Logical Conclusions

[Bill_Leach1]

<[Bill Leach 950712.20:09 U.S. Eastern Time Zone]

NET

Some years ago, I (like a few million other people) read Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand. I liked the work and was impressed. Eventually, I began
searching for other work of Rand and read that also. After just a few
such "finds" I became "quite taken" with Objectivism.

Fortunately, for me, Rand did carry her work to "its' logical
conclusions" in one of her publications (I don't remember which now). I
found her "end points" to be quite disturbing. Looking back on it now, I
realize that basically what I did was to "control for" the perception of
Objectivism that I wanted (reference).

I like to think that some reference that I have for intellectual honesty
is what caused me to remain always at least just a little uncomfortable
with Objectivism once I had seen where the basic premise logically had to
lead as an end point.

Understanding PCT "sounded the death knell" for Objectivism for me. In
the first place, if PCT is true then the concept of "rational man" is
indeed a myth and the "loss of this principle is fatal to Objectivism".
For me, at least, studying PCT returns one to the realization that
scientific principle is fully applicable to behavioural science as to any
other scientific effort.

Thus, the necessity to carry the basic premises of a theory to their
logical extremes is a required aspect of analysis. That is not to say
that any such effort that also results in a logical absurdity is
sufficient to invalidate a theory but rather such efforts )should< force
one to examine potential weaknesses in the theory or the process of
extension to such extremes.

At the very highest levels of thinking about this subject both theories
have a problem though in my opinion it is EAB's that is insurmountable.

Neither theory can really be "carried" to its' logical extremes but the
attempt may be instructive.

I think that we all have a pretty strong belief in causality,
repeatability and reliability of "laws of nature". We all pretty
generally believe in the existance of a deterministic nature for our
perceptions of "our" world. For the most part, this reliable
deterministic perception of our world around us has been the foundation
of scientific and technological achievement. Only relatively recently
has some of the non-deterministic nature of the physical world been
perceived. Few people ever perceive this non-deterministic
characteristic even indirectly (at least to the point of recognizing that
what is observed really IS, to the best of our knowledge not
deterministic).

The EAB picture of the world is such a deterministic model and as far as
I can see there are no exceptions in the theory:

Thus the basic idea (even though recognized as currently impossible) is
that if one could know exactly what environmental factors had been
experienced by an organism along with the initial organization of that
organism then one could predict how a current environmental factor would
affect current behaviour in a precisely deterministic manner.

This is the logical extreme that Bill P. was using in several messages.
He was using the implied EAB idea that sum total of experience with the
environment _determines_ in an absolute sense the behaviour of an
organism with a given organization.

Bruce has objected to Bill's assertions but has also stated:

He [Skinner] didn't understand that these could be given mechanistic,
perfectly deterministic, and testable interpretations (in terms of

reference levels etc.).

  [I think that you will find that PCT does NOT assert that "these" CAN
   ALWAYS be given mechanistic, perfectly deterministic ...
   interpretations]

and

Far from it. Skinner assumed that most behavior is in fact "internally
generated" but that its frequency of occurrence is modified through
experience and brought under control of environmental conditions
(stimulus control). Skinner was no S-R psychologist.

   [The last sentence here "blows me away". IF the environmental
    conditions control behaviour is that not S-R psychology?]

and this

Bruce:

    and chains on its citizens, too bad for you, but it's just an
    accident of history.

Bill P:

Why is that unfortunate? Why is it "too bad for you?" Under Skinner's
scheme, behavior is simply an outcome of converging external forces. It
way it is. Nobody wishes anything.

Bruce:

As I pointed out earlier (it seems to have been overlooked), Skinner did
not believe there were no such things as wishes, purposes, intentions,
only that and that a scientist would do better to stick with the
observable precursors and conditions rather than appealing to these
constructs for explanation. For example, if you "intend to go shopping,"
Skinner would have said instead that the probability that you will go
shopping is high, and would have pointed to the environmental
circumstances and history of reinforcement that would have led to that
condition

   [This is again asserting that the environment controls the organism
    and not the other way around]

At this top level of thinking, PCT differs in a dramatic way from EAB
(and probably every other behavioural theory):

PCT holds that a random function exists in the neural system. And that
the randomness is absolutely exclusive of any external influence. That
is PCT holds that there is NO absolute determinism with respect to past
experience, current environmental circumstances or even current organism
circumstances. By this, I do not mean that neither past experience or
current situation might not be demonstrated to influence whether the
random process takes place or not or even possibly the extent to which it
functions but rather only that none of these influences the randomness of
what happens. For example if one could hypothetically set up say 10
exactly identical organisms and subject them to exactly the same
environment, the random changes that would occur in each could not be
predicted regardless of the information available in advance and they
would not all react in exactly the same way to their identical
experience. In other words, like the case for having 100 radioactive
nuclides, there is no way to predict specifically which nuclide will
decay when (and in some cases even how).

It is this sort of randomness that PCT postulates exists within the
organism. Such randomness may be "bounded" or limited as to where it may
act or possibly even the extent of its' effect but, where it does act
there is no possible external determinism (and as pointed out a year or
so ago, QED might be a physical "explaination" for why this is true).

This idea is not only postulated by HPCT but is actually essential. If
such a process does not exist then HPCT can not explain even in a "loose"
way how living systems accomplish that which they have been observed to
accomplish (that is the "macro" view of behaviour of the human species).

PCT then is asserting that even if you did know every possible detail of
the structure and environmental experience of an organism, you still
could not predict exactly how that organism will behave.

This then is the "battle ground" where the arguement is occurring.

PCT is really unprepared to do battle on this ground. We don't have a
clue where the "intrinsic references" come from, we don't even know what
references ARE the intrinsic references.

There was some discussion of possible "control system" behaviour having
been seen in cellular biology studies. Trying to link the control system
behaviour of individual cells to intrinsic references is undoubted
worthwhile for PCT but I suspect that the effort will be a long time
bearing any fruit.

We can postulate a number of references that are essential for the
continued existance of an organism. That these are ultimately related to
the intrinsic references is a basic assertion of HPCT. How that
relationship is structured and how it came to exist is hypothesis only.
Of course HPCT basically asserts that somehow all references are set in
some relationship to the intrinsics, "the ultimate goals". While it
might be nice to study how this could be, it is a bit early to say
anything definitive.

That an animal "wishes" to eat is a given in PCT. It is a given in EAB
to but not explictly - food is a "reinforcer"... something with "special"
properties, a capacity for "controlling" a living organism.

