[From Rick Marken (960914.2100)]
Me:
you are mistaken if you think I know and promote the Powers World View
because I am trying to toe some "party line".
Bruce Abbott (960914.1410 EST) --
Whoa, did you get out of bed on the wrong side or something? By "Powers
World >View" I only meant PCT, HPCT, and certain ancillary assumptions and
conclusions >surrounding these views (such as the notion that
"conventional" psychology has >nothing to offer) to which both you and he
subscribe. I never said anything >about a "party line;" that is your own
invention, and what I said was not >intended to be derogatory. The
important question in my mind is, why would
you want to interpret my words in this way?
There I go again;-) A little disturbance produced a big output just because I
am controlling for perceiving myself as as an independent thinker. The
little disturbance occurred when you said "he [that's me;-)] knows Bill
Powers's positions on those issues, and he never deviates from them" [Bruce
Abbott (960913.2020 EST)]. It sounded to me like you were suggesting that
my positions were not based on my own undertanding of PCT but, rather, were
attempts to accurately mimic Bill -- to toe the party line, so to speak.
Thanks for letting me know that you didn't mean that;-) (I had a GREAT
morning, though. Thanks;-))
By the way, the problem with "conventional" psychology is not that it has
"nothing to offer". The problem is that conventional psychology is based on
a cause-effect rather than a control model of behavior. Thus, the results
of conventional research -- research based on the observation of IV-DV
relationships -- are necessarily misleading to the extent that the IV is a
disturbance and the DV a response variable. In this case, any relationship
between IV and DV reflects properties of the environment, not the organism.
This conclusion regarding "conventional" research derives directly from the
PCT model. It is an opinion I have about conventional research, not because
it is Bill Powers' opinion, but because PCT tells me that DV = -1/g(IV),
where g() is the environmental function relating the DV to a controlled
input variable (the existence of which is completely unkown to the
conventional researcher).
I know that a piece of research will occasionally appear in the
conventional literature that is relevant to PCT; the Science article on
catching baseballs (which you found, I believe; thanks!) is an excellent
example. But you have to admit that this kind of research -- where a
possible controlled variable is monitored under disturbance -- is extremely
rare. Even in the "catching baseballs" literature (which is substantial)
this study is an aberation. It was a happy accident, from a PCT perspective
(it is interesting that throughout that article the authors talked about
controlling in "as if" terms; they always put the word "controlling" in
scare quotes, as if they didn't want to seem to be saying what they were
saying; that the fielder, not the environment, was in control).
In his reply to Baum and Reese's comments on his 1973 Science paper, Powers
presented an equation like the one above and said: "I see no way in which
behaviorism [cause-effect psychology] can survive a full understanding of
the derivation and significance of this harmless expression. If
control-system theory does indeed describe correctly the relationship
between organisms and their environments, behaviorism has been in the grip
of a powerful illusion since its conceptual bases were laid". It took me
about two years to understand what this meant and to prove to myself (via
experimental test and modeling) that control theory does, indeed, correctly
describe the relationship between organisms and their environments. At
that point, there was no more need to worry about explaining all the
discoveries of conventional psychology with PCT; it was time to start
studying control.
My "Dancer and the Dance" paper describes my vision of a science of
behavior based on PCT. If we can find research in the conventional
literature, like the baseball catching study, that is useful in the pursuit
of this science then that's great. But I think it would take a massive
effort to sift through the psychological literature for PCT relevant
results when we know that 90% or more of that literature contains
misleading data. Why not wait until the useful stuff turns up by accident
(like the baseball paper) and, in the meantime, just start doing research
based on an understanding of the nature of purposeful behavior (control)?
As to my "mirthful comments" etc., I was only pointing out that you seemed
very >unwilling even to entertain the possibility that someone like Simon
might have something >to say worth discussing, and were engaging in the
most strenuous efforts to discredit him >even before I had presented any
of those ideas. In trying to understand this highly >defensive stance you
had adopted, I could only surmise that you were afraid that Simon's
comments might somehow undermine your efforts to convince other readers
of CSGNET >of the validity of PCT, or at least confuse them about PCT
principles.
I don't try to talk people into the validity of PCT; I try to research and
demo them into it;-). I am trying to teach PCT principles; if I seem to be
presenting those principles in a confusing way then I'm sure Bill Powers or
someone else who understands them will step in and straighten things out.
What you see as my defensiveness about Simon's ideas (which I've read, for
chissakes) is just my attempt to limit the time I have to spend listening
to the "big mouth Charleys" of the world;-)
Best
Rick