PCT and Scientific Revolutions

[From Bill Powers (2010.02.07.0340 MST)]
With my brain still reorganizing after the last encounter with Bruce G.,
I’m reminded of similar, though less upsetting, encounters with Bruce A.,
David G., Martin T., and others over many years and up to the present.
The same question keeps coming up: are we going to have a revolution or
aren’t we?
PCT is the present state of a process that began with learning about,
accepting, and starting to work out the implications of a revolutionary
scientic concept, the idea of negative feedback control. The revolution
started in the mind of H. S. Black on the morning of August 27th, 1927 as
he was on the Lackawanna Ferry going to work at the Bell Labs, and spread
rapidly over the next 20 years. When it started to leak out of the
engineering world into the life sciences, however, it ran into
resistance. The resistance arose because all of the life sciences with
only a few minor exceptions had been developing for many decades in total
ignorance of this new concept, and had created a huge network of
concepts, terminology, and classifications based on other – and
completely spurious – ideas of what makes behavior work. So not only did
the revolution have to spread into the life sciences, it had to displace
the ideas that were already there. And that aroused fierce
defenses.
Arthur C. Clark gave us Clark’s Theorem: the products of any highly
advanced civilization will appear to us to work by magic. To this I want
to add Powers’ Corrolary: to the inhabitants of any sufficiently retarded
civilization, everything will appear to work by magic.
Civilizations begin in ignorance and strive toward knowledge; they move
from magic to science,
Magic is causation without mechanism. The mere fact that event A occurred
is enough to cause event B to occur, with no intermediate processes to
explain how A was transformed into B. The mere wave of a wand at Hogwarts
causes someone on the other side of the quadrangle to fall flat on his
back. What science does is to provide connections from A to B in the form
of smaller magics. These smaller magics are called mechanisms, and while
they still involve causation without mechanism, they also provide
stepping stones from A to B that are useful and in fact are the source of
immense increases in understanding. Having seen these new mechanisms, we
can now see how combining them differently can lead not only from A to B,
from A to C, D, E, and so on.
The structure of the behavioral sciences has been mostly magical, which
is to say, empirical. I attended a seminar at the University of Colorado
at Boulder, or CU, last Tuesday, in which the subject was “Aiming
Accuracy: What have we learned since Woodworth (1899)?” What we have
learned, apparently, is how moving one hand or two hands to a target or
to a target and back again, slowly or rapidly, with the same or different
distances to the target, alternating hands or repeating with one hand,
with pauses between the trials or no pauses, and with spaced or
continuous learning sessions, affects the accuracy of pointing. Some
conjectures were offered about what the subjects were thinking by way of
strategy, but nothing organized or systematic. So this was pure magic:
these changes of conditions affected accuracy just because they existed,
not because of any intervening processes. Afterward I said to the
presenter, “This is good old-fashioned experimental psychology,
isn’t it?” He was quite pleased that I put it that way. He would
not, I presume, have been so pleased if I had said he was studying magic.
But he was. All science begins with studying magic and formulating
beliefs. But after 111 years of studying, you’d think it would have gone
a little way toward knowledge, wouldn’t you?
Fortunately, I was told later that the presenter was quite excited at the
idea that I might provide a model of pointing behavior to use in his
work. Maybe he can start getting some science into his empiricism. My
estimate of his abilities went up when I heard that. And of course
whatever he decides, one has to admire his skill, persistence, and
patience to have spent 20 years meticulously studying pointing
behavior.
So the question is, are we going to have a revolution or not? I think
there is only one way to do that. Scrap everything and start over. If you
don’t go all the way, if you aren’t willing to give up everything you
think you know about behavior, it will simply be too hard to make the
transition. You won’t be free to explore any part of the new approach any
way you please; you’ll always have to be careful not to upset any of your
favorite applecarts. That will inhibit your thinking and generate blind
spots, like continuing to believe that the way to create repeatable
results is to create repeatable behaviors.
Maybe – in fact quite likely, though we shouldn’t start out by thinking
this way – we may discover some things about behaving organisms that the
old-time psychologists also discovered, even though they had the wrong
explanations for them. Even after Lavoisier put an end to 150 years of
phlogiston, it remained true that if you put mice into dephlogisticated
air, they will die. Only now we know that there never was any such thing
as phlogiston; the oxygen had merely combined with carbon and become
unbreathable. Lavoisier had the role of H. S. Black, and the result of
his finding the role of oxygen in combustion was a scientific revolution
that ended up replacing alchemy with chemistry. So PCT is the start of a
revolution that will replace psychology and many other allied disciplines
with something entirely new. As Kuhn observed, the new science will not
be built on the old science; it will replace the old science.
In LSC3, chapter three, a “Live Block Diagram” is discussed;
the program comes with the book and can run on a Windows-based PC or an
Intel-based Mac with a suitable virtual-machine program in it. In this
diagram you will find all the basic features of the revolutionary idea
behind PCT. You will see that despite time-delays in the control loop,
the loop gain is high and the control is highly accurate, and the
control system is not unstable
as so many behavioral scientists seem
to believe it must be. The time-constant of the output function, out of
the box, is 30 seconds (that is, after a step-change in the error signal
to a new constant value, the output will take 30 seconds to change 2/3 of
the way to its final new value, 30 more seconds to change 2/3 of the
remaining way, and so on). Despite that very sluggish response, the time
constant of the overall control process is 0.3 seconds. The gain of the
output function is 100: that is, the output is 100 times the magnitude of
the error signal, after it comes to equilibrium. Reducing the output gain
to 50 – cutting it in half – reduces the output by 2%.

In other words, a negative feedback control system doesn’t behave in
accord with ordinary causal logic or common sense. Our common sense has
been trained to fit a different model, the cause-effect model that
underlies all conventional theories of behavior. If you want to be part
of the PCT revolution, you have to retrain your common sense, which is
exactly why you must simply give up every previous thing you learned
about behavior that was based on the old common sense – that is, you
have to give it all up. It is entirely wrong at its foundations.

Study the Live Block Diagram. Experiment with it any way you can think
of, until it begins to make sense to you, until it starts to be part of
your common sense about behavior, about control systems, about organisms.
Behind it is a running model of a real control system, the same model
that’s used in Chapter 4 to match your own behavior in a real tracking
experiment. There’s nothing hypothetical about it any more; it really
fits actual human behavior very closely. The more sense this block
diagram makes to you, the less sense any other psychological theory will
make. Do that enough and you will become part of the revolution whether
you like it or not. You can’t un-understand PCT once you have understood
it.

Best,

Bill P.

(Gavin Ritz 2010.02.08.9.58NZT)

[From
Bill Powers (2010.02.07.0340 MST)]

That is
a great experiment the Live Block diagram; I have played with it for hours.
Without it one can never understand PCT fully. The asymmetry makes perfect
sense.

I
created graphs (On Excel) from hundreds of different reference signals, disturbances
and changing the sliders.

In LSC3, chapter three, a “Live Block Diagram” is discussed; the
program comes with the book and can run on a Windows-based PC or an Intel-based
Mac with a suitable virtual-machine program in it. In this diagram you will
find all the basic features of the revolutionary idea behind PCT. You will see
that despite time-delays in the control loop, the loop gain is high and the
control is highly accurate, and the control
system is not unstable
as so many behavioral scientists seem to
believe it must be. The time-constant of the output function, out of the box,
is 30 seconds (that is, after a step-change in the error signal to a new
constant value, the output will take 30 seconds to change 2/3 of the way to its
final new value, 30 more seconds to change 2/3 of the remaining way, and so
on). Despite that very sluggish response, the time constant of the overall control
process is 0.3 seconds. The gain of the output function is 100: that is, the
output is 100 times the magnitude of the error signal, after it comes to
equilibrium. Reducing the output gain to 50 – cutting it in half – reduces
the output by 2%.

In other words, a negative feedback control system doesn’t behave in accord
with ordinary causal logic or common sense. Our common sense has been trained
to fit a different model, the cause-effect model that underlies all
conventional theories of behavior. If you want to be part of the PCT
revolution, you have to retrain your common sense, which is exactly why you
must simply give up every previous thing you learned about behavior that was
based on the old common sense – that is, you have to give it all up. It is entirely
wrong at its foundations.

Study the Live Block Diagram. Experiment with it any way you can think of,
until it begins to make sense to you, until it starts to be part of your common
sense about behavior, about control systems, about organisms. Behind it is a
running model of a real control system, the same model that’s used in Chapter 4
to match your own behavior in a real tracking experiment. There’s nothing
hypothetical about it any more; it really fits actual human behavior very
closely. The more sense this block diagram makes to you, the less sense any
other psychological theory will make. Do that enough and you will become part
of the revolution whether you like it or not. You can’t un-understand PCT once
you have understood it.

···

( Gavin
Ritz 2010.02.08.15.NZT)

[From
Bill Powers (2010.02.07.0340 MST)]

In other words, a negative feedback control system doesn’t behave in accord
with ordinary causal logic or common sense.

That is of
course only if one is specific about what one thinks ordinary causal logic is. Normally
or-or and and-and Boolean logic variables.

Our
common sense has been trained to fit a different model, the cause-effect model
that underlies all conventional theories of behavior.

This is
because the theorists have used an if-then logic to create these theories. On
the other hand Quantum Mechanics does not use this type of logic but a much
higher level of abstraction which is, if-and-only-if logic.

If
you want to be part of the PCT revolution, you have to retrain your common
sense, which is exactly why you must simply give up every previous thing you
learned about behavior that was based on the old common sense – that is, you
have to give it all up. It is entirely wrong at its foundations.

It’s
not the foundation of the theory but rather the thinking that has been used to
create them, and this is a much bigger obstacle to overcome.

PCT’s
logic is on the same level as Geometrodynamics and QM it’s a massive stretch
to ask some people to get there. QM is still debated on its logic even today
years after its acceptance. Knowledge follows logic in an if-and-only-if logic
manner. But PCT is much worse than this it’s creator used what is called bi-conditional
variables interacting with other bi-conditional variables and bi-conditional variables
have no cause and affect relationships it’s just plain organized complexity.

Boy,
have I had some interesting off list discussions on PCT, many are using if-then
logic to make sense of PCT and that’s impossible, I have actually
mentioned this to a PCT’lister and got no response because the logic this
individual is using is if-then logic. You cannot cut a whole cake into a whole
plus two.

This
problem we have found is the biggest cause of conflict in almost 95% of
business role relationships.

The very
nature of what PCT tries to overcome is the very problem that it faces within
itself. If that makes any sense to man or beast.

Best

Gavin

[From Bill Powers (2010.02.07.1953 MS%T)]

Gavin Ritz 2010.02.08.15.NZT –

Your enthusiasm shows through, Gavin. Thanks.

Best,

Bill P.

(Gavin Ritz 2010.02.08.17.01NZT)

[From Bill Powers
(2010.02.07.1953 MS%T)]
Gavin Ritz 2010.02.08.15.NZT –

BP: Your enthusiasm shows through, Gavin. Thanks.

GR: it hasn’t bought many friends,
but then again I don’t care. My energy concept in relationship to PCT has
brought quite the opposite. I think it may be the right track. I’m interested
because PCT is the first tension model I’ve seen outside the ones I’m
very familiar with that actually really does model behavior well.

Not only that I’ve been testing out PCT
behavioral model on friends, family and myself. If someone wants a journey in self
reflection use PCT on one self in as many situations (over and above the car
driving and gunnery of which I have no interested) that one can identify (not
that easy) and see if it’s my own reference signal causing the behavioral
input or something in the environment. Well it’s easy in most cases (communication
with another individual) it’s clearly my own internal signals, in other
cases it is too but harder to come to terms with. Oh well it’s the human
condition.

It has improved my sales skills really
well actually.

Gavin

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.07.2050)]

Bill Powers (2010.02.07.0340 MST)

The same question keeps coming up: are we going to have a revolution
or aren't we?

Count me in, comrade!

Best

Che

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.08.1345 UT)]

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.07.2050)]

Bill Powers (2010.02.07.0340 MST)

The same question keeps coming up: are we going to have a revolution
or aren't we?

Count me in, comrade!

Best

Che

Sancho Panza?

Bruce

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.0950)]

Bill Powers (2010.02.07.0340 MST)

So the question is, are we going to have a revolution or not? I think there
is only one way to do that. Scrap everything and start over...

Study the Live Block Diagram. Experiment with it any way you can think of,
until it begins to make sense to you, until it starts to be part of your
common sense about behavior, about control systems, about organisms...

With all due respect, Don Quixote, I think there is more to it than
understanding how closed-loop control works (though that is certainly
essential). Here is what is needed, I think, to be willing to join the
revolution (or windmill tilters):

1. Common sense (and reasonably good technical) understanding of how
closed-loop control works.

2. Ability to see behavior through control theory glasses. That is,
the ability to correctly and easily map observed behavior to the
closed-loop control model.
     Corollary 1: Ability to see how any behavior is like that in a
simple tracking task.
     Corollary 2: Ability to see how the behavior in experiments
always involves control.

3. Willingness to abandon misconceptions about control theory and how
it relates to behavior.

4. Willingness to master points 1 and 2 before asking how control
theory explains a particular behavioral phenomenon.
      Corollary 1: Willingness to abandon pre-conceived notions about
how behavior works based on a correct understand of control theory
obtained by mastering points 1 and 2.

5. Willingness to learn from the person who developed and continues to
develop and test the perceptual control model of behavior.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[From Dag Forssell (2010.02.08.1320 PST)]

Here is a book review from today's San Francisco Chronicle.

For sure, western psychology is unscientific and damaging.
A revolution is urgently needed for the sanity of all.

Best, Dag

Crazy_like_us.pdf (152 KB)

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.08.2130 UT)]

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.0950)]

Bill Powers (2010.02.07.0340 MST)

So the question is, are we going to have a revolution or not? I think there
is only one way to do that. Scrap everything and start over…

Study the Live Block Diagram. Experiment with it any way you can think of,
until it begins to make sense to you, until it starts to be part of your
common sense about behavior, about control systems, about organisms…

With all due respect, Don Quixote, I think there is more to it than
understanding how closed-loop control works (though that is certainly
essential). Here is what is needed, I think, to be willing to join the
revolution (or windmill tilters):

  1. Common sense (and reasonably good technical) understanding of how
    closed-loop control works.

  2. Ability to see behavior through control theory glasses. That is,
    the ability to correctly and easily map observed behavior to the
    closed-loop control model.
    Corollary 1: Ability to see how any behavior is like that in a
    simple tracking task.
    Corollary 2: Ability to see how the behavior in experiments
    always involves control.

  3. Willingness to abandon misconceptions about control theory and how
    it relates to behavior.

  4. Willingness to master points 1 and 2 before asking how control
    theory explains a particular behavioral phenomenon.
    Corollary 1: Willingness to abandon pre-conceived notions about
    how behavior works based on a correct understand of control theory
    obtained by mastering points 1 and 2.

  5. Willingness to learn from the person who developed and continues to
    develop and test the perceptual control model of behavior.

As one who has tried and failed to understand PCT, I would simply note that common sense seems to play a relatively minor role in the process. It seems as though PCT is more faith-based than it at first might appear. Even the slightest departure from strict orthodoxy seems to be enough to earn the label heretic. Perhaps this is one reason that the revolutionary army has such trouble garnering new recruits.

Bruce

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1430)]

Bruce Gregory (2010.02.08.2130 UT)--

As one who has tried and failed to understand PCT, I would simply note that
common sense seems to play a relatively minor role in the process.

Making common sense out of closed-loop control is the _goal_ of the
learning process, not part of the process itself. Maybe that's part of
your problem.

It seems as though PCT is more faith-based than it at first might appear. Even the
slightest departure from strict orthodoxy seems to be enough to earn the
label heretic.

Please give an example of what you consider a "slight departure" from
PCT. And I don't recall anyone ever calling you a "heretic". Can you
give an example of where that label was used?

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.08.2244 UT)]

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1430)]

Bruce Gregory (2010.02.08.2130 UT)–

As one who has tried and failed to understand PCT, I would simply note that
common sense seems to play a relatively minor role in the process.

Making common sense out of closed-loop control is the goal of the
learning process, not part of the process itself. Maybe that’s part of
your problem.

I am sure that is just one of many parts of my problem.

It seems as though PCT is more faith-based than it at first might appear. Even the
slightest departure from strict orthodoxy seems to be enough to earn the
label heretic.

Please give an example of what you consider a “slight departure” from
PCT. And I don’t recall anyone ever calling you a “heretic”. Can you
give an example of where that label was used?

Perhaps you weren’t following my recent exchange with Bill. (If you weren’t I would not blame you.) True he never called me a heretic. Invincibly ignorant might be a better term.

Take a look at [From Bill Powers (2010.02.06.1555 MST)].

I had the temerity to suggest that all neuroscientists were not cranks or fools.

Bruce

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1855)]

Bruce Gregory (2010.02.08.2244 UT)--

Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1430)]

Please give an example of what you consider a "slight
departure" from PCT.

Take a look at�[From Bill Powers (2010.02.06.1555 MST)].
I had the temerity to suggest that all neuroscientists were
not cranks or fools.

That's the slight departure from PCT?

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.09.0310 UT)]

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1855)]

Bruce Gregory (2010.02.08.2244 UT)--

Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1430)]

Please give an example of what you consider a "slight
departure" from PCT.

Take a look at [From Bill Powers (2010.02.06.1555 MST)].
I had the temerity to suggest that all neuroscientists were
not cranks or fools.

That's the slight departure from PCT?

You tell me. You are the keeper of the privy seal.

Bruce

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.09.0327 UT)]

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1855)]

Bruce Gregory (2010.02.08.2244 UT)–

Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1430)]

Please give an example of what you consider a “slight
departure” from PCT.

Take a look at [From Bill Powers (2010.02.06.1555 MST)].
I had the temerity to suggest that all neuroscientists were
not cranks or fools.

That’s the slight departure from PCT?

I’m tired of this and I’m sure you are, too. I’m an apostate. I’m also hopeless. Let’s leave at that.

Bruce

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.1930)]

Bruce Gregory (2010.02.09.0327 UT)--

I'm tired of this and I'm sure you are, too.

Are you kidding. Like Obama among the Repukes, I'm having fun!

I'm an apostate. I'm also hopeless. Let's leave at that.

Sounds like a plan.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.09.1505 UT)]

[From Bill Powers (2010.02.07.0340 MST)]

Study the Live Block Diagram. Experiment with it any way you can think of, until it begins to make sense to you, until it starts to be part of your common sense about behavior, about control systems, about organisms. Behind it is a running model of a real control system, the same model that's used in Chapter 4 to match your own behavior in a real tracking experiment. There's nothing hypothetical about it any more; it really fits actual human behavior very closely. The more sense this block diagram makes to you, the less sense any other psychological theory will make. Do that enough and you will become part of the revolution whether you like it or not. You can't un-understand PCT once you have understood it.

I am the first to admit that I have never understood PCT. If I did understand PCT, however, I would have no difficulty accounting for the way in which you and Rick defend your perception of the fundamental correctness of the current state of the theory. In fact, if you behaved in any other way, it would call the correctness of HPCT into question. Never give up. Never give in. As the saying goes, not always right, but never uncertain.

Bruce

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.09,1625 UT)]

[From Rick Marken (2010.02.08.0950)]

  1. Ability to see behavior through control theory glasses. That is,
    the ability to correctly and easily map observed behavior to the
    closed-loop control model.
    Corollary 1: Ability to see how any behavior is like that in a
    simple tracking task.
    Corollary 2: Ability to see how the behavior in experiments
    always involves control.

Is PCT an empirical theory? I only ask because Corollary 1 and Corollary 2 are, of course, assumptions. If these assumptions cannot be called into question, PCT is largely immune to disconfirmation. That is, so long as PCT models describe simple tracking experiments, they are ipso facto valid models of all human behavior. All behavior always involves control because the theory requires it. I’m not sure why it took me so long to realize this. Better late than never! Thanks for making this explicit.

Bruce

[From Richard Kennaway (2010.02.09.1637 GMT)]

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.09,1625 UT)]
Is PCT an empirical theory? I only ask because Corollary 1 and Corollary 2 are, of course, assumptions. If these assumptions cannot be called into question, PCT is largely immune to disconfirmation. That is, so long as PCT models describe simple tracking experiments, they are ipso facto valid models of all human behavior. All behavior always involves control because the theory requires it. I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize this. Better late than never! Thanks for making this explicit.

Anything can be called into question by producing evidence that casts doubt on it.

Nothing can be called into question by merely asking "is this true"?

If you have a reason to dispute these Corollaries, go ahead and dispute them, by finding a behaviour that cannot be accurately described by the closed-loop control model.

···

--
Richard Kennaway, jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Richard Kennaway
School of Computing Sciences,
University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.

[From Bruce Gregory 92010.02.09.1655 UT)]

[From Richard Kennaway (2010.02.09.1637 GMT)]

[From Bruce Gregory (2010.02.09,1625 UT)]
Is PCT an empirical theory? I only ask because Corollary 1 and Corollary 2 are, of course, assumptions. If these assumptions cannot be called into question, PCT is largely immune to disconfirmation. That is, so long as PCT models describe simple tracking experiments, they are ipso facto valid models of all human behavior. All behavior always involves control because the theory requires it. I’m not sure why it took me so long to realize this. Better late than never! Thanks for making this explicit.

Anything can be called into question by producing evidence that casts doubt on it.

Nothing can be called into question by merely asking “is this true”?

If you have a reason to dispute these Corollaries, go ahead and dispute them, by finding a behaviour that cannot be accurately described by the closed-loop control model.

I like your reasoning. This this on for size.

Claim: All behavior can be described by quantum field theory.

This claim can be called into question by producing evidence that casts doubt on it.

Nothing can be called into question by merely asking “is this true”?

If you have reason to dispute this claim, go ahead and dispute it, by finding a behavior that cannot be accurately described by quantum field theory.

Bruce