[From Dick Robertson] (940427.2034cdt)
Right on, Mary! I think you called it right, that not many people
are disturbed by the inconsistencies in traditional theorizing. We
might as well get back down to the business of trying to figure out
how PEOPLE work. That's a hard but intriguing topic. I has kept me
from having much to say on the net for most of this year.
Best, everybody. Dick Robertson
[from Mary Powers 9404.27]
My, it's quiet on the net. Maybe everyone has decided it's time
to stop talking and go do some experiments and research
I suspect it's more like a break time in a plenary session, and
everyone is off having private conversations. At least it makes
time for reading something else, like a book. And this is a
perfect day for it, here, since it's snowing out quite
vigorously.
I'm in the midst of reading "Listening to Prozac". Has anyone
else? It raises the question of what psychoactive drugs do -
beyond the obvious of increasing the output or reducing the
uptake of neurotransmitters. I think it suggests a great deal
about what happens when the parameters of various control loops
are altered - sensitivity, loop gain (and something that hasn't
been gone into for many years - the world view, or style, or
whatever you might call it, of people with varying degrees and
balance among rate, proportional, and integral feedback).
I'm sorry to say that in this book I've just come across a
description of appetite and satiation in which the organism
"receives feedback from a 'central comparator' - some part
of the brain that mediates between desire and action -
indicating it is doing well and encouraging further pursuit;
in the case of impending failure, the comparator produces
demoralization and energy conservation".
This is not the author speaking: he is citing somebody else, and
always puts "central comparator" in quotes (thank goodness).
But this is the sort of thing, Rich Thurman, that produces "yes,
but" and "it's just the same as". It's what drives Rick to be
militant about PCT purity. There is a lot of control theory
around, in trendy metaphors, in bits and pieces that conform with
whatever model someone already has.
One of the main problems, as I see it, is that the principle of
the control of perception can be quite easily accommodated by
someone who also believes that output is controlled. One produces
(plans, calculates) the output that will control one's
perceptions. It's just the same as... Even watching the Little
Man Demo isn't necessarily going to change this. Control systems
are fundamentally weird - the understanding of how they really do
work is not grounded in anyone's experience, or rather in how we
have been taught to understand our experience. I think we can
talk about thermostats and cruise controls until we're blue in
the face, and it won't affect this much, in many people. Maybe
it's because, in a paradoxical way, to think of yourself as a
control system requires giving up believing that you are in
control - of your actions.
Also, people are very much aware of - spend a lot of time at -
the level where they do indeed plan, and decide among plans, and
it's difficult to get a sense of the process of setting reference
signals down through the hierarchy for levels we haven't paid
much attention to since we were babies trying to figure out how
they work. From the planning and deciding level, everything looks
like a plan or a decision (as in Bob Clark's DME theory). How one
gets from there to output is typically handled in one jump - the
plan causes the output, cognition causes action. It's hard to
feel in one's bones the idea that what is specified, level by
level, is a reference signal for perception, especially when the
reference is specifically for perception of one's output (as in
dancing or gymnastics) rather than its effect on disturbances.
It seems to me that whether looking at the outside (behavior) or
the inside (personality, cognition), psychologists feel
constrained not only to objectify what is being looked at but
also to make the process of looking as transparent as possible,
because that's the Scientific Way. PCT is a cuckoo in the nest
because it is actually looking at the machinery (bad word -
organization) of the process of looking - not what happens to
that when I do this, but how it happens, in me as well as you.
And maybe that's the question to ask the "yes but" and "it's just
the same as" people. How, exactly, do they think it works? Have
they ever tried to simulate it? Is the simulation neurologically
plausible? In PCT we think we have some answers. The problem is
that they are answers to questions that not many people are
asking.
Mary P.
<[Bill Leach 940427.18:46 EST(EDT)]
[from Mary Powers 9404.27]
Yes, it is almost quite enough on the net for even me to keep up. 'Wish
that I knew for sure that I could be "active" again by the time Rick gets
back but it is no looking very promising.
'fraid that I am controlling a few perceptions now is such a fashion as
to attempt to reduce some serious stress that I have been keeping
'hidden' (as if that is even possible) and the results will be a
financial disaster for me.
Control Well,
//////////////////////////////////////////
/ /
/ -bill /
/ Bill Leach, W.R. Leach Co. /
/ bleach@bix.com 71330.2621@cis.com /
/ ARS KB7LX@KB7LX.ampr.org 44.74.1.74 /
/ 919-362-7427 /
//////////////////////////////////////////
<Martin Taylor 940428 1900>
Taking a moment off from taking a moment off from ... "real" work.
Mary Powers 9404.27
One of the main problems, as I see it, is that the principle of
the control of perception can be quite easily accommodated by
someone who also believes that output is controlled. One produces
(plans, calculates) the output that will control one's
perceptions.
...
I think we can
talk about thermostats and cruise controls until we're blue in
the face, and it won't affect this much, in many people. Maybe
it's because, in a paradoxical way, to think of yourself as a
control system requires giving up believing that you are in
control - of your actions.
...
It's hard to
feel in one's bones the idea that what is specified, level by
level, is a reference signal for perception, especially when the
reference is specifically for perception of one's output (as in
dancing or gymnastics) rather than its effect on disturbances.
For some months, I have been conducting a small-group seminar on using
PCT to develop a human-computer interface. The membership is quite varied,
including a Ph.D. control system engineer, a psychologist in human
factors, and two software developers (one only occasionally, but he
has been involved with Layered Protocols and then PCT for almost as
long as I have).
Almost the most difficult thing I do in this group is to get them to
concentrate on the PERCEPTION, NOT THE ACTION. They say: "The user will
want to achieve this perception [fine] so he must do that [not fine]."
I try to get them to feel natural saying "The user will want to achieve
this perception, and to do so may want to achieve those perceptions or
perhaps these other perceptions." It's amazing how much easier it is
to consider the interfaces when you keep to the perceptions that might
be required, leaving the actions to the very lowest level, when you have
to be aware that you are provided with a mouse and a keyboard, or a
microphone and a trackball, or whatever physical devices there might be.
The apparently natural approach, to think of what the user "does" (not
in the PCT sense of "does"), such as "he clicks on that button," turns
out to lead to endless complication, as compared with "he perceives that
button to be in the selected state."
PCT isn't just a powerful theory in the abstract, or a theory that accurately
models tracking moving cursors (as Ed Ford and others know very well). It
is a way of thinking that makes design involving humans simpler. It deals
with what they REALLY do, and therefore allows you to design so that they
can do it. But it is not a "natural" way for people to look at other
people. Only one of my seminar group might have been trained in the
psychological methods that receive regular excoriation on CSG-L, but they
all "naturally" think of the actions first, and then the perceptions that
might possibly result.
By the way, we are hoping to develop a paper on this topic for the IJMMS
special issue--and I hope the authors of the other papers are well along
in at least planning their papers (sorry, Mary).
Martin