# Fred's home heating system

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/freds-home-heating-system/4545>\
**Category:** CSG2000\
**Created:** [November 26, 2000, 3:30pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/freds-home-heating-system/4545 "2000-11-26T15:30:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bill_Powers1)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2000, 3:30pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/freds-home-heating-system/4545/1 "2000-11-26T15:30:57Z")

</div>

[from Mary Powers 2000.11.26]

Bruce A. winds up his post of 2000.11.24.1125 EST with:  
"And guess what, the process I've described comes down to two control  
loops, one nested inside the other".

Well, Ta-Da. There was a PCT rabbit in the hat after all. But it seems to  
me that no matter where you start, with EAB or whatever point of view, when  
you analyse living systems you will eventually get to control loops because  
that's what's there.

This is a bit odd in the case of EABers, at least some of whom find notions  
about what might be inside an organism "spooky" (your word).

As I understand it, a first principle of EAB is to understand behavior  
strictly in terms of what can be observed. In the case of organisms, this  
is going to mean trying to understand control loops, which loop through the  
organism into the environment and through the environment back into the  
organism, in terms of the environmental part only. And entirely in terms of  
what the organism is "doing" (behavior) rather than doing (varying actions  
to achieve a goal, satisfy a need, etc., etc.)

Accepting only what can be observed was a worthy goal at one time, because  
having goals, whether in oneself or one's mice, simply could not be handled  
conceptually. It necessarily invoked some kind of vitalist principle that  
living, apparently purposive, systems had and non-living ones did not.  
Spooky? You bet. Better to try to be objective and scientific and leave all  
that stuff out.

But the recognition that living systems are control systems has now been in  
the world for something like sixty years. Isn't it time for EABers (and any  
other behavioral, social or life scientists) to deal with that? You don't  
even have to use those horrid anthropomorphic terms like intention and  
purpose (except maybe when you are talking about people). "Reference  
signal" is surely as austere and neutral a term as "reinforcement".

It is paradoxical that while some people find any internal explanation for  
behavior (such as PCT) spooky, there are others who dislike PCT because it  
is too "mechanistic" (apparently, in some cases, people who want or need a  
mystery principle of life). As has been said a number of times, if you  
approach PCT with your own agenda (of using it to prove that what you have  
been thinking all along is right) you are bound to be dissatisfied.

Mary P.