Power Law Paper (was Re: PCT Research)

MartinT · June 5, 2017, 6:57pm

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.14.19]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1015)]

I disagree, but that's not unusual. Starting with "I'm pretty sure",

what you proposed has nothing to do with my suggestion, and is
largely false into the bargain. You are not pretty sure you confused
derivative, as the rest of your message makes very plain. You don’t
believe anything in the following part of your message, and I never
suggested you should do something in which you don’t believe. I
hoped that you would believe that there were responsible and
competent people who think there is a problem whereas you don’t, and
that a good way to resolve it would be to describe the problem
accurately, and ask for an independent expert opinion (or two).

No it wasn't.What you quote here was a gentle way of excusing your

initial mistake and suggesting why the reviewers might have passed
over it to get onto the meat of the paper.

I imagine you are. One of the hypotheses associated with the control

hierarchy is that self-image is controlled quite high if not at the
actual top. But I think there are two kinds of perceptions there,
self as seen by self, and self as seen by others, which might have
rather different reference values for the different dimensions of
the self-image. All would probably be controlled at rather a high
gain, I would guess. I have attempted to disturb one component of
your self-as-seen-by-others image.

That's very interesting. Maybe you or one of your "mathematical

friends" could compute dx/dt for a point on the rim of a dartboard.
How does the dartboard change over time as the point moves through
space? Does the whole dartboard move with that point on its rim, or
what?

For another example, take a point on the rim of a glass and mark it

with a marker pen. When you move the glass to your lips, that point
does have a measurable movement through space, but so long as it is
sitting on the table, it doesn’t, does it (at least not relative to
the table, as the Earth goes spinning away on its journey through
space)? If curvature depends on the velocity of the point through
space as you claim, does the glass rim have zero or infinite
curvature at that point while the glass is sitting on the table, and
a finite non-zero curvature when the glass is on its way to your
lips? If not, how then does the curvature of the rim vary as
the velocity of the point changes?

Most are, in most respects. Just not when you say something that

appears not to be correct. If you are controlling for being
perceived to be always correct, of course most CSGnet posters will
post material that disturbs your controlled perception. If, instead,
you are controlling for being correct, you will control for finding
out what their objection might be, and would try to test its
correctness by other means to do what my advisor called
“triangulating the truth”. Maybe it is true that “much of the CSGNet
community and [you] are not on the same page with respect to PCT”,
but I have seen precious little evidence of it in CSGnet
discussions.

Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my command. But I

do think you would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility for error.
You don’t even have to admit that there was an error, which is what
I would do if I were to write to the Editor. All you would have to
do is say that several colleagues have called into question the
equivalence of differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they are wrong
and would like to have an independent expert decide the issue.

There are two extra mistakes in the second sentence of that

paragraph, apart from the disputable assertion in the first
sentence. I leave it to the reader to see them, because I think they
are pretty obvious.

Martin

···

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.09.45)–

            MT: Yes, such a message would be silly indeed.

But that wasn’t my suggestion.

RM: Here’s your suggestion: “* Have
you asked the journal editor to get a couple of (or
even one) mathematically competent referee to
determine whether the confusion at the start of the
paper between d/ds and d/dt invalidates the rest of
the paper or is irrelevant to the following
discussion?” * I think my message above follows your
suggestion to a T.

                          RM: That would be kind
of silly, wouldn’t it. “Dear editor,
Please get someone mathematically capable
to check our “Power Law of
Movement” paper because
I’m pretty sure I confused derivatives
with respect to time with derivatives with
respect to distance. I really shouldn’t
have submitted the paper ,
having made this egregious mistake, but
now that it’s there in your possession –
and it’s been accepted for publication,
even – I think you should find someone
who can tell you that the paper should
have been rejected. Thanks. Sincerely…”

            MT: My point, and this goes for
your RAND colleague, is that it’s all too easy for a
reviewer to see an equation and think “that must have
been checked, so I will assume it is OK.” In this
particular case, it would be even easier for a reviewer
to pass the problem by, since the Newton dot notation is
typically used for differentiation with respect to time.
It just isn’t, in this particular case.

          RM: That may have been your point. But it wasn't your

suggestion.

            MT: I had contemplated doing so, but I figured
that the request for a specific check on the specific
issue would be more respectful of your own integrity
coming from you.

RM: Thanks but I’m fine with my integrity.

                          RM: I suggest that if
you really think the power law paper is
not scientifically accurate you write a
rebuttal to it for publication in * Experimental
Brain Research*.

            MT: All you will have learned is that time and distance
are not always the same thing, and that curvature is a
property of space, not of speed.

          RM: What I learned is described in the conclusion of

the paper: the power law (as I had suspected) is an
example of a behavioral illusion.

            MT: If you don't want to ask the
editor to do the check, you could make the same point to
your RAND colleague and ask him whether we all have been
correct that the formula refers to differentiation with
respect to arc length and is improperly used in the
paper as though it referred to differentiation with
respect to time, and how this affects the rest of the
argument.

          RM: OK, I'll ask him. But I already asked my other

mathematical friends and they thought that idea was
ridiculous; the derivatives in the equations for both
velocity and curvature are with respect to time.

                        RM:... I think the
analysis in the power law paper is
pretty iron clad but maybe Alex will be able
to find the mistake and I’ll have learned
something quite amazing.

            MT: I wouldn't normally persevere
with this if it were only a private matter within the
CSGnet community. But since you went ahead and published
it without at least letting us know that a respected
independent authority had examined the question of
whether it matters to the following argument that you
mixed up the two different kinds of differentiation, I
think it is important to sort it out and get the formal
literature corrected.

          RM: And I wrote up and successfully published my

analysis of the power law of movement in the very journal
where much of the power research has been published
because it became depressingly clear to me that much of
the CSGNet community and I are not on the same page with
respect to PCT.

            MT: Either way, whether the error
is or is not important to your following argument, I
think it is incumbent on you – not me, Alex, or anyone
else – to publish an erratum at the very minimum.

          RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't think there

is any error and neither did my co-author or any of the
reviewers. So it is clearly now incumbent on you or Alex
or anyone else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.

            MT: Anything less might lead
readers to think that PCT is the preserve of
mathematical sloppiness, which is not something of which
the proponents of “Predictive Coding” can often be
accused. That’s not the best way to make someone think
PCT is a concept worth pursuing instead.

      RM: Again, there is no mathematical sloppiness. And if our

analysis of the power law of movement is wrong then PCT is
wrong and output-generation models are right.

rsmarken · June 5, 2017, 7:44pm

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1245)]

···

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.14.19)–

MT: Well, if that’s is your wish, I shall take it as my command.

RM: That would be great! Maybe you could team up with Bruce Abbott (where’s he been?) and Alex Gomez-Marin on it. I wish you luck on getting it published. If you do mange to get a rebuttal published, and it is clear to me that you are correct then I will graciously admit my mistake. But if it seems to me that you are not correct then I’ll see if I can publish a rebuttal to your rebuttal. Maybe it will get PCT some attention from a portion of the scientific psychology establishment, especially if you can provide the “correct” PCT explanation of the power law to replace our “incorrect” one.

Best

RickÂ

Â

But I
do think you would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility for error.
You don’t even have to admit that there was an error, which is what
I would do if I were to write to the Editor. All you would have to
do is say that several colleagues have called into question the
equivalence of differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they are wrong
and would like to have an independent expert decide the issue.

There are two extra mistakes in the second sentence of that
paragraph, apart from the disputable assertion in the first
sentence. I leave it to the reader to see them, because I think they
are pretty obvious.
Martin

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

            MT: Either way, whether the error
is or is not important to your following argument, I
think it is incumbent on you – not me, Alex, or anyone
else – to publish an erratum at the very minimum.

          RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't think there

is any error and neither did my co-author or any of the
reviewers. So it is clearly now incumbent on you or Alex
or anyone else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.Â

Â

            MT: Anything less might lead
readers to think that PCT is the preserve of
mathematical sloppiness, which is not something of which
the proponents of “Predictive Coding” can often be
accused. That’s not the best way to make someone think
PCT is a concept worth pursuing instead.

      RM: Again, there is no mathematical sloppiness. And if our

analysis of the power law of movement is wrong then PCT is
wrong and output-generation models are right.

MartinT · June 6, 2017, 4:03am

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.17.59]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.23.05]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1245)]

English may be a fluid and ambiguous language, but I never realized

it was that ambiguous until I started having conversations with you.
A suggestion that you ask the editor to get an independent expert to
adjudicate the mathematical question and its influence on the rest
of the paper turned into a request from you that I do that, and this
suddenly has become a notion that I want to publish a rebuttal
paper. Wow!

I repeat what I said earlier.

For you to do this makes you come out smelling of roses, whether the

independent expert agrees with you or not. You would have shown
yourself to be both confident and willing to acknowledge the
possibility that you might have made a mistake. If you did make a
mistake, that’s not a problem. We all do, as the old saying insists:
“To err is human.” And by correcting it you will have increased the
accuracy of the scientific literature, especially in respect of PCT.
If it turns out that you were right, you would have enhanced your
reputation in the eyes of at least that editor.

To assist you, here's a draft of a specific question.

···

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.14.19)–

            MT: Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my

command.

          RM: That would be great! Maybe you could team up with

Bruce Abbott (where’s he been?) and Alex Gomez-Marin on
it. I wish you luck on getting it published.

                        MT: Either way, whether
the error is or is not important to your
following argument, I think it is incumbent
on you – not me, Alex, or anyone else – to
publish an erratum at the very minimum.

                      RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't

think there is any error and neither did my
co-author or any of the reviewers. So it is
clearly now incumbent on you or Alex or anyone
else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.Â

Â

            But I do think you
would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility
for error. You don’t even have to admit that there was
an error, which is what I would do if I were to write to
the Editor. All you would have to do is say that several
colleagues have called into question the equivalence of
differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they
are wrong and would like to have an independent expert
decide the issue.

Alex_Gomez-Marin · June 6, 2017, 11:24am

We are about to submit our rebuttal. That’s it.

···

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.17.59]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.23.05]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1245)]

English may be a fluid and ambiguous language, but I never realized
it was that ambiguous until I started having conversations with you.
A suggestion that you ask the editor to get an independent expert to
adjudicate the mathematical question and its influence on the rest
of the paper turned into a request from you that I do that, and this
suddenly has become a notion that I want to publish a rebuttal
paper. Wow!
I repeat what I said earlier.

For you to do this makes you come out smelling of roses, whether the
independent expert agrees with you or not. You would have shown
yourself to be both confident and willing to acknowledge the
possibility that you might have made a mistake. If you did make a
mistake, that’s not a problem. We all do, as the old saying insists:
“To err is human.” And by correcting it you will have increased the
accuracy of the scientific literature, especially in respect of PCT.
If it turns out that you were right, you would have enhanced your
reputation in the eyes of at least that editor.
To assist you, here's a draft of a specific question.

----------

One standard expression for the curvature (the inverse of the radius
of curvature) at a point of a curve described in Cartesian
coordinates is
where s is distance along the arc. In our paper we used instead an
expression offered by Gribble and Ostry (1996)
R = (áº2 + áº?2)3/2/|áºÃ¿ -áº?áº?|



in which we took the dots to represent differentiation with respect
to time.
In our paper we took the two equations to be equivalent. Using the
expression for velocity used by Gribble and Ostry
V = (áº2 + áº?2)1/2Â 



we took the dotted variables in both expressions to be the same, and
freely substituted V³ for the numerator of the Gribble
and Ostry expression for the radius of curvature.
Some colleagues have suggested to us that this substitution is
incorrect, and that in the Gribble and Ostry expression for the
radius, the dots do not represent the usual differentiation by time,
but should be taken as velocity and acceleration with respect to
distance along the arc, as in the first equation above. If their
criticism is correct, then the analysis in our paper is incorrect.
Because of this potential problem we request that you ask a person
familiar with analytical geometry to check (a) whether our procedure
is in fact correct, and (b) if it is incorrect, whether the error
invalidates the main points of the paper.
-------------



I think something along these lines would be a non-judgmental way of
asking for a resolution of the issue. If you don’t want to do it,
and still want me to do it, I would say something like that with
appropriate changes of person.
Martin

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.14.19)–

            MT: Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my

command.

          RM: That would be great! Maybe you could team up with

Bruce Abbott (where’s he been?) and Alex Gomez-Marin on
it. I wish you luck on getting it published.

                        MT: Either way, whether
the error is or is not important to your
following argument, I think it is incumbent
on you – not me, Alex, or anyone else – to
publish an erratum at the very minimum.

                      RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't

think there is any error and neither did my
co-author or any of the reviewers. So it is
clearly now incumbent on you or Alex or anyone
else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.Â

Â

            But I do think you
would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility
for error. You don’t even have to admit that there was
an error, which is what I would do if I were to write to
the Editor. All you would have to do is say that several
colleagues have called into question the equivalence of
differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they
are wrong and would like to have an independent expert
decide the issue.

rsmarken · June 6, 2017, 3:16pm

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.0815)]

···

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 4:24 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

We are about to submit our rebuttal. That’s it.

RM: Great. I look forward to seeing it.Â

RM: By the way, how about the tab limited data from your fly larva study?

BestÂ

Rick

Â

–

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.17.59]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.23.05]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1245)]

English may be a fluid and ambiguous language, but I never realized
it was that ambiguous until I started having conversations with you.
A suggestion that you ask the editor to get an independent expert to
adjudicate the mathematical question and its influence on the rest
of the paper turned into a request from you that I do that, and this
suddenly has become a notion that I want to publish a rebuttal
paper. Wow!
I repeat what I said earlier.

For you to do this makes you come out smelling of roses, whether the
independent expert agrees with you or not. You would have shown
yourself to be both confident and willing to acknowledge the
possibility that you might have made a mistake. If you did make a
mistake, that’s not a problem. We all do, as the old saying insists:
“To err is human.” And by correcting it you will have increased the
accuracy of the scientific literature, especially in respect of PCT.
If it turns out that you were right, you would have enhanced your
reputation in the eyes of at least that editor.
To assist you, here's a draft of a specific question.

----------

One standard expression for the curvature (the inverse of the radius
of curvature) at a point of a curve described in Cartesian
coordinates is
where s is distance along the arc. In our paper we used instead an
expression offered by Gribble and Ostry (1996)
R = (áº‹2 + áº?2)3/2/|áº‹Ã¿ -áº?áº?|



in which we took the dots to represent differentiation with respect
to time.
In our paper we took the two equations to be equivalent. Using the
expression for velocity used by Gribble and Ostry
V = (áº‹2 + áº?2)1/2Â 



we took the dotted variables in both expressions to be the same, and
freely substituted V³ for the numerator of the Gribble
and Ostry expression for the radius of curvature.
Some colleagues have suggested to us that this substitution is
incorrect, and that in the Gribble and Ostry expression for the
radius, the dots do not represent the usual differentiation by time,
but should be taken as velocity and acceleration with respect to
distance along the arc, as in the first equation above. If their
criticism is correct, then the analysis in our paper is incorrect.
Because of this potential problem we request that you ask a person
familiar with analytical geometry to check (a) whether our procedure
is in fact correct, and (b) if it is incorrect, whether the error
invalidates the main points of the paper.
-------------



I think something along these lines would be a non-judgmental way of
asking for a resolution of the issue. If you don’t want to do it,
and still want me to do it, I would say something like that with
appropriate changes of person.
Martin

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.14.19)–

            MT: Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my

command.

