Hi, Paul
Bill said all he felt like saying about Kim's comments on BCP. I feel
there's a lot more to be said, so here goes. Send it on to your other group
if you want.
* * *
WRT Behavior: the Control of Perception, by William T. Powers
Kim (27 September 1999 16:22) begins by stating:
"Behavior: the control of perception. Perception the control of behavior."
What is this supposed to mean? Does Kim believe that by saying behavior is
the control of perception that Powers really was talking about perception
the control of behavior? If so, everything that follows is irrelevant,
because Powers is not talking about controlling behavior by perception or
any other means. He is proposing that people (and all other organisms) do
not control their behavior, but rather use their behavior in order to
control their perceptions. This is the foundation of his unique and
revolutionary view of the behavioral, social, and life sciences. It is so
unexpected and so unfamiliar that many people, including Kim, apparently,
misread it to mean its comfortable, familiar, opposite.
"At bottom it is a mechanical materialist approach".
Perjorative 1, Mechanical. Because machines exist which are control
devices? That's about as terrible as describing the heart as a pump.
Pointing out the fact that a type of organization can exist in both
organisms and machines does not denigrate organisms or imply that they are
merely machines.
Perjorative 2, Materialist. What might the alternative be? Spiritual? We
are talking science here, I believe, not theology.
"The bits and pieces of the brain, it (Powers' book) says, are the key to
perception. Find all the bits and we shall know what the brain does. It is
a top down attitude."
Finding "all the bits" is a bottom up approach. Neuroanatomists,
neurobiologists, neurochemists have found gazillions of bits and pieces.
They find more every day. Finding more does not help understanding what the
brain does. What Powers is doing is proposing an organization of the brain
that does explain what the bits and pieces are for.
"Its freshness lay in the idea that there was a link between behavior and
brain activity, That perception existed to serve behavior."
1. That link is hardly new with Powers.
2. That perception serves behavior?" Kim, have you read this book? Powers
says that behavior is the control of perception. Behavior is the means,
varying as required, by which organisms bring their perceptions of the
world (including their bodies) to desired states, and maintain those
perception at those reference states despite disturbances.
"Gibson said..."
Gibson never read Powers. If he did he might have had some different
thoughts about the brain. Fodor too. Not, however, if he read Powers as
carelessly as Kim.
"...Lenin opened the way to a philosophy of ultimate correctness of
perception and hence of truth...'I perceive things more clearly than
you...as I do not have time to empty your head of worthless ideas I am
sending you to prison."
Wow. Pretty ugly stuff, that. That's what comes of saying "my perceptions
are better than your perceptions"? I'm glad to point out that Powers never
said anything of the sort. He says that each individual's perceptions are
unique, and there is no way to know exactly what another person is
perceiving. Since you can't know what someone else perceives, how can you
rate people's perceptions? "I see red better than you do"?
"Perception is..."
Neither Kim nor Maturana nor Gibson know, but they sure can throw those
words around. "A relational state of an active body-in-environment". But
what relationship? What action?
Powers is proposing the organization and the components (the neural
signals. How they interact) that produce perceptions, that indicate whether
or not those perceptions are ok or need changing, and enable the organism
to act in order to make needed changes. He has developed computer
simulations that work this way.
"Recent work in neuroscience shows that previous mechanical models derived
from human artefacts [water mills, steam engines, telephones, cameras,
videos, computers] are misleading in the extreme..."
This is true of models based on hydraulic systems, telephone switchboards,
and digital computers. I have never heard of videos or telephones being
used as mechanical models of living systems. Or water mills. Cameras, but
only in that they have lenses and so do eyes. Steam engines, however, are
not misleading models if equipped with a governor, which is a control
device. Powers' thesis is, since people and other organisms control (and
he has numerous demonstrations that this is what they do), then control
theory, developed by engineers as they designed and built control systems,
has an application to living control systems as well as artificial ones.
Control theory being the body of knowledge about the components,
connections, etc. required to produce a functioning control system.
Kim seems to think Powers has left out the importance of "lower brain
organizations". Again this leads me to ask if he has really read the book.
As for the importance of emotions, a funny thing happened on the way to the
printer back in 1973, which is that the editor cut the chapter on emotions
out of the book.
That chapter is in Powers' "Living Control Systems II" (1992) along with
other papers not published elsewhere. There is also "Living Control Systems
" (1989), previously published papers; and a non-technical introduction,
"Making Sense of Behavior" (1998). These, along with "Behavior: the Control
of Perception" (1973), are available from Benchmark Publications, PO Box
1594, New Canaan CT 06840 (Benchmkpub@aol.com). An alternative would be a
look at Powers' website: http://www.frontier.net/~powers_w
I mention all these resources because I feel that any reasonably open
minded person should have access to material that counteracts what I can
only characterize as Kim's hatchet job. The motive for which still escapes
me.
Mary A. Powers