From Tom Bourbon [930903.1303]
Hugh Petrie <PROHUGH@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU> writes:
Didn't you all know that DEANS ARE the university :>)?
Dean Hugh Petrie
Ouch! I can only hope Dean Petrie doesn't know *my* dean!
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[Martin Taylor 930903 11:30]
(Tom Bourbon, Avery Andrews, Michael Fehling various postings)
A year or so ago (my term for 3-36 months) we had a somewhat inconclusive
discussion about distributed control within a single hierarchy. It seems
to me that much of that discussion can be (and perhaps is being) replayed
in talking about organizations. Here's a brief (I hope) summary.
Fine, so it is being replayed. That might mean some of us were not
around for the first discussion. For example, I was not on the net with
any reliability back then and some of the other participants this time
are new. Or it might mean that for people who were involved the first time,
some of the points didn't sink in, or that people simply stopped talking
even though they had more to say. In either case, anyone who isn't
intersted this time can hit the zap button.
Skipping some of the details in your post, in the hope that I can reply
before you leave town ...
The point of this discussion is to suggest that a theorist's ability to
model a control hierarchy with a small number of appropriately connected
ECSs is not a demonstration that the real hierarchy is constructed in the
same way. As Rick has pointed out, modellers have satisfactorily modelled
human behaviour in some circumstances by using a single ECS, even though
we know full well that the human is more than that, even in a simple
tracking task.
Agreed. in fact, I don't think you will find one person on this net who
would *disagree*.
What Michael seems to be doing is to try to model the observable behaviour
of an organization AS IF it were a hierarchic control system, without
needing to assert that it works by having trans-personal ECSs that
receive percepts from and provide references to ECSs within individual
persons. Just as in distributed control inside an individual there nood
not be an ECS that controls a CEV that an observer sees to be controlled,
so within the organization, the controls performed by individuals can add
up to the appearance of a CEV being controlled by the organization, even
though the internal structure of the organization has no corresponding
ECS.
Fine. For my part, all I have been doing in my posts to Michael is ask for
a more detailed presentation of his model -- perhaps a diagram or two in
which I can see more clearly the relationships he assumes between
individuals and organizations, and in which I can see where an
organization's controlled variables are located and how and by whom they
are affected and sensed.
We "know" the organization has no transpersonal ECS only because we can see
inside the organism's structure, and we can find no corresponding entity.
We can see very little inside an organism's nervous system, so we are not
constrained by the fact that we have not seen *the* entity corresponding
to a particular ECS we model.
Right. But in our PCT models of individuals, we lay out in plain sight our
diagrams of the organization of the model (the model, not the person), and we
show everyone the computational steps that comprise the working model.
Again, for my part in this replay of last year's discussion, I have not said
to Michael (or Avery, or anyone else) that PCT models of individuals are
identical to the nervous systems of real people. Nor have I requested
more of him than I (or Bill Powers or Rick Marken or any other modeler)
provide as a matter of course, any time I try to tell someone about PCT and
about my work when I apply it. To the contrary, I have laid out, in detail
that some people probably wish would go away, the organization of the
*models* with which I work, and of the *actual* environmental variables
that affect and are affected by my models and the people they represent.
I expect the same from *any* person who comes on csg-l and tweaks my
interest by saying they use PCT models. That is why I keep pleading (in
vain, so far) for people to at least *try* to put their ideas in graphic
form, so we can all point at the same things when we discuss their models
and the environmental variables they believe are important.
If Michael's models work to describe the observable behaviour of an
organization, would they not have as much validity as the models many
of you use to describe the behaviour of a person? In both cases, we
could say that the model is known not to describe the structure. It
describes the way the structure works, and that is different.
Absolutely.
If they work that well, is there *anyone* who would, merely out of hand,
deny their validity? But so far we have seen neither the structure of the
model, nor the behavior it produces, nor the degree of agreement between
the behavior of the model and of the real organization. (I say that not as
a criticism, but as a description of the present situation.) On the other
hand, everything is on the table when a PCT modeler asserts that this
particular model, and not that one, achieves a particular level of agreement
or fit with data from a person, or from a pair of people, or from a crowd.
The same standards should apply on all sides. I hope no one thinks that is
unfair; I grew up thinking that was the way the game is played.
Until later,
Tom Bourbon
Tom Bourbon
Department of Neurosurgry
University of Texas Medical School-Houston Phone: 713-792-5760
6431 Fannin, Suite 7.138 Fax: 713-794-5084
Houston, TX 77030 USA tbourbon@heart.med.uth.tmc.edu