How do I learn to apply PCT to my life?

Learning PCT Ask Me Anything
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Yes, reorganization involves random variation of the functional components of a control loop with selective retention of the variations that lead to improved control. It’s a biased random walk process, the effectiveness of which can be seen in this demo.

In PCT, the control systems in the proposed control hierarchy – even the highest level ones that control perceptions of system concepts, principles, and programs – are not able to make the fundamental changes in lower level control systems (or in themselves) that are needed when they find themselves unable to control the variables that they used to be able to control. Tim Carey and I discuss this in a
paper that compares problem solving done by the existing control hierarchy (such as solving math problems) with problem solving done by the reorganization system (such as solving personal problems).

The reorganization system is itself a control system that controls for keeping the hierarchy of control systems in shape (minimizing error). I like to think of the hierarchy of control systems as the “motorcycle” that is being “maintained” by the reorganization control system. Reorganization is a “Zen” process of consciousness that involves what we experience as awareness and volition. But reorganization is a very “dumb” process – it can’t caloculate, plan or talk (when you are talking to yourself it is not your consciousness talking. Rather, it’s your control hierarchy operating in imagination mode; Zen masters figured this out, which is why they say you can only get in touch with your true consciousness – Zen state or Nirvana-- by ignoring the “monkey talk”).

Being a big fan of evolution (as fact and theory) I think that it’s more likely that consciousness in the form of a reorganization system) has been an aspect of the controlling done by living systems since the beginning of life. The difference between humans and other living systems is only in what they can be conscious of. What living systems can be conscious of is the state of their control hierarchy. The control hierarchy in E. coli is probably no more than one level and the systems at that level can’t perceive and control much more than the concentrations of certain chemicals. So E. coli consciousness can’t be about much more than how well concentrations of chemicals in substrates are being controlled. Humans, on the other hand, can be conscious of how well personal relationships, math problem solution programs, ethical principles and social institutions are being controlled.

At least, that’s the way it seems to me from a PCT perspective.

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Great explanation as ever Rick.

Aaron there’s only one process of reorganisation, just like there’s only one algorithm for evolution through natural selection, but depending on the complexity of the system involved, that can look very different.

Here’s the consciousness work (note most is secondary referencing Powers):

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Warren-Mansell/publication/356391606_An_Integrative_Control_Theory_Perspective_on_Consciousness/links/6197f1ea3068c54fa5022b09/An-Integrative-Control-Theory-Perspective-on-Consciousness.pdf

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The used book market is currently unkind, on a par with Denny’s price for a new copy. ​If you’re in Australia, there’s this 1974 edition for US$12 on the American Booksellers Exchange site. (Plus $21 shipping from AU to US!)

I didn’t know there was a 1974 UK edition.

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Thanks!

And thanks for posting the pointer to your paper on consciousness. As you know, I had some problems with it, and still do. One minor problem is that you refer to Powers’ 1980 paper on Consciousness – in my opinion it’s by far the finest paper of the PCT approach to consciousness ever written – but fail to included it in the Bibliography, so here’s a pointer to it.

A more serious problem is the idea that “logical/propositional systems are engaged in mutual control with intrinsic/homeostatic systems over the focus of reorganisation”. This is a huge revision the control model and it was not clear to me why it was needed. One of the implicit characteristics of the PCT model as formulated by Powers is that consciousness, in the form of the awareness and volition functions of reorganization, operates on the perceptual control hierarchy but not vice versa. The logical/propositional and intrinsic/homeostatic systems you discuss are clearly part of the perceptual control hierarchy, which you have controlling the focus of reorganization.

But after re-reading Powers’ paper I saw that there is a “hole” in the PCT model that might require some kind of interaction between the control hierarchy and reorganization. In that paper Bill describes the experiment you describe where he proposes testing for the operation of reorganization by asking a person to focus their “point of view” (conscious awareness) on different aspects of a task. I know what Bill is talking about because I can change the focus of my awareness when I am carrying out a task. For example, while doing a tracking task I can focus my awareness on keeping the cursor on target or move it to the mouse movements I am making in order to control the cursor. And I know I could do the change of awareness on signal. So the can apparently change the focus of my consciousness can on command – from myself or from someone in my environment. So this seem to be a case of perceptual control system in the control hierarchy – the systems that control for the state of logical propositions (eg. “if command then change point of view else don’t”).

