Hello all,
I have been MIA for a few years. I just received this email from a friend of my and made me think of CSG.
"In the relentless forward march of technology, here's an example of fiction becoming fact! . Pretty amazing where we are, and where we are going so rapidly In this recent innovation in physics and flight : About 18 minutes. Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly ... and cooperate"
http://www.youtube.com/v/4ErEBkj_3PY&fmt=18&autoplay=1
I am happy to see so many fimilar names that are still very active and passionate.
Mark Lazare
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-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Marken rsmarken@GMAIL.COM
To: CSGNET CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU
Sent: Mon, Mar 5, 2012 6:12 pm
Subject: Re: Unification of life sciences
[From Rick Marken (2012.03.05.1710)]
Martin Taylor (2012.03.04.13.41)–
RM: I think the physical components of the relationship between lever and pellet determines the nature of the functional relationships between variables (lever press rate and reinforcement rate, for example).
MT: Yes, you have that right.
RM: So it seems to me that there is no difference between environmental affordance and feedback function.
MT: How can you reconcile this with your previous sentence? Read one and then the other, and see if you can do it.
RM: So an environmental affordance is the implementation of the feedback function? I guess I don’t get the importance of that distinction, for modeling anyway. If the feedback function is qi = o ^ .5 (input goes as the square root of output) then, from a modeling perspective, it doesn’t matter whether this function is implemented using gears, software or hydraulics.
MT: Suppose you have in your hand an electronic device that emits at its output the logarithm of the voltage at its input. It is a physical device that determines the relation between its input and its output. Your second sentence is equivalent to saying that there is no difference between the function “Vout = log(Vin)” and a plastic box with connector terminals marked “Out” and “In”. I think that’s rather silly. If you have that plastic box, you have, if you need it, an environmental affordance for generating a logarithmic feedback function, but you do not have in your hand a function of any sort.
RM: Yes, I see that now. Silly me;-) But as I said, my excuse is that I don’t see any important reason for wanting for distinguish the feedback function from it’s physical implementation, unless, as you say, you are interested in using the feedback function to control behavior, as Skinner did by varying the schedule of reinforcement. Of course, Skinner had to know how to work the mechanism that transformed responses into reinforcements. But whatever the mechanism, the only thing you really have to know about the feedback function in order to understand the animal’s controlling is it’s form, not it’s implementation.
MT: Of course, as Bill pointed out a while back, the box provides an indefinite number of possible environmental affordances in addition to possibly producing a logarithmic function for you.
RM: I suppose that depends on whether you just got the basic box, which gives you only the log function, or the super delux model, which gives you that and a whole lot more;-)
Best
Rick
–
Richard S. Marken PhD