Food does not "control" an organism... period. The environmental
circumstances around the acquisition of food may, in a sense, control an
organism but food itself does not.

Of course even the environmental circumstance's "control" is illusory.
The organism is always controlling or at least attempting to control its'
own perceptions and one of those that appears to be a "universally"
controlled perception for living beings is the acquisition of nutrients.

It seems to me that EAB is ignoring the obvious to the point of absurdity.
When any organism is deprived of something that it wants (and in this
particular case needs), it will try to obtain that something.

If one wants to call food in general a "reinforcer", I suppose that is
"OK" but the term food is already adequate and "reinforcer" does not add
any useful concepts.

Doesn't anyone in EAB wonder why you can not train rats without first
creating a deprivation condition? Food is not "reinforcing" behaviour,
providing only a single means of obtaining food when there is a want is
"reinforcing" behaviour.

It is not the nutrient and it is not even the environmental circumstances
but rather the organism's internal reference level for nutrients that
control behaviour. This is so obvious that it hurts.

Thus, EAB is essentially studying what an organism does when it is forced
into a situation where it is not getting what it wants to get and then
calling that "thing" it is being deprived of a "reinforcer". When the
experimental data does not match what is expected then the results are
dismissed as failing to account for the effects of "previous
reinforcers" or "satiation". Satiation is an EAB term that is blatantly
inconsistent with EAB itself. The invocation of "satiation" implies that
the organism itself is in control and not the reinforcer. Calls to
previous "reinforcement" are absurd for this situation.

PCT claims that experience in control attempts results in "learning". I
would go so far as to claim that both successful and unsuccessful control
experiences result is "some degree of learning". This position would be,
I suspect, appear to be in correspondance to EAB's "reinforcers" and
"punishers". The problem again though is that the control experience
itself and not the external objects of control are what affects the
learning.

PCT maintains that the organism controls its' own perceptions. This is
oft extended by saying that the organism controls its' own environment.

Both of these are not exactly correct and would be more correct if worded
thus: PCT maintains that the organism ATTEMPTS to control its' own
perceptions and thus the organism ATTEMPTS to control its' own
environment.

The importance of this minor difference is that PCT does not deny the
potential affects of the environment upon the organism. That the
environment can affect what the organism does or does not do is really a
given in PCT.

The problem really boils down to purpose. Non-living matter does not
have purpose or goals. Rocks do not try to fly nor do they attempt to
roll up hill. Living matter does do these thing. As is popular to
state, living matter is "negentropic" and as far as we know nothing else
functions counter to entropy.

It seem to me to be completely obvious that there is nothing about the
"entropy driven" world that could have a causal effect on me to create
order where chaos rules. All non-living matter not acted upon by living
matter moves from a state of organized to less organized, from a level of
one potential energy to one of lessor potential energy.

Our "only hope" in this matter of purposeful behaviour has in the past
always been the "dualistic" view. That is of course the existance of
"spirit world", a "soul" seperate and distinct from the physical body...
something that did not have to obey the known laws of physics.

If one wished to deny dualism then the only option was to throw out the
dualism but along with it the idea that a living being could initiate
"original action" or act in any way independently of past and existing
circumstances. Without the dualism, living beings had to be every
bit as determinate as a bouncing ball even if a bit more complex.

Even Engineered Control Theory did not solve the problem. Engineered
control systems (as well as our own existing models of living control
systems) are fully determinate. These systems can not act independently
of their external environment.

Presently, the ONLY POSSIBLE solution (outside of dualism) to the dilemma
is found in Bill Powers hypothesis of HPCT and delightfully so. I say
delightfully so because as I understand it, Bill's original discovery
that a random reorganization system was an essential requirement for HPCT
had nothing to do with this problem of purposeful behavour but rather
with the simple fact that it seemed wholly unreasonable to expect that a
predetermined system could exist that could really handle all of the
unexpected contingencies for control that have actually been observed
much less the others that systems have encounted but that we know nothing
about. Observationally, it has been seen that systems that routinely die
when faced with certain disturbance often do not do so universally. A
fixed, perdefined organization does not account for the exceptions.

It is a long stretch from random reorganization of control systems to a
purposeful behaviour but it is not a completely illogical one. In the
first place the actual workings of complex engineered control systems has
already provided enough surprises that the verdict is clearly not in yet.
In the second place there is no other theory that accounts for the
possibility that behaviour might actually be purposeful.

I think that either you believe that the very idea that non-control
systems can, in a deterministic manner, for example, cause an Einstien to
create the theory of relativity or you do not. If you do not then the
only game in town other than dualism is Bill Power's HPCT.

More and more I am thinking that the dispute between PCT and EAB is
futile. The real problem exists at the most fundamental level of belief.
Determinism either is or is not ultimately capabile of explaining all
behaviour. If you believe that it is then EAB will always be able to
offer "explainations" for behaviour. If you believe that ANY portion of
ANY decision that you have made, are making, or will make is in ANY way
not just the product of your own structure plus the environmental
influences that you have experienced then EAB can not be correct and PCT
might be the answer.

WHO, this got too complex and involved for me to continue (wonder how
many are thankful?).

-bill

[Bruce_Abbott]

[From Bruce Abbott (950716.1145 EST)]

Bill Leach 950712.20:09 U.S. Eastern Time Zone --

A really excellent post, Bill. However, I do wish to quibble with some of
your assertions and conclusions regarding EAB versus PCT.

The EAB picture of the world is such a deterministic model and as far as
I can see there are no exceptions in the theory:

Thus the basic idea (even though recognized as currently impossible) is
that if one could know exactly what environmental factors had been
experienced by an organism along with the initial organization of that
organism then one could predict how a current environmental factor would
affect current behaviour in a precisely deterministic manner.

This is the logical extreme that Bill P. was using in several messages.
He was using the implied EAB idea that sum total of experience with the
environment _determines_ in an absolute sense the behaviour of an
organism with a given organization.

This is a bit too restrictive. EAB also recognizes the contribution to
behavior of the organism's biology, although experimental research in EAB
tends to focus on the environmental determinants.

Bruce has objected to Bill's assertions but has also stated:

He [Skinner] didn't understand that these could be given mechanistic,
perfectly deterministic, and testable interpretations (in terms of
reference levels etc.).

