Invention and Discovery, Disturbance, PCT Bigot

[From Rick Marken (960917.0800)]

Bruce Gregory (960916.1120 EDT) --

What Bill and many others have discovered is that this invention describes
the way living systems work.

Bruce Abbott (960916.1525 EST) --

That last sentence of Bruce's post comes as a great shock to me, and then to
have Rick agree with it! Bill and I seem to have been wasting a
considerable amount of our time testing a proposition that, as it turns out,
has already been demonstrated ("discovered"). Guess I may as well pull the
plug on the research -- anyone like to have some slightly used laboratory
rats? (;->

I'll take a couple. It would make Mittens quite happy. He's particularly
fond of rats that have participated in failed control studies;-)

What Bruce Gregory was saying is that control theory is an invention. The
discovery is that this invention behaves in the same way as a living
organism. Your research is another test to discover whether the control model
behaves like a living organism does when it controls its weight (or whatever
variable is controlled by eating). So although this will disappoint my cat, I
must encourage you to continue with the research. The more we discover about
the applicability of the control model (invention) to behavior, the better.

Chris Cherpas (960913.1839 PT) --

I would have thought that any error coincident with a change in the input

signal would also be called a disturbance

A disturbance is a variable that has an effect on a controlled variable
independent of the organism's own effects on that variable. An error
resulting from change in the input signal could be the result of effects
produced by disturbances, the organism's own actions or (most commonly) a
combination of both. The control system itself doesn't know -- or need to
know -- the cause of changes in the input signal; it simply generates
outputs that continuously keep the input signal matching (almost perfectly)
the reference signal.

Me:

My problem with "explaining conventional behavioral research" comes from my
fear that people will think "well, all this psychology research has already
been done, it's out there and everyone thinks it's important so let's not
worry about doing PCT-based research until we've got all the existing
research results explained".

Chris:

the conventional research may be a source for comparing PCT to conventional
interpretations of everyday behavior, independently of whether it has a role
to play in basic PCT research.

I agree. So let's pick some examples of everyday behavior and compare the PCT
interpretation of this behavior to the interpretations based on conventional
research. Here are some suggested everyday behaviors for interpretation:

Brushing teeth
Making a cup of coffee
Feeding cat
Starting car
Picking up car pooler
Going to the office
Checking phone messages
Making mental note to call back person from Nobel committee
Firing up computer

Would you like to provide the conventional interpretations? I can't do it
because when I became a control theorist my PhD in psychology became invalid.
Now everything I say about conventional theories of behavior is casting them
as straw men;-)

Best

Rick