[From Bruce Abbott (960909.0855 EST)]
Rick Marken (960908.1800) --
If what you say three times is true, I guess you'd better say it again,
because this post is only the first repeat of your previous one offering the
same argument, despite my protestations that you've misunderstood the
message and that therefore this argument is irrelevant.
Me (960907.1455 EST):
The complexity of the behavior of a purposive system reveals more
about the complexity of the environment in which the system must
operate than of the system itself, which indeed may be quite simple
(Powers, 1973; Simon, 1969).
You:
This would be a VERY misleading attribution because it would suggest
that Simon and Powers came to the same qualititive conclusion for the
same quantitative reason..
That is not my position. See my post [Bruce Abbott (960908.1025 EST)] for
an explanation. Thus the rest of your elaborate description of Input-output
vs PCT quantitative reasoning is irrelevant. For example you said that:
Simon's conclusion is based on an input-output model of behavior.
Such a model says that an environmental input, s(t), leads to
behavioral output, o(t), via the organism. The "organism function",
f(),that converts s(t) into o(t) can be quite simple; for example,
f() can be a simple multiplier, k, so that:
Simon's conclusion is not based on any such reasoning -- you're making this
up. I continue to be amazed by your astounding ability to know what people
have written without actually reading it.
I don't recall Simon ever advocating the abandonment of cause-
effect based psychological research in favor of research aimed
at the discovery of controlled variables. But this is what he
surely would have done if he had come to his "insight" about
behavioral complexity through the doors of PCT.
I didn't claim that he had come to his insight (without the quotes; it is
genuine) "through the doors of PCT." You're making things up again. What I
said was that Simon recognized that for purposive systems, variation in
behavior reflects mainly variation in the environment. And that he
suggested that the mechanism involved may be quite simple. And that his
example of a possible mechanism was a servomechanism. All these things are
true.
In contrast, your arguments all read as if I had claimed that Simon had
developed PCT in 1969 and drew his conclusions from that model. I made no
such claim and your argument against this point, however valid it may be, is
simply irrelevant, since that is not my claim.
Bruce Abbott (960908.1025 EST)
Simon assumed only that the system has an inner organization
that allows it to perform some function (its purpose) and a
permissive environment in which that function can be carried out.
This is enough to conclude that the behavior of the system
reveals almost nothing about the mechanism through which the
function is carried out, that the variation in its behavior
reflects mainly the characteristics of the environment.Perhaps my discussion above gives an indication of what Bill
might mean by "very different -- even opposite -- underlying ideas"
You forgot to quote my answer to Bill, which was "I agree." I do not need
you to tell me what Bill might mean. And you overlook the fact that this
difference of underlying ideas is irrelevant to the present discussion,
except insofar as you have pushed mightily to recast it into that framework.
This is like the story of the man who told his neighbor that his horse was
too weak to pull the cart. "Oh," said the neighbor, "so you don't believe
horses are capable of pulling carts! Well, you're wrong and I can prove it!
Hey, Fred, George here says that horses can't pull carts! Can you believe
it?" And of course, George tries to say that that's not exactly what he
meant, but by this time Fred is getting warmed up to the argument and isn't
listening to George's protestations that he never said anything of the kind.
Why are we "defenders of the faith" when we point out how what
Simon says is inconsistent with the idea that behavior is the
control of perception?
Isn't it obvious? You have argued against "what Simon says" (and here I am
specifically restricting "what Simon says" to the material I was referring
to in _The sciences of the artificial_) without reading what Simon had to
say. Instead you speculate on what you think he might have said and attack
that. This is the behavior of a religious zealot, not that of a scientist.
You perceive Simon as potentially threatening and have moved against him
without even allowing him to speak. Your defense consists of the following:
Whatever Simon may have said, it cannot possibly be of any interest to
PCTers, because Simon is not a PCTer. Bunk.
Since Simon had no idea that behavior is the control of perception,
I find it difficult to believe that there might be anything
"illuminating" about what Simon has said or about what he has
discovered in his research (most of which is based on the ol'
cause-effect model of behavior). But feel free to present some
point Simon makes that you think a PCTer would find "illuminating".
There's no point in doing so, as your use of quotations around
"illuminating" so adequately demonstrates. You've already come to your
judgement without hearing anything whatsoever. What a pity.
Regards,
Bruce