relationships

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2002.09.30 22:28 EDT)]
The notion of a causal relationship seems to require

1. An IV/DV correlation
2. A plausible mechanism by which the correlation is seen to be necessary
   and invariable.
   One of the difficulties of our language is that there is no way to speak
   of a relationship as the fundamental thing and the relata as products of
   analysis. This atomization of correlations and loss of simultaneity
   leads, for example, to the common misconception of a sequence of steps
   around the loop. (It is also what makes it so difficult for me to
   communicate what is going on with phonemic contrast. It seems absurd for
   me to say that people control the contrasts of their language; obviously
   they must be controlling the things that are contrasted, and the
   appearance of contrast is a corollary or a side effect.)
   Bill Powers(2002.09.25.0229 MDT)–

Dan Palmer (2002.09.25.1157 Melbourne Time)-- [quoting Bateson]

1. A mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components.
   Is there anything in nature of which this is not true?
   A mind is such an aggregate. Not all such aggregates are minds. The other
   criteria also apply. It is easy (that is, it is a cheap shot) to make
   them ridiculous by taking them separately.
2. The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by
   difference[…].
   I agree with your objection to “triggering” and possibly with
   your reading that Bateson thought of digital differences rather than
   analog differing or varying. (I haven’t read him carefully enough to
   tell.)
3. Mental process requires collateral energy.
   In other words, metabolism.
4. Mental process requires circular (or more complex) chains of
   determination.
   In other words, if there’s no loop, it’s not mental.
5. In mental process, the effects of difference are to be regarded
   as
   transforms (i.e., coded versions) of events which precede them. The
   rules of such
   transformation must be comparatively stable (i.e., more stable than
   the
   content) but are themselves subject to transformation.
   This may be akin to Martin Taylor’s observations about the
   information-theoretic properties of control loops, an analytical
   statement from the point of view of an observer peering into the black
   box from the outside, and not a control-theory statement from the point
   of view of the control system. Unless he makes use of this someplace else
   it seems to me to contribute little. I don’t have a copy of M&N.
6. The description and classification of these processes of
   transformation
   disclose a hierarchy of logical types immanent in the phenomena
   I have to agree, of course. Look at the date on Bateson’s list,
   though. Note, however, that hierarchical organizations are not confined
   to
   conscious minds. I’m pretty sure that Bateson equated mind and
   consciousness. I don’t.
   Why is the 1979 date especially relevant? Because the theory of logical
   types dates from 70 years earlier? I don’t understand. And how does this
   suggest an identification with consciousness? Bateson gives the
   thermostat as an example without attributing consciousness to it. I don’t
   see the relevance of your comments. Your further comments about Ashby
   have no relevance that I can see, except that you associate Ashby and
   Bateson alike with old arguments with cyberneticismists.
   I agree that these statements do not suffice to specify control theory.
   But I don’t agree that they are as trivial as you make them out to
   be.
   Bateson’s aim was not to develop perceptual control theory, so you can
   scarcely take him to task for failing to do so. He said that
   epistemological errors can have destructive or suicidal consequences, and
   he pursued his characterization of what is ‘mental’ as a way of
   rectifying what he saw as two of the most pernicious of these errors,
   naive materialism on the one hand, and superstition on the other. There
   is a hint of this in (3) “difference is a nonsubstantial phenomena
   not located in space or time;
   difference is related to negentropy and entropy rather than to
   energy.” The hole in a doughnut defines a torus, which is completely
   non-physical. On the other hand, when the doughnut has been consumed the
   hole does not persist to be reincarnated in another doughnut.
   Rick Marken (2002.09.27.1100)–
   I think the imagined personal insults are a cover; a way to
   protect those hurt ideas without actually having to continue to try to
   defend
   them intellectually.
   This is an interesting configuration of control systems. If I understand
   you, Rick, You are postulating one control loop defending some ideas
   intellectually, and a second control system that starts controlling to
   ‘win’ the argument by personal attack when the first control system is
   unable to control successfully. How would you model the relationship
   between these two control loops (both within the same person), and
   especially the transition of effective control from one to the
   other?
   Fred Nickols (2002.09.26.1445) describes someone in whom the ‘attack’
   control loop has effective control for different reasons – not because
   of losing the intellectual argument, but because of seeing the other as
   not worthy of an intellectual debate.
   What if a sarcastic posting by Fred in response to Joe isn’t the result
   of
   a disturbance to a controlled variable at all but, instead, is simply
   the
   result of Fred being in the habit of slapping down morons whenever he
   spots
   one and Fred views Joe’s posting as evidence that Joe is a moron.
   In other
   words, Fred isn’t “defending” a controlled variable that has
   been
   disturbed, he’s simply swatting a moron fly in accordance with some
   reference condition he’s established for himself.
   Fred, you are describing resistance to a disturbance. The
   buzzing of that ‘moron fly’ is disturbing some perception that Fred is
   controlling. ‘Slapping down morons’ (not suffering fools gladly) is
   Fred’s way of resisting that disturbance.