          RM: That would be great! Maybe you could team up with

Bruce Abbott (where’s he been?) and Alex Gomez-Marin on
it. I wish you luck on getting it published.

                        MT: Either way, whether
the error is or is not important to your
following argument, I think it is incumbent
on you – not me, Alex, or anyone else – to
publish an erratum at the very minimum.

                      RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't

think there is any error and neither did my
co-author or any of the reviewers. So it is
clearly now incumbent on you or Alex or anyone
else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.Â

Â

            But I do think you
would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility
for error. You don’t even have to admit that there was
an error, which is what I would do if I were to write to
the Editor. All you would have to do is say that several
colleagues have called into question the equivalence of
differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they
are wrong and would like to have an independent expert
decide the issue.

Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Alex_Gomez-Marin · June 7, 2017, 11:52am

Our data is two clicks away: go here to our website, click the Power Law paper (which is open access), and in it, at the end of the paper, there is a short data accessibility section with a link to a proper data repository, with all our data.

···

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.0815)]

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 4:24 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

We are about to submit our rebuttal. That’s it.

RM: Great. I look forward to seeing it.Â

RM: By the way, how about the tab limited data from your fly larva study?

BestÂ

Rick

Â

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.17.59]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.23.05]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1245)]

English may be a fluid and ambiguous language, but I never realized
it was that ambiguous until I started having conversations with you.
A suggestion that you ask the editor to get an independent expert to
adjudicate the mathematical question and its influence on the rest
of the paper turned into a request from you that I do that, and this
suddenly has become a notion that I want to publish a rebuttal
paper. Wow!
I repeat what I said earlier.

For you to do this makes you come out smelling of roses, whether the
independent expert agrees with you or not. You would have shown
yourself to be both confident and willing to acknowledge the
possibility that you might have made a mistake. If you did make a
mistake, that’s not a problem. We all do, as the old saying insists:
“To err is human.” And by correcting it you will have increased the
accuracy of the scientific literature, especially in respect of PCT.
If it turns out that you were right, you would have enhanced your
reputation in the eyes of at least that editor.
To assist you, here's a draft of a specific question.

----------

One standard expression for the curvature (the inverse of the radius
of curvature) at a point of a curve described in Cartesian
coordinates is
where s is distance along the arc. In our paper we used instead an
expression offered by Gribble and Ostry (1996)
R = (áº‹2 + áº?2)3/2/|áº‹Ã¿ -áº?áº?|



in which we took the dots to represent differentiation with respect
to time.
In our paper we took the two equations to be equivalent. Using the
expression for velocity used by Gribble and Ostry
V = (áº‹2 + áº?2)1/2Â 



we took the dotted variables in both expressions to be the same, and
freely substituted V³ for the numerator of the Gribble
and Ostry expression for the radius of curvature.
Some colleagues have suggested to us that this substitution is
incorrect, and that in the Gribble and Ostry expression for the
radius, the dots do not represent the usual differentiation by time,
but should be taken as velocity and acceleration with respect to
distance along the arc, as in the first equation above. If their
criticism is correct, then the analysis in our paper is incorrect.
Because of this potential problem we request that you ask a person
familiar with analytical geometry to check (a) whether our procedure
is in fact correct, and (b) if it is incorrect, whether the error
invalidates the main points of the paper.
-------------



I think something along these lines would be a non-judgmental way of
asking for a resolution of the issue. If you don’t want to do it,
and still want me to do it, I would say something like that with
appropriate changes of person.
Martin

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.14.19)–

            MT: Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my

command.

          RM: That would be great! Maybe you could team up with

Bruce Abbott (where’s he been?) and Alex Gomez-Marin on
it. I wish you luck on getting it published.

                        MT: Either way, whether
the error is or is not important to your
following argument, I think it is incumbent
on you – not me, Alex, or anyone else – to
publish an erratum at the very minimum.

                      RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't

think there is any error and neither did my
co-author or any of the reviewers. So it is
clearly now incumbent on you or Alex or anyone
else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.Â

Â

            But I do think you
would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility
for error. You don’t even have to admit that there was
an error, which is what I would do if I were to write to
the Editor. All you would have to do is say that several
colleagues have called into question the equivalence of
differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they
are wrong and would like to have an independent expert
decide the issue.

rsmarken · June 7, 2017, 4:03pm

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.0900)]

···

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 4:52 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

AGM: Our data is two clicks away: go here to our website, click the Power Law paper (which is open access), and in it, at the end of the paper, there is a short data accessibility section with a link to a proper data repository, with all our data.

RM: Yes, thanks.Â The problem is that the files are in Matlab format, which I can’t use. I had asked (way back when you asked for our data) for a tab limited version of that data. You said you would Â send it yet I never got it. But I don’t really need it. I have other data that I have been able to use and I’m sure that my analysis will produce the same results for your data as it did for the data we analyzed in our paper.Â

RM: So I guess I’ll just wait to see your rebuttal to our publication to see what we got wrong. I will write to my co-author and tell him that if, by chance, you actually do show that our analysis of the power law is incorrect I will take complete responsibility for the mistake. He’s still got a career to worry about; I have only the truth to worry about.

RM: So if you do show that my analysis of the power law is truly wrong then, while I will be amazed, I will be content with learning something closer to the truth of how organisms work. Of course, if my analysis is truly wrong then that will have some interesting implications regarding the correctness of some fundamental assumptions of PCT (like whether behavior is the control of perception). But that will give us some interesting things to work on.

Best regards

Rick

Â

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.0815)]

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 4:24 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

We are about to submit our rebuttal. That’s it.

RM: Great. I look forward to seeing it.Â

RM: By the way, how about the tab limited data from your fly larva study?

BestÂ

Rick

Â

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.17.59]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.23.05]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1245)]

English may be a fluid and ambiguous language, but I never realized
it was that ambiguous until I started having conversations with you.
A suggestion that you ask the editor to get an independent expert to
adjudicate the mathematical question and its influence on the rest
of the paper turned into a request from you that I do that, and this
suddenly has become a notion that I want to publish a rebuttal
paper. Wow!
I repeat what I said earlier.

For you to do this makes you come out smelling of roses, whether the
independent expert agrees with you or not. You would have shown
yourself to be both confident and willing to acknowledge the
possibility that you might have made a mistake. If you did make a
mistake, that’s not a problem. We all do, as the old saying insists:
“To err is human.” And by correcting it you will have increased the
accuracy of the scientific literature, especially in respect of PCT.
If it turns out that you were right, you would have enhanced your
reputation in the eyes of at least that editor.
To assist you, here's a draft of a specific question.

----------

One standard expression for the curvature (the inverse of the radius
of curvature) at a point of a curve described in Cartesian
coordinates is
where s is distance along the arc. In our paper we used instead an
expression offered by Gribble and Ostry (1996)
R = (áº‹2 + áº?2)3/2/|áº‹Ã¿ -áº?áº?|



in which we took the dots to represent differentiation with respect
to time.
In our paper we took the two equations to be equivalent. Using the
expression for velocity used by Gribble and Ostry
V = (áº‹2 + áº?2)1/2Â 



we took the dotted variables in both expressions to be the same, and
freely substituted V³ for the numerator of the Gribble
and Ostry expression for the radius of curvature.
Some colleagues have suggested to us that this substitution is
incorrect, and that in the Gribble and Ostry expression for the
radius, the dots do not represent the usual differentiation by time,
but should be taken as velocity and acceleration with respect to
distance along the arc, as in the first equation above. If their
criticism is correct, then the analysis in our paper is incorrect.
Because of this potential problem we request that you ask a person
familiar with analytical geometry to check (a) whether our procedure
is in fact correct, and (b) if it is incorrect, whether the error
invalidates the main points of the paper.
-------------



I think something along these lines would be a non-judgmental way of
asking for a resolution of the issue. If you don’t want to do it,
and still want me to do it, I would say something like that with
appropriate changes of person.
Martin

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.14.19)–

            MT: Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my

command.

