little effect on the outcomes of action. Other parts
of the environment, which we call spontefacted input variables, are
strongly dependent on reference signals in the organism and are
essentially determined by the organism.
The environment determines what outcome will be produced by a given
action. The organism varies its actions to produce a specific outcome.
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Best to all,
Bill P.