    /Bruce

Nevin

[Bill_Williams_UMKC]

[From Bill Williams UMKC 1 October 2002 0:30 AM CST]

[From Bruce Nevin (2002.09.30 22:28 EDT)]

Fred, you are describing resistance to a disturbance. The buzzing of that
'moron fly' is disturbing some perception that Fred is controlling.
'Slapping down morons' (not suffering fools gladly) is Fred's way of
resisting that disturbance.

It seems to me that what Fred may intend to say is that there is a difference
between a moron who is calling you a moron, and a moron who simply is a moron.
Both can be disturbances. But, if they are disturbances, they are different
types of disturbances.

best

  Bill Williams

···

______________________________________________________________________
Do you want a free e-mail for life ? Get it at http://www.email.ro/

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2002.10.1.0940)]

Bruce Nevin (2002.09.30 22:28 EDT)

Rick Marken (2002.09.27.1100)--

I think the imagined personal insults are a cover; a way to
protect those hurt ideas without actually having to continue to try to defend
them intellectually.

This is an interesting configuration of control systems. If I understand you,
Rick, You are postulating one control loop defending some ideas intellectually,
and a second control system that starts controlling to 'win' the argument by
personal attack when the first control system is unable to control successfully.
How would you model the relationship between these two control loops (both
within the same person), and especially the transition of effective control from
one to the other?

I have a feeling that this whole unfortunate era (of insults and hatreds, real or
imagined) may be coming to an end. So let's hope the phenomenon I mentioned
becomes a non-phenomenon and, therefore, one that needs no explanation.

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

[Bill_Powers1]

[From Bill Powers (2002.10.01.0824 MDT)]

Bruce Nevin (2002.09.30 22:28 EDT)--

The notion of a causal relationship seems to require

1. An IV/DV correlation
2. A plausible mechanism by which the correlation is seen to be necessary
and invariable.

This comment is rich in interesting implications.

The first and second requirements are, subtly, contradictory. To couple a
"correlation" (a statistical relationship) with a "mechanism" (a physical
structure or its design) is to require that a physical mechanism show
statistical properties -- i.e., sometimes work according to a given
description of an IV/DV relationship, and sometimes not work, or to work
according to a different relationship. While we can put noise-generators
into mechanisms in several ways, we can't put the _same_ noise patterns
into them as those we find in typical IV/DV observations, so the behavior
of a mechanistic model will not match the observed behavior point by point.
This leaves the model contradicting many of the observations.

This is a problem whenever someone asks if we can model some relationship
that is claimed to exist in behavior. We can only model it as if it
occurred in essentially 100% of the observations. By their very nature,
models behave in only one way, the way they are designed. So we can make a
model that will behave according to the hypothesis that was "supported by
the data" (or not contradicted), but we can't make a model that will give
the same experimental results -- that is, work in some cases and not in
others. Therefore we can't simulate a typical IV/DV relationship unless it
holds true essentially without exceptions.

