[From Rick Marken (930410.1600)]
Ken Hacker [930410]
For once I agree with just about every line Rick Marten wrote.
Well, we'll fix that right up.
I think Rick is totally correct in
noting that the domains of social science and PCT are different to the
extent that one cannot explain the concerns of the other.
If you would read my "Blind men and the elephant" paper you would
see why this is true. It's true because social scientists deal mainly
with irrelevant side effects of control. PCT is about a domain (phen-
omenon) called control, which is staring social scientists right in the
face. But they keep missing it because control can LOOK LIKE stimulus-
response (based on our long discussion I think we can now call this the
IT illusion), selection by consequences (Skinner's got a lock on this --
the Skinner illusion) or output generation (the "cognitive" illusion:
but I'm negotiable -- we could call it the social communication illusion).
I guess that ends the honeymoon, eh?
Greg Williams (930410)
With the experimental set-up having been described in some detail, are
there additional comments and/or predictions based on PCT regarding what
the rats do in the "insoluble" situation? My next post will give some of
Maier's findings.
Predictions: the rats in the insoluble situation 1) joined the Branch
Davidians 2) hired a beltway consultant 3) faked suicide attempts.
Avery Andrews 930410.0814
I think it would
be helpful if there was a preliminary phase of questioning, to figure
out whether there is actually any substantive disagreement, before
the argument starts, and more effort to figure out what people are
actually trying to say, once it has.
Right on, Avery!
This seems like a VERY puzzling suggestion to me. Do you guys mean that
we should have had a set of posts, before the "real" posts started,
to see if we really had a disagreement? What if we disagreed about whether
or not there was a disagreement? It seems to me that over the month of
posts we found quite clearly that 1) there was a BIG disagreement --
enough to generate a hugh amount of posting activity and 2) all during
this disagreement, all parties went to a hugh amont of effort to explain
and figure out what each other were saying (or trying to say). In fact,
we eventually reduced everything to actual working models and posted the
numbers on the net. The result didn't come out the way IT people hoped so
now they may want to do some "re-clarifying". That's fine; but I think it's
now clear to at least some people on the net who were able to understand
what was going on that control systems control inputs; their outputs are
not guided by these inputs. I think that, as a result of this discussion,
one or two more "Newtonians" have been added to the PCT ranks.
Dick Robertson] (930409)
I saw at once that my question was nonsensical in regard to first order
systems, since their output simply increases or decreases to combat error
in the loop. But what about higher order systems, where it would seem that
output "selects" different variables in the system(s) below?
The outputs from "above" are combined into a net reference for the lower
level system. The value of this reference "selects" the level of perception
to be produced by the lower level system.
In a case like that - how is the
output of the program "choosing" items from the sequence-level repertoire?
The higher (program) level doesn't really "choose" the lower level
perception. It works the same at all levels of the hierarchy. The
output to the sequence level is varied until the input at the program
level matches the program reference. It is quite likely (as it is at the
lowest level) that the same program level output (error) will result in
quite different references for sequence (ie. will select quite different
sequences) on different occasions. At the lowest level this is mainly
the result of the feedback function; at higher levels this is the result
of the fact that the reference for, say, a sequence, is determined
by several higher level outputs (errors) at the same time.
3) I'd like to see more thoughts on the problems of modeling more complex
behavior than tracking.
Is an entirely different
methodology called for
Not necessarily. I think it might be difficult to be real quantitative
at higher levels but the basic idea of The Test should work.
, or can't it be modeled?
Hard to tell. I think some program level stuff can be modelled with
computer programs manipulating symbols that represent the states of
lower level perceptions. I bet progran level is the highest we can
model at the momemt (if we can at all). Principles, system concepts?
I doubt that we'll touch anything like that for quite some time.
Your reaction time study looks like it's testing configuration control
(in order to determine the number shown). Try varying the font, size
and orientation; then the identification time should slow down as they
must act based on a higher order aspect of the displayed number (category?).
Dick Robertson (930410.1725 CDT) --
Well I have to disagree with you about one point regarding what pct is not
good for, Rick. After teaching introductory general psychology wholly from
the PCT viewpoint (to modest class sizes of about 10-15) four or five times
now, I haven't heard any complaints from those who "got it" as they went on
to other courses, except that a couple have said they had a ball arguing with
the instructors in some other courses about things that just didn't make sense
in the traditional approach.
Sorry, I thought I might get in trouble with that one. When I was teaching
intro your excellent text was not around, unfortunately. I think your text
does prepare students just fine for advanced psych courses; I would have
had no compunction about using it. But I still think you won't get
rich off it (like Atkinson, et al are doing),; not because it's not a great
text (it is) but because it's about PCT.
Bye
Rick