[From Rick Marken (951024.2130)]
Peter J. Burke (241095.1300) --
Well, it is clear that "the test" by itself will not tell us if we have a
control system. I am glad we have that clear.
It's not clear to me -- so it's not clear to "we".
It seems to me that the Test "all by itself" does quite a good job of
determining whether we are dealing with the purposeful behavior of a
living system or not. The Test reveals very clearly that the behavior of a
marble is not purposeful. Remember, the basic idea of the Test is to see
whether disturbances have the _expected_ effect on a variable. You don't
have to be a rocket scientist to see that the effects of disturbances (created
by your hand, gravity, etc) to the position of the marble are exectly what
would be expected if the marble were just dead weight (which it is). It is
unnecessary to Test for input and output functions in the marble because
the Test has already proved that the marble does not control its position.
we must be very careful about what we contend is a control system and
not be so glib about saying that humans are control systems or that
[virtually] everything we do is part of one or more control systems.
Actually, we are not saying that humans are control systems; we are saying
that each human is a _hierarchical organization_ of many perceptual
control systems, each controlling a different perceptual variable.
I don't think we are being "glib" when we identify a control system after
carefully testing to determine that people can and do keep certain variables
under control. We have overwhelming evidence that people control
many different variables; have you read "Mind Readings", my collection
of papers describing experimental studies of control? Have you read the
experiments done by Bourbon, Robertson and Powers? We're not being
glib at all when we say that people -- and all living systems -- control.
We're being honest.
What is "glib" is the acceptance of an untested assumption about human
behavior -- the assumption that human behavior is _not_ purposeful;
that behavior is a "response" rather than a process of perceptual control.
Conventional behavioral scientists (like yourself) have glibly ignored
William James' elegant description (in the "Principles") of a method
(equivalent to the Test) that can be used to discriminate purposeful
systems (like Romeo) from non-purposeful ones (like iron filings).
Conventional behavioral scientists have glibly carried on as though there
were no difference between Romeo moving toward Juliet and filings
moving toward a magnet, between Mozart molding the Requim and the
Colorado molding the Grand Canyon, between a pilot landing at Anchorage
airport and a marble landing at the bottom of a bowl. That's _glib_.
I have been reading J.A. Scott Kelso's book _Dynamic Patters: The Self-
Organization of Brain and Behavor_, and he has a very different view of
the whole process involving principles of self-organization that
apparently subsumes much of what control-systems do.
Kelso has a different view because he has never bothered testing to see if
his "self-organizing systems" or the (systems they model) actually control.
Kelso's self-organizing systems are nothing but complicated versions of
marbles in bowls, pendula on strings and masses on springs; they are
dynamic systems that return to a stable state (bottom of bowl, plumb,
balanced forces) after a transient disturbance.
Kelso and associates have used one kind of "self-organizing system" -- a
mass on a spring -- as a model of hand positioning; adjustments of the
spring constant (which models adjustments of arm muscle tension) lead
to changes in the position of the mass (hand). The mass (model hand)
returns to its original position after a transient force disturbance to the
mass; but it remains out of position as long the force is applied to the
mass. Compare this to what happens when you apply a constant force to
someone's outstretched hand; if the force is not overwhelming, the hand
remains where it was before the force was applied; there is virtually no
displacement at all; the force does not have its expected effect. A simple
application of the Test would have saved Kelso a lot of wasted effort --
and the world of behavioral science a lot of confusion
So, I return to fundamentals.
What are the fundamentals, from your perspective? What could be more
fundamental to behavioral science than understanding the nature of
behavior itself?
PCT shows that the term "behavior" is ambiguous -- it refers to all results
of a system's actions. For most systems -- non-living systems -- all results
of actions are the same; they are (as Homer Simpson once said) just a bunch
of stuff that happens. PCT shows that for a certain kind of system -- a
control system -- all results of action are _not_ the same; some results are
_intended_ and some are not. PCT shows that you must know what kind of
"behavior" you are dealing with -- intended or unintended results of action --
before you can explain why these results occurred. The laws of physics and
chemistry already do a great job of explaining unintended results; control
theory, however, is required to explain intended results.
Rather than returning to the "fundamentals" it looks to me like you have
returned to the misconceptions (if you ever left).
Rick