[I think that you will find that PCT does NOT assert that "these" CAN
  ALWAYS be given mechanistic, perfectly deterministic ...
  interpretations]

So in PCT behavior sometimes just comes out of nowhere? (;-> Please explain
what you meant here. Surely you can't mean that the organism's actions are
not to be explained within PCT in purely mechanistic terms.

and

Far from it. Skinner assumed that most behavior is in fact "internally
generated" but that its frequency of occurrence is modified through
experience and brought under control of environmental conditions
(stimulus control). Skinner was no S-R psychologist.

  [The last sentence here "blows me away". IF the environmental
   conditions control behaviour is that not S-R psychology?]

This sentence should not "blow you away" unless you do not yet "get" the
distinction between S-R and Skinnerian psychology. S-R psychology holds
that _every_ "response" is _elicited_, reflex-fashion, by an immediately
prior "stimulus." A good analogy is the firing of a bullet from a rifle.
Squeeze trigger (stimulus) -----> fire cartridge (response). This is
clearly different from Skinner's view that, through experience, stimuli come
to signal to the organism what relationships between responding and
reinforcement currently "hold" in the environment. The stimulus says, e.g.,
"if you press the lever now, you will receive food." Whether the rat
presses the lever or not may depend on many other factors; clearly the
appearance of the stimulus does not elicit a response.

At this top level of thinking, PCT differs in a dramatic way from EAB
(and probably every other behavioural theory):

PCT holds that a random function exists in the neural system. And that
the randomness is absolutely exclusive of any external influence. That
is PCT holds that there is NO absolute determinism with respect to past
experience, current environmental circumstances or even current organism
circumstances. By this, I do not mean that neither past experience or
current situation might not be demonstrated to influence whether the
random process takes place or not or even possibly the extent to which it
functions but rather only that none of these influences the randomness of
what happens. For example if one could hypothetically set up say 10
exactly identical organisms and subject them to exactly the same
environment, the random changes that would occur in each could not be
predicted regardless of the information available in advance and they
would not all react in exactly the same way to their identical
experience. In other words, like the case for having 100 radioactive
nuclides, there is no way to predict specifically which nuclide will
decay when (and in some cases even how).

I rather doubt that the "randomness" you describe is of the Heisenburg type
(although Penrod has suggested such a mechanism, apparently just to
demonstrate that when it comes to accounting for the actions of living
organisms, respected physicists can embarass themselves). The randomness
you describe refers to the fact that one's history of experience (and the
sum total of its "imprint" on the nervous system) is largely a matter of
circumstance. A major job of the nervous system is to sort out those
relationships which are repeatable from those which are merely accidental.

It is this sort of randomness that PCT postulates exists within the
organism. Such randomness may be "bounded" or limited as to where it may
act or possibly even the extent of its' effect but, where it does act
there is no possible external determinism (and as pointed out a year or
so ago, QED might be a physical "explaination" for why this is true).

QED does not and need not apply: even a single neuron is several orders of
magnitude too large to demonstrate quantum effects, especially at body
temperature.

This idea is not only postulated by HPCT but is actually essential. If
such a process does not exist then HPCT can not explain even in a "loose"
way how living systems accomplish that which they have been observed to
accomplish (that is the "macro" view of behaviour of the human species).

Explain.

PCT then is asserting that even if you did know every possible detail of
the structure and environmental experience of an organism, you still
could not predict exactly how that organism will behave.

You would still be hosed up by noise in the system, so no theory suggests
that you could predict exactly how an organism will behave under any
circumstance. This, however, does not preclude your developing general
models that will account for (and predict) the relationips observed. If
not, then a science of behavior is impossible, including PCT.

It seems to me that EAB is ignoring the obvious to the point of absurdity.
When any organism is deprived of something that it wants (and in this
particular case needs), it will try to obtain that something.

Ignoring the obvious? No, EAB is just terribly concerned about the
scientific status of that word "wants." What does it mean to "want"
something? If I ask why you wrote the above sentence, would a satisfactory
answer be that you did it because you "wanted to"? Hardly! This is no
explanation at all, because now you have to ask, "but why did you want to?"

If one wants to call food in general a "reinforcer", I suppose that is
"OK" but the term food is already adequate and "reinforcer" does not add
any useful concepts.

The term "food" and the term "reinforcer" are not even close to being
isomorphic. This is like claiming that "gasoline" and "power" are the same,
and so we can dispense with the concept of power.

Doesn't anyone in EAB wonder why you can not train rats without first
creating a deprivation condition? Food is not "reinforcing" behaviour,
providing only a single means of obtaining food when there is a want is
"reinforcing" behaviour.

Bill, I've explained reinforcement theory's view of this already, so I'm
more than a bit surprised that you're asking this question. Deprivation is
viewed as an "establishing operation" that influences the effectiveness of
food as a reinforcer. It is assumed that the reason deprivation has such an
effect on the reinforcing value of food is that deprivation creates a need
which the food tends to correct. But from the strictly Skinnerian point of
view, one can use the empirical fact that level of deprivation affects rate
of responding for food pellets without waiting for the underlying biological
reasons for that linkage to be elucidated. This is not to say that these
reasons are irrelevant, only that the scientific study of behavior need wait
for them to be discovered.

It is not the nutrient and it is not even the environmental circumstances
but rather the organism's internal reference level for nutrients that
control behaviour. This is so obvious that it hurts.

Actually, there's a good argument to be made that nutrient levels remain
rather steady under ordinary (nondeprivation) conditions and that under
these zero-error conditions variables other than nutrient level are far more
important. Environmental circumstances determine what actions will lead to
what changes in the organism's controlled variables; experience with those
circumstances determines what among several possible actions will actually
take place. If I am currently experiencing an error in some controlled
perception, what will I do? Your statement suggests that the answer, given
only this information, is obvious. Obviously it is not.

Thus, EAB is essentially studying what an organism does when it is forced
into a situation where it is not getting what it wants to get and then
calling that "thing" it is being deprived of a "reinforcer". When the
experimental data does not match what is expected then the results are
dismissed as failing to account for the effects of "previous
reinforcers" or "satiation". Satiation is an EAB term that is blatantly
inconsistent with EAB itself. The invocation of "satiation" implies that
the organism itself is in control and not the reinforcer. Calls to
previous "reinforcement" are absurd for this situation.