          RM: That would be great! Maybe you could team up with

Bruce Abbott (where’s he been?) and Alex Gomez-Marin on
it. I wish you luck on getting it published.

                        MT: Either way, whether
the error is or is not important to your
following argument, I think it is incumbent
on you – not me, Alex, or anyone else – to
publish an erratum at the very minimum.

                      RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't

think there is any error and neither did my
co-author or any of the reviewers. So it is
clearly now incumbent on you or Alex or anyone
else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.Â

Â

            But I do think you
would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility
for error. You don’t even have to admit that there was
an error, which is what I would do if I were to write to
the Editor. All you would have to do is say that several
colleagues have called into question the equivalence of
differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they
are wrong and would like to have an independent expert
decide the issue.

Alex_Gomez-Marin · June 7, 2017, 7:39pm

oh, man, you can’t stop listening to yourself, can you?

···

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 4:52 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

AGM: Our data is two clicks away: go here to our website, click the Power Law paper (which is open access), and in it, at the end of the paper, there is a short data accessibility section with a link to a proper data repository, with all our data.

RM: Yes, thanks.Â The problem is that the files are in Matlab format, which I can’t use. I had asked (way back when you asked for our data) for a tab limited version of that data. You said you would Â send it yet I never got it. But I don’t really need it. I have other data that I have been able to use and I’m sure that my analysis will produce the same results for your data as it did for the data we analyzed in our paper.Â

RM: So I guess I’ll just wait to see your rebuttal to our publication to see what we got wrong. I will write to my co-author and tell him that if, by chance, you actually do show that our analysis of the power law is incorrect I will take complete responsibility for the mistake. He’s still got a career to worry about; I have only the truth to worry about.

RM: So if you do show that my analysis of the power law is truly wrong then, while I will be amazed, I will be content with learning something closer to the truth of how organisms work. Of course, if my analysis is truly wrong then that will have some interesting implications regarding the correctness of some fundamental assumptions of PCT (like whether behavior is the control of perception). But that will give us some interesting things to work on.

Best regards

Rick

Â

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.0815)]

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 4:24 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

We are about to submit our rebuttal. That’s it.

RM: Great. I look forward to seeing it.Â

RM: By the way, how about the tab limited data from your fly larva study?

BestÂ

Rick

Â

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.17.59]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.23.05]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1245)]

English may be a fluid and ambiguous language, but I never realized
it was that ambiguous until I started having conversations with you.
A suggestion that you ask the editor to get an independent expert to
adjudicate the mathematical question and its influence on the rest
of the paper turned into a request from you that I do that, and this
suddenly has become a notion that I want to publish a rebuttal
paper. Wow!
I repeat what I said earlier.

For you to do this makes you come out smelling of roses, whether the
independent expert agrees with you or not. You would have shown
yourself to be both confident and willing to acknowledge the
possibility that you might have made a mistake. If you did make a
mistake, that’s not a problem. We all do, as the old saying insists:
“To err is human.” And by correcting it you will have increased the
accuracy of the scientific literature, especially in respect of PCT.
If it turns out that you were right, you would have enhanced your
reputation in the eyes of at least that editor.
To assist you, here's a draft of a specific question.

----------

One standard expression for the curvature (the inverse of the radius
of curvature) at a point of a curve described in Cartesian
coordinates is
where s is distance along the arc. In our paper we used instead an
expression offered by Gribble and Ostry (1996)
R = (áº‹2 + áº?2)3/2/|áº‹Ã¿ -áº?áº?|



in which we took the dots to represent differentiation with respect
to time.
In our paper we took the two equations to be equivalent. Using the
expression for velocity used by Gribble and Ostry
V = (áº‹2 + áº?2)1/2Â 



we took the dotted variables in both expressions to be the same, and
freely substituted V³ for the numerator of the Gribble
and Ostry expression for the radius of curvature.
Some colleagues have suggested to us that this substitution is
incorrect, and that in the Gribble and Ostry expression for the
radius, the dots do not represent the usual differentiation by time,
but should be taken as velocity and acceleration with respect to
distance along the arc, as in the first equation above. If their
criticism is correct, then the analysis in our paper is incorrect.
Because of this potential problem we request that you ask a person
familiar with analytical geometry to check (a) whether our procedure
is in fact correct, and (b) if it is incorrect, whether the error
invalidates the main points of the paper.
-------------



I think something along these lines would be a non-judgmental way of
asking for a resolution of the issue. If you don’t want to do it,
and still want me to do it, I would say something like that with
appropriate changes of person.
Martin

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.14.19)–

            MT: Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my

command.

          RM: That would be great! Maybe you could team up with

Bruce Abbott (where’s he been?) and Alex Gomez-Marin on
it. I wish you luck on getting it published.

                        MT: Either way, whether
the error is or is not important to your
following argument, I think it is incumbent
on you – not me, Alex, or anyone else – to
publish an erratum at the very minimum.

                      RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't

think there is any error and neither did my
co-author or any of the reviewers. So it is
clearly now incumbent on you or Alex or anyone
else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.Â

Â

            But I do think you
would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility
for error. You don’t even have to admit that there was
an error, which is what I would do if I were to write to
the Editor. All you would have to do is say that several
colleagues have called into question the equivalence of
differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they
are wrong and would like to have an independent expert
decide the issue.

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

rsmarken · June 7, 2017, 8:03pm

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.1300)]

···

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 12:39 PM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

AGM: oh, man, you can’t stop listening to yourself, can you?

RM: Control of perception;-)

BestÂ

Rick

Â

On Wed, 7 Jun 2017 at 18:04, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.0900)]

–

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 4:52 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

AGM: Our data is two clicks away: go here to our website, click the Power Law paper (which is open access), and in it, at the end of the paper, there is a short data accessibility section with a link to a proper data repository, with all our data.

RM: Yes, thanks.Â The problem is that the files are in Matlab format, which I can’t use. I had asked (way back when you asked for our data) for a tab limited version of that data. You said you would Â send it yet I never got it. But I don’t really need it. I have other data that I have been able to use and I’m sure that my analysis will produce the same results for your data as it did for the data we analyzed in our paper.Â

RM: So I guess I’ll just wait to see your rebuttal to our publication to see what we got wrong. I will write to my co-author and tell him that if, by chance, you actually do show that our analysis of the power law is incorrect I will take complete responsibility for the mistake. He’s still got a career to worry about; I have only the truth to worry about.

RM: So if you do show that my analysis of the power law is truly wrong then, while I will be amazed, I will be content with learning something closer to the truth of how organisms work. Of course, if my analysis is truly wrong then that will have some interesting implications regarding the correctness of some fundamental assumptions of PCT (like whether behavior is the control of perception). But that will give us some interesting things to work on.

Best regards

Rick

Â

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.0815)]

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 4:24 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

We are about to submit our rebuttal. That’s it.

RM: Great. I look forward to seeing it.Â

RM: By the way, how about the tab limited data from your fly larva study?

BestÂ

Rick

Â

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.17.59]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.23.05]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1245)]

English may be a fluid and ambiguous language, but I never realized
it was that ambiguous until I started having conversations with you.
A suggestion that you ask the editor to get an independent expert to
adjudicate the mathematical question and its influence on the rest
of the paper turned into a request from you that I do that, and this
suddenly has become a notion that I want to publish a rebuttal
paper. Wow!
I repeat what I said earlier.

For you to do this makes you come out smelling of roses, whether the
independent expert agrees with you or not. You would have shown
yourself to be both confident and willing to acknowledge the
possibility that you might have made a mistake. If you did make a
mistake, that’s not a problem. We all do, as the old saying insists:
“To err is human.” And by correcting it you will have increased the
accuracy of the scientific literature, especially in respect of PCT.
If it turns out that you were right, you would have enhanced your
reputation in the eyes of at least that editor.
To assist you, here's a draft of a specific question.

----------

One standard expression for the curvature (the inverse of the radius
of curvature) at a point of a curve described in Cartesian
coordinates is
where s is distance along the arc. In our paper we used instead an
expression offered by Gribble and Ostry (1996)
R = (áº‹2 + áº?2)3/2/|áº‹Ã¿ -áº?áº?|



in which we took the dots to represent differentiation with respect
to time.
In our paper we took the two equations to be equivalent. Using the
expression for velocity used by Gribble and Ostry
V = (áº‹2 + áº?2)1/2Â 



we took the dotted variables in both expressions to be the same, and
freely substituted V³ for the numerator of the Gribble
and Ostry expression for the radius of curvature.
Some colleagues have suggested to us that this substitution is
incorrect, and that in the Gribble and Ostry expression for the
radius, the dots do not represent the usual differentiation by time,
but should be taken as velocity and acceleration with respect to
distance along the arc, as in the first equation above. If their
criticism is correct, then the analysis in our paper is incorrect.
Because of this potential problem we request that you ask a person
familiar with analytical geometry to check (a) whether our procedure
is in fact correct, and (b) if it is incorrect, whether the error
invalidates the main points of the paper.
-------------



I think something along these lines would be a non-judgmental way of
asking for a resolution of the issue. If you don’t want to do it,
and still want me to do it, I would say something like that with
appropriate changes of person.
Martin

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.14.19)–

            MT: Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my

command.

          RM: That would be great! Maybe you could team up with

Bruce Abbott (where’s he been?) and Alex Gomez-Marin on
it. I wish you luck on getting it published.

                        MT: Either way, whether
the error is or is not important to your
following argument, I think it is incumbent
on you – not me, Alex, or anyone else – to
publish an erratum at the very minimum.

                      RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't

think there is any error and neither did my
co-author or any of the reviewers. So it is
clearly now incumbent on you or Alex or anyone
else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.Â

Â

            But I do think you
would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility
for error. You don’t even have to admit that there was
an error, which is what I would do if I were to write to
the Editor. All you would have to do is say that several
colleagues have called into question the equivalence of
differentiation with respect to arc length and
differentiation with respect to time, but you think they
are wrong and would like to have an independent expert
decide the issue.

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Alex_Gomez-Marin · July 16, 2017, 8:03pm

This is all a waste of time.

···

On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 9:15 PM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.16,14.40]

[From Rick Marken (2017.07.16.1140)]

There's no need for a rebuttal to correct a simple mathematical
mistake. Anyway, Alex is going to submit one, if he hasn’t already
done so.

Well, before I actually wrote it, you wanted me to send my message
to the editor so that the issue could be examined by an independent
reviewer versed in analytic geometry, and now you don’t. Make up
your mind. You have said that you have NEVER asked anyone to check
on the point at issue, and have also refused to ask the journal
editor to get someone to check. Instead you asked me (or, you said,
Alex) to do it. Now I have, and you say you don’t want me to.
I'm thinking you really, really, don't want someone competent to
look at the specific mathematical question at issue, and prefer
instead a private CSGnet discussion in which your simple assertion
“I am correct” suffices as a mathematical argument.
I have no objection to a real discussion being public in any sense
of the word, even in the sense of being available only to the small
number of CSGnet readers, but since those same long-suffering
readers have been exposed to the (non-)debate for many months, it
seems totally redundant to expose them to it again, rather than
using CSGnet to deal with other aspects of PCT research that might
interest more readers and induce contributions of new ideas.
If you prefer, though, I will copy my message to the three editors
of the “Behavioral Sciences and Neuropsychology” section of the
journal – I presume one of them should be the action editor. – to
CSGnet rather than to you privately, as I had intended.
There's actually only one point in my message to the editor(s), but
I will ask you here and now, in order to make the discussion about
it “public” in your restrictive sense: why did you use Gribble and
Ostry’s mis-copied version of the expressions for Velocity and
Radius of Curvature, rather than the correct Viviani and Stucchi
expressions that Gribble and Ostry cite as their authority?
Martin

            Martin Taylor
(2017.07.15.23.08)–
MT: As Rick requested, I
have finally composed a message to the editor…
MT: So, Rick, if you will
send the name and address of the editor with whom you
corresponded, I will follow your wish and inform the
editor of the issue, as you asked me to do.
Bruce Nevin (2017.07.16.08:26 ET)–

              BN: Just to point out that a public controversy on
technical matters in PCT is actually good PR for PCT,
whatever its resolution.Â

          RM: I strongly agree with you, Bruce. Which is why I

will not send Martin the email address of the action
editor on our paper. I think it would be better to argue
this controversy in public, for the reasons you give. And
the way to do this is for Martin (and anyone else who
wants to join in) to submit his “message” to the journal
that published our paper --Â Experimental Brain Research
– as a rebuttal to that paper.

          A peer reviewed journal seems like the best public

forum in which to conduct this controversy. The action
editor on our paper is likely to be the action editor on
the rebuttal and, hopefully, will see fit to publish it
inÂ Experimental Brain Research Â along with our
rebuttal to that rebuttal. I think that’s how it usually
goes when journals publish rebuttals to published
articles.

          RM: So, again, I really like the idea of keeping the

controversy about the power law public rather than
private, which it would be if Martin just sent a private
letter to the editor.

BestÂ

Rick

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

                                  "Perfection

is achieved not when you have
nothing more to add, but when you
have
nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Alex_Gomez-Marin · July 17, 2017, 9:13am

Thanks Rick, for sending the notes from Bill’s 1995 email. I agree with him, not with you.Â

I wish he was alive so that I were able to have a proper discussion with him (I never could), and also to read from his own words to ask you to stop out-putting nonsense although from your inside, that invariant thread off bullshit may be explicable… right? Delusions of grandeur, it is called.Â

Sure, sure, sure, PCT is the ultimate paradigm shift that will make 99% of scientists (physicists, biologists, psychologists, etc) bow to the TRUTH and recognize that 99% of what they did was to be thrown to the bin, etc, etc.Â

But, before that happens, perhaps you could learn some very basic maths and, most importantly, work on that dreadful prior that does not let you see things clearly at all. Note that your power law paper is very close to what could be marked as scientific misconduct.Â

Like children, when they tantrum in search for attention, a good idea is to let them continue on the floor, until they realize that is not bringing them anywhere.

I am so so so sick of this PCT stuff; not because of PCT but because of CSG net… Â aghh…

···

On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 5:57 AM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.16.23.02]

[From Rick Marken (2017.07.16.1440)]

So why did you refuse to ask the people you initially had look at it
before submission? You said they were competent, but you have
point-blank refused to point out the place in the paper where the
issue exists. I don’t quite believe your protestation.

Obviously not, since I have been asking time and again for you to
get the dispute adjudicated. I believe I am right. You believe you
are right. All that needs adjudication is whether the substitution
of sqrt((dx/dt)²+(dy/dt)² )Â of equation 2
(differentiation with respect to time) to replace sqrt((ds/dt)²+(dy/dt)² )
(differentiation with respect to distance along the curve) in
equation 3 to create equation 4 is permissible. I know you think it
is proper, because you have been saying so for months, when you
haven’t been saying that the expression for radius of curvature is
actually a function of time, not space.

I don't think it's a matter for rebuttal or public discussion, so I
have no intention of writing anything for potential publication. I
will send to the three editors I mentioned, with a copy to you and
separately to CSGnet since you want to restart the polemics there –
something of which I disapprove. The CSGnet copy will not have an ID
stamp header. And I won’t wait till the end of the year, which would
just allow the article to infect more people’s view of PCT. However,
I will circulate my message privately to one or two others, to see
if they have corrections or comments, before I send to the editors.
But really, all you have to do is answer my question. Why did you
use Gribble and Ostry’s version of the key equations, which they
said they got from Viviani and Stucchi, rather than getting them
from the original? Anyone looking at the two could see that G&O
made a disastrous transcription error. If you had used V&S
instead, this whole sorry episode could have been avoided, because
you would never have written your initial “Behavioral Illusion”
message to CSGnet.
It's still not too late for you to look at V&S, which you can
download by searching Google Scholar. You don’t have to take my word
for anything. It’s all there (or in the Wikipedia article on
curvature).
Martin

Martin Taylor (2017.07.16,14.40)–

Â

            MT: I'm thinking you
really, really, don’t want someone competent to look at
the specific mathematical question at issue, and prefer
instead a private CSGnet discussion in which your simple
assertion “I am correct” suffices as a mathematical
argument.

          RM: Not at all. I want someone competent not only to

look at the mathematical question at issue

…

          but to make their evaluation public by publishing it

as a rebuttal in EBR. You seem to think that you are that
competent someone

          so I would hope that you would publish Â your

evaluation as a rebuttal to our paper.

            MT: If you prefer, though, I will copy my message to the
three editors of the “Behavioral Sciences and
Neuropsychology” section of the journal – I presume one
of them should be the action editor. – to CSGnet rather
than to you privately, as I had intended.

          RM: I would prefer that you submit your message as a

rebuttal article through the regular EBR portal and see if
they publish it. If you are not willing to do that then,
as I said, I would prefer that we wait until the end of
the year and see if anyone does submit a rebuttal to EAB.
If you just can’t wait until then, of course, you are
Â free to copy your message to the three editors of EBR
whenever you like. I am just not sending the editor’s
address to you now because I would like to have your
message published as a public rebuttal rather than a
private message.Â

Alex_Gomez-Marin · July 17, 2017, 8:32pm

“Mas yo tambiÃ©n te digo, que tÃº eresÂ Pedro, yÂ sobre esta piedraÂ edificarÃ©Â mi iglesia; y las puertas del infierno no prevalecerÃ¡n contra ella.”

···

On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 8:37 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2017.07.17.1135)]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 2:13 AM, Alex Gomez-Marin agomezmarin@gmail.com wrote:

AGM: Thanks Rick, for sending the notes from Bill’s 1995 email. I agree with him, not with you.Â

RM: I find that rather astonishing but apparently since Bill passed away what has also passed away is what I thought was my correct understanding of PCT. Â Â

Â

AGM: I wish he was alive so that I were able to have a proper discussion with him (I never could),

RM: I wish so too. Since Bill passed away I feel like I’ve woken up in bizarro PCT world. It’s similar to the PCT world I knew when Bill was here – same words, same people – but not quite the same PCT. Nearly everything I thought I knew about PCT is now wrong. I keep hoping this is a dream (a nightmare really) but it’s the same damn thing every morning.Â

Â

AGM: and also to read from his own words to ask you to stop out-putting nonsense — although from your inside, that invariant thread of bullshit may be explicable… right? Delusions of grandeur, it is called.Â

RM: While Bill was alive he gave every indication to me that I understood PCT quite well; indeed, he sometimes hinted that I was his “heir apparent”, as in the attached inscription in my copy of “Making Sense of Behavior”. I had no interest in the heir apparent position but I never dreamed I would be so successful at not being it. Â

AGM: Sure, sure, sure, PCT is the ultimate paradigm shift that will make 99% of scientists (physicists, biologists, psychologists, etc) bow to the TRUTH and recognize that 99% of what they did was to be thrown to the bin, etc, etc.Â

RM: Yes, that’s what Bill thought. Not that PCT was the TRUTH but that it was the correct direction for the life sciences. But he also realized that there was (and would continue to be) strong resistance to PCT. Here’s something from a piece he had written just two months before he passed away:Â

BP: The massive opposition [to PCT] from some quarters and
the passive resistance from others came as a disappointing surprise, but
perhaps it shouldnâ€™t have. Science has a social as well as an intellectual
aspect. Scientists are not stupid. They can look at an idea and quickly work out
where it fits in with existing knowledge and where it doesn’t. And scientists
are all too human: when they see that the new idea means their life’s work
could end up mostly in the trash-can, their second reaction is simply to think
“That idea is obviously wrong.” That relieves the sinking feeling in
the pit of the stomach that is the first reaction. Being wrong about something
is unpleasant enough; being wrong about something one has worked hard to learn
and has believed, taught, written about, and researched, is close to
intolerable. All scientists of any talent have had that experience. The best of
them have recognized that their own principles require them to put those
personal reactions aside or at least save them for later. They know that any
such upheaval is going to be important, and ignoring it is not an option. But
those who recognize and embrace a revolution in science are the exception. Most
scientists practice â€˜normal scienceâ€™ within a securely established – and
well-defended – paradigm.
Â
BP: That is what we are up against here, and have
been struggling with since before most of you readers were born. We have spent
that time learning more about this new idea and getting better at explaining
it, but no better at persuading others to change their minds in a serious way
when their career commitments are threatened by it. What we had thought would
be a nutritious and deliciously buttered carrot has proven to function like a
stick. The clearer we have made the idea, the more defenses it has aroused.

AGM: But, before that happens, perhaps you could learn some very basic maths and, most importantly, work on that dreadful prior that does not let you see things clearly at all. Note that your power law paper is very close to what could be marked as scientific misconduct.Â

RM: It sounds to me like you might be one of the scientists Bill is talking about in the paragraphs above; the one’s whoÂ practice â€˜normal scienceâ€™ within a securely established – and well-defended – paradigm.Â

Â

AGM: I am so so so sick of this PCT stuff; not because of PCT but because of CSG net… Â aghh…

RM: I feel your pain. I’m pretty sick of being the only one on CSGNet who doesn’t understand PCT. I think you might actually enjoy CSGNet if you just ignored my posts. Actually, that might be good advice for everyone on CSGNet. I’ll continue to post since I still labor under the illusion that I have a very good grasp of PCT; and I do like to see what other people have to say about PCT from their perspective. But if my posts (like my paper) are infecting people’s view of PCT then it’s probably best to avoid them.Â

BestÂ

Rick

Â

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

_Boris_Hartman · July 18, 2017, 2:20pm

Martin

···

From: Martin Taylor [mailto:mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2017 5:11 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Power Law Paper (was Re: PCT Research)

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.15.23.08]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.14.19]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1015)]

…

MT: Either way, whether the error is or is not important to your following argument, I think it is incumbent on you – not me, Alex, or anyone else – to publish an erratum at the very minimum.

RM: But that’s ridiculous because I don’t think there is any error and neither did my co-author or any of the reviewers. So it is clearly now incumbent on you or Alex or anyone else who thinks that there is an error in the analysis to make it public.

Well, if that’s is your wish, I shall take it as my command. But I do think you would come off better in the end if you were to do it yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility for error. You don’t even have to admit that there was an error, which is what I would do if I were to write to the Editor. All you would have to do is say that several colleagues have called into question the equivalence of differentiation with respect to arc length and differentiation with respect to time, but you think they are wrong and would like to have an independent expert decide the issue.

As Rick requested, I have finally composed a message to the editor, which I will copy to Rick privately, since all the arguments have been hashed out and rehashed on CSGnet ad absurdum. But I need to know the email of the editor in question, because the journal web site lists several possibilities, but no e-mail for the Editor in Chief.

So, Rick, if you will send the name and address of the editor with whom you corresponded, I will follow your wish and inform the editor of the issue, as you asked me to do.

HB : For me to Martin. There is not only one problem in Ricks’ article that goes »ad absurdum« but whole articel is »shot into the fog«. So I’d like to add some notes too.

Boris

Martin

_Boris_Hartman · July 18, 2017, 7:21pm

[From Rick Marken (2017.07.18.1100)]

MT: So, Rick, if you will send the name and address of the editor with whom you corresponded, I will follow your wish and inform the editor of the issue, as you asked me to do.

HB : For me to Martin. There is not only one problem in Ricks’ article that goes Â»ad absurdumÂ« but whole articel is Â»shot into the fogÂ«. So I’d like to add some notes too.

RM: Oh, yes, Martin. Please include the “notes” from Boris. You might want to get Bruce Abbott in on it too.

HB : Sure why not. And I think that Rupert should do the same. My notes will not be about Â»Power LawÂ« itself but directly on your nosense understanding of nervous system. What can be connected to Â»Power LawÂ«. YouÂ deserve critics Rick. You went on fields which you don’t understand. Not mentioning your weak understanding of PCT and not agreeing with Bills’ and Marys’ Thesis about PCT.

Boris

Best

Rick

···

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2017 8:03 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Power Law Paper (was Re: PCT Research)

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 7:20 AM, Boris Hartman boris.hartman@masicom.net

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

_Boris_Hartman · July 18, 2017, 9:34pm

[From Rick Marken (2017.07.18.1415)]

HB : For me to Martin. There is not only one problem in Ricks’ article that goes Â»ad absurdumÂ« but whole articel is Â»shot into the fogÂ«. So I’d like to add some notes too.

RM: Oh, yes, Martin. Please include the “notes” from Boris. You might want to get Bruce Abbott in on it too.

HB : Sure why not. And I think that Rupert should do the same.

RM: The more the merrier!

HB: My notes will not be about Â»Power LawÂ« itself but directly on your nosense understanding of nervous system. What can be connected to Â»Power LawÂ«. You deserve critics Rick. You went on fields which you don’t understand. Not mentioning your weak understanding of PCT and not agreeing with Bills’ and Marys’ Thesis about PCT.

RM: Go for it. I look forward to seeing it.

HB : What a nice surprise. So you are not afraid. Good. You can send us or you can Â announce informations we need for answer your article. Where is the problem ?

Â

Boris

Best

Rick

···

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2017 11:18 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Power Law Paper (was Re: PCT Research)

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Boris Hartman boris.hartman@masicom.net wrote:

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

_Boris_Hartman · July 18, 2017, 9:51pm

[From Rick Marken (2017.07.18.1440)]

···

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2017 11:43 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Power Law Paper (was Re: PCT Research)

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 2:34 PM, Boris Hartman boris.hartman@masicom.net wrote:

RM: Go for it. I look forward to seeing it.

HB : What a nice surprise. So you are not afraid. Good. You can send us or you can announce informations we need for answer your article. Where is the problem ?

RM: No, not afraid at all. Well, check that. I am afraid that you guys will not follow through with a publishable rebuttal.

HB : That’s our problem. You just send information we need and if you are afraid that will not manage to answer your article, you can help us. You wrote that you are looking forward to see it. So I assume you are happy, because PCT will be presented in the right Â»lightÂ«. I hope you still wish the best possible devrelopment to PCT. This is the way to repair damage you made.

Boris

Best

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

_Boris_Hartman · July 20, 2017, 10:02am

Down…

···

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2017 2:17 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Power Law Paper (was Re: PCT Research)

[From Rick Marken (2017.07.18.1715)]

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 2:51 PM, Boris Hartman boris.hartman@masicom.net wrote:

RM: No, not afraid at all. Well, check that. I am afraid that you guys will not follow through with a publishable rebuttal.

HB : That’s our problem.

RM: Yes indeed.

HB : So I can conclude that you’ll not help us in any way. I knew you are afraid.

BH: You just send information we need and if you are afraid that will not manage to answer your article, you can help us.

HB : How dumm can be somebody that is told so many times that I want initials to be HB not BH. You could just copy-paste my original statement. Do you understand ?

RM: I’m afraid that’s not the way it works.

HB : Why not ? Why not helping us if you are looking forward for our answers and improvement of PCT with public discussion ?

RM : I will send you the data on which our analysis is based and the analysis itself as well if you request it.

HB : About your paper there is no Â»fogÂ«. It’s nonsense in many aspects. I don’t need any information more.

RM : But it’s your job to answer (rebut) the article in term of showing what mistakes we made and how those mistakes affect out conclusion (that the power law is a side effect of control).

HB : I already partly answered your article and you didn’t answer. So you aproximatelly know what to expect.

RM : My co-author and I (as well as the reviewers) liked the article and, after peer review,

HB : I doubt that your co-author understood what you were writing about, as it goes the same for reviewers. If they would understand what you were writing about I’m sure they wouldn’t publish it. Probably they liked math and they didn’t pay attention to whether article has any sense or not. I argumented all on CSGnet. It’s pure RCT. Search Rick, search….through archives

RM : …it was found to be suitable for publication bbecause the authors and reviewers agreed that it was in good shape;

HB : When somebody don’t understand it can look like a Â»good shapeÂ«. But those who know what you were writing it’s clear that you were Â»hidingÂ« behind the math (Â»co-authorÂ«) as youÂ did many times before, when you were hiding your RCT behind PCT. But you are welcome to show us anytime anywhere why your RCT Â»control loopÂ« deviate from PCT loop so drasticaly.

RM : …there was nothing to “ansswer”. So your job is to show that the authors and reviewers were wrong;

HB : Well you are right about this one….

RM : …tthat there were mistakes that were not caught; mistakes that invalidate the analysis and conclusions of the paper.

HB : If somebody doesn’t understand he can’t caught mistakes.

BH: You wrote that you are looking forward to see it. So I assume you are happy, because PCT will be presented in the right Â»lightÂ«.

RM: No, I’m happy about a rebuttal being written because, as I said, controversy is good publicity. I am very confident that our paper presents PCT in the right light.

HB : Well it’s good that you are so confident about the nonsense you wrote. But every Â»eye has it’s painterÂ«.

RM : You guys are the one’s who think it’s wrong so it behooves you to demonstrate that it is.

HB : You know it was wrong for a long time. I showed you many times on CSGnet. But you can’t help yourself and your egoism.

RM : I am quite confident that you will not be able to do this.

HB : Ha, ha…. I knew it must be some reason for youur answers. You count on the possibility that answers will never be published. So maybe we can expect that you’ll try toÂ intervene with publisher. And this is probably the reason why you don’t want to help us with informations.

RM : But I am happy thinking that you will actually try because, if you do manage to get a rebuttal published, it will be great publicity for PCT.

HB : You mean negaitve publicity, because conflict is inevitable between PCT and RCT.

BH: I hope you still wish the best possible devrelopment to PCT. This is the way to repair damage you made.

RM: I certainly want the best possible development of PCT

HB : Then start acting in that way… I’m waitiing now for a long time that you’ll say that you agree with Bills’ and Marys’ Thesis. How can you want the best possible devlopment for PCT if you don’t agree with author.

RM : …and I think our power law paper is one the the bbest “developments” of PCT that I have ever published.

HB : After so many answers to you Rick on CSGnet you know it’s bullshitt….

RM : ….I look forward to seeing a rebuttal because I want tto know why you think the paper is so awful.

HB . I already answered to this question on CSGnet. You know exactly what is wrong.

RM : I think the journal will not publish a rebuttal that says little more than that our paper is awful.

HB : You are wright. We’ll have to offer physiological evidences. I don’t see any problems in that.

RM : You will have to actually show, using models and data, what is wrong with it.

HB : What data and models ? Do we have to Â»chaseÂ« helicopter in 2-dimensions while it is moving in 3-dimensions to obtain data and then make a general model how people run after helicopters arround the World ?

Physiological evidences how bin-occular vision works will be O.K. No data needed. But also researhes about vision are not problematic if they’ll want them.

RM : And if you do manage to produce such a rebuttal and it is convincing then I will have learned something;

HB : You already learned something… but you don’t want to show it.

RM : …and if it’s not convincing we get to rebut the rebuttal.

HB : Why didn’t you do it here on CSGnet ?… You had so many chances to answer my accusatiions … Make tour through archives…

RM : So it’s a win-win for PCT.

HB : Well whether it’s a Â»win-winÂ«Â« for PCT time will show.

RM : If your rebuttal is correct, we get a the correct view of PCT (yours) out in public; if it’s not, we get the correct view of PCT (mine) out in public. What could be better?

HB : Public has nothing to do with correctness of PCT. Your view is not PCT view. I proved it to many times in our discussions. Discussion in public will not change anything about that. All the nonsense you wrote on CSGnet can’t be erased with public. But all your nonsense you wrote can be published.Â CSGnet forum is not authorized. If you could Â»stealÂ« from discussions anyone can publish whatever he wants from CSGnet.

But I still don’t understand why you shouldn’t give us needed information about publisher and reviewers ??? If by your oppinion it’s good for PCT publicity… and you are so confiident, and you are not afraid… Why then ? You are afraid, aren’t youu Rick ? Because you exactly know what was wrong in your article. I know you are clever enough.

Boris

Best

Rick

Boris

Best

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â€?
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

bnhpct · July 16, 2017, 12:30pm

[Bruce Nevin (2017.07.16.08:26 ET)]

Just to point out that a public controversy on technical matters in PCT is actually good PR for PCT, whatever its resolution. People like to be spectators of what they perceive as a fight. At a minimum, it shows that serious people take it seriously. It may rouse curiosity, and it calls attention to the original paper, to work it cites, to other work by the authors and the critic.

···

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 11:10 PM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.15.23.08]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.14.19]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1015)]
…

  Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my command. But I
do think you would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility for error.
You don’t even have to admit that there was an error, which is
what I would do if I were to write to the Editor. All you would
have to do is say that several colleagues have called into
question the equivalence of differentiation with respect to arc
length and differentiation with respect to time, but you think
they are wrong and would like to have an independent expert decide
the issue.
As Rick requested, I have finally composed a message to the editor,
which I will copy to Rick privately, since all the arguments have
been hashed out and rehashed on CSGnet ad absurdum . But I
need to know the email of the editor in question, because the
journal web site lists several possibilities, but no e-mail for the
Editor in Chief.
So, Rick, if you will send the name and address of the editor with
whom you corresponded, I will follow your wish and inform the editor
of the issue, as you asked me to do.
Martin

              MT: Either way, whether the error
is or is not important to your following argument, I
think it is incumbent on you – not me, Alex, or
anyone else – to publish an erratum at the very
minimum.

            RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't think there

is any error and neither did my co-author or any of the
reviewers. So it is clearly now incumbent on you or Alex
or anyone else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.

MartinT · July 16, 2017, 3:10am

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.15.23.08]

As Rick requested, I have finally composed a message to the editor,

which I will copy to Rick privately, since all the arguments have
been hashed out and rehashed on CSGnet . But I
need to know the email of the editor in question, because the
journal web site lists several possibilities, but no e-mail for the
Editor in Chief. So, Rick, if you will send the name and address of the editor with
whom you corresponded, I will follow your wish and inform the editor
of the issue, as you asked me to do.
Martin

···

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.05.14.19]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1015)]
…

              MT: Either way, whether the error
is or is not important to your following argument, I
think it is incumbent on you – not me, Alex, or
anyone else – to publish an erratum at the very
minimum.

            RM: But that's ridiculous because I don't think there
is any error and neither did my co-author or any of the
reviewers. So it is clearly now incumbent on you or Alex
or anyone else who thinks that there is an error in the
analysis to make it public.

  Well, if that's is your wish, I shall take it as my command. But I
do think you would come off better in the end if you were to do it
yourself, as though you had discovered the possibility for error.
You don’t even have to admit that there was an error, which is
what I would do if I were to write to the Editor. All you would
have to do is say that several colleagues have called into
question the equivalence of differentiation with respect to arc
length and differentiation with respect to time, but you think
they are wrong and would like to have an independent expert decide
the issue.

ad absurdum

MartinT · July 16, 2017, 7:15pm

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.16,14.40]

[From Rick Marken (2017.07.16.1140)]

There's no need for a rebuttal to correct a simple mathematical

mistake. Anyway, Alex is going to submit one, if he hasn’t already
done so.

Well, before I actually wrote it, you wanted me to send my message

to the editor so that the issue could be examined by an independent
reviewer versed in analytic geometry, and now you don’t. Make up
your mind. You have said that you have NEVER asked anyone to check
on the point at issue, and have also refused to ask the journal
editor to get someone to check. Instead you asked me (or, you said,
Alex) to do it. Now I have, and you say you don’t want me to.

I'm thinking you really, really, don't want someone competent to

look at the specific mathematical question at issue, and prefer
instead a private CSGnet discussion in which your simple assertion
“I am correct” suffices as a mathematical argument.

I have no objection to a real discussion being public in any sense

of the word, even in the sense of being available only to the small
number of CSGnet readers, but since those same long-suffering
readers have been exposed to the (non-)debate for many months, it
seems totally redundant to expose them to it again, rather than
using CSGnet to deal with other aspects of PCT research that might
interest more readers and induce contributions of new ideas.

If you prefer, though, I will copy my message to the three editors

of the “Behavioral Sciences and Neuropsychology” section of the
journal – I presume one of them should be the action editor. – to
CSGnet rather than to you privately, as I had intended.

There's actually only one point in my message to the editor(s), but

I will ask you here and now, in order to make the discussion about
it “public” in your restrictive sense: why did you use Gribble and
Ostry’s mis-copied version of the expressions for Velocity and
Radius of Curvature, rather than the correct Viviani and Stucchi
expressions that Gribble and Ostry cite as their authority?

Martin

···

            Martin Taylor
(2017.07.15.23.08)–
MT: As Rick requested, I
have finally composed a message to the editor…
MT: So, Rick, if you will
send the name and address of the editor with whom you
corresponded, I will follow your wish and inform the
editor of the issue, as you asked me to do.
Bruce Nevin (2017.07.16.08:26 ET)–

              BN: Just to point out that a public controversy on
technical matters in PCT is actually good PR for PCT,
whatever its resolution.Â

          RM: I strongly agree with you, Bruce. Which is why I

will not send Martin the email address of the action
editor on our paper. I think it would be better to argue
this controversy in public, for the reasons you give. And
the way to do this is for Martin (and anyone else who
wants to join in) to submit his “message” to the journal
that published our paper --Â Experimental Brain Research
– as a rebuttal to that paper.

          A peer reviewed journal seems like the best public

forum in which to conduct this controversy. The action
editor on our paper is likely to be the action editor on
the rebuttal and, hopefully, will see fit to publish it
inÂ Experimental Brain Research Â along with our
rebuttal to that rebuttal. I think that’s how it usually
goes when journals publish rebuttals to published
articles.

          RM: So, again, I really like the idea of keeping the

controversy about the power law public rather than
private, which it would be if Martin just sent a private
letter to the editor.

BestÂ

Rick

–

Richard S. MarkenÂ

                                  "Perfection

is achieved not when you have
nothing more to add, but when you
have
nothing left to take away.â€?
Â Â Â
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery