[From Rick Marken (931027.1100)]
Bruce Nevin (Wed 931027 10:08:12 EDT) --
Any person anywhere will recognize your book as the same object as it is
rotated in space.
Not necessaarily. There is some evidence that perceptions like
retangularity are learned -- just as we learn the perceptions that
are the words of our language.
But only a human who is a speaker of English will recognize
"disagree" as a word in its various pronunciations, distinguishing it
reliably from things like 'tis a Cree and desecrate.
Not all perceptual distinctions are motivated by "social" goals. It
seems to me that the perceptual distinctions between snow types made
by Eskimos have more to do with survival goals than social goals, for
example. Same for distinctions that classify some things as food and
others as non-food. There may be some social overlay in these
distinctions (a pork chop is perceived as food by me but not by
my step father) but you don't need people around to tell you that
a brick is not food; you'll find out.
Only a person who
knows the conventions of Indian dance can recognize a particular gesture
in its variations (contextual and otherwise) and reliably distinguish
that gesture from "objectively" similar gestures that happen to be
conventionally different. Please explain this as merely many-to-one
mapping. Isn't there something in addition to many-to-one mapping going
on here?
Perceptual learning (some of which is social in nature -- ie. it
involves other people) results in _particular_ many-to-one mappings.
The "something" you are talking about in addition to many-to-one
mapping is perceptual leraning -- one of the most important parts
of the reorganization process. When perception is reorganized you
literally see the world in a new way -- a new many-to-one mapping
emerges. That's what happen's when you learn a new language; you
suddently see that the "surelepon" you've been singing since you
were two years old is actually three different words -- sur le pont.
What is in focus here is not the fact that these things are perceived as
discrete but the fact that they are socially conventionalized.
Language is, indeed, a socially conventionalized set of controlled
perceptions; we must learn to produce certain perceptions that
will allow use to communicate with others. If we want water, we have
to learn to produce a sound like "water". We'll stay thirsty if we
say "dets" of "gribiitz" or whatever. But the same kind of learning
also occurs when we are dealing with the non-social environment.
If we want to lift a glass we have to learn to produce the appropriate
perceptions of force in order to produce this result. Glass lifting is
indeed something that must be learned, as you have probably noticed since
you have kids. In glass lifting, the appropriate perceptions that must be
learned are constrained by the laws of physics. In communicating with
people (as in asking for a glass of water), the appropriate perceptions
that must be learned are determined by the "laws" of society. In
communicating with the non-living enviornment (as in lifting a glass)
the appropriate perceptions that must be learned as determined by
the laws of nature. American society demands the perception of a
sound like "water" in order to get another person to get you water.
Physics demands perception of an upward force to get the glass lifted.
To model social convention requires no change to PCT.
Of course not; it's been there all along.
This matter of social convention is a kind of blind spot for PCT, I
think.
I hope it is clear now that it is not. Social convention (like any
result of the external exvironment) is, and has always been, part of
the feedback path connecting the actor's actions to the results of
those actions -- perceptions.
The reason I think that is that it appears to me to be at the
heart of the chronic difficulty getting a PCT perspective aired in
conventional journals.
I doubt it.
Students and investigators of HPCT can account for their
inability to gain wider acceptance, understanding, and application of the
theory, and the account is insightful. However, the account is not
useful for bringing about the avowed goal of gaining wider acceptance,
etc., for the theory.
PCT is not accepted becuase people are controlling for perceptions
(of principles and system level concepts) that are disturbed by the
tenets of PCT. There is no way to MAKE people control for a different
system concept (other than with violence, which I have NO interest in at
all). This is why PCT has a problem. There is really not much to do
about it. Even though I understand why people reject PCT and I also
understand that I can do virtually nothing about it (except wait and
provide the data for later generations) I can still kvetch about it.
Perhaps the
bickering between Greg and you, Rick, is due to your respective
reorganization processes having arrived at different ways of reducing the
error--Greg's to build bridges, yours to ignore it,
Greg seems to think that either 1) people are already doing PCT but call
it something else or 2) that there is a way to present PCT so that it
is NOT a disturbace to the principles and system concepts that people are
controlling. I disagree with Greg on both of these points but if he
wants to persue what seems to me like a hopeless course than that's fine.
I think there is the occasional rare person who will be willing
to learn PCT. But I don't expect a mass movement of life scientists
to PCT, no matter HOW it is presented. Greg thinks such a movement
can be achieved if the "pushing" toward PCT is done appropriately. I
don't think so but I won't interfere with Greg's efforts (except by
being the Howard Cosell of the net and calling 'em like I see 'em, from
a PCT perspective).
If you
think you can model speech in terms of phonemes defined absolutely, as
specific phonetic targets (kinesthetic, acoustic, or both) that are not
determined relative to one another, you are welcome to try.
If "absolutely" means "as the outputs of perceptual functions" then, yes,
I think it's already being done (in existing speech production and
recognition systems). What PCT has to add is the idea that these
perceptual variables are what are controlled when speech is produced,
and that it is a hierarchy of such variables that is controlled
(including perceptions of the sounds and feelings resulting from
articulation).
Best
Rick