How you reach these conclusions is beyond my understanding. Where is your
evidence that "when the experimental data does [do] not match what is
expected then the results are dismissed as failing to account for the
effects of "previous reinforcers" or "satiation"? I don't know of anyone in
EAB who "dismisses" contradictory results in the way you describe. In a
research report, it is considered to be the researcher's obligation to note
conflicts between a study's outcome and previous findings or the theory
being evaluated within the study. An author may then speculate on factors
or interpretations which could "account" for the discrepancy, not to
"dismiss" the contradiction, but to suggest directions for future research.
Furthermore, if research is conducted to evaluate the effect of such factors
as satiation or previous history of reinforcement and this research supports
the explanation, this is hardly what I would term "dismissing" the results.

It seem to me to be completely obvious that there is nothing about the
"entropy driven" world that could have a causal effect on me to create
order where chaos rules. All non-living matter not acted upon by living
matter moves from a state of organized to less organized, from a level of
one potential energy to one of lessor potential energy.

How about evolution? Evolution does not violate entropy, of course; energy
expended creates local "pockets" in which entropy is decreasing, i.e. matter
moves from a state of less organized to more organized. This effect emerges
from random variation and natural "selection."

Presently, the ONLY POSSIBLE solution (outside of dualism) to the dilemma
is found in Bill Powers hypothesis of HPCT and delightfully so. I say
delightfully so because as I understand it, Bill's original discovery
that a random reorganization system was an essential requirement for HPCT
had nothing to do with this problem of purposeful behavour but rather
with the simple fact that it seemed wholly unreasonable to expect that a
predetermined system could exist that could really handle all of the
unexpected contingencies for control that have actually been observed
much less the others that systems have encounted but that we know nothing
about. Observationally, it has been seen that systems that routinely die
when faced with certain disturbance often do not do so universally. A
fixed, perdefined organization does not account for the exceptions.

You're talking about random variation and "selection." Darwin, Thorndike,
Skinner, and now Bill Powers have all appealed to this principle to explain
the emergence of organizations that "work," i.e., function adaptively. The
principle is not unique to PCT; a somewhat different version is called the
Law of Effect.

More and more I am thinking that the dispute between PCT and EAB is
futile. The real problem exists at the most fundamental level of belief.
Determinism either is or is not ultimately capabile of explaining all
behaviour. If you believe that it is then EAB will always be able to
offer "explainations" for behaviour. If you believe that ANY portion of
ANY decision that you have made, are making, or will make is in ANY way
not just the product of your own structure plus the environmental
influences that you have experienced then EAB can not be correct and PCT
might be the answer.

Determinism has nothing to do with the distinction between PCT and EAB.
Both allow a strong role for "chance" in the learning process and in the
process by which actions are produced. The important distinction resides in
the assumed organization of the system--as a closed-loop system whose
actions depend partly on the state of internal references, or not.

Regards,

Bruce

[Bruce_Abbott]

[From Bruce Abbott (950716.1635 EST)]

Bill Powers (950716.1120 MDT) --
    Bruce Abbott (950716.1145 EST)

    So in PCT behavior sometimes just comes out of nowhere? (;->
    Please explain what you meant here. Surely you can't mean that the
    organism's actions are not to be explained within PCT in purely
    mechanistic terms.

Yes, behavior can come from nowhere, and yes, actions are explained in
purely mechanistic terms. This is not a contradiction: it shows that
"mechanistic" does not mean "caused from outside the system."

Given a few capacitors and resistors and one operational amplifier, I
can solder together a physical system which will start behaving in a
highly organized way as soon as a power source is connected to it. No
external stimulus is required -- just an undifferentiated supply of
energy with some minimum capacity.

Well, this is certainly a different definition of "nowhere" than I had in
mind. Biological rhythms certainly fall within this class; EAB certainly
does not deny their existence, nor does it attemt to account for them by
means of external stimulus effects. I think Bill L. was talking of
something else, which he (following Roger Penrose) proposes may arise from
quantum effects. My argument was that such quantum processes are
unnecessary as ordinary system "noise" can account for the variability he
would explain by means of them.

By the way, I know what an oscillator circuit is; I've built a few.

This is a deterministic
physical system whose behavior comes from nowhere, in terms or prior
causative events. Such systems are commonplace in electronics and
computing.

I wouldn't say it comes from nowhere, but from well-understood interactions
among its elements.

A control system is the same sort of system. Control does not happen
because there is some stimulus that causes control to occur. Control
occurs spontaneously when a physical system with the right physical
properties is connected to an environment with the right physical
properties. This is exactly analogous to the oscillator: behavioral
actions will be produced that control the input variable simply because
of the parameters and connectivity of the system. Control is an
INTRINSIC PROPERTY of any system having the right organization and
connected in the right way to its environment.

Yes, of course. This is all fine, but it is unrelated to my comment to Bill L.

When you bring reorganization into the picture, we get even more
autonomy. Reorganization alters the physical parameters of a hierarchy
of control systems. This reorganization is done to maintain certain
basic variables inside the organism near built-in reference levels. The
specific organizations produced by reorganization are unpredictable; all
that is predictable is that reorganization will not stop until all
critical internal variables are under control.

Yes. So? This makes the system indeterminate? Just the opposite! Because
the result is unpredictable (in specifics) does not mean that the process
creating that result is indeterminate.

As reorganization takes place, the control actions of the organism
change, so that new aspects of the environment are brought under
control. Always, the criterion for changing organization is the benefit
to the organism in terms of intrinsic controlled variables. All that the
environment does is to determine what consequences follow from a given
behavior; the environment does not determine that any particular
consequence will be of interest to the organism, what amount of that
consequence will be maintained by behavior, or that that consequence
rather than another will be controlled.

Yes, I understand all that, although I believe that the completely "random"
approach is used only as a last resort. There are more efficient strategies
which can be employed to establish control in most cases.

So in terms of events in the current external world, both behavior and
learning are entirely spontaneous.

Thorndike would have agreed with you. His Law of Effect is a prototype
example of such a process.

    The randomness you describe refers to the fact that one's history
    of experience (and the sum total of its "imprint" on the nervous
    system) is largely a matter of circumstance. A major job of the
    nervous system is to sort out those relationships which are
    repeatable from those which are merely accidental.

On the contrary, the randomness of reorganization is independent of
history, and that is what makes it such a powerful method. It works, I
have proposed, like the E. coli method works: random changes in output
which are applied at intervals that depend on the results relative to
the results that the system wants.

The "randomness" of reorganizaton is independent of history, but the
organization that results is certainly dependent on that history. A control
system organization never tried will not exist in the current system, even
if it is an optimal one; worse organizations that WERE tried and which led
to a significant reduction of intrinsic error may become established even
though they are less than optimal--the system can become trapped in local
minima. In this sense the history of experience becomes represented in the
organism's current structure.

    ... EAB is just terribly concerned about the scientific status of
    that word "wants." What does it mean to "want" something?

As you know, it means that there is a difference between the perception
being controlled and the reference level for that perception. This is
the physical explanation for "wanting." The word is used rather loosely;
you can say "I want some ice-cream," meaning to refer to the state of
the controlled variable (I don't have any ice cream), the nature of the
goal (the actual amount wanted), or the error signal (the degree of lack
of ice cream in relation to the amount wanted).

Yes, I do know; my purpose here in asking that question is to indicate the
nature of the problem with which behaviorists grappled, so that Bill could
have at least some appreciation as to why the "obvious" solution was
rejected in favor of a search for external causes. Without a firm model
(e.g., PCT) in which to ground such concepts, they become attributes of the
ghost within and thus defeat a scientific analysis. The "obvious" solution
gains scientific status only when one can give wishes and goals an
objective, mechanistic basis. Until you have that solution (PCT) the
"obvious" cannot be accepted in a scientific analysis.

It isn't surprising that EAB has a problem with "want" or other terms
that are specific to control phenomena. EAB contains nothing that
corresponds to a reference signal or a comparator. It's assumed that
when people use terms like wanting, desiring, intending, and so forth,
they are talking about vague mentalistic concepts. In PCT we don't have
that problem.

Yes.

    Hardly! This is no explanation at all, because now you have to
    ask, "but why did you want to?"

Exactly. By pursuing that line of reasoning, you end up with a
hierarchical control model. When you actually do this, you find that the
spectre of infinite regress which has kept others from following the
same line of investigation never appears. There is a finite number of
levels. When you get to the top level, there are no phenomena left to
explain. If you do find another one, you simply add one more level.

Yes. Skinner, Watson, and other early behaviorists believed that such
questions would ultimately lead one back out into the environment, and in a
sense they were right. You wouldn't do anything, according to PCT, if all
your references were satisifed. Disturbances are ever-present, however, and
many of these arise in the environment, often through interaction with other
people. I'm producing some of the disturbances to your system right
now--and I'm out here in the environment.

    The term "food" and the term "reinforcer" are not even close to
    being isomorphic. This is like claiming that "gasoline" and
    "power" are the same, and so we can dispense with the concept of
    power.

I'm surprised at this admission. A "reinforcer" is supposed to be
something observable. But if you admit that "food" and "reinforcer" are
two different things, then you will have a hard time showing me any
reinforcers in an operant-conditioning experiment. You can easily show
me the food, or water, or whatever, but showing me the reinforcer is, to
say the least, difficult.

Why are you surprised? Not too long ago we had a discussion about this
issue (I recall that Rick said he was surprised, too). Whether a food
pellet acts as a reinforcer would depend on a variety of variables,
including whether food was already available in the situation, the animal's
state of deprivation, the taste of the pellet, and so on. The ability to
reinforce a response would not be considered an absolute property of the
food pellet but a relationship between the properties of the food pellet
(taste, size, nutritional content, etc.) and the animal's biology. To claim
that food pellets have some absolute ability to reinforce responding would
be analogous to claiming that water has some absolute ability to power a
steam locomotive. Water certainly can power the locomotive, but first you
have to put it in the boiler, heat it, and allow its pressure to build to a
certain level. Then you have to allow it to do work against a piston.

    Actually, there's a good argument to be made that nutrient levels
    remain rather steady under ordinary (nondeprivation) conditions and
    that under these zero-error conditions variables other than
    nutrient level are far more important.

These are not zero-error conditions. At zero error there is no behavior.
Obtained nurtient levels are maintained constant only by the behavior
that is going on, and that behavior is driven only by the small
remaining error.

I didn't say they were zero-error conditions. I said that the _nutrient_
control system rarely experiences error. Animals such as cows usually
maintain a steady supply of food moving through the gut--the nutrient level
experienced in the bloodstream and tissues of these animals rarely varies.
So, there must be other controlled variables at work to keep the animal
eating more-or-less all day. Controlling those variables normally prevents
any error from appearing in the nutrient-control system.

    Environmental circumstances determine what actions will lead to
    what changes in the organism's controlled variables; experience
    with those circumstances determines what among several possible
    actions will actually take place. If I am currently experiencing
    an error in some controlled perception, what will I do? Your
    statement suggests that the answer, given only this information, is
    obvious. Obviously it is not.

Not to an EABer. To a PCTer the answer is that the animal will either
produce more behavior to bring the controlled perception near its
reference level, or start reorganizing until it finds a behavior that
will have the right result. If there are several behaviors that could
bring the controlled perception to its reference level, we can't predict
which of them will be used, but we can predict that most of the time one
of them will be used. If only one behavior can produce the desired
result, than that behavior will be used, if the animal can find it and
if it can produce the required amount of output.

Given your statements above, not to a PTCer either. In both cases the
specific answer depends on knowledge of the organism's previous experience
in that environment, and even then the best one may be able to do observing
the system from the outside is to state the probabilities with which this or
that activity will occur.

    How you reach these conclusions is beyond my understanding. Where
    is your evidence that "when the experimental data does [do] not
    match what is expected then the results are dismissed as failing to
    account for the effects of "previous reinforcers" or "satiation"?
    I don't know of anyone in EAB who "dismisses" contradictory results
    in the way you describe.

Then why, in talking of using operant conditioning in the classroom, did
you explain that sometimes it doesn't work because of the previous
history of reinforcement or because some more effective reinforcer must
have been present? It seems to me that this is doing exactly what Bill
described.

Well, if you want to provide a general explanation but have no data to guide
that explanation in a specific case, the best you can do is to speculate.
But real data can be offered to support the general explanation, that
certain histories of reinforcement or alternative sources of reinforcement
can have effects such as those to which I refer. If a friend of mine tried
to keep a cursor on a target in this video game we were playing, but he
couldn't do it, what would you say? (I give you no other information.) That
control theory must be inadequate to explain tracking behavior? I think not.

    In a research report, it is considered to be the researcher's
    obligation to note conflicts between a study's outcome and previous
    findings or the theory being evaluated within the study. An author
    may then speculate on factors or interpretations which could
    "account" for the discrepancy, not to "dismiss" the contradiction,
    but to suggest directions for future research.

That sounds wonderful, but how many of these authors have speculated
that perhaps reinforcement does NOT maintain behavior, or that the
probability of behavior does NOT increase with reinforcement, or that
reinforcement may NOT be an actual phenomenon? The "directions for
future research" are uniformly cast in terms of possibilities that leave
the basic theoretical structure intact.

That's an interesting question, but I dare say that the problem is not
unique to EAB. Science is practiced by human beings, who have learned to
perceive their experiments and the results they generate from a particular
perspective. How many scientists questioned Newton's work? It took better
than 300 years for Einstein to come along and show that Newton's conception
of the universe was fundamentally wrong. Given that the current conception
seems to provide reasonable and consistent explanations for a large variety
of observations, it would be surprising if researchers' first response to
anomalous data would be to question basic assumptions. The first job would
be to investigate further to determine whether (a) the anomaly is reliable,
and (b) it cannot be accounted for in a natural way by the standard theory,
once you know what variables are actually at work.

    Furthermore, if research is conducted to evaluate the effect of
    such factors as satiation or previous history of reinforcement and
    this research supports the explanation, this is hardly what I would
    term "dismissing" the results.

Well, I doubt that anyone can write a complete "history of
reinforcement" even for a laboratory animal reared from birth under the
experimenter's control. Reinforcement is going on 24 hours per day and
no experimenter could possibly notice every possible reinforcer in
action. "History of reinforcement" remains a fiction.

It isn't necessary to know the complete "history of reinforcement," not if
you can show that certain elements of that history are of overriding
importance. For example, you aren't going to get steady responding on a VI
2-hr schedule of reinforcement if that's the schedule you start with.
However, you may be able to do so if you begin with VI 30-s and work your
way up. To explain stable responding on the VI 2-hr schedule, you must
appeal to the effects of those previous exposures to the higher-rate
schedules. Whether the rat found scratching an ear "reinforcing" during
that period, on the other hand, will probably prove to be irrelevant.

Regards,

Bruce

[Bill_Leach1]

<[Bill Leach 950716.22:57 U.S. Eastern Time Zone]

[From Bruce Abbott (950716.1145 EST)]

This is a bit too restrictive. EAB also recognizes the contribution to
behavior of the organism's biology, although experimental research in
EAB tends to focus on the environmental determinants.

This "OK", though I don't get that message from anything that you have
said previously. Of course PCT has a serious problem with "environmental
determinants". There are, of course, such things as "environmental
determinants" -- oxygen concentration being one that comes to mind
immediately. What we call "food" as a class of substance is also in this
catagory but any specific instance of food may or may not for a
particular organism.

So in PCT[,] behaviour sometime just comes out of nowhere? (;-> Please
explain what you meant here. Surely you can't mean that the organism's
actions are not to be explained within PCT in purely mechanistic terms.

Yes, if an organism sets a reference for something forewhich it does not
also have an existing control loop then behaviour can be quite
spontaneous. Also, if for existing control loops if "significant" control
errors exist then changes in behaviour observed by someone external to
the control system might appear quite strange.

For an existing reference in an existing control loop that does not
experience reorganization then yes, the behaviour is mechanistic.

blown away

I wrote that before I read your explaination as to the special case
meaning applied to Stimulus-Response. As the term has been used on CSG-L
by PCTers, the meaning has always meant that a Stimulus causes a Response
and was never intended (here) to apply only to "reflex" psychology.
Looks like we might need to come up with a different term (though to PCT
Stimulus is Stimulus).

This is clearly different from Skinner's view that, through experience,
stimuli come to signal to the organism what relationships between
responding and reinforcement currently "hold" in the environment.

But it is still stimulus and the addition of "other" related
environmental stimuli does not make a fundamental change.

I rather doubt that the "randomness" you describe is of the Heisenburg
type (although Penrod has suggested such a mechanism, apparently just to
demonstrate that when it comes to accounting for the actions of living
organisms, respected physicists can embarass themselves).

Except that I AM talking about exactly that sort of randomness. The
assertion is, that if one could construct two absolutely identical
organisms and subject them to _exactly_ the same environment (both of
which are absolutely impossible course), the two organisms would
immeditately begin deviating from each other in their behaviour.

The randomness you describe refers to the fact that one's history of
experience (and the sum total of its "imprint" on the nervous system) is
largely a matter of circumstance. A major job of the nervous system is
to sort out those relationships which are repeatable from those which
are merely accidental.

I don't think that anyone in PCT doubts that differences in experience
will indeed by themselves insure that no to organisms are exactly alike
in their behaviour however that does not account for the existance of the
ability to create new control systems where none of that exact type
existed before.

QED does not and need not apply: even a single neuron is several orders
of magnitude too large to demonstrate quantum effects, especially at
body temperature.

QED does apply. Without QED, a complex system MUST be deterministic and
is incapable of true random operation (consider so called "random number
generators" in computers).

This idea is not only postulated by HPCT but is actually essential. If
such a process does not exist then HPCT can not explain even in a
"loose" way how living systems accomplish that which they have been
observed to accomplish (that is the "macro" view of behaviour of the
human species).

Explain.

Living systems (esp. Human) are able to create control loops for the
purpose of controling perceptions that were previously unknown. One of
the (non-PCT) postulates is that living systems are "born" with every
control loop needed or that will be needed for that organism to function.

As the AI people quickly determined, it appears to be impossible to
design a system to deal with the unknown UNLESS a random modification
system exists. Such a system (optimally), would "try" variations of
parameters for existing control loops first, then try other existing
control schemes and finally if that fails then try creating entirely new
schemes at random until either one is found that works or the "system
dies".

PCT then is asserting that even if you did know every possible detail
of the structure and environmental experience of an organism, you still
could not predict exactly how that organism will behave.

You would still be hosed up by noise in the system, so no theory
suggests that you could predict exactly how an organism will behave
under any circumstance.

Noise is in two forms, random and non-random. Random noise is a QED
phenomenon.

This, however, does not preclude your developing general models that
will account for (and predict) the relationips observed. If not, then a
science of behavior is impossible, including PCT.

PCT presently "side-steps" the issue to a large extent. IF a reference
exists for a CCEV then it is possible (at least in theory) to postulate
the reference when application of the TEST shows that the CCEV is
controlled.

For the most part PCT has very little to say (esp. quantitatively) about
how references come into existance. Indeed, the postulated
Reorganization system is expected to cause unpredictable changes in the
control hiearachy in the presents of overwhelming disturbance (ie:
control failure).