But I don’t know what’s might actually be going on when we see a the change in point occur as a result of a command or non-verbal signal. But it does seem like the control hierarchy is operating on reorganization, rather than vice versa (the only direction of this relationship assumed by PCT) Some research to tease this out would be nice. But what I am sure of is that there is no need to postulate separate “stovepipes” for the logical/propositional, analog and intrinsic/homeostatic control systems, as shown in Figure 6 of your paper. That’s just “block diagram” modeling where the blocks magically account for the phenomena we observe.

I think we can make better progress toward understanding consciousness if we stick with the perceptual control hierarchy with a seperate reorganization (consciousness) system that acts on the hierarchy and, possibly, has the hierarchy acting on it in some way. That way me can continue to be able to empirically distinguish perceptual control (purposeful) behavior from consciousness (purposeful operation on control (purposeful) behavior).

One last problem: Why identify consciousness (of any kind) with control of information integration rate. What observation(s) lead you to the conclusion that control of information integration rate (if information integration rate is controlled) is a consciousness rather than just a control of perception behavior?

Anyway, thanks for making me conscious of these things;-)

Best, Rick

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Thanks Rick, as these are the first specific critiques of the model that actually reveal someone has read it!

There are some simple things to answer. The first is that the intrinsic system is clearly orthogonally to the perceptual control hierarchy in all of Powers’ writings. It needs to be because it is the training signal that indicates whether altering the perceptual control system through reorganisation makes a difference in terms of evolved, congenital markers of survival and reproduction, ie. intrinsic error as Bill causes it.

The separation of a propositional system is an explicit addition that comes into my model. Although Bill discussed the critical importance of ‘order reduction’ through language and other symbolic codes in human development, he didn’t separate this. I’m not changing PCT though; this is just an addition within my model to account for the evidence I’ve noted in the articles.

Please note that the postulation that (a) control of novel information rate is an intrinsic controlled variable and (b) that it supports the maintenance of consciousness when other intrinsic errors are close to zero; is what I propose. It’s a hypothesis that uses PCT, but is not part of PCT or a change in it. The indirect, convergent, evidence relating to this role is described.

Talk to you soon!
Warren

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Thank you for the response, Rick, and for sharing your paper.

In your paper, and in my understanding of PCT, the reorganization system is described as being separate from (but obviously related to) the control hierarchy. However, I’ve been trying to understand the relationship between the two and why reorganization is said to occur solely through random trial and error changes to the control hierarchy. Forgive me, but all I can picture is a monkey sitting at an old telephone operator board randomly unplugging and plugging cables, blindly attempting to reduce system error.

Unfortunately, it has not been my experience that this is how system change necessarily occurs, and what I’ve been attempting to propose to you all is that human beings have the capacity for conscious, purposeful, and specifically directed reorganization of one’s control hierarchy.

Furthermore, a solely random trial and error reorganization system seems contradictory to the main premise of PCT that behavior controls perception. If reorganization were truly random, then control of perception wouldn’t be controllable, which violates the core principle of PCT. If reorganization is truly random, it cannot be control. But if it is control, it must be systematic, feedback-guided, and purposeful. Therefore, as a control system, why would we not assume that reorganization is also itself a control - the highest level control of the control hierarchy?

In fact, humans often reflect on their own thinking, goals, processes, identify internal conflicts or dysfunctions, and make deliberate efforts to change beliefs, values, habits, and emotional responses. These are not random tweaks to the control hierarchy - they are specific, conscious, goal-directed, feedback-informed processes to reduce chronic system error.

So from both lived experience and observed behavior, it appears that reorganization is a higher-level control monitoring internal state and making purposeful changes to regain or improve control.

This requires a control loop consisting of:

  • Perception of misalignment (e.g., “I always feel anxious whenever I speak in public”).
  • Reference: “I want to feel calm and confident.”
  • Output: targeted interventions - reframing thoughts, breathing exercises, new behavioral patterns (i.e., changes to the control hierarchy).
  • Feedback: evaluating whether these actions reduce the mismatch (i.e., the chronic error).

This is reorganization as meta-control.

If the defining axiom of PCT is that behavior is the control of perception, then all behavior, including self-reorganization, must be control. Random reorganization may have evolutionary value, but I don’t see it as sufficient for a theory of conscious beings. And as I mentioned previously, I think the capacity for conscious reorganization is specifically what distinguishes human beings from all others.

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Control without reorganisation is the default for nearly all functioning of living systems most of the time, including humans. Reorganisation occurs is a tiny (currently conscious) fraction of this system and it injects the randomness only to the properties of the control system (e.g. its weights, gains, functions; not its signals) to reduce intrinsic error on the occasions that the normal (non-reorganising) functions of a control system don’t achieve this automatically…

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I had no problem with that part of your paper. But I looked over your Figure 3 and I think it seriously misrepresents the reorganizing system. Take a look at Figure 14.1 in B:CP (1st ed) and I think you’ll you’ll see the problem.

