[From Bill Powers (960626.0820 MDT)]
Chris Cherpas (960625.1827 PT) --
Are you saying that controlling for transitions doesn't have to
involve transitions in _configurations_, that a transition control
unit can directly control for changes in sensations or even
intensities? If so, this is different than how I had gotten used to
thinking about the hierarchy. ... I find very disturbing that I
don't recall which way the theory is supposed to go now.
I could be wrong, couldn't I? There isn't any _a priori_ reason for the
levels, if they exist, to be arranged in any particular order, or for
the inputs to one level to come from any particular lower level (I do
draw the line at getting input information from higher-level
perceptions, but that's still just my opinion). The actual identity of
the levels is a matter of empirical observation, not theory or
experimental proof. Not yet.
We don't yet have any objective way to verify the relationships among
levels. I simply reported how my own perceptions seem to hang together,
both with regard to which perceptions seem to be functions of which, and
which have to be varied in order to control which. If you doubt whether
transitions can be derived directly from sensations or intensities, the
only way you can find out the truth is to examine your own experiences.
Is there anything you can perceive that is like the rate of change of a
sensation or an intensity? If so, then your transition level would have
to get copies of the sensation or intensity signals, directly. If not,
then you can leave out those connections in your version of the
hierarchy. Nobody can speak authoritatively on these matters; if you
check out your own experiences and they agree with mine, that's two
votes of equal weight.
I have to admit that for quite a while I resisted the idea of perceptual
signals skipping levels. So I just never noticed any examples of this. I
don't recall what led me to change my mind -- maybe hearing someone say
something like "Gee, it's getting warm in here, isn't it?"
The hardest part of this was simply to notice which things that I take
for granted ARE perceptions rather than just "the way things are." I had
done a lot of imagining before the imagination connection appeared in
the model -- it had never occurred to me that I was doing something that
the model, as it stood then, couldn't do. I had spent quite a few years
working on the concept of a control-system hierarchy before I noticed
that I was perceiving and trying to control a system concept. That's how
it goes. Joanna Woodfield (the name sounds wrong) once wrote a book
called _A mind of one's own_ in which she spoke of "catching
butterflies" -- noticing what is flitting by in your own head. That's
the idea.
It would all be easier if we were issued instruction manuals at birth.
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Best,
Bill P.