# Models, Politics

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/models-politics/7168>\
**Category:** CSG1996\
**Created:** [August 27, 1996, 4:51pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/models-politics/7168 "1996-08-27T16:51:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Marken](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Richard\_Marken](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Richard_Marken)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 1996, 4:51pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/models-politics/7168/1 "1996-08-27T16:51:50Z")

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[From Rick Marken (960827.1000)]

Martin Taylor (960827 10:50) --

> Rick keeps citing PCT emulations as matching human behaviour within 5%  
> or better. That can happen, but it doesn't always happen.

So far, the only time it hasn't happened is when poor experimental  
procedures were used. But this is irrelevant to the question of the  
relative empirical merits of MCT vs PCT. MCT is a much more complex model  
than PCT and I know of no instance where MCT has been shown to account for  
human behavior better than PCT. At this point, MCT has to be considered a  
non-contender.

> The question is: Is there \_any\_ MCT-based control system that does not have  
> a behaviourally equivalent HPCT system, and vice-versa?

No. The question is whether one can create a situation where the behaviuor of  
the MCT model clearly differs from that of the PCT model. I bet that my  
variable feedback function situation is, indeed, one where the behavior  
of the MCT and PCT model will differ substantially and, thus, make clearly  
different predictions about how people will behave.

Me:

> But my little feedback function experiment shows that a control system's  
> structure and parameters tell you \_precious little\_ about the environment in  
> which it is designed to function .

Martin:

> Your position here is very like your position in the "information about  
> the disturbing influence" debate: "very little" == "none".

As Eli Wallach said in "The Magnificent Seven": "Generosity! That was my  
first mistake"

Ok. A control system's perceptual signal contains no (zero, nada, none)  
information about disturbances to the controlled variable. A control system's  
structure and parameters tell you nothing (zero, nada, none) about the  
environment in which it is designed to function. Does that help?

Bruce Gregory (960827.1135 EDT)

> in the United States the right wing wants to return to the  
> Enlightenment -- Newt would settle for 1928. In Spain, my

friend said, the right wing wants to return to the Inquisition.)

I see things quite differnetly. If the US right were interested in going back  
to the Enlightenment I'd be a right wing zealot myself. In fact, the right is  
precisely interested in going back to the Inquisition -- with that Torquemada  
Gingrich leading the charge against "liberals", "gays" and "athiests". The US  
right (like the US left in the 1900s -- remember William Jennings Bryant)) is  
now a religious movement and there's nothing enlightening about that!

Bruce Abbott (960827.1055 EST) --

> In the future I will use "model" to mean "analog" and "structure and  
> parameters tuned as required by environmental characteristics" instead of  
> "implicit model," if that will make you happy.

It will, indeed. But now you can go ahead and use "implicit model" because  
I will understand that you mean "structure and parameters tuned as required  
by environmental characteristics" -- that is, you are referring to something  
about the control system that is \_not a model\_ (not an analog) of the  
environment. Just as I thought. Why did you protest?

> Then why do you insist on suggesting that I am trying to link "implicit  
> model" to the environmental feedback function, period?

I didn't insist that. Sorry if you thought so.

> A properly-tuned system would have to take account of the normal effects of  
> disturbance on the CEV, not so?

Absolutely correct! But, of course, it doesn't take account of them by  
modeling them (developing an analog of them); it takes account of the by  
tuning it's parameters so that the result is good control.

> I'll take someone capable of thinking \_rationally\_ about the issues over  
> either one.

But what if you don't like the results of that rational thought. Rationality  
is just one level of the hierarchy; there are many people on the left and  
right who are quite capable of rational thought. What seems to distinguish  
left from right is the references for higher level principles and system  
concepts that evaluate the results of this rational process. The drug issue  
is a good example of this. A rational analysis of the "war on drugs" shows  
that strict enforcement of drug laws has little or no effect on drug usage  
but a hugh effect on drug related crime (it increases it). Yet some people  
(right and left, I'm afraid) want to continue the drug was because, even  
though they don't like crime, they also don't like the idea of "sending the  
wrong message"; that is, they don't want to perceive the "wrong" principle.

Politics is not a rationality problem; it's a problem of figuring out how to  
organize ourselves to control, as best as possible, all the different kinds  
of variables we want to control.

> Still waiting for you to describe how all those "wonderful models" of  
> reorganization of which you spoke work -- you know, the ones that make any  
> "knowledge" of the environment unnecessary. (:-\>

You know how it works. The reorganization system is a control system that  
controls it's perception of the level of error in another control system  
(target system). The reorganization system uses the E. coli approach to  
control; it randomly selects a change in a parameter of the target system and  
makes no more changes as long as the perceived error in the target  
system decreases or remains low; the reorganization system makes another  
random change in the target system's parameter if the perceived error  
in that system increases or remains large.

The reorganization system has no "knowledge" of the target system's  
environment; the reorganization systen has no idea why it's parameter changes  
are having an influence on the target system's performance. The  
reorganization system only knows how well the target system is controlling  
(because it perceives the magnitude of the target system's error signal).  
That's all the reorganization system "knows" - - the amount of error in the  
target system.

Best

Rick