So it's clear that to a modeler, causation is bound to mean something
different from what it means to a typical psychological experimenter.A
modeler can speak of A being _the_ cause of B, meaning that B = f(A) with
the same function being observed every time. "The" cause applies to the
implication
A --> B, which means "it is not the case that A is true and B is false." If
A causes B, then if A occurs, B _must_ happen. Furthermore, if A is _the_
cause of B, B cannot occur unless A has occurred, because there is nothing
else that can cause B.

The modeler can also speak of A as being _a_ cause of B. This implies that
there are other possible causes of B, so that if B occurs we can't be sure
that A occurred first. It is still possible to say that if A occurs, B must
occur, but now this assertion becomes shaky: suppose C has an effect on B
that is equal and opposite to the effect of A (thus going beyond mere
occurrance of events). Then if A and C occur at the same time, B will not
occur: the effects of A and B will cancel out.

That takes us to the contrast between analog and digital processes. Analog
process do not "occur" except through the artifact of event-perception,
which creates artificial boundaries and defines events as crossings of
those boundaries. We can say that magnetic attraction causes certain
objects to stick to the armature of an electromagnet: turning the current
on causes a piece of iron to fly up and stick to the magnet; turning the
current off then causes the object to drop to the ground. We have one event
causing another event: "turning the current on" is one event and "flying up
to the magnet" is another. This is the phenomenon stated in digital or
categorical terms.But we can also say that as the current through the
magnet increases, the upward force on the piece of iron increases, until at
some point the net force vector points upward and the object begins to
accelerate upward. It continues to accelerating, faster and faster as it
gets closer to the magnet, until it is stopped by a collision with the
magnet. As long as the upward force exceeds the weight of the piece of
iron, the object will remain against the magnet.If the current decreases to
the point where the weight is greater than the magnetic force, the object
will begin to accelerate downward, falling faster and faster until it is
stopped by the ground.

Obviously, it takes less breath to speak in terms of events, but one gets
far more of a sense of explanation from the analog depiction, In the analog
depiction, the relationships are continuously varying rather than changing
state at only one instant. The "how" of the observations is addressed
rather than only the "what".

In a typical IV/DV description of causation, events cause events without
any intermediary mechanisms. In the modeling description, variables are
functions of other variables, with "events" happening only at
discontinuities like collisions.The mechanism is the proximal cause of the
relationships; the events are only descriptions of certain instants in a
continuing relationship.

One of the difficulties of our language is that there is no way to speak
of a relationship as the fundamental thing and the relata as products of
analysis. This atomization of correlations and loss of simultaneity leads,
for example, to the common misconception of a sequence of steps around the
loop. (It is also what makes it so difficult for me to communicate what is
going on with phonemic contrast. It seems absurd for me to say that people
control the contrasts of their language; obviously they must be
controlling the things that are contrasted, and the appearance of contrast
is a corollary or a side effect.)

That simultaneity is particularly troublesome in that it does NOT mean that
propagation of effects around a loop is instantaneous. It means that if you
pick any one variable in the loop to watch, you will observe it changing
continuously rather than waiting its turn to change. It is changing
literally at exactly the same time any other variable is changing.

However, if you follow the effects of changes in that variable, you will
find that those effects on other variables show a time-delay or rather a
phase delay. So a very brief perturbation of one variable shows up as
perturbations in other variables at slightly later times, and the effect on
itself after one trip of the perturbation around the loop is delayed by the
sum of the intermediate delays. This is one reason people have come to
think of closed loops as sequences of events: they follow the perturbations
around the loop, but forget that when their attention moves to the next
variable, the first variable is still changing. I'm not sure if the
mathematics used for such effects actually handles them correctly. It
probably does, but it doesn't help us to understand them.