For example, if someone does not want to do the "tracking task" then a
PCTer has no option but to accept that the subject chooses not to
establish the necessary references.

The problem that PCT has with "stimulus" or "reinforcer" is that PCT
denys the idea that these "things" so designated have as a part of their
characteristics set the capacity to cause a living organism to behave.

The idea that some "things" seem to act as a "reinforcer" or "stimulus"
to a living organism with sufficient "repeatability" for such a
classification to come about, is not completely surprising to PCT.

While the term "intrinsics" is quite often mentioned, there is not much
that is specific in the concept (ie: Basically we don't know
specifically what any of the intrinsic references actually are). It is a
"given" that it is likely that the initial set of intrinsic references
and maybe even their "setpoints" are specific to the particular species.
Thus there are references for such things as fluid intake and food intake
and that these references exist to support some intrinsic reference(s).

Common experience at control attempts also will results in the existance
of a rather large set of somewhat similar references.

Food then, can be counted upon to "act like a reinforcer" under the
proper environmental circumstances because food is the source of
nutrition and a reference for nutrients exist either as an intrinsic (or
at least as a reference in a lower system that is in support of whatever
intrinsic(s) are involved in maintain metabolism).

Such things as Johnny "acting out" in class is NOT such a case.

want

IF you find something that "reinforces" behaviour 100% of the time in
100% of the cases then you have found a "reinforcer". If a reinforcer
fails to cause "reinforcement" of behaviour then quite simply, the
property attributed to the "reinforcer" is false.

To say that "specific past history of experience with reinforcers" or
even "weighting of current reinforcers" is significant to the current
"reinforcer" is foolish. You openly admit that you can not know the past
history (and probably will admit that you can not know the status of all
current "reinforcers" for an organism not in a controlled environment
either).

The problem is that "want" IS EVERYTHING... that is, the references set
internally by the organism are what determines what the organism will try
to accomplish. Once the organism HAS a reference set, then environment
will influence what behaviour is seen but not necessarily in as
predictable a fashion as one might be lead to expect. The organism is
controlling its' perceptions and could care less what actions it uses to
achieve that control as long as control is achieved.

As far as a RAT is concerned, lever pressing is incidental. What it
wants is food and if the only way to obtain food is to press a lever then
it will create a "lever pressing" "program" to meet the higher level
reference (or starve to death first).

The term "food" and the term "reinforcer" are not even close to being
isomorphic. This is like claiming that "gasoline" and "power" are the
same, and so we can dispense with the concept of power.

No it is not the case. BOTH food and gasoline are sources of power but I
hardly think a self-respecting engineer would even dream of calling
gasoline a "reinforcer". The vehicle either gets enough gasoline to run
or it does not and an organism either gets enough food or it does not.
The difference being that the organism being an autonomous control system
seeks its own fuel.

...reasons for that linkage to be elucidated. This is not to say that
these reasons are irrelevant, only that the scientific study of behavior
need [not] wait for them to be discovered.

And basically what PCT is saying is that these "linkages" ARE relevant.
To PCT it is significant that if you force a perception to not match its
reference then either the reference will change or behaviour WILL change
to attempt to control the perception (and under most conditions, the
reference for food will not "go away" indefinately).

Actually, there's a good argument to be made that nutrient levels remain
rather steady under ordinary (nondeprivation) conditions and that under
these zero-error conditions variables other than nutrient level are far
more important.

I used the term nutrient when I should have used a term such as something
like nutrient reserve. The point being that whatever systems control
nutrient levels are related in some way to a system that attempts to
acquire food.

Environmental circumstances determine what actions will lead to wgood argument to be made that nutrient levels remain
rather steady under ordinary (nondeprivation) conditions and that under
these zero-error conditions variables other than nutrient level are far
more important.

I used the term nutrient when I should have used a term such as something
like nutrient reserve. The point being that whatever systems control
nutrient levels are related in some way to a system that attempts to
acquire food.

Environmental circumstances determine what actions will lead to what
changes in the organism's controlled variables; experience with those
circumstances determines what among several possible actions will
actually take place.

Environmental circumstances will determine what effect any specific
output from the organism will have in the environment. In a sufficiently
restricted environment, it is possible that only one (or a few actions)
can alter the portion of the environment that the organism is interested
in changing. In the case where there really is only one possible
physical action on the part of the organism that will allow the organism
to achieve what it wants then it is correct to say that the environment
is determining the organism's behaviour -- misleading but correct.

The problem that I have with saying that is that it is really only true
for the case where ANOTHER CONTROL SYSTEM is controlling the environment
(ala EAB research). Real living control systems don't violate the "laws
of nature" anymore than does a rock but unlike a rock such systems are
famous for circumventing the "laws of nature".

If I am currently experiencing an error in some controlled perception,
what will I do? Your statement suggests that the answer, given only
this information, is obvious. Obviously it is not.

The answer is obvious but not from the perspective that you are viewing
the question. The answer is that if a persistent control system error
exist, reorganization will occur. You can not answer the question "How
will behaviour change?". My personal "belief" concerning reorganization
is that 1) Reorganization starts off in a "localized" manner. That is,
reorganization will first occur in the physical region of the brain where
the error exists and that the "magnitude" of reorganization will
generally start off "small". 2) If the error persists, then the
"magnitude of reorganization activity probably increases. 3) If the
error continues to persist then the region(s) affected will increase. 4)
There probably is an automatic "time delay" built into the system to
allow sufficient time for any system change to actually effect the error
before the next reorganization action occurs.

Also, it is possible that some "adaptive" controlling or parameter tuning
occurs without reorganization.

Thus, in the presence of your "control error", I would hypothesize that
first some parameter tuning would take place. Recognize that if
parameter tuning were to take place in a comparitively high level control
loop that "observed" behaviour could well be "seen" to change rather
dramatically.

I would suggest that it is also likely that previous or currently
employed control methods would be most likely next. I am guessing here
that the "localization" of initial reoganization attempts at a "small"
level of activity is likely to result in "creating connections" for
control loops that are somewhat similar to the one that is failing
(remember again, that this reoranization could be occuring at the
sequence or maybe program level).

Of course, in the case for at least the vast majority of references it is
always possible that the reference itself "gets reorganized away".
Actually, there is some chance that a serious persistant error could
quite literally result in the reorganization system causing permenant
incapacitation.

My point being, that while there might be some "statistical" odds that a
certain control failure will result in a certain specific behavioural
response such a prediction has no bearing on an individual organism.

dismissed

My use of this term was unfortunate as one would tend to infer that I
mean that EAB researchers willfully ignore results inconsistent with the
theory. The problem is that the explaination "satiation" itself is
inconsistent with the basic premise of EAB. That a subject can "become"
satiated means that it is the subject and not the environment that is
controlling.

The very fact that deprivation is recognized as a standard means of
"increasing the value of the reinforcer" AND THAT THIS STANDARD IS
UTTERLY INCONSISTANT WITH THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FOUNDATIONAL
PRINCIPLE OF EAB _AND_ that this fact has (appearently) not been
recognized by the EAB researchers is the thing that I find amazing.

entropy

How about evolution? Evolution does not violate entropy, of course;
energy expended creates local "pockets" in which entropy is decreasing,
i.e. matter moves from a state of less organized to more organized.

Evolution and "natural selection" are terms that we apply to an "end
result". We even talk in terms of individual organisms "evolving" almost
as though "evolution" is "driving" the changes in individual organisms
when the opposite is true. What we call "evolution" is the end result of
individual organisms controlling their own perceptions. There is no
"grand scheme evolver" causing evolution, "driving" or "directing"
evolution.

Evolution is NOT an exception to what I said. Only living system cause
organization to increase.

This effect emerges from random variation and natural "selection."

Random variation BY ITSELF always (except in rare occassions,
instanteously) increases entropy (for example it is possible for random
variation to "create" coherent light but I would not suggest taking any
bets on it if more than a few photons are involved).

You're talking about random variation and "selection." Darwin,
Thorndike, Skinner, and now Bill Powers have all appealed to this
principle to explain the emergence of organizations that "work," i.e.,
function adaptively. The principle is not unique to PCT; a somewhat
different version is called the Law of Effect.

No I don't think so. Reorganization is not "random variation". A COSMIC
or radiation particle "zapping" a gene at or immediately after conception
might be an example of "random variation" related to the "Law of Effect".

Reorganization is a random process only in that the exact changes that
will result from activation of the system are indeterminate. The system
itself is a control system.

Determinism has nothing to do with the distinction between PCT and EAB.
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···

Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 02:21:46 -0500
Reply-To: "Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)" <CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>
From: Tom BOURBON <tbourbon@HEART.MED.UTH.TMC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Walden? Schmalden!
To: Multiple recipients of list CSG-L <CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>
Status: RO

From Tom Bourbon [950717.0058]

A few brief comments concerning the thread about _Walden II_ and Skinner's
plan for using stimulus control to reform society.

[From Bruce Abbott (950714.1405 EST)]

Tom Bourbon [950713.1108] --

Tom:

Picking up the dangling ends of a thread on B.F. Skinner and "Walden II."

. . .

Bruce:

I don't pretend to be an expert on B. F. Skinner's writings; in fact I have
actually read only a small portion of his published work: _Science and Human
Behavior_, _Beyond Freedom and Dignity_, portions of _The Behavior or
Organisms_ and _Schedules of Reinforcement_, and the odd article here and
there. I once "browsed" Walden II in the bookstore but have not actually
read it.

I won't bother you with a list of Skinner's writings I have read. I'll just
say that, during my two moves in the past three years, I disposed of tons of
books, literally, but I still have two boxes of things by Skinner,
Skinnerians, and other varieties of behaviorists. I'll keep them during the
next move in a few weeks, as well. Don't ask me why; it must be something
strange in my history!
. . .

To the
extent that Skinner's basic vision of the science of behavior continue to
be reflected in current EAB philosophy and practice, I would like to see
those views correctly represented;

Fair enough.

otherwise, I could care less what Skinner
thought at some point or other during his long career.

We differ a little on that topic. Skinner maintained his crusade for
"better societies through better contingencies" right to the end, and the
task of strengthening (social) behavior by way of stimulus control still
enjoys high priority in the work of many behavior analysts. In light of the
the continuing social activism evinced by many behaviorists, I find it
useful to read all I can of what Skinner said about how to manipulate
contingencies and remake society.
. . .

Tom:

Bruce said in passing that "right-wing" political forces, such as
the fascists (and Nazis) had used and abused some of Skinner's ideas. Bill
briefly replied that left-wing political groups had also abused those ideas.

Bruce:

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. Those were not MY interpretations; I was simply
referring to the interpretations given by Jim Dinsmoor in his introduction
to the reissue of Walden II. My only comment was that many have interpreted
Skinner's ideas regarding the application of his technology as coming from
the right; Dinsmoor suggests that they actually came from the left.

Mea culpa, in part. I was too hasty in presenting a sketch of the thread on
Walden II. One problem was that I never saw the material by Dinsmoor, and I
probably missed one or two of the early posts between you and Bill. I got
lost when I summarized the levels of quotes within quotes that passed
between you two. I was in a hurry to get to the material I quoted from
Skinner (1968), about the Nazis, the Russians and the Chinese.

To the end of his life, Skinner advocated that someone, I am not sure just
whom it would be, should redirect and strengthen social behavior by means of
stimulus control. I was interested in Skinner's comments about the three
totalitarian regimes, during his interview with Evans, in 1968. I thought
what he said there was consistent with all else that I have seen from him on
the subject of stimulus control of behavior. He said that Nazis, Russian
Communists, and Chinese Communists probably didn't have their contingencies
for positive reinforcement quite right, but otherwise they were pretty good
at establishing stimulus control of behavior. I was struck by how he
ignored the fact that participants in all three totalitarian regimes engaged
in murder, torture and other terroristic acts on a _massive_ scale --
collectively, their victims run at least into the tens of millions. Any
other "contingencies" the totalitarian behavior controllers manipulated or
applied could look "effective" only against that backdrop of overwhelming
savagery.

In a similar manner, the contingencies whereby one establishes stimulus
control of behavior with a laboratory animal usually occur against a
backdrop of deprivation, in a box with a locked lid and sometimes with an
electrified floor or bar. However, the animal's behavior is explained as
resulting from the experimental contingencies that produce stimulus control.
It looks to me as though behavior controllers of many kinds (ranging from
laboratory experimenters to political totalitarians) often rely on some
pretty nasty practices to establish conditions in which their
"contingencies" can look as though they control behavior.

That's all I was trying to get at. Just some comments about what I thought
were life-long consistencies in Skinner's ideas.

Later,

Tom