I think it is a change and a misleading one at that. Order reduction, as described in Powers (1960 pt 2), is just something done by the control hierarchy; it’s controlling lower level perceptual variables (configurations like symbols) as a simpler means of achieving a higher level goal (like finding the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle).

It doesn’t look to me like you are using PCT because reason PCT is about control of perceptual variables, not information rate. This affects how one would interpret the (anecdotal) evidence you provide for control of information rate. I think you provide 4 pieces of evidence for control of information rate as an “intrinsic” way to maintain consciousness:

  1. Mind wandering in low-information environments (Smallwood & Schooler, 2015).
  2. Hallucinations in sensory-deprived environments (Solomon et al., 1957)
  3. People taking up hobbies when shut in during the pandemic (Van de Cruys et al., 2021)
  4. Some features of autism might reflect an intrinsically lower information integration rate (Frith & Happe, 1994).

My PCT interpretation of all of these pieces of evidence is that they are examples of lower level perceptions being produced to satisfy higher level perceptual goals. In some cases the lower level perceptions are being produced in imagination (in the case of the mind wandering and hallucinations) and in others by controlling perceptual aspects of the environment (taking up hobbies and producing the idiosyncratic moments characteristic of autism).

I’m sure you will! :slightly_smiling_face:

Best, Rick

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“I had no problem with that part of your paper. But I looked over your Figure 3 and I think it seriously misrepresents the reorganizing system. Take a look at Figure 14.1 in B:CP (1st ed) and I think you’ll you’ll see the problem.”

Any difference is not intentional.

“Order reduction, as described in Powers (1960 pt 2), is just something done by the control hierarchy; it’s controlling lower level perceptual variables (configurations like symbols) as a simpler means of achieving a higher level goal (like finding the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle).”

Absolutely. In addition, humans have an incredible ability to manipulate symbols and use reasoning and other operations. I am proposing that one control system can apply this process to another control system - internally - such that the higher-level plans can, via symbols, control the perceptual variables that those symbols represent within another control system. So by thinking the word ‘cat’, we can either use this order reduced perception to reason problems involving cats without accessing the reference perception of a cat; or we can use the symbol to bring the reference perception of a cat into the imagination mode. This process can interfere with the ‘call to awareness’ of other perceptual goals that are in error because they are associated with an increase in intrinsic error. So you might want to think about a cat, but the barking dog running towards you is making that very difficult!

“It doesn’t look to me like you are using PCT because reason PCT is about control of perceptual variables , not information rate .”

The system proposed to control novel information rate is an intrinsic system, not part of the perceptual control hierarchy (glad you agreed with me, and Bill, earlier that the intrinsic control systems are orthogonal to the perceptual control hierarchy!). There will be a neural surrogate for this rate, but I don’t know what it is! One possibility though is brain wave sub-criticality - keeping the harmonics of neural rhythms slightly discordant…

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A caveat:

Blood sugar level is commonly understood to be an intrinsic variable. It is sensed by glucose-sensing neurons in the brain (google it). That perceptual signal is controlled through the somatic branch of the hierarchy and, if on-board supply is insufficient, through the behavioral branch. So in what sense is it orthogonal?

My understanding is that reorganization commences when control is ineffective and error persists. Reorganization is orthogonal or ‘meta-’ to the control hierarchy (operating upon it), but the variables, of which loss of control occasions reorganization, are not orthogonal to other perceptual variables. Maintenance of ability to control is intrinsic to survival.

The distinction may have more to do with gain, and intrinsic variables have high gain.

Nonetheless, their reference level and gain may yet be variable. For example, the reference level for glucose sensors is greatly reduced when ketones substitute. It is said that ketones are sensed by the brain, but I have read about no specific mechanism, e.g.

A carotid infusion of ketone bodies was performed on mice to stimulate sensitive brain areas for 6 or 12 h. … This stimulated food intake was associated with an increased expression of the hypothalamic neuropeptides NPY and AgRP as well as phosphorylated AMPK and is due to ketone bodies sensed by the brain, as blood ketone body levels did not change at that time. In parallel, gluconeogenesis and insulin sensitivity were transiently altered. Indeed, a dysregulation of glucose production and insulin secretion was observed after 6 h of ketone body perfusion, which reversed to normal at 12 h of perfusion.

Carneiro,L., Geller, S., Fioramonti, X., Hébert, A., Repond,C., Leloup, C., & Pellerin, L. (2015). Evidence for hypothalamic ketone body sensing: impact on food intake and peripheral metabolic responses in mice. Am. J. Physiol., Endocrinology and Metabolism
310: E103–E115. DOI:10.1152/ajpendo.00282.2015

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Here’s a short video and I would love to get some feedback on how this fits in with PCT.

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Hi Aaron

You are most welcome!

Actually, the “random trial and error” reorganization process proposed by PCT is purposeful (that is, it is a control process). You can experience this purposefulness by acting as the “Subject” in my Selection of Consequences demo. You will see that, although your outputs (the direction of dot movement after you press the space bar) are random, you can get the dot to the target by pressing the bar only when the dot is moving away from the target.

The fact that this reorganization process is purposeful is demonstrated in a paper by Powers and myself which shows that this “E. coli” reorganization process produces the intended result (getting to the target) even when disturbances are applied to the controlled perceptual variable (movement of the dot toward the target).

Excellent observation. And, as I noted above, the “random trial-and error reorganization process” (also called E. Coli reorganization) is definitely a control process. Control (purposefulness) is seen in the production and maintenance of a result (in the case of the demo, the desired result is the dot moving to the target) in the face of disturbances that would otherwise prevent achievement of the result.

And it is!

Yes, the perceptions controlled by the reorganization system are “misalignments”, which are error signals. Error signals are the same for all control systems in the control system hierarchy as well as the intrinsic control systems. The reference for the value of all these error signals is zero. The outputs of the reorganization system are signals that change parameters of the control system functions (input, output, and/or comparator functions) in which the error is detected. These changes are random because the reorganizations system is not “smart” enough to know how to change things to make them better. Reorganization makes things better using the E. coli method, where random changes that make things better are preserved until they make things worse and then they are changed again (as in the “Control” simulation in in my Selection of Consequences demo).

The outputs you suggest – reframing thoughts, breathing exercises, new behavioral patterns – are things that can only be done by systems in the control hierarchy. These kinds of outputs are like the “heuristics” that are used to solve math and other types of problems. Heuristics are presumably perceptual variables (like the perception of the current state of the problem being moved closer to the solution state) that are controlled as the means of controlling the higher level perception of the problem being solved. If these heuristics fail to get the higher level system to problems solution then there would be chronic error and E. coli reorganization would kick in. At least, that’s the theory.

By the way, an excellent study that shows E. coli reorganization happening in a problem solving situation is this one by Robertson and Glines. Also worthwhile is this paper with Powers’ comments on the Robertson/Glines paper.

Yes, reorganization is, indeed, meta-control!

The conscious aspects of the random (E. coli) reorganization process in the PCT model are “awareness” and “volition”; awareness is presumably the aspect of reorganization that “searches” around the control hierarchy looking for large, chronic error; the volitional aspect of reorganization could be considered the random changes to system functions that are made when awareness finds chronic error, though I think there may be more to it than that since I can will arbitrary behaviors, like bending a finger, when I am experiencing no obvious error. But there is precious little research that has been aimed at testing the consciousness aspects of reorganization so what we know about it is really only based on our own subjective experience. But I am pretty sure that once we find non-verbal methods of identifying consciousness we will find that some form of consciousness will be found in all living systems. Or maybe not.

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RM: I didn’t think you made the mistake intentionally. The problem is that your Figure 3 is a grievously incorrect representation of the PCT model of the reorganizing system. It should be corrected if the paper hasn’t been published yet.

RM: Great. But I still don’t get why you have a separate hierarchy to accomplish this. It’s just confusing inasmuch as it doesn’t show how “order reduction” is related to consciousness, the topic of the paper. I think consciousness – or, at least, reorganization – is involved only when people first come up with the idea of order reduction in a particular task. But once you have a developed order reduction system in place – a system like language or mathematics – the use of that system to produce behavior – to do math or talk – is a function of the operation of the control hierarchy.

But that doesn’t help. The intrinsic system also controls perceptual variables, not information rate. The only systems that control for information rate are psychologists who have been trained to use information theory to understand perception. My experience is that such psychologists have very little chance of ever understanding the PCT model of behavior.

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Hi Andrew

I don’t really understand his description of the illusion of self. Could you give it a try? And I was surprised to hear that Alan Watts came up with the realization that humans are the universe looking at itself. I thought I was the one who came up with that realization just a couple years ago! :wink: But my realization was that humans are more than the universe looking at itself. I realized that humans are the universe doing an amazing job of purposefully and consciously trying to understand itself! Heavy!

Best, Rick

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Awareness is a funny thing. It can’t be aware of itself. In an HPCT account, awareness of a perception is from the level above it—if it is controlled input, awareness of it is seated in the higher-level perception that is setting its reference value. But that’s a theoretical explanation. Check it out directly with your own awareness. There is no substitute.

Observing the observer is the essence of one kind of Koan. The observer observes from a different ‘place’ that is not the same as what is observed. Whenever you think you have the observer in the field of observation, there you are observing whatever it is from above or off to the side, and whatever it is that you thought was the observer isn’t the observer because here you are observing it over there. And if you can’t identify ‘ego’ (meaning I, me, myself) with the observer then where are you? Or for that matter, where are you anyway?

It’s been kind of a maxim of PCT that perceptions are our only source of knowledge, and that our knowledge is a remembered construction of perceptions. (The construction is also a perception.) The hypotheses, theories, and models in the sciences are complex perceptions which are systematically subjected to test and verification. Bridges and buildings stand, and semi-ballistic research vessels precisely transit distant planets and their moons, and by reliably doing so they attest to their compliance to Newtonian physics; GPS daily validates Einstein’s General and Special Relativity. But how embarrassing for physics that at least 95% of the physical universe is unknown to us. Closer to subjective home, we’ve inherited from uncountable generations of biological ancestors sensory organs and neural functions that construct our perceptual space-time universe, and the manifest fact that they survived so that we continue to live attests to a pretty rigorous testing against whatever reality really is. Good enough to go on, anyway. It is a tremendous help that socially we’ve inherited ways of insulating ourselves from loads of environmental challenges that would otherwise make life nasty, brutish, and short, artifacts like that Youtube dude’s t-shirt and hat and the homey room he’s sitting in, not to mention collaborative ways to obtain, maintain, and (some of us) create such things.

But these are all solidly (!) in the perceptual universe which your sensory organs and perceptual hierarchy construct for you the observer (for whom? what?). Perceptions which control systems in that hierarchy continually test by controlling their inputs through loops that extend out of your body into your actual environment, whatever that is. All you know of it is your perceptions, and I trust that continues to be good enough to go on for you, as it does for me. Most of the time. As far as I can tell.

The observer, however, is not perceived and is not a perception within your perceptual universe (see koan above).

Enter Dear old Mr. Watts and his famous half-koan. Your melancholic Youtube buddy quotes Watts imperfectly anticipating Rick’s insight: “You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.” Or another way (from Qabalah), you are a center of expression for whatever it is that creates and sustains the universe. Placing that in HPCT, maybe from some cosmic point of view your perceptual constructs are a hilariously ludicrous fiction, but even so your control of your perceptions is (usually) closed through the real environment, whatever it is. Control of even fictional perceptions can have real consequences. Or Thaddeus Golas offers a lazy perspective informed by quantum physics:

We are equal beings and the universe is our relations with each other. The universe is made of one kind of entity: each one is alive, each determines the course of his own existence.

The universe is made of one kind of whatever-it-is, which cannot be defined. For our purpose, it isn’t necessary to try to define it. All we need to do is assume that there is only one kind of whatever-it-is, and see if it leads to a reasonable explanation for the world as we know it.

In one traditional perspective (e.g. Buddhism), there is no self. In another perspective (e.g. Vedanta, Qabalah) there is just one self, but it’s nature is potential, no-thing, a big goose-egg zero being actualized. Seems to me these are saying the same thing. What we perceive as a self is an illusory imagined perception. There does seem to be some sort of creativity going on and there are various ways of trying to figure out how our control of perceptions relates to it. We can believe it’s all an evolving happenstance, like the random dynamics chaos theory folks. Mr. Friston seems to be comfortable there among the woodlice. We can seek a communicative relationship with a kind of stepped down reflection within ourselves and within each person—what the Quakers, for example, call variously the Light, the seed, that of God in every person, etc. We can practice a discipline of awareness which more effectively distinguishes the confections, convections, and convictions of imagination from perceptions grounded in sensory input (innumerable traditions and methods). We can noodle along supposing we are what we currently imagine we are and how terribly deluded and selfish everyone is except for thee and me. And so on. Or one could make a youtube video telling everyone something new that no one has ever said before: you don’t exist, the self is an illusion and that’s a good thing.

All perfectly clear, right? But to whom?

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