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CSGnet Archive CSG1994
1

[From Oded Maler (940401)
* [From Bill Powers 930430.0600 MST)]

···

*
* ---------------------------------------------------------------
* Oded Maler (940329) --
*
*
* >"Spill your heated anger on the gentiles ..."
*
* ... is a welcome admonition to those who are inclined to violence
* anyway, and is ignored by those who aren't. What if you don't have
* any heated anger toward the gentiles -- are you supposed to whip
* some up so you can spill it? It seems to me that little incentive is
* needed for people like Arabs and Israelis to spill their heated
* anger at each other. They can both cite scriptural justifications
* for what they are doing for other reasons, and would do anyway.

In case it is not inderstood, I am usually a secular peaceful
person and I just enjoy playing the devil's (oops, God's) advocate
in front of the naive atheism of Rick. I do not treat the above sentence
(which is, btw, very beautiful piece of Hebrew prose) literally,
but as a piece of art, stating the desperation of the oppressed,
wishing for a divine hand that will come and bring justice and truth.
Of course this can serve as a point of departure for hatered and
vegenance, like any other excuse.

*
* Behind all the accumulated gimcrackery of the centuries, religion is
* simply a human enquiry into the basic problems of existence,
* particularly problems that science has chosen to ignore until quite
* recently. What is consciousness? Who is this Observer inside me, that
* I am? What is it to have purpose? How can we live together without
* pain? How can I make sense of this limited existence of mine and the
* world in which I have it? What are these longings inside me that
* draw me onward? Why is there beauty? Why is there sadness? Why is
* there goodness, why is there evil?
*
* Scientific theoreticians turned their backs on these questions, so
* to find answers people turned to theological theoreticians. Who can
* blame them?

Very beautifully put. I can just add that scientific theoreticians
not only turned their backs, but pretended that these problems
are solved by the "enlightenment".

--Oded

--

Oded Maler, VERIMAG, Miniparc ZIRST, 38330 Montbonnot, France
Phone: 76909635 Fax: 76413620 e-mail: Oded.Maler@imag.fr

2

[From Rick Marken (920627.1000)]

Unfortunatly I deleted Joel Judd's recent post on psych
research (by accident). But it was excellent. It's a good
thing you already have your PhD; it's not nice to tell your
committee members that their fundemental assumptions are a
crock.

Speaking of fundemental assumptions that are a crock, how about
Gary's interview with Mark Bickhard -- Luce professor, no less
(is that Henry or R. Duncan?) of more things than I can think
about at the same time. My hat's off to Gary for sitting though
the whole thing -- let alone asking pertinent questions at the
same time. I used to think that you had to go to the literature
on "dynamic attractor" models of behavior to get that level of
high-falutin' incoherence. I don't think Dr. Bickhard would enjoy
CSGList any better than did Dr. Beer. I think I'll go have a
Dr. Pepper.

I'll be bach.

Rick

···

**************************************************************

Richard S. Marken USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
The Aerospace Corporation Los Angeles, CA 90024
E-mail: marken@aero.org
(310) 336-6214 (day)
(310) 474-0313 (evening)

3

[From Rick Marken (920727.1000)]

Wayne Hershberger (920726)

     Will you please bring the IBM version of your
spreadsheet program to Durango this week?

Will do; though can't we down load it from Silvert's list when
we are there?

     Regarding your lonely lament earlier today, are there
things the CSG Group is not currently doing that it could be
doing that might hasten the general acceptance of the
"truth" we are championing.

Definitely worth talking about. But I think a few beers and good
company will fix me up in no time.

Greg Williams (920727)

Great list of "what is wrong with PCT" ideas. Some we can do nothing
about, of course, but I have some quick answers to a couple:

It is too bold: "Where is the empirical data for the details of the
mechanisms of hierarchical control proposed in HPCT?"

Answer: Where is the empirical data supporting the details of other
models of behavior??

Its supporters are often arrogant, unaccommodating, disrespectful, and
impatient with nonPCTers: "Screw 'em!!!"

Oops. Sounds like me when I'm not singin' the blues.

Some PCTers seem ignorant of much of the conventional psychological
literature: "Why don't they read more and say less?"

I've read it (and referred to it). Where's the beef? Actually, this has
been a bit of a sore spot for me; when I do try to refer to the existing
literature reviewers very often say that I have "got it wrong" (the theory,
that is). This is annoying (and one reason why I have resorted to
word for word quotes when referring to the theories of others) but it is
an expected result of having a non-working implementation of a theory;
it's just words, and we all know how ambiguous these can be.

PCTers appear bent on emphasizing the differences and minimizing the
similarities between their ideas and those of others: "Foul! We're supposed
to all be in this together."

Good point. But it's hard to compromise in science, as Galileo discovered
("and yet, it turns").

My prescription: ignore the "wrongs" and concentrate on
publicizing the "right." In particular, I suggest showing how PCT can explain
numerous empirical findings already in the literature. That should keep PCTers
too busy to be depressed.

I would be happy to do this. But what I have discovered (recently) is that
most (say 90%+) of these empirical findings are of such LOW QUALITY
(being statistical results -- the highest degree of relationship I found
while perusing published studies was .90; not bad, but still not good
enough for doing modeling) that they are really NOT RESULTS. Trying to use
PCT to explain the empirical findings in the psychological literature would
be like using PCT to explain Rhine's mental telepathy data or the winner's
of the last five races at Hollywood Park. An unfortunate implication of PCT
is that there are almost NO empirical findings of any use to the PCT
modeller in the current, standard psychological literature. PCTers may
not have collected hugh amounts of research data in big research projects
but I've looked through a lot of journals lately and unless one considers
noisy statistical results to be data, conventional psych ain't got much
data either.

Ah. That felt better.

Best regards

Rick

···

**************************************************************

Richard S. Marken USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
The Aerospace Corporation Los Angeles, CA 90024
E-mail: marken@aero.org
(310) 336-6214 (day)
(310) 474-0313 (evening)