[From Bill Powers (980928.1532 MDT)]
Bruce Abbott (980927 or so) --
My assertion concerned only Ramachandran and Blakeslee, who in my judgment
were quite correct in their description. As I suggested in my post, the
emphasis on controlled outputs probably has something to do with the fact
that these are what are observed, whereas a person's perceptions can only be
inferred.
Bruce, you surprise me. Are you still adhering to this false behaviorist
doctrine, that a scientist can only deal with what a scientist observes?
That is certainly not the case in physics or chemistry -- most of what
those scientists deal with are components of imaginary models, whose states
must always be inferred because the basic variables are not directly
observable.
Are not a scientist's observations his own perceptions? Do you believe that
somehow a scientist is granted the privilege of knowing what is actually
out there in the environment, without having to observe his own fallible
human perceptual signals?
But that's not even the main mistake here. In fact, control systems do not
control their own outputs; they control only their own perceptual signals.
Their outputs vary with every disturbance, and so reflect primarily those
disturbances, not the actual controlled variables. Even if a scientist had
some magical way of observing the other system's true outputs, he would
still be observing the wrong aspect of behavior for understanding it.
Perhaps this isn't what you meant. But it if wasn't, you real point remains
obscure.
Best,
Bill P.