[From Bill Powers (941016.0920 MDT)]
Mike Koopman (941015.2005) --
The point I try to drive home is that the "sensations" or indicators of
perception (World 2 stuff) change as knowledge of physics and
physiology improves.
I don't agree with the old classifications of experience -- the world 1,
world 2, world 3 stuff, or sensation-perception-conception, or concrete-
abstract, or objective-subjective, or physical-mental, and so forth. One
reason is that all these classifications imply that there is something
more "real" about items on one end of each list than items on the other.
PCT does away with that implication in a very simple way, by proposing
that WHATEVER we experience, it is a neural signal in the brain. A
sensation of warmth is no more objective than the thought that warmth is
a metaphor for friendliness, or the general principle that warmth, in
moderation, is a good thing. So everything we experience, regardless of
"level", is a perception; no need to look for subtle qualitative
differences.
What makes the difference in level is which perceptions are derived from
which other perceptions. Higher-level perceptions are functions of
lower-level perceptions, as the perception of shape is a function of the
distribution of sensations. Different sets of shapes or sensations, seen
through time, lead to perception of motion, change, trajectory. Signals
that are functions of changes, shapes, sensations are called events;
sets of events and lower perceptions yield signals that we call
relationships, and so forth to system concepts. They are all
perceptions, signals in the brain which are functions of other signals.
These classifications, assuming they're the right ones, don't change;
what changes are the specific examples of them that come into being as
we interact with the world, reorganizing perceptual functions and
developing new ones. Our reasoning about the world changes, but we still
reason. Our principles that guide reasoning change, but we still employ
principles. Our system concepts of the world differ radically and change
over time, but we still perceive in terms of _some_ kind of system
concepts.
Knowledge of physics and physiology involves all levels of perception,
from perceiving intensities to perceiving system concepts. But the level
where "scientists" like to think of such things is somewhere around the
program/logic/rule-driven/computational level, the ninth in HPCT, and
the principle level just above it. This is the level where the priests
of Isis worked consciously, and the scholastics, and the alchemists, and
the chemists, and the physicists. The same mental capacities were
employed; all that changed was their specific organization, their
content. A behaviorist and a mystic, a hoodlum and a philosopher, use
the same levels of perception. The "computers" are all more or less
alike; the primary difference is in the programs that are running.
What is today a World 2 concept may be discovered to be, or necessarily
remodeled as a World 3 abstraction down the line. Just as the World 3
theory is modified and improved in an expanding physical view of
macroscopic concerns, the view of the microscopic continues to improve.
This is ample demonstration that the "Worlds" are not basic
organizational features of the brain, but simply the changing content of
the brain, changing activities in the brain. Physical theories change
because we have new experiences to explain, some of them revealed by
applying old theories. But theorizing, a function of the brain, remains
the same. The levels as roughly defined in HPCT are meant to be of such
a nature that the content at any level makes no difference. Whether one
is reasoning in terms of phlogiston or oxygen, quantum theory or
sympathetic magic, Chomskyian linguistics or Skinnerian conditioning,
the same brain with the same basic equipment is doing the reasoning by
employing the same basic capacities to manipulate signals -- but signals
with different functional relationships to other signals.
Most of what people say about mental processes is about brain
activities, not brain organization. The HPCT system of classification is
supposed to be independent of which examples of perceptions at each
level, which activities, may exist in a given person. The levels are not
defined logically or by any generating principle; they are defined
experientially. The basic proof of their existence is that any person
can examine the field of experience, at any level, and find examples
that fit the meanings of the terms related properly to other examples.
In fact, unless one does look for direct experiential meanings behind
the labels given to the levels, the levels will just exist as words,
terms in some sort of logical or rational symbol manipulation process.
Instead of being pointers to aspects of experience that are available to
direct inspection, the words will themselves become nothing more than
activities in a brain.
The "new age scientismists" as you so neatly label them are those who
are up to their necks in symbol manipulation, and who mistake the
products of those manipulations for understanding of the brain's
organization. All that HPCT has to say about such products is that they
_are_ symbol-manipulations, produced by rules that are adjusted to fit
general principles, which in turn are selected to maintain some coherent
system concept. HPCT has very little to say about the particular
products; which are right and which are wrong. Most of them are
interesting mainly because they illustrate the structure of HPCT.
Of course HPCT, too, is an example of a brain's activities. But it is
not driven by logic or principles: it is driven by experiences, which is
to say, observations and experiments. The "new age scientismists" spend
most of their time reasoning, and hardly any of it interacting directly
with the world and observing the results. They produce elaborate
structures of symbols with properties that reflect the particular rules
of manipulation that have been adopted, but with little relationship to
what goes on at the lower levels. If HPCT is right, this is made
possible by the way the brain is organized; there is nothing abnormal
about using the brain in this way. But such uses have very little value
for survival because they are not constrained enough by experiences
closer to the periphery, the interface where the brain touches and is
touched by the real external world.
I am just too lazy, like all of my ancestors of <insert any sub-human
race, here> lineage, to provide a reference to experimentation
involving such concepts and much less an experiment based on PCT and
even less one of my own as all <insert any sub-human race, here> are
incapable of such work.
This isn't laziness, it's discouragement. When you try to do experiments
with human nature using theories that don't work, being discouraged is a
very rational decision. Why should I spend half a year of my only life,
drearily grinding a statistical crank and running dozens of reluctant
subjects through arbitrary rituals, just to get a correlation of 0.5 and
publish a paper that is most unlikely ever to be cited by anyone but me?
I want people around me who have become very lazy about using standard
methods for investigating human behavior, who can't see any point in it
any more, who have given up hoping for anything of use to come out of
it, and who are sick of fads and fancies. I want people who have given
up so thoroughly on the older approaches that they are willing, out of
desperation, to pick up a couple of rubber bands, conscript a friend,
and start exploring the simple direct experiences that the rubber bands
can supply. I don't give a damn about big complex sophisticated
experiments which answer the burning questions of our day. I want to get
together with people would would be utterly delighted to see a simple,
stupid, elementary, unimportant experiment work exactly as it is
supposed to work. I want to work with gourmets who would rather have a
taste of something exquisite than a heaping platter of fast food.
···
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Bill Williams (941016) --
The compilers of the THEORIES book say that they are open to comments.
Mary has sent off a letter. So you see, your friends can read your mind.
When will they be able to read your book?
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Best to all,
Bill P.