As to controlling contrasts, perhaps this would be easier to explain if you
said that people control the _perception_ of contrasts. To do this, it is
necessary to affect the things which contrast, but you don't have to be
able to affect of both of them. If the one you can't affect changes, you
can still control the perceived contrast by varying the other one. A lot of
problems like this succumb to the idea of levels of control.

Bill Powers(2002.09.25.0229 MDT)--

>Dan Palmer (2002.09.25.1157 Melbourne Time)-- [quoting Bateson]
>1. A mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components.

Is there anything in nature of which this is _not_ true?

A mind is such an aggregate. Not all such aggregates are minds. The other
criteria also apply. It is easy (that is, it is a cheap shot) to make them
ridiculous by taking them separately.

Not a cheap shot at all: a valid criticism.My point was that simply finding
categories into which things fit does not in any way explain them. The fact
that A and B are both members of category K does not mean they have any
relation to each other. Minds are aggregates of interacting parts and so
are radios -- but radios have nothing in common with minds.Membership in
the category of "things that are aggregates of interacting parts" is
meaningless: there are simply too many ways in which elements can
aggregate, too many kinds of interaction, and too many conceptions of what
constitutes a "part."

I simply don't believe that generalization is a very useful way to treat
nature. I've never seen one that actually explained anything, though there
must be something I'm missing for so many smart people to indulge in them.
Let's just say they don't give me that "aha" feeling I'm addicted to. I had
better not pursue this argument any further,though. I think I have stepped
on some toes without realizing it, so I'll stop trying to explain a point
of view that does not seem to appeal to anyone else.

Best,

Bill P.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2002.10.01.1515)]

Bruce Nevin (2002.10.01 16:18 EDT)--

So again: it seems like a control system is defending some ideas
intellectually, and then, under some circumstances, a defense by personal
attack begins - ridicule, denigration, belittlement, etc.

In my question I assumed that failure successfully to defend the ideas
intellectually exposes a different CV to disturbance, which is then
defended by a different control system using different means. But possibly
it is one control system using different means (intellectual defense of
ideas, opinionated shooting of messengers) to control the same variable.

This seems to me to be a very commonplace phenomenon, and it might be good
to understand it better.

I agree. It seems extremely commonplace to me too. I think this has to do with the
fact that every controlled "idea" perception is really many perceptual
dimensions. So how one "feels" about the idea depends on how well one can protect
it from disturbances in all these dimensions. People who want to "fight" ideas
understand this. If they can't get anywhere pushing on (disturbing) the logical
dimension of an idea they know that they might get somewhere pushing on personal
aspects of it. So, for example, people who are having difficulty fighting the
logic of single payer health care can attack other dimensions of the idea. Thus,
we hear that single payer health care is "socialized medicine" . Which it is. But
using those words to describe it is calculated to makes the idea unappealing to
people who don't like "socialism".

I think the multidimensional nature of ideas makes it very difficult to avoid
clashing over personal dimensions of these ideas or to have disturbances to these
"irrelevant" dimensions influence the discussion of ideas. The world of
perception isn't neatly divided into nice separate areas labeled "logical" and
"personal". So when people discuss what are mainly logical issues I think they
will do best if they _try_ to be sensitive to the possible disturbing influences
they might have on the personal dimensions of the ideas others are defending while
being as insensitive as possible to the disturbing influences others may have on
the personal dimensions of the ideas they themselves are defending

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2002.10.01 16:18 EDT)]

Rick Marken (2002.10.1.0940)--

I have a feeling that this whole unfortunate era (of insults and hatreds, real or
imagined) may be coming to an end. So let's hope the phenomenon I mentioned
becomes a non-phenomenon and, therefore, one that needs no explanation.

A result fervently to be hoped for on the global scale that I intended. But I think you're interpreting my question just in terms of interactions on CSG-net. This sort of side-slip from logical argument to mere quarrel seems to be pretty universal. So I really would like to have a better idea how it happens, and I'm guessing that others might be interested.

I addressed the question specifically to you. My mistake. An artifact of response to email. It's really a question to anyone.

So again: it seems like a control system is defending some ideas intellectually, and then, under some circumstances, a defense by personal attack begins - ridicule, denigration, belittlement, etc.

In my question I assumed that failure successfully to defend the ideas intellectually exposes a different CV to disturbance, which is then defended by a different control system using different means. But possibly it is one control system using different means (intellectual defense of ideas, opinionated shooting of messengers) to control the same variable.

This seems to me to be a very commonplace phenomenon, and it might be good to understand it better.

I heard Ira Glass on "This American Life" yesterday (NPR) with a fascinating show about scams and suckers and such. In one segment, he described what he considers a strong feature of Israeli culture: never to be taken advantage of, never to be a sucker, always to be the one who is in control, never to be a "Freier". (I'm guessing at the word: sounded like "fryer" or "friar".) He goes to the manager of his hotel. He's been billed for telephone calls that he didn't make. The discussion escalates to an argument. They're shouting at the top of their lungs. But (he suddenly realizes) it's not about the money. The manager agrees with him that he shouldn't be charged. It's about who gets to say that he doesn't get charged for these calls. "I'm the manager! I get to say whether or not you're billed for these calls!" "I'm the customer! I get to say whether or not I'm going to pay for these calls!" Whoever backs down is the "Freier", the sucker, the one whose condition is disposed by the other.

Lots of places to go with that, other anecdotes (drivers!) from Israel and elsewhere (New York!), culture history of the Jews, etc. The relevance here is that this is an extreme instance of a very general phenomenon.

         /Bruce Nevin

···

At 09:41 AM 10/1/2002 -0500, Richard Marken wrote:

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2002.10.01 21:35 EDT)]

Bill Powers (2002.10.01.0824 MDT)--

Bruce Nevin (2002.09.30 22:28 EDT)--

The notion of a causal relationship seems to require

1. An IV/DV correlation

My error. I'm misusing the terms IV and DV, I guess. They are too strongly associated with statistical correlations. I don't mean a statistical correlation. I mean a real correlation between A and B, so that for any instance of A whenever A varies in a certain dimension, an intance of B, connected to that instance of A by the mechanism in the specified way, varies correlatively in some dimension, and it is the same covariation correlation every time in every instance of A and B.

As to controlling contrasts, perhaps this would be easier to explain if you
said that people control the _perception_ of contrasts.

Well yes, of course. I believe I did. But I didn't think that needed emphasizing here.

To do this, it is
necessary to affect the things which contrast, but you don't have to be
able to affect of both of them. If the one you can't affect changes, you
can still control the perceived contrast by varying the other one. A lot of
problems like this succumb to the idea of levels of control.

The "things which contrast", the relata in the relationship, are also perceptions, of course, but furthermore they are perceptions that subsist only in being contrasted. The set of various sounds that are perceived as a given phoneme, say /k/, in a language context, when heard out of a language context are not perceived as phonemes at all. And the same sound may be heard as one phoneme in one phonemic context and as another phoneme in a different phonemic context. The sound is not varied. And the change of context may be entirely in imagination/memory.

Generally, we are affirmed in belief that a perception corresponds with Reality when others corroborate that perception. An interesting thing about a social or cultural reality, and specifically about phonemic contrasts, is that the corroboration of the perception takes the form of recreating the thing that is perceived, in the course of employing it in a public way for personal ends that require collaboration. Bricks, quarks, and aspen trees, or the realities behind the perceptions that we identify in those ways, would, we presume, still be here were we all to disappear; phonemic contrasts and other social realities would disappear with us. If I play you a recording of the Gettysburg Address, you perceive English words and sentences. If I play you a recording of Je:mul 'u wad:a:'wi you might surmise that you were hearing something said in some language, but you couldn't be sure it wasn't nonsense or glossolalia, and you wouldn't be able to tell one word from others (the contrasts).

>1. A mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components.

Is there anything in nature of which this is _not_ true?

A mind is such an aggregate. Not all such aggregates are minds. The other
criteria also apply.

simply finding
categories into which things fit does not in any way explain them. The fact
that A and B are both members of category K does not mean they have any
relation to each other. Minds are aggregates of interacting parts and so
are radios -- but radios have nothing in common with minds.

If some component of a radio also meets all the other criteria, then it (that component) is an example of mind. That's the claim. Not that all things that meet criterion number 1 (or 3, or 5) by itself are instances of mind, but that things that meet all of the criteria are.

You're not stepping on my toes. The only defense of Bateson that I'm making is that you're not responding to what he said, and this seems to me to be unfair. To be responsive you should take the entire sieve of six gratings and not just critique the inadequacies of each grating taken singly. His aims were different from yours. It's really too bad he didn't understand control theory, and too late now, but for his purposes his sieve of five or six statements (categories or generalizations, if you will) sufficed to make some important distinctions, and helped him to reinstate the legitimacy of talk about 'mind' and 'mental' without falling into a swamp of superstitious blather that commonly goes with such talk. Or at least I think he might put it in more or less those words. There's no requirement that you be responsive, of course - but you were responding.

         /Bruce Nevin

···

At 09:50 AM 10/1/2002 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

[David_Goldstein1]

Dear Rick and other PCTers interested in this topic,

I would simply like to point out that the self-system control system(s) may
come into play here.

One may interpret comments by another person in a more general way that
creates an error signal in the self-system control systems.

For example, the ideas may suggest that the speaker is anti-American. If "I
am an American and proud of it" is part of ones self-system, one would
expect the self-system to oppose the statement.

The opposition could take the form of trying to discredit the speaker in
general and therefore, the statement. If the speaker is stupid, or immoral,
then not much wothwhileness needs to be given to the statement.

So what I am saying, is that the phenomenon of attacking the speaker rather
than the statement may simply be the self-control system(s) at work. In
school, we are taught not to make this mistake, but it is probably the more
natural way. The self-system(s) are at a higher level than the systems that
make conversations understandable.

Best regards,
David Goldstein

···

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Marken" <marken@MINDREADINGS.COM>
To: <CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: relationships

[From Rick Marken (2002.10.01.1515)]

> Bruce Nevin (2002.10.01 16:18 EDT)--
>
> So again: it seems like a control system is defending some ideas
> intellectually, and then, under some circumstances, a defense by

personal

> attack begins - ridicule, denigration, belittlement, etc.
>
> In my question I assumed that failure successfully to defend the ideas
> intellectually exposes a different CV to disturbance, which is then
> defended by a different control system using different means. But

possibly

> it is one control system using different means (intellectual defense of
> ideas, opinionated shooting of messengers) to control the same variable.
>
> This seems to me to be a very commonplace phenomenon, and it might be

good

> to understand it better.

I agree. It seems extremely commonplace to me too. I think this has to do

with the

fact that every controlled "idea" perception is really many perceptual
dimensions. So how one "feels" about the idea depends on how well one can

protect

it from disturbances in all these dimensions. People who want to "fight"

ideas

understand this. If they can't get anywhere pushing on (disturbing) the

logical

dimension of an idea they know that they might get somewhere pushing on

personal

aspects of it. So, for example, people who are having difficulty fighting

the

logic of single payer health care can attack other dimensions of the idea.

Thus,

we hear that single payer health care is "socialized medicine" . Which it

is. But

using those words to describe it is calculated to makes the idea

unappealing to

people who don't like "socialism".

