# learning **URL:** \ **Category:** CSG1992\ **Created:** [June 30, 1992, 1:31pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/learning/14138 "1992-06-30T13:31:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1

**Author:** ![Mark\_Olson](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ec9cab/32.png) [@Mark\_Olson](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Mark_Olson)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 1992, 1:31pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/learning/14138/1 "1992-06-30T13:31:54Z")

Could someone offer a HPCT definition of learning. I know that learning occurs via reorganization, but that doesn't tell me what it is. Is it a permanent change in reference values? Is it the creation of a new reference signal? A new comparator? Are there different forms of learning? It seems that I learn HOW to do something (ride a bike) and it seems that I also learn WHEN to do something (when I feel like x, I should stay home (or go out) OR when I can't resolve something, try not thinking about it for a while). I wouldn't be suprised if HOW and WHEN are different ways of experiencing the same thing, but they may not be. Either way, my questions remain. Has anyone ever suggested a hierarchical reorganization system? If I was God, I'd prefer that there wasn't such a thing, but what about "learning to learn"--what's the HPCT explanation for that? And for clarification, in my mind I visualize the reorganization system "perpendicular" to the hierarchy, wherein the "input" is the error signal, and the "output" feeds into the reference signal (or perhaps the "output" of the system above), closing the loop. The "disturbance" is the perceptual signal. Am I close? Mark Educational Psychology 210 USmail: 405 South 6th St. #4 College of Education Champaign, IL 61820 Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign phone: (home) 351-8257 e-mail: (Internet) m-olson@uiuc.edu (office) 244-8080 (Bitnet) FREE0850@uiucvmd ---

**Author:** ![Joel\_Juud](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Joel\_Juud](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Joel_Juud)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 1993, 8:37pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/learning/14138/2 "1993-06-17T20:37:54Z")

[from Joel Judd 930617] Following is a short piece somebody left for me last week. It is from \_How to Survive in Your Native Land\_ by James Herndon. JAIL Of course I have forgotten to tell you again, what you already know. That is that the fundament of the school, even before winners and losers, is that everyone has to go there. Even if you are rich or have eccentric or far-out parents and go to private schools or invent free schools for yourself, you still have to deal with the public school. But in case most of you are not or have not any of the above. You must go to school. If kids in America do not go to school, they can be put in jail. If they are tardy a certain number of times, they may go to jail. If they cut enough, they go to jail. If their parents do not see that they go to school, the parents may be judged unfit and the kids go to jail. You go to jail. All of the talk about MOTIVATION or INSPIRING kids to learn or INNOVATIVE courses which are RELEVANT is horseshit. It is horseshit because there is no way to know if the students really are interested or not. No matter how bad the school is, it is better than jail. Everyone knows that, and the school knows it especially. A teacher comes into the teacher's room and says happily, I had the greatest lesson today! and goes on to tell the other envious teachers what it was that they hadn't thought of themselves and says, The kids were all so excited! It is horseshit. The teacher has forgotten (as I forget) that the kids have to be there or they will go to jail. Perhaps the grand lesson was merely more tolerable than the usual lesson. Perhaps the kids would have rejected both lessons if they could. That is why the schools cannot ever learn anything about their students. Why famous psychologists can successfully threaten pigeons into batting ping-pong balls with their wings, but can never learn anything about pigeons. As long as you threaten people, you can't tell whether or not they really want to do what you are proposing that they do. You can't tell if they are inspired by it, you can't tell if they learn anything from it, you can't tell if they would keep on doing it if you weren't threatening them. You cannot tell. You cannot tell if the kids want to come to your class or not. You can't tell if they are motivated or not. You can't tell if they learn anything or not. All you can tell is, they'd rather come to your class than go to jail. ---

**Author:** ![John\_Anderson\_CSHNL](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@John\_Anderson\_CSHNL](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/John_Anderson_CSHNL)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 1995, 11:50am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/learning/14138/3 "1995-06-30T11:50:22Z")

[From John Anderson (950630.0845 EDT)] Gary Cziko (950629) -- > It seems to be that much of the S-R vs. PCT debate could be cleared away by > simply keeping in mind that a given action cannot reliably produce a > desired outcome. However, controlling for some combination of lower-level > perceptions CAN reliably produce an outcome, that is, a higher-level > perception. Isn't that what HPCT is all about? > > So learning is not strenghtening connections between stimuli (perceptions) > and responses (actions), but rather strengthening connections between > different types of perceptions. For Calvin to learn to ride his bike, he > needs to figure out what controlled lower-level perceptions will result in > the higer-level perception of success at bike riding. S-R learning will > not do this. P-P learning will. Once Calvin decides to learn to ride his bike, the problem his nervous system faces is to establish connections so that the appropriate higher-level control systems provide reference signals to the appropriate lower-level control systems, and P-P learning is not sufficient for this. The learning process must establish links between the appropriate input functions up to the "ride my bike" CS, AND between those input functions and the appropriate same-level comparator functions, AND between those comparators and the appropriate same-level output functions, AND between those output functions and the appropriate lower-level comparators, down to the first level. Bill Powers (950629.1205 MDT) is right to say that lowering synaptic strength is just as important to this process as increasing it. Volume learning, in which signals diffuse from active synapses through the brain's extracellular spaces to affect the strength of adjacent synapses, may help out here. I'm going to have to think about this some more. John just as important as