RM: Too long. But I’ve seen many programs on the building of the great pyramids and none has convinced me that they were the result of anything but the actions of humans. And controlling for some very snazzy quantitative perceptions. Great engineering!
PY: It’s not too long, you’re being stubborn. I insist you watch the movie (both of them). FYI, the pyramids aren’t the only megaliths on earth (most of the megaliths are not associated with cultures that used slaves), and you don’t need slaves to build them (Edward Leedskalnin built the 8th wonder of the world - the only modern wonder - singlehandedly).
···
On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 1:42 PM, PHILIP JERAIR YERANOSIAN pyeranos@ucla.edu wrote:
PY: Can anyone tell me whether the building of megaliths counts as one of those empirical observations that needs to be explained?
RM: Sure it is.
PY: I don’t expect that anyone here will disagree that these megaliths were built by perceptual controllers. But it should be obvious that we cannot model the building of the pyramids as the output of muscular forces.
RM: Not obvious to me. I looks like it was the result of a lot of cooperating control systems (some possibly coerced to cooperate, I imagine). The results we see are ultimately the consequence of the coordinated muscle forces of thousands of human control systems.
PY: If you don’t believe me, watch this:
Ancient Knowledge Pt.3 Pyramids, Monuments & Megaliths, Ley Lines (Earth’s Energy Grid)
(Ancient knowledge 3 - megaliths, leylines, etc)
RM: Too long. But I’ve seen many programs on the building of the great pyramids and none has convinced me that they were the result of anything but the actions of humans. And controlling for some very snazzy quantitative perceptions. Great engineering!
PY: Bill once referred to the need to receive some sort of inspiration from non-western philosophies.
RM: I think he was referring to non-western observations about the nature of consciousness. This was based on his early experiences developing the method of levels (MOL), where he found that people (including himself) would sometimes reach a state of peace and tranquility where there was no higher level of consciousness to go to – no higher level “why” explanation of what one wanted. He thought this state might be like the state called “satori” or “nirvana” that is described in some eastern philosophies.
PY: PCT isn’t just about modeling behavior, it’s also about realizing human destiny.
RM: It’s about whatever you want it to be about. I should have said that, for me, it’s about understanding human nature through modeling and testing. I actually don’t believe there is such a thing as “human destiny”. According to my understanding of human nature in terms of PCT, people make (control for) their own “destiny” right here and now, as individuals and as groups. I think an understanding of PCT can help people do a better job of that – of making their life here and now better. I actually find the idea that there is a “human destiny” to itself be the source of many of our worst human problems. This is because people have had rather intense disagreements about what that human destiny actually is.
Best
Rick
On Wednesday, April 15, 2015, Richard Marken csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2015.04.15.0955)]
–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Philip (4/13/15 19:00 PT)
PY: I’m finally finished with my exhaustive search of all of pure mathematics. Briefly, my goal was to search for the closest approach of some powerful yet obscure movement in pure mathematics and this largely-undeveloped concept of Hierarchical Perceptual Control. Naturally, I was searching for some sort of concerted effort to establish a hierarchical notion of structure which encompassed all of pure mathematics in a manner which resembled the way the PCT hierarchy worked. I found it!
RM: The hierarchical PCT model is theory of behavior. The only sense in which I can see it as being “underdeveloped” is that it has not been subjected to much empirical test. Therefore the details of the model, such as the types of perceptual variables that are thought to be controlled at each level of the hierarchy and the order of the hierarchical relationship between the control systems that are thought to control these perceptions, are largely hypothetical at this point.
RM: All the pure mathematics in the world won’t help develop a scientific model on their own; they can only be useful if they help develop the model in a way that allows it to account for empirical data that can’t be accounted for by the model in its present state. Pure (and more “esoteric”) mathematics, such as the Minkowski space, was used in relativity theory to account for empirical observations, such as the invariance of the measured speed of light with respect to the velocity of the observer, that could not be handled using Euclidean space mathematics. So it wasn’t the mathematics per se that developed relativity theory; the mathematics were used to develop a theory that could account for everything that could be already handled by the Newtonian model, and then some (like the Michelson-Morley result).
RM: The relationship between pure mathematics and PCT is that it is something people do; it’s a very complex controlled perception, just like the PCT model itself. PCT is an attempt to explain everything people do, and among the things they do is pure mathematics and scientific modeling. So PCT has to explain not only the behavior of the pure mathematician but the behavior of the PCT modeler as well. How well it does that has to be determined by test. So it would be nice if people would get out there and start testing the model instead of just focusing on the model itself. We know how the model works; now the question is whether people (and other living systems) work the way the model does. Without empirical test PCT is just an exercise in calculating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.
Best
Rick
There was a group of French mathematicians who (beginning circa 1940) went by the codename “Bourbaki”, and undertook the monumental task of reorganizing mathematics in terms of basic structural components. They indeed developed such a hierarchy of structures and were able to describe all of axiomatic geometry and arithmetic as specific applications of these structures. Interestingly, their work represented a decided break from the Peano-Hilbert process of algorithmically deriving theorems from axioms and rules of deduction. Consider, for instance, the method Bourbaki utilized to develop the concept of number.
I quote:
“The important difference is that Bourbaki says that the way you make a structure like numbers is by separately axiomatising certain meanings for sub-structures. You axiomatise these separate, simpler structures - and then you put them together. In this picture, the structure of number is made up of parts that are separately meaningful structures, like the structure of ordering. In the Peano-Hilbert model, the axiomatisation is not represented as parts. You present a minimum set of axioms, and any subsets of them are just nonsense. This model does not give insight into the nature of number.”
Interestingly, Jean Piaget arrived at the need to develop a virtually identical notion of the concept of number. “Bourbaki’s mathematical way of breaking number up into sub-structures yields what are in fact psychologically simpler things than number…Piaget recognized that such an approach would provide a very commonsensical interpretation of why number might emerge.”
I suggest everyone follow this link and read chapters 5 and 6 (they’re free and we need to discuss them).
https://books.google.com/books?id=lYUhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=bourbaki+and+piaget+piaget+today&source=bl&ots=oxdeLZ2O8k&sig=_-2KRdIfM4BJR3rfNWCxrTMsCMA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LWssVZiXCoukNqz1gpgP&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=bourbaki%20and%20piaget%20piaget%20today&f=false
Best,
Philip
–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble
