[Rick Marken (950208.1110)]
Martin Taylor (950206 15:30) --
Does everyone have the freedom to buy a 60ft yacht and keep it >moored in
Cannes?
If "freedom" means the ability, in principle, to control a result, then I'd
say "yes". Unlike controlling for travel faster than the speed of light, one
can control for "yacht at Cannes"; and it's been done. Of course, in
practice, most people are not free to control this result, either because
they lack the skill or the inclination. Lack of skill means that they don't
know how to produce this result -- they don't know how to rob, steal, cheat,
or exploit, for example, in order to get the money that gets the yacht. Lack
of inclination means that they have other goals (like being a Monk) that
either prevent the "yacht at Cannes" goal from being selected or that prevent
selection of the means necessary to achieve that goal.
Freedom 's just another word for "haven't got no goals"
Freedom is also just another word for "red herring"; the one that traditional
psychologists bring out as the alternative to the cause-effect model of
behaivor because 1) they have no idea that the cause-effect model IS a model
(rather than a scientific necessity) and 2) they are completely clueless
about the nature of control.
A control system is not free, but it is autonomous (it selects it's own
goals) and responsible (for the inputs it controls).
Lars Christian Smith (950208 12:30 CET) --
The example with driving on the right side of the road is an example >of
spontaneous order.
Spontaneous? Looks like it results from the fact that all the drivers are
control systems.
Such order may be the outcome of a positive feedback process.
If you've ever seen a positive feedback process in action, you'd know that
"order" is not the first thing that would come to mind when you watched it
behave; maybe som ething more like "catastrophe".
It is, of course, true that underlying this process there is a negative >
feedback process, people are avoiding accidents.
Correct! You've got it!
Do you have a disagreement with the characterization of this process >as a
flip-flop positive feedback process?
I have a disagrement with it. As you said, the left-right organization is a
side effect of people avoiding accidents. Where is the positive feedback
process. A positive feedback process is one where all variables in a causal
loop have positive effects on one another -- leading to a runaway increase in
all the variables. I don't see that happening in the traffic example (or any of
your otehr examples).
Maybe you could draw a diagram of the "flip-flop positive feedback" process
that you think is involved in the traffic example?
Best
Rick