I think the multidimensional nature of ideas makes it very difficult to

avoid

clashing over personal dimensions of these ideas or to have disturbances

to these

"irrelevant" dimensions influence the discussion of ideas. The world of
perception isn't neatly divided into nice separate areas labeled "logical"

and

"personal". So when people discuss what are mainly logical issues I think

they

will do best if they _try_ to be sensitive to the possible disturbing

influences

they might have on the personal dimensions of the ideas others are

defending while

being as insensitive as possible to the disturbing influences others may

have on

the personal dimensions of the ideas they themselves are defending

Best regards

Rick
--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

[Bill_Powers1]

[From Bill Powers (2002.10.02.0539 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2002.10.01.1515)
>... every controlled "idea" perception is really many perceptual
dimensions. >So how one "feels" about the idea depends on how well one can
protect it from >disturbances in all these dimensions. People who want to
"fight" ideas >understand this. If they can't get anywhere pushing on
(disturbing) the >logical dimension of an idea they know that they might
get somewhere pushing >on personal aspects of it. So, for example, people
who are having difficulty >fighting the logic of single payer health care
can attack other dimensions of >the idea. Thus,we hear that single payer
health care is "socialized medicine" >Which it is. But using those words to
describe it is calculated to makes the >idea unappealing to people who
don't like "socialism".

This is a brilliant analysis of something I've noticed but haven't been
able to put into words. The key is understanding that ideas are
multidimensional. The particular case you refer to is also multi-level --
single payer health care simply describes the principle or program, while
"socialized medicine" refers to a system concept.

How could we apply this to the "coercion" squabble (I won't dignify it with
the term "debate")? Obviously, if everyone had agreed from the start on the
definition of coercion,and had simply analysed the examples with that
definition and PCT in mind, there would have been no disagreements, or any
disagreements would have been temporary. However, there were other
dimensions to the question. Coercion, aside from any definitions, has
connotations of being a bad thing to do, so considering whether RTP
entailed coercion was also considering whether RTP did bad things to
children. To consider this possibility was to suggest that it might be a
reality, which brought up the dimension of loyalty; RTP is nominally
PCT-based, and is headed by charter members of the Control Systems Group.
Any criticism of a procedure used in RTP is a criticism of what these
people have been doing and thus of their understanding of PCT.

There is also the dimension of background orientation: Ed Ford is a devout
Roman Catholic, and to some observers many of the core practices of RTP
might seem to stem from that background rather than from PCT. Many other
practices of RTP are identical to those recommended by Glasser for his
"quality schools", and so at least come under suspicion from that angle,
even if some of them can, in the end, be justified under PCT. Again, to
consider these things appeared to some to be tantamount to disloyalty.

There was the largely unspoken dimension of the personal histories of the
participants in the squabble. The methods asserted to be coercive. I quite
strongly suspect (judging from my own example), were methods that some
participants in the squabble had themselves used on their own children or
had been subject to, so to use a (presumedly) pejorative term for those
methods was to attack the way these participants had raised their children,
or to attack their parents if the participants had been raised through use
of those methods.

Then there was the dimension of authority. Many comments on the practices
of RTP were based on reading of the printed materials associated with it,
rather than on observing schools where the process was being used.To some,
there seemed to be a disparity between the content of the printed materials
and the descriptions of what happened in the schools. To others, the
printed matter was irrelevant, and the opinions of those involved in the
real-world practices, where the rubber meets the road, were to be taken as
authoritative. To criticize on the basis of what was in the books was to
cast doubt on the word and judgment of those who were on the scene, and was
thus a violation of scientific procedures as well as an act of disloyalty.

Perhaps others, on the other side of this situation, might like to enlarge
on these proposed dimensions of the debate. Clearly, the interchanges were
about far more than the question of what amounts to coercion. Any debate
about coercion is trivial, a question that can be resolved simply by
agreeing on what we mean. The other questions would remain even if we all
aqreed about coercion.

Best,

Bill P.

[Bill_Powers1]

[From Bill Powers (2002.10.02.0635 MDT)]

Bruce Nevin (2002.10.01 16:18 EDT)--

>So again: it seems like a control system is defending some ideas

intellectually, and then, under some circumstances, a defