PCT Fanatics

CSGnet Archive CSG1992
1

[From Rick Marken (921223.1300)]

OK, nobody's in the office; I should be home cuddled up by the
Christmas tree (yes, I prefer celebrating the apocryphal birth of
the prince of peace to the non - apocryphal victory of the Macabees
over the Assyrians [or whomever]). So, since I have time, I want to
try to start a discussion of something that has been on my mind for
a week or so but has taken a back seat to my discussion with Martin,
in regard to which (I think) Bill Powers (921223.0915) said:

It's interesting how a defense turns into an attack, and how
letting down the defenses also reduces the attacks. Sometimes the
best defense is no defense at all.

Will I ever learn???

Thanks for the above, Bill; an appropriate observation for the season.

What I wanted to talk about was the problem of being perceived as a,
well, fanatic, when one gets into PCT. Of those posting regularly on
the net, I think that I might be perceived as the one most deserving of
the ?PCT fanatic? title (maybe it?s my strident, obnoxious manner --
but there are others whom, I feel, are equally deserving of this title;
Bill Powers himself, for instance; Tom Bourbon certainly). But I seem
to be perceived as particularly fanatic -- or am I particularly paranoid?
Some weeks ago Oded referred to me as the ?True believer?, I think
others have alluded to my apparent unwillingness to see the merit in
non-PCT approaches to understanding human nature (info theory,
dynamic attractors, fuzzy logic, artificial life, etc etc). So what I want
to do is try to explain my fanaticism by arguing that there is really no
way to be anything other than a fanatic once you accept the basic principle
of PCT -- that behavior is controlled perception.

I think the idea that one is a fanatic about PCT comes from what I alluded
to above -- the apparent failure of the fanatic to see any merit in non-PCT
approaches to understanding human nature. These non-PCT type approaches
are themselves often treated with something close to reverence by non-PCTers.
So even people who are attracted to PCT (for whatever reason) assume
that there must be SOMETHING of value in some old approach. How could
geniuses like Freud (psychodynamic theory), G.A. Miller (information
theory),Skinner (reinforcement theory), Green and Swets (signal detection
theory), Estes (stimulus sampling theory), Rummelhart (parallel distributed
processing theory), Chomsky (transformational grammar theory), Guilford
(trait theory), Tolman (sign-stimulus theory) etc etc ALL BE WRONG?
How can you (the PCT fanatic) ignore these theories? Why can?t you
incorporate what is useful and ignore what is not?

The answer is that ALL of these theories were based on a completely
incorrect view of behavior. They are ALL based on the idea that outputs
(neuroses, responses, operants, decisions, behavior, speech, intelligence,
movements) are caused by events in the environment or the brain. PCT
shows that this idea is completely wrong; it?s not just a wrong point of
view or the wrong description; ITS JUST NOT HOW BEHAVIOR
WORKS; it can?t be, because organisms EXIST in a NEGATIVE
FEEDBACK SITUATION with respect to their environment. As
Lee Iacocca says (but it?s really true in this case) THIS CHANGES
EVERYTHING.

For me, one of the most dramatic demonstration of this fact is given
in my ?Cause of control movements...? experiment (included in Mind
Readings). This experiment shows beyond doubt that THE STIMULUS
in a tracking task IS NOT THE CAUSE OF OUTPUTS that control the
stimulus; there is no cause-effect (where it seems that there must
be) because the cause and effect are IN A LOOP. It?s the loop
that changes everything that has always been taken for granted in
all previous approaches to understanding human nature.

Once you do an experiment like this and experience the fact that
what the math says is really true then all the old approaches
become irrelevant. There is no longer any way to take seriously
theories that propose ?stimulus guidance? or ?feedback guidance?
because stimuli don?t cause or guide anything in a loop -- they just
don?t. Nor is it possible to take seriously theories that propose
internal mechanisms for generating behavior -- because behavior
is not generated -- it is part of a loop in which the behavior that
is generated is also the cause of what generated the behavior. The
old explanations of behavior were based on a concept of behavior
that was flat out -- completely -- wrong. The chances that such
explanations might have something useful to say about behavior
as it actually exists -- as controlled perception -- are, from the point
of view of this fanatic, quite slim.

Even fanatic PCTers are willing to look at observations that might
suggest places to look to better understand the nature of control.
But once you know what it means to live in a negative feedback
loop, you know that all explanations of behavior that have not
correctly taken this loop into account (ie. ALL non- PCT
explanations of behavior) can be safely ignored.

I guess my bottom line argument is that it?s tough to understand
PCT and NOT be seen as a fanatic. Nevertheless, I am more
than willing -- anxious even -- to be convinced that there is some
value in non-PCT approaches to understanding behavior. I guess
Martin is preparing a thesis on the value of information theory
for understanding control . I?m waiting with great interest to see
what have missed by ignoring iformation theory. I have read
several rather unconvincing attempts to show that some versions
of behaviorism are equivalent to control models of behavior. If
anyone else out there has a non-PCT theory that they think provides
a real great explanation of some aspect of behavior then I?d sure
like to hear about it. I may be a fanatic but I am willing to listen. But,
being a fanatic, I can?t promise that I will be convinced. But listening
is good too, no?

Best regards

Rick

2

[Martin Taylor 921223 17:40]
(Rick Marken 921223.1300)

Nobody is in the office here either. Aren't we all a bit crazy?

Rick, would you accept a small revision--

How could
geniuses like Freud (psychodynamic theory), G.A. Miller (information
theory),Skinner (reinforcement theory), Green and Swets (signal detection
theory), Estes (stimulus sampling theory), Rummelhart (parallel distributed
processing theory), Chomsky (transformational grammar theory), Guilford
(trait theory), Tolman (sign-stimulus theory) etc etc ALL BE WRONG?
...

The answer is that ALL of these theories were based on a completely
incorrect view of behavior. They are ALL based on the idea that outputs
(neuroses, responses, operants, decisions, behavior, speech, intelligence,
movements) are caused by events in the environment or the brain.

Not all of these examples are theories of behaviour, and so I might
suggest adding to your first paragraph " ... ALL BE WRONG as applied
to behaviour."

I think specifically of information theory, signal detection theory,
and PDP, all of which exist quite independently of whether there is
a living organism in the neighbourhood. And the first two are mathematical
statements which have universal applicability, even within PCT, if
they are used appropriately. The problem with them is not that they
are wrong in themselves, but that they are often wrongly applied and
misunderstood.

As for PDP, it is interesting that the simplest form of the connections
within the perceptual side of a control hierarchy is exactly a
multilayer perceptron, so that from PDP you can find an existence
proof--anything a multilayer perceptron can discriminate is potentially
controllable. And that means any configuration is controllable in a
three-level hierarchy (maybe it is four, but I think three).
So even if PDP is used poorly under normal circumstances (and I have
long thought it is, before I heard of PCT), nevertheless you can point
to it to show that simple structures simply connected CAN control
perceptions of arbitrary complexity.

The flip side of that is that if the PDP people ever, with any kind of
node, demonstrate the possibility of making any kind of classification
or recognition, you can immediately say that this is demonstrably a
controllable kind of percept. So PDP provides an ever-rising lower
bound on the known possibilities of PCT. PDP isn't a theory of
behaviour, although people have used its possibilities that way (as
you say, wrongly). But it does what it does, and you can use it without
fear and trembling.

I guess
Martin is preparing a thesis on the value of information theory
for understanding control . I?m waiting with great interest to see
what have missed by ignoring iformation theory. I have read
several rather unconvincing attempts to show that some versions
of behaviorism are equivalent to control models of behavior. If
anyone else out there has a non-PCT theory that they think provides
a real great explanation of some aspect of behavior then I?d sure
like to hear about it.

I hope you aren't putting me in with people offering a non-PCT theory.
I thought that what I had shown was thay information theory provided
a demonstration of the necessity of PCT, but apparently I wasn't
convincing. When I subsequently showed my posting around here, the
reaction was that it made intuitive sense. So I have hopes that a
more careful discussion will make intuitive sense to more people.

People don't necessarily bring in ideas that have proved useful elsewhere
just because they have a great fondness for the ideas and don't understand
that PCT stands isolated. There IS the possibility that PCT hasn't
reached the limits of its potential.

Martin
PS. You may be amused to know that I have observed in myself much the
reaction you often express when reading or listening to psychologists
talking in areas I used to think important. "What stupidities are they
thinking of...Don't they know it's all control?"

3

[From Rick Marken (921223.1800)]

Martin Taylor (921223 17:40) --

Rick, would you accept a small revision--

Not all of these examples are theories of behaviour, and so I might
suggest adding to your first paragraph " ... ALL BE WRONG as applied
to behaviour."

The Xmas tree is up, the logs are on the fire (to protect us from
the fierce 50 degree temps outside) and I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH
MARTIN TAYLOR. I thought of this after I posted and your amendment
would strengthen my point considerably. There is nothing wrong with
any of the theories I mentioned "per se" and in some applications
they are very useful. It's the way they have been applied to behavior
that's the problem -- all are applied to behavior under the assuption
that behavior is caused output rather than controlled input.

Good point, Martin.

Regards

Rick

4

[From Oded Maler (921224)]

* [From Rick Marken (921223.1300)]

···

*
* OK, nobody's in the office; I should be home cuddled up by the
* Christmas tree (yes, I prefer celebrating the apocryphal birth of
* the prince of peace to the non - apocryphal victory of the Macabees
* over the Assyrians [or whomever]).

I'm writing this before reading the rest of the message, although I
can predict (with 95% accuracy) the rest from the title..
I hope I'll be able to respond after the Fois Gras festival is over.

I suppose the historical error was meant to be a trap, so in
short my interpretation of Hanukka is the victory of mid-eastern
spiritualism over helenic/western materialism (it were not the
Assyrians but the Syrian/Greek part the post Alexander empire).
The second incarnation of such a victory was the Khomeini revolution.
But all that belongs to domains were the PCT still does not have
(and will not have, in this rate of development) generative models.
I will also not enter in this son-of-a-god business.

So I want to wish you all PCTers, real or phoney, blind or deaf,
armchair philosphers, experimentalists and rejection-record breakers,
a happy new year. I don't know how many AHA's I had since I started
reading CSG-L but I surely had a lot of HMMM's and I thank you for that.

--Oded

--

Oded Maler, LGI-IMAG (Campus), B.P. 53x, 38041 Grenoble, France
Phone: 76635846 Fax: 76446675 e-mail: maler@vercors.imag.fr

5

[From Rick Marken (921224.0800)]

Oded Maler (921224)--

I'm writing this before reading the rest of the message, although I
can predict (with 95% accuracy) the rest from the title..

How'd you do?

I suppose the historical error was meant to be a trap

Nope. I actually consulted with my Catholicly trained wife before
posting; her guess was Assyrian but she knew she might be wrong
(hence I added the "or whomever"). Before meeting Linda, the Bible
was just another book that I figured could probably be skipped over
(like the 1932 World Almanac). But Linda told me all the great stories
and I really liked them. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that
I didn't really "get" many of these stories. For example, to this day,
I still don't get the story of Jacob and Esau (at least, not the way
my Orthodox Jedwish step father gets it). To me, the obvious hero of
the story -- the admirable person -- is Esau; Jacob is a cowardly,
deceitful slimeball (like his mom). Obviously, it is possible to see
Jacob as the admirable person in the story -- most people seem to. But
I just can't. Those of you who haven't read it -- I recommend it. To me,
the last scence rivals that in "It's a wonderful life". Jacob returns
home (after screwing Esau out of his entire inheritance). He see's Esau's
army lined up on the ridge and he's scarred s**tless. So he hides
behind the skirts of his wives as the majestic figure of Esau descends
the hill towards him. Instead of chopping Jacob into little pieces
(which even Jacob figures he has every right to do) he embraces his
brother and welcomes. It brings a tear to my eye -- what a mensch,
that Esau.

my interpretation of Hanukka is the victory of mid-eastern
spiritualism over helenic/western materialism (it were not the
Assyrians but the Syrian/Greek part the post Alexander empire).

That's nice. I don't like celebrating Hanuka because the story is largely
about a war victory. The way you put it makes Hanuka seem less militaristic,
but it is still about a "victory" in a conflict -- in this case, a conflict
of ideas. But I don't like celebrating any victory -- it suggests
that a reasonable way to solve conflicts is for one side to win --
whether this winning is done by "intelligent debate", brow-beating or war.

I like Bill Powers' comments about war. War happens, and when it does
you might as well do it as best you can. But realize while you are
doing it that war represents a failure; a desperate, horrible failure
of conflict resolution. And if you happen to be lucky enough to be
on the side that "wins", don't celebrate -- mourn for the failure that
the stupid war represents. Regret war; regret victories as well as
defeats; they are both part of the same process. Devote yourself
more fervently to thinking of ways to resolve conflict; be prepared
with many, clever options; use your head to get above the conflict
(psychologically) instead of figuring out new ways to defeat the
enemy. It can be done -- just devote about half of the defense budget
to paying people to think of ways to "go up a level" instead of
perpetuating the conflict. It can be done if we stop celebrating victories
(or mourning losses). That's why I like what I perceive as the spirit
of Christmas; to me, the one great notion that comes out of Christian
thought is the idea that "fighting back" will not solve problems.
"Turn the other cheek" means that the best way to solve a conflict
is to move above it (don't participate at the levelt at which the conflict
is occurring) -- fighting back is participating. This is a
truly magnificent realization -- of course, there are damn few Christians
who actually practice this realization (far more of the "kill a commie --
I guess now it's kill a homo -- for Christ variety). But I think this
non-defensive approach to dealing with conflict was a major epiphany
that occurred around 1 AD and that's what I celebrate at this time
of year; I'm certainly no Christian, but I do believe in what I think
of as the spirit of Christmas -- non - defensiveness -- another name
for which is "forgiveness". PCT shows why "forgiveness" (like
186,282 miles per second) is not just a good idea -- it's the law
(at least, if you want to avoid the unpleasant side effects of conflict).

Best

Rick

6

[From Oded Maler (921226)]

Instead of entering into a biblical discussion I'll answer the
rest of Rick's original post about fanatism. Your main problem
is not being able to go up one (or several) levels above your
background as an ex-"scientific psychologist" and realize that
some people are simply asking different questions or have different
scientific goals than "building a predictive theory of human behavior".
So it's no use attacking this or that person/theory immediately
each time you detect the he/she/it has not realized what behavior
is, etc. People who are doing, say, mathematics of non-linear dynamics
are interested in general properties of some systems obeying certain
rules. Period. Although some others may try to apply this math to
psychology by using the wrong (i.e., non-PCT) model of behavior, it
does not mean that some fundamental truths about such systems are
not relevant and will not be needed when more complex PCT models will
be built. The same is true with info theory, which, if I understand
Martin's intentions, has implications to every situation where
information passes along a complex network. I think he is trying to
answer the question "what in the structure of the world enables
a system organized according to HPCT architecture, survive".
If we take your favorite mathematical formalism, linear algebra,
does the fact that arithmetical operations are also used in analyzing
behaviorist models, make them uselss in modeling?

The same goes with your outrage toward roboticist until you
realized that they have other (orthogonal..) goals, namely to
build toys and not to analyze existing living systems. The same
goes with Braitenberg, whose main occupation is experimental
neurobiology and his little "vehicles" book was just written for
fun and speculation (and yet it has some interesting ideas,
including the imagination-loop idea used in planning) and not
as a serious suggestion of an all-embracing theory of behavior.

Your observation on the trendiness of science are correct, and I also
buy your observations on the non-foundedness of most of Psychology as
a science (thank god I resisted the temptation to quit my CS B.A.
studies and move to psychology, now I know that I did not miss
anything), but please remember that there are other questions and
goals. The world (at least not all of it) does not turn around
the PCT-non-PCT controversery in the explanation of human behavior.
This hard fact do not under-determine the *objective* beauty and power
of PCT, nor its importance as a stage in the development of human
understanding. But not realizing this, and classifying all the rest
of the world as "us" and "them" might lead an untrained observer
to perceive a peace-loving other-cheek-turner as a fanatic.

···

---------------------------------------------------------------------

On another topic, I'm reading Sacks' "The man who mistook his wife
for a hat" and although apparently the author does not know that ...,
I think it is really worth reading. It might be intersting to try to
give PCT crude explanations of the phenomenon he describes.

--Oded

--

Oded Maler, LGI-IMAG (Campus), B.P. 53x, 38041 Grenoble, France
Phone: 76635846 Fax: 76446675 e-mail: maler@vercors.imag.fr

7

Rick,
  As you probably saw, I was NOT on the net during the break. Just logged
on and read your post from the 23rd first. I will send a more detailed
reply after reading the rest of the mail, but for now:
   1. It was amazing, but true to form, to see Martin retreat all the way
back to, "I'll think about it and say more if I think it is worthwhile,
and by the way it probably won't be what I said when I told all of you
I knew more than you did." I relly don't know what he is up to, except
for ego-puffing.
  2. Your rock em, sock em post to Martin was hot, but not off the wall.
He had muddied the discussion with notation and wording that confounded
several key points, then he had failed to point out where and why he did
that.
   3. The levels business does seem to help, doesn't it. If that was
what you used before your calm and tranquil post in follow up to Martin,
the clinicians and counselors can use you as a case study!
  4. I am curious as to whether Wayne replied to my comments. I will
look for something from him in the rest of the mail, but he probably was
down for the break, also.
  What is this stuff on PCT fanatics going to be about, I wonder? Better
go look.
   !Bienvenidos a la semana nueva!
  Tom Bourbon

8

[From Rick Marken (921228.0900)]

Oded Maler (921226) --

Your main problem
is not being able to go up one (or several) levels above your
background as an ex-"scientific psychologist" and realize that
some people are simply asking different questions or have different
scientific goals than "building a predictive theory of human behavior".

I don't believe that I have ever taken issue with people whose
scientific goals are not obviously relevant to PCT. When have
I done this?

So it's no use attacking this or that person/theory immediately
each time you detect the he/she/it has not realized what behavior
is, etc. People who are doing, say, mathematics of non-linear dynamics
are interested in general properties of some systems obeying certain
rules. Period.

Perhaps I have not been clear; I have no beef with non-linear dynamics
as an area of study per se (nor with any of the other examples of what
I have called "trendy" theories). I just assumed it would be understood
(from the nature of this list and from the context of the posts) that I
was taking issue with the theory or formalism or whatever when it
was being proposed as a MODEL of some aspect of purposeful behavior.

Although some others may try to apply this math to
psychology by using the wrong (i.e., non-PCT) model of behavior, it
does not mean that some fundamental truths about such systems are
not relevant and will not be needed when more complex PCT models will
be built.

OF COURSE. But this list that is about PCT and purposeful behavior
(control). There is no rule against posting interesting findings about the
behavior of non-linear dynamical systems or whatever. But I can't imagine
that there will be too many people who will be that interested in those
findings per se unless their relevence to modelling and understanding
purposful behavior is fairly clear NOW.

If we take your favorite mathematical formalism, linear algebra,
does the fact that arithmetical operations are also used in analyzing
behaviorist models, make them uselss in modeling?

Of course not -- and the tools themselves are important, of course. I
don't believe I have ever criticized the tools themselves -- why would
I? I only know about most of these tools because of the efforts of various
people to use them as models of purposful behavior; in that case,
the people who use these tools have goals that are the same as mine
and I think they are trying to achieve that goal in the wrong way; so
I criticize the tool as a MODEL OF BEHAVIOR, not as a tool per se.
I don't criticize statistics per se, for example, just because I think
it is generally irrelevant to understanding the purposeful behavior of
individual organisms.

The same goes with your outrage toward roboticist until you
realized that they have other (orthogonal..) goals, namely to
build toys and not to analyze existing living systems.

I don't know about "outrage"; when roboticists try to build purposful
systems using the wrong approach, then I think it's OK to say what's
wrong. When the goals of the roboticist (or anyone else) are truly
orthogonal to those of the PCTer then there is no disagreement. But
sometimes "orthogonality" is in the eye of the beholder -- the cry of
"orthogonality" can be used to stifle legitimate dialog. For example,
you say:

The same
goes with Braitenberg, whose main occupation is experimental
neurobiology and his little "vehicles" book was just written for
fun and speculation (and yet it has some interesting ideas,
including the imagination-loop idea used in planning) and not
as a serious suggestion of an all-embracing theory of behavior.

Does this mean that it is not legitimate to show that Braitenberg
has ignored the fact that his vehicles actually operate by controlling
sensory variables? If Randall Beer said that he was just building bugs
for fun should we have just assumed that he was using the right
approach? If roboticists are just trying to build machines that
produce particular (purposeful) results using inverse kinematics,
should we say nothing just because this is what they want to do -- ie.
they want to figure out faster, more efficient algorithms for doing
inverse kinematics -- even though we know that output generation
is, in itself, the wrong approach to producing purposeful results?

If a person just cares about the tool per se (info theory, statistics,
detection
theory, non-linear dynamics, transformational grammars, etc) then I have
no beef -- never have, never will. When they start applying the tool as
an explanation of some aspect of purposeful behavior, then I feel like it's
OK to criticize the use of that tool from a PCT perspective.

The life sciences have used the plea of "orthogonality" for years as
a means of avoiding a confrontation with PCT; they just say that purpose
is orthogonal to what they are about. Pardon me if I disagree.

Best

Rick