Help with Wording

I need some help with wording.

Consider this statement: "Behavior is the control of perception(s)."

I can't get away with using that statement because people (including me)
will immediately say, "Oh no it isn't. Behavior is the activity of the
organism."

So, I can probably get away with saying, "Behavior serves to control
perception(s)."

I can also say and defend, "Behavior is all about the control of
perception(s)."

I can even get away with, "Behavior is the means by which we control our
perception(s)."

But no way can I get away with "Behavior is the control of perception(s)."

Help me out here. Is there a way to say that behavior is the control of
perception without saying that? Or, do I have it wrong? Should I not be
saying that behavior is the control of perception?

Fred Nickols
nickols@safe-t.net

[From Bill Powers (2003.02.01.1100 MST)]
Still in shock about the Shuttle.

Fred Nichols --

I need some help with wording.

Consider this statement: "Behavior is the control of perception(s)."

I can't get away with using that statement because people (including me)
will immediately say, "Oh no it isn't. Behavior is the activity of the
organism."

Try this: Behavior is the visible part of the process by which an organism
controls the world represented in its perceptions.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Bill Powers (2003.02.01.1702 MST)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.0201.1607 EST)

"Behavior" is generally understood as observable activity. It's even used
in this sense when speaking of things with no (discernible) volition: "the
behavior of a ping-pong ball under these aerodynamic conditions". This
confounds control actions with the action and reaction of physics -
Bateson's creatura and pleroma.

A truly admirable post, Bruce, and it's the right answer. The right answer
is not to think up another slogan, but to understand thoroughly what is
meant by control of perception, as you do. With understanding, you can
explain anything to anyone. Without it, all you can do is apply verbal
stimuli and hope for the right responses.

And I join in your concurrent with Isaac Kurtzer's recommendations.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Bill Powers (2003.02.02.01558 MST)]

Rick Marken (2003.02.02.1140)--
>it seemed appropriate in the case of my

little observation in response to the McLeod et al paper. I thought it was a
nice way to explain, in a short paper where there was not room to go into a
lot of "nuts and bolts", what was wrong with McLoed et al's concept of
control.

This is a problem though, and to see it you have to take the other guy's
point of view. Who are you to say that your concept of control is right and
his is wrong? Anybody can claim to have the right idea, but how do you
_prove_ you have the right one? Just being confident and "knowing" you are
right isn't nearly enough.

This is especially tough when you have to convince the other guy and his
admirers, not just a neutral bystander. I think this takes a huge amount of
diplomacy, tact, and empathy, and there's no guarantee that even those
somewhat scarce talents will suffice. At the very least you have to find
out exactly what the other person actually believes and what he or she
found convincing about it. I think this requires personal communication and
a very open approach. I'm speaking more about attitudes I wish I could
develop than about actual accomplishments, of course. I obviously have not
solved this problem any more than you have.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Bill Powers (2003.02.03.1420 MST)]

Rick Marken (2003.02.02.1755 PST)--

<That's why I don't write papers with the aim of convincing the other guy (or

his admirers) that I am right (or that he is wrong). I don't think it's
possible
to do that, no matter how empathetic, tactful or diplomatic one is. I
write these
papers in order to get the PCT point of view "out there" in front of an
audience
that might include someone who is like I was back in 1978.

To do that, you need to convince the gatekeepers, who are the ones who
approved of the "wrong" ideas enough to recommend publishing them. Now they
have to approve of the ideas you present, before they will decide to
publish your papers. If you like having one paper after another rejected,
you can say anything you please, but that guy who is just waiting for the
right paper will never see it.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Bill Powers (2003.02.04.1002 MST)]

Rick Marken (2003.03.02.03.1445)--

I had really forgotten how good your track record is. Please take my
comments as well-meant even if unnecessary. We all need to work diligently
on explaining PCT in terms accessible to everyone.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Bruce Nevin (2003.0201.1607 EST)]

I need some help with wording.

Consider this statement: "Behavior is the control of perception(s)."
[...]
Help me out here. Is there a way to say that behavior is the control of
perception without saying that?

"Behavior" is generally understood as observable activity. It's even used in this sense when speaking of things with no (discernible) volition: "the behavior of a ping-pong ball under these aerodynamic conditions". This confounds control actions with the action and reaction of physics - Bateson's creatura and pleroma.

The canonical formula "behavior is the control of perception" limits the reference of "behavior" to control actions. The behavior of a ping-pong ball is not control actions no matter what the aerodynamic conditions.

If you toss a cat out of a window, its twistings in the air are control actions, but its falling, like the falling of a ping-pong ball, is not a control action. On this view, the twistings about are behavior, but the falling is not.

This nicety of distinction is not shared when people are accustomed to expressions like "Variable moments and changing magnetic behavior of thin-film FeNi alloys", "Asymptotic behavior of variable-coefficient Toeplitz determinants", "FakeHash.pm is a Perl module that simulates the behavior of a Perl hash variable", and so on.

So we need to stipulate that we are talking not just about observable "activity" in the sense that someone might talk of the activity of leaves blowing around or wave action or ping-pong balls moving through the air, but rather about activity on purpose. "Purposeful activity is the [means of] control of perception."

We could argue that all observable actions of living organisms are control actions. To sustain this view, we would have to deny that the falling of the cat was an action, just as we would deny that changes in the moments and magnetic properties of alloys were actions.

We could argue that phenomena described as behavior of alloys, behavior of Toeplitz determinants, behavior of a Perl hash variable, and the like, are not behaviors at all. But these common uses of the word are metaphors, analogic extensions of the basic meaning of "behavior". In common usage, the objection that marks them as metaphoric is that these things are not living; for us, it is because they are not purposeful. For us to speak of the behavior of a thermostatic heating system or cruise control is not metaphoric, but in common usage, it is.

Going back to the common sense of the word "behavior" as "observable activity", there's an interesting consequence for the word "observable". In control theory, we shift attention from observing activity to observing a variable that resists disturbance - an absence of "activity" in the variable where, if it were a ping-pong ball, you could reliably expect "activity" to reflect the disturbance. Observing resistance of a variable to disturbance, we infer control even when no control actions have been observed. We can even infer control actions when they are not observable: imagine a situation where observation would require invasive procedures that would disrupt control or even kill the organism.

This is the crucial shift of attention that makes all the difference in communicating what control theory is about.

Those "observable activities" that have the effect of resisting disturbances to controlled variables are obviously control actions. "Observable activities" that are intended but fail to resist disturbances, such as the running motions of an animal when it is picked up, are also understood to be control actions and therefore "behavior". By hypothesis, all activities (other than those of the ping-pong sort) are control actions, either resisting disturbances to CVs or attempting to do so, though to prove that or even to prove the distinction would be difficult indeed.

The slogan "behavior is the control of perception" steps squarely in the middle of this in a rather demanding way. Small wonder that we have to explain ourselves. If you are prepared to, that may not be a bad thing.

If not, then an alternative to saying "behavior is the control of perception" is to say "behavior maintains perceptions at reference levels, that's what it's for" and just persist in careful PCT usage without comment or explanation, focusing instead on the "nuts and bolts" of how it's done (Isaac Kurtzer 2003.01.31.0930). You can even smile and nod when they say that organisms "control their actions" etc., agreeing that the reason they seem to do so is by maintaining certain perceptions at reference levels (Bruce Gregory 2003.0130.2024).

         /Bruce Nevin

···

At 07:08 PM 1/31/2003, Fred Nickols wrote:

[From Bruce Nevin (2003.0202.1522 EST]

07:05 PM Bill Powers (2003.02.01.1702 MST)--

···

At 07:05 PM 2/1/2003, Bill Powers wrote:

With understanding, you can
explain anything to anyone. Without it, all you can do is apply verbal
stimuli and hope for the right responses.

Thanks, Bill. High praise indeed. But to be fair, explaining requires more than understanding. The difference between saying and telling seems to involve figuring out what variables are being controlled.

         /Bruce Nevin

[From Rick Marken (2003.02.02.1140)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.0201.1607 EST)

an alternative to saying "behavior is the control of
perception" is to say "behavior maintains perceptions at reference levels,
that's what it's for" and just persist in careful PCT usage without comment
or explanation, focusing instead on the "nuts and bolts" of how it's done
(Isaac Kurtzer 2003.01.31.0930). You can even smile and nod when they say
that organisms "control their actions" etc., agreeing that the reason they
seem to do so is by maintaining certain perceptions at reference levels
(Bruce Gregory 2003.0130.2024).

Bill Powers (2003.02.01.1702 MST)]

And I join in your concurrent with Isaac Kurtzer's recommendations.

To the extent that I can understand these recommendations I think I agree.
It's certainly not my custom to write papers aimed at pointing out incorrect
or inconsistent word usage. But it seemed appropriate in the case of my
little observation in response to the McLeod et al paper. I thought it was a
nice way to explain, in a short paper where there was not room to go into a
lot of "nuts and bolts", what was wrong with McLoed et al's concept of
control. Remember that the conclusion of the McLoed et al paper was that
there is no "unified fielder theory" because there is currently no theory that
can account for a fielder's choice of paths to the ball.

I thought that a nice way to explain the "nuts and bolts" reason why this
conclusion was wrong was to point out that, in control theory, what fielders
chose is the perceptual variable to control, not the action (path) that keeps
it under control. I presented the "nuts and bolts" in the form of a model that
made the "path choices" observed by McLeod et al by "choosing" to control for
perceptions of optical velocity and lateral optical position.

It might have been a mistake (from a publication perspective) to evaluate the
verbalisms used by McLeod et al to describe catching behavior. But I think the
exercise was interesting (to me anyway). It showed why people who understand
control theory still can't get their arms around PCT. It's a conceptual
problem that is revealed by their use of language. But this conceptual problem
has a real influence on how people do their work. For example, McLeod et al
offer this piece of evidence that optic trajectory is not controlled:

"Departure of the optic trajectory from linearity correctly predicts whether
the fielder will run backwards or forwards on 51 (i.e., 7 + 44) out of 88
trials. This does not differ significantly from chance (P 2 (1) = 2.2, p >
0.1)".

This analysis reflects an S-R view of control. The possible controlled
variable (optic trajectory) is considered controlled only if it acts as the
stimulus for the appropriate actions (moving backward or forward). The
conclusion that optic trajectory is not controlled (kept linear), based on
data such as the above, is like saying that cursor position is not controlled
in a tracking task because deviations of the cursor from the target are not
correlated with appropriate handle movements (as we know that they are not,
unless control is poor).

Anyway, I appreciate the suggestions and I probably will refrain, in the
future, from pointing out incorrect word usage, even when I think it reflects
a correspondingly incorrect concept of how control works.

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
marken@mindreadings.com
310 474-0313

[From Rick Marken (2003.02.02.1755 PST)]

Bill Powers (2003.02.02.01558 MST)--

Rick Marken (2003.02.02.1140)--
>it seemed appropriate in the case of my
>little observation in response to the McLeod et al paper. I thought it was a
>nice way to explain, in a short paper where there was not room to go into a
>lot of "nuts and bolts", what was wrong with McLoed et al's concept of
>control.

This is a problem though, and to see it you have to take the other guy's
point of view. Who are you to say that your concept of control is right and
his is wrong?

Of course. I should have said "...what was wrong with McLoed et al's concept of
control _from my point of view_".

This is especially tough when you have to convince the other guy and his
admirers, not just a neutral bystander.I think this takes a huge amount of
diplomacy, tact, and empathy, and there's no guarantee that even those
somewhat scarce talents will suffice.

Yes. That's why I don't write papers with the aim of convincing the other guy (or
his admirers) that I am right (or that he is wrong). I don't think it's possible
to do that, no matter how empathetic, tactful or diplomatic one is. I write these
papers in order to get the PCT point of view "out there" in front of an audience
that might include someone who is like I was back in 1978. Someone who will read
your papers and then convinced themselves of the merit of your ideas by doing
research and modeling to test those ideas. That's why I think that you, too,
should continue trying to publish papers in major psychological journals. Not to
change minds but to get these wonderful ideas in front of an audience that might
include someone like me;-) It was, after all, your 1978 _Psychological Review_
article that launched my career in PCT. If you had not published that paper in a
major psychological journal I might not have become the enthusiastic PCT
researcher/modeler that I am today. (I don't know if you think that's such a good
thing, but I sure do;-)).

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
marken@mindreadings.com
310 474-0313

[From Rick Marken (2003.03.02.03.1445)]

Bill Powers (2003.02.03.1420 MST)

Rick Marken (2003.02.02.1755 PST) --

>That's why I don't write papers with the aim of convincing the other guy (or
>his admirers) that I am right (or that he is wrong). I don't think it's
>possible to do that, no matter how empathetic, tactful or diplomatic one is. I
>write these papers in order to get the PCT point of view "out there" in front
of an
>audience that might include someone who is like I was back in 1978.

To do that, you need to convince the gatekeepers, who are the ones who
approved of the "wrong" ideas enough to recommend publishing them.

Yes. Of course. And I've done a pretty good job of convincing the gatekeepers.
Since my first paper on PCT was published in 1980 I have published better than one
PCT-based paper every two years (.63 papers/year to be exact). I'm counting only
papers published in refereed journals, the one's protected by the "gatekeepers".
I'm not counting papers published by friendly editors (such Hershberger and
Taylor), invited papers or papers presented at professional meetings.

Now they
have to approve of the ideas you present, before they will decide to
publish your papers. If you like having one paper after another rejected,
you can say anything you please, but that guy who is just waiting for the
right paper will never see it.

I don't mind having papers rejected but I much prefer to have them accepted. Out
of the 17 papers I have submitted to professional journals over the last 20 years
or so, 14 have eventually been accepted for publication. Only three were
rejected so often that I finally gave up: "Blind Men and the Elephant" (BME),
"Hierarchical Behavior of Perception" (HBP) and, now, "Fielder's Choice"(FC). BME
and HBP are available in "More Mind Readings". I think you will find those papers
to be far more "politic" than FC. Yet all were rejected. I think you will also
find some rather impolitic things in many of my published papers. For example,
look at the comments I made about Turvey's work in my "Nature of Behavior" paper.
Also consider your own _Psych Review_ paper. How politic is it to submit a paper
to the premier journal of scientific psychology with the subhead "Some Spadework
at the Foundations of Scientific Psychology"? Neverthe less, it was published.

The point, of course, is that one really can't tell for sure what will get a paper
past the gatekeepers. But it's not a complete crap shoot. I have (and hope to
continue having) a very good record of acceptance -- especially considering the
fact that I publish papers based on PCT. So I think I have a reasonably good
understanding of how to get papers on PCT past the "gatekeepers". I think you
have a pretty good understanding of how to do it, also. You've had many papers
published in refereed journals. I wish you would spend more time doing that again
(trying to publish in places like _Psychological Review_ or _Science_) and a
little less time agreeing with the advice of people who have never published a
PCT-based paper in a refereed journal in their lives.

Best regards

Rick

···

---
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Senior Behavioral Scientist
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

[From Rick Marken (2003.02.03.1510)]

Rick Marken (2003.03.02.03.1445)]

Only three were
rejected so often that I finally gave up: "Blind Men and the Elephant" (BME),
"Hierarchical Behavior of Perception" (HBP) and, now, "Fielder's Choice"(FC). BME
and HBP are available in "More Mind Readings". I think you will find those papers
to be far more "politic" than FC. Yet all were rejected.

Oh, by the way. I think "Hierarchical Behavior of Perception" is a particularly good
example of a paper written using "careful PCT usage without comment or explanation,
focusing instead on the "nuts and bolts" of how it's done", the approach suggested by
Bruce Nevin (2003.0201.1607 EST) and (Isaac Kurtzer 2003.01.31.0930). Check it out
and see if you agree. Despite following these wise precepts (before they were even
given) the paper was rejected by just as many journals (and just as much abruptly) as
was "Fielder's Choice".

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Senior Behavioral Scientist
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org