PCT Publication

[Martin Taylor 941209 10:45]

Rick Marken (941208.2200)

Well, I'm disappointed, but I can't say I am surprised that Rick no longer
wants to publish a paper in a widely read journal, but prefers to fulminate
over a semi-private mailing list. I kind of thought that he had moved
in that direction, after promising what seemed likely to be a very pertinent
paper.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try publishing
the best examples of PCT research in psychology journals; they provide
a nice archive. But I don't think we can count on people learning PCT
from what we publish. Many people will read an article or book on
PCT, like what they THINK it's about and then assume that they have
learned PCT. Some of these people actually go off and publish research
based on "Powers' control theory"; the result almost never has
anything to do with PCT; it's just warmed over S-R theory with a few
new words (reference signal, feeback) thrown in for effect.

Sometimes, yes, they do. I've had similar problems in getting people
to understand LP Theory correctly. People go off and use it in ways
that bewilder me as to how they could think they are talking of the
same thing. But these are reachable people, in many cases. They have
at least accepted SOMETHING of the principle, and may be open to a
better understanding, given the opportunity. Sometimes, I'm sure,
people get quite a good understanding from a well written paper. But
you are right that we can't count on it. Can you count on people
that read CSG-L getting a good correct understanding of PCT in the
same amount of time it takes them to read a paper? If I am to believe
you, I haven't achieved a good understanding in 3 years of reasonably
robust discussion on CSG-L! But then, I don't believe you, so that's OK.

Rick, even though you are correct in saying that I haven't published a
refereed PCT paper, I am providing the opportunity for those whom you think
are less heretical than I to do so. If you don't want to participate, that's
your business. I think that there is an opportunity for you to do some
good for PCT that you don't do through the medium of CSG-L. You said
you would write about PCT in human factors--things you have not been
able actually to do at work, but think should be done (if I interpreted
you aright). Why don't you talk about that stuff even on the net, if
you don't want to write about it for public and general consumption?
It would be PCT in action, where the results could benefit many people.

PCT is about the control of perceptions. What perceptions do you want to
control? That PCT can actually be used in the real world (as is clearly
possible, from the results obtained by Ed Ford and others)? Or that the
correct and pure PCT vision is transmitted to a small group of acolytes
who can then talk about it and simulate simple situations in computers?

Incidentally, in my keynote talk in Brussels to the workshop on "Visualizing
non-visual data," I concentrated precisely on what perceptions the user
wanted to control and therefore what aspects of the non-visual data should
be accessible, putting Powers up front as the guide. Maybe it wasn't
refereed PCT publication, but it got a public response from one member of
the audience, congratulating me on seeing the importance of Powers' work.
This person has been using what he sees as Powers' PCT for over a decade,
in designing architectural environments. He thinks it is very effective
in that area (which is, after all, human factors design).

There are people out there who are reachable, and some who have been
reached. It is NOT true that

Despite all this publication, PCT continues to be ignored.

This is a perception you struggle to maintain. That it might not be so
is a disturbance to you, and to work to reduce the degree to which PCT is
ignored seems to be counter to your reference signals. Why this is, I
don't know, but your attitude over and over again strikes me as remarkably
like the convert who is so unsure of his new religion that he has to
crush without thought any deviation of word from the way it is written
in the sourcebook. I cite as an example a passage from (Rick Marken
(941206.0920)) that surprised me in my quick scan of the last two
months of postings (when this was written, I had been effectively absent
from CSG-L for some 6 weeks):

But, as Martin Taylor now knows, these rules are
just stating relationships between perception and output -- and there is no
information in perception about the disturbance(s) acting on the perception
nor is there any information about the effect that the output is or will
actually have on the perception to be controlled.

There are several statements here, one gratuitously personal, and all false.
We demonstrated months ago, and Marken even accepted, that there IS measurable
information in perception about the disturbance effect (NOT, as I have
always acknowledged, about the disturbance SOURCE). Similarly for
the output effects. But Marken acts the role of fundamentalist absolutist,
and dictates that if there is not complete information, then there is no
information.

To return to my point, why is it now both a sore point that PCT papers
have a hard time getting published, and a bad thing to submit a possibly
valuable paper to a reputable journal that is likely to publish it?

Rick, I hope you will submit your paper as originally proposed. Who
knows, it might produce one convert out there in the wider world.

See you later.

Martin

[From Rick Marken (941209.1615)]

Martin Taylor (941209 10:45) --

Well, I'm disappointed, but I can't say I am surprised that Rick no longer
wants to publish a paper in a widely read journal, but prefers to fulminate
over a semi-private mailing list. I kind of thought that he had moved
in that direction, after promising what seemed likely to be a very pertinent
paper.

I don't know that I'm always "fulminating"; sometimes I think I am educating.
I would publish in your journal if I had some research worth publishing; I
haven't had time to do much research (or notable applications of PCT to human
factors) so I don't think I have anything new that's worth putting in
the journal. If you really do want to put PCT papers in front of a large
audience, why not publish my "Hierarchical behavior of perception" paper? No
journal ever accepted that one so it was published only for the "semi-
private" audience that reads Closed Loop. Why not put it in your journal?
Same goes for Bourbon and Powers' "Models and their worlds" paper. No
conventional psych journal would publish that one even though it is a basic
and essential illustration of the differnece between PCT and the other main
models of living systems . Why not publish that one, too? You have a chance
to put before a large audience many high quality papers that were rejected by
other journals mainly because their contents were unfamiliar or threatening
to the editors. Why not publish those papers instead of asking for something
that many of us who are not in academia find it very difficult to provide --
-- a report on the results of unfunded research programs that we have to
carry out in the evenings when we'd rather be watching Seinfeld.

I prefer to "fulminate" on the net because I think CSG-L is a really
remarkable resource for people who want to learn PCT. Reading about PCT is
clearly not sufficient; you also have to test PCT in "real life" (doing the
demos and inventing your own experiments). I also think an important part of
learning PCT is being TAUGHT it -- and the best person to get taught by is
the person who developed PCT - - William T. Powers.

Everyone I know of who really wanted to learn PCT (after finding out about it
by reading "Behavior: The control of perception" or from some other published
paper) eventually sought out Bill Powers himself. That's sure what I did.
After finding what I could find out about PCT in the literature it became
pretty obvious that 1) PCT was NOT mainstream psychology and 2) the only
person who really knew what was going on with PCT was Bill Powers. I got in
touch with Bill at his home and worked with him personally for years. If I
hadn't had Bill's "private tutorials" I'm sure I would never have learned
PCT.

Now people have access to Bill and some other qualified PCT teachers via the
net. It is only through this kind of interaction (I believe) that people WHO
WANT TO LEARN PCT can learn it. Without the net, the only way to learn it
would have been the old fashioned way (the way I did it) -- personal
pilgrimages to Bill and Mary's house (and lots of phone calls). Now all
people have to do to learn PCT is get on the Information Superhighway. What
we have to do is make it easier for people to find Bill on the Internet.

Journal articles are certainly worthwhile but I don't think they are a good
teaching tool. They can call attention to the existance of this new point of
view. But it's really hard to learn something without a teacher -- and I
think those of us who have been on the net for a while know that there is no
better teacher (of anything, but especially of PCT) than Bill Powers.

Can you count on people that read CSG-L getting a good correct understanding
of PCT in the same amount of time it takes them to read a paper?

I don't think you can count on anyone getting a correct understanding of PCT
in any particular amount of time. But I do think that if people WANT to learn
PCT, the best way to do it is by getting involved in the discussions on this
net.

If I am to believe you, I haven't achieved a good understanding in 3 years
of reasonably robust discussion on CSG-L!

I think there is much about PCT that you do understand. What you don't
understand (from my point of view) is just stuff that you don't want to
understand because it conflicts with some beliefs that are very important to
you. I think this is the reason most people never really get their arms all
the way around PCT. There is nothing that journal articles or discussions on
CSG-L can do about this. Sometimes these disagreements lead to (what I think
are) very interesting demos and tests (like the demos of the lack of
"information in perception about the disturbance" and the recent demos of the
failure of "control by consequences"). They don't seem to change anyone's
mind (just as the lovely demos in Bill's papers and those in some of my
papers seem to make little difference) but they do illustrate interesting
details of the way control systems work -- and they will become part of the
PCT educational materials for future use by curious people who don't have
"prior committments".

I think that there is an opportunity for you to do some good for PCT that
you don't do through the medium of CSG-L.

I agree. I just don't have any good material and it's not a high priority for
me, apparently. Why not publish some of those existing papers? Maybe throw
in "The blind men and elephant". I'd be willing to edit both the
"Hierarchical behavior..." and the "Blind men..." for your journal.

PCT is about the control of perceptions. What perceptions do you want to
control?

The perceptions I want to have with respect to PCT are un-controllable; I
can't MAKE them happen, but I wouldn't protest if they DID happen. The
simplest way for me to describe the perception I want to have is: another
Tom Bourbon. I want a scientific psychologist who 1) understands the simple
basics of PCT 2) is willing to start psychology all over again based on an
understanding that living systems CONTROL 3) doesn't feel compelled to waste
time trying to do the impossible -- reconcile PCT with conventional
psychology 4) is willing to study clear, simple examples of control before
trying to explain everything in the world in PCT terms and 5) is competent
enough to know how to do basic PCT research and modelling. In other words I
want to see one (count them ONE) more psychologist, like Tom, who is actually
DOING PCT.

There are people out there who are reachable, and some who have been
reached. It is NOT true that

Despite all this publication, PCT continues to be ignored.

This is a perception you struggle to maintain.

What I mean when I say that PCT is "ignored" is that people in my field
(psychology) are not doing PCT research -- at least, they are not publishing
it. I've been regularly checking all the psychology and psychology-related
journals since I started doing PCT research in 1979. To this day I have not
found one report of a competent PCT research project in ANY of these
journals. I have seen PCT mentioned and I have seen "PCT research" (like
that of the Carver/Scheier types) that's not even close But I have seen no
good, "new-fashioned" scientific PCT research in any psychology journal. My
experience has been that PCT research is completely and utterly ignored in my
field and that has not changed much in the 15 years that I've been "with the
program".

That it might not be so is a disturbance to you, and to work to reduce the
degree to which PCT is ignored seems to be counter to your reference
signals.

You can't imagine how wrong you are. Please, test it! Show me one, big, fat
juicy paper describing some superb piece of PCT research. Really bowl me over
by finding it in JEP or Psych Review. Disturb me -- please!

We demonstrated months ago, and Marken even accepted, that there IS
measurable information in perception about the disturbance effect

Oh, come now. The information measures were in the fractions of bits. The
numbers were not only tiny (they were based on real data so the chances of
the measures being precisely zero were pretty small) they were useless; you
never showed how information could be used (as you claimed it was) by the
control system to generate the outputs that control.

But Marken acts the role of fundamentalist absolutist, and dictates that if
there is not complete information, then there is no information.

I am no more fundamentalist absolutist than Powers and Bourbon; I'm just
a lot less tactful. My points had to do with the way control systems work.
It's clear that you want to maintain a belief in the importance of
information in the operation of a control system. Mazel tov. For me, the
discussion was for the benefit of lurkers; the bottom line was that control
systems control perceptions -- they are not guided by them. This was a
methodologically important point (from my pespective); the notion of
"information in perception" inclines people (as it has inclined psychologists
for decades) to orient their research to finding the "information" in
perception that is relevant to human behavior. Such a search is misguided,
from a PCT perspective; the goal of PCT is to find the perceptual variables
that people "guide" - - that is, control.

why is it now both a sore point that PCT papers have a hard time getting
published, and a bad thing to submit a possibly valuable paper to a
reputable journal that is likely to publish it?

I am only sore when quality PCT papers having a hard time getting published.
They can reject all of the lousy PCT papers they want (unfortunately, they
seem to reject ALL of the good PCT papers and NONE of the lousy ones, like
those by Carver/Scheier).

And I DON'T think that it's a bad thing to submit a paper to your journal; I
think it would be a good thing. I hope a lot of people do it. My problem is
1) it's not a priority because I think CSG-L writing is more important 2) I
haven't got any new research or modelling results that I feel are worth
publishing and 3) I think there is already good stuff available in Closed
Loop; if your goal is to give PCT a wider audience then why not publish those
papers?

Best

Rick

[Martin Taylor 941212 14:15]

Rick Marken (941209.1615)

I just don't have any good material and it's not a high priority for
me, apparently. Why not publish some of those existing papers? Maybe throw
in "The blind men and elephant". I'd be willing to edit both the
"Hierarchical behavior..." and the "Blind men..." for your journal.

If there isn't a copyright problem, then that's a possibility. Personally,
I found the "Blind Men" paper of more value than the "Hierarchical Benhaviour"
paper, but I can see a way that the two could be combined into one that
would be more than the sum of the parts. The "Blind Men" part is a good
approach to showing that one must look at the whole loop, and the "hierarchy"
part would show what one sees when one takes that approach with real data.
Do you think that such a combined paper is a possibility? (And it would
avoid the copyright issue entirely, being a new paper).

Martin

<[Bill Leach 941212.16:24 EST(EDT)]

[Rick Marken (941209.1615)]

Martin Taylor (941209 10:45) --

I prefer to "fulminate" on the net because I think CSG-L is a really
remarkable resource for people who want to learn PCT. Reading about PCT
is clearly not sufficient; ...

Now people have access to Bill and some other qualified PCT teachers via
the net. It is only through this kind of interaction (I believe) that
people WHO WANT TO LEARN PCT can learn it.

I possibly had one of the "strongest" understandings of the fundamentals
of engineered control system operation when I first started following the
net. I have worked rather extensively with closed loop negative feedback
control systems; fully electronic, electromechanical, electro-hydralic,
and even fully mechanical; for almost 30 years. I know that everyone's
own experience is unique even when quite similar but I also believe that
such experience with engineered control systems prepared me about as well
as I could hope for PCT.

The real shocks started coming after I obtained somewhat of a "handle" on
PCT basic and began dealing with the implications... The range and
number of "cherished" beliefs whose "fundmental" foundations are at least
"rocked" if not outright blasted away is, I think, far greater than one
can imagine. Indeed, such continues to happen as one makes an effort to
apply PCT principles to all thinking about human behaviour.

I am beginning to think that the learning and understanding of the basics
of PCT is the minor step. The major "step" begins when one starts seeing
how virtually everything that one has understood about anything
(including oneself) is all affected by the principles underlying PCT.

I don't know (and am curious) if Bill P. will agree with this but it is
probably close to impossible for someone to learn PCT alone. I suspect
that even Bill will admit that it is in working with others that he was
able to work out many of his own "stumbling blocks" to PCT.

Can you count on people that read CSG-L getting a good correct
understanding of PCT in the same amount of time it takes them to read a
paper?

I suppose that Rick really said enough but... I doubt that anyone can
"get" PCT just from reading a paper.

We demonstrated months ago, and Marken even accepted, that there IS
measurable information in perception about the disturbance effect

Oh, come now. The information measures were in the fractions of bits.
The numbers were not only tiny (they were based on real data so the
chances of the measures being precisely zero were pretty small) they
were useless; you never showed how information could be used (as you
claimed it was) by the control system to generate the outputs that
control.

But Marken acts the role of fundamentalist absolutist, and dictates
that if there is not complete information, then there is no information.

I am no more fundamentalist absolutist than Powers and Bourbon; I'm just
a lot less tactful. My points had to do with the way control systems
work. It's clear

Since I was pretty strongly in the middle of much of this last round of
"information in the perception"...

1) What we agreed to was that there would be information about a
    disturbance in the perception to the extent that control system gain
    was insufficient to cancle the effects of the disturbance upon the
    environmental parameter that was the object of the control.

2) Such "information" would be in the system noise.

3) Such "information" would also be mixed in with the effects of
    behaviour upon the same environmental parameter.

4) It is currently impossible to even conceive of actually measuring any
    of the necessary signals to make use of this "information".

5) The whole matter is one of idle curiosity and not relevant to PCT.

-bill