[Martin Taylor 960608 1221]
Rick Marken (960608.0845)
At the risk of propagating a discussion that has several times proved
to be a lettuce (i.e. fruitless)...
The second statement [that living organisms process information] is
true (deductively) of imaginary organisms. But it is not true of
real living organisms because it is rejected by evidence (remember
that, in a control task, we could find no information to "process"
where there should have been plenty).
Ah, historical revisionism is indeed persistent, I see.
So be it. One is happier in one's own history than in the one the world
provides. It's a nice feeling to know that one is right, isn't it?
If you remember (and I might be able to find it in the archives as I have
done before) the initial and basic prediction from information theory is
that the better the control, the less information from the disturbance
will be found in the perceptual signal, and that's the result that
showed up. However, in the presence of good control, a good reproduction
of the disturbance waveform can be constructed from the perceptual
signal, which is not possible when control is attempted but poor.
My point in the posting on which you comment was to say that it is irrelevant
to control theory _as such_ whether control involves the processing of
information. If analysis of the information processing that is inevitable
any time an influence at one place has an effect at another can be
helpful in understanding control, then use it. Otherwise ignore it, as
a statement in a domain of no interest to you. So far, I accept that I
have not demonstrated it to be useful to you, though I find it useful
to me. I have no problem with that, and I don't understand why you do.
However, I do appreciate your delight in tweaking other people's controlled
perceptions, and acknowledge that there is often mutual benefit in the
tweak.
So why not get rid of that "information theory" watch and just keep
the PCT one; then you'll know both the time and the score;-)
Personally, I like my watch to have a known relation to the official
and authoritative value of the time of day, and to have one watch. But
I don't know where to dial up the official "Science signal" to set my
watch on Science, so I have several "science watches," none of which
I believe implicitly.
Martin