Illuminating manuscript?

[From Rick Marken (960909.0900)]

Bruce Abbott (960909.0855 EST) --

you've misunderstood the message and that therefore this [input-output vs
PCT] argument is irrelevant.

What in the world is your message?

All this started when Bruce Gregory (960904.1205 EDT) said:

People are not complicated. People are really very simple. What makes them
_appear_ complicated is our continual insistence on interpreting their
behavior instead of discovering their goals.

And you replied [Bruce Abbott (960906.0855 EST)] --

Here is Nobel laureate Herbert Simon's version:

A man, viewed as a behaving system, is quite simple. The apparent
complexity of his behavior over time is largely a reflection of the
complexity of the environment in which he finds himself.

So you see, Bruce (and Rick, maybe), you're in good company.

It seemed to me that you were suggesting that Simon and Gregory had come up
with the same _insight_. If, on the contrary, all you are saying is that
Simon and Gregory came up with similar _words_ (though Simon left out the
crucial words about discovering goals) then, fine. This, then, is the kind of
fun exercise that religious fundamentalists go through when they find quotes
in the Bible that are similar to the statements of evolutinary biologists. I
just think it's important to note that the coincidence of equivalent
phraseology does not necessarily reflect equivalent insights.

Many people besides Simon have said things that sound like what perceptual
control theorists have said. If you want to count such superficial
similarities as insights worthy of consideration by control theorists then
that's up to you. I would presume, in that case, that your thoughts about
evolutionary biology are also anchored in the important insights that you get
from quotes in Genesis and other creation myths.

you overlook the fact that this difference of underlying ideas is irrelevant
to the present discussion

Sorry. I was not aware that we were dealing only in superficialities;-)

Me:

Why are we "defenders of the faith" when we point out how what >Simon says

is inconsistent with the idea that behavior is the control of perception?

Ye:

Isn't it obvious? You have argued against "what Simon says" (and here I am
specifically restricting "what Simon says" to the material I was referring
to in _The sciences of the artificial_) without reading what Simon had to
say. Instead you speculate on what you think he might have said and attack
that. This is the behavior of a religious zealot, not that of a scientist.

No, I speculated on _why_ he might have said it. Apparently, that was my
mistake; going beyond the superficial. So I must admit that, superficially,
what Simon said is certainly similar to what a perceptual control theorist
might also have said.

You perceive Simon as potentially threatening and have moved against him
without even allowing him to speak. Your defense consists of the following:
Whatever Simon may have said, it cannot possibly be of any interest to
PCTers, because Simon is not a PCTer. Bunk.

Simon is not threatening at all. What is threatening is that people will get
the idea that Simon's view of behavior is in any way consistent with or
propaedeutic to the PCT view of behavior. If they did get this idea then, I
think, they would be lost to PCT. The idea that it is important to seriously
consider people's "insights" simply because they said something that is
superficially similar to what a control theorist might have said is as
ludicrous as the idea that it is important to seriously consider biblical
"insights" simply because a biblical quote matches something an evolutionary
biologist might have said.

Me:

feel free to present some point Simon makes that you think a PCTer would
find "illuminating".

Ye:

There's no point in doing so, as your use of quotations around
"illuminating" so adequately demonstrates. You've already come to your
judgement without hearing anything whatsoever. What a pity.

If they're illuminating then I'll be illuminated. Besides, why worry about
me? There are many others on this list who would profit from illuminating
ideas. What a pity that you would deprive others on CSGNet of this
illuminating experience just because one member of CSGNet is afraid of any
idea that is not blessed by the Powers that be;-)

Hans Blom (960909) --

It is, in my opinion, far too early to have a single, convincing, consistent
theory of why humans are as they are.

Yes. But it's already too late for S-R and MCT; they don't fit the facts.
I checked out your MCT model again; the output does change when the sign of
the feedback function changes but these changes don't resemble those made by
a hman controller at all; the MCT model output oscillates; there is no
exponetial increase in output as there is with the human. The polarity
reversal experiment provides a nice, clear rejection of MCT as a model of
human behavior.

Stefan Balke (960909.1600 CET) --

Rick, why did you change your signature? :slight_smile:

I'd rather not say;-)

Pretty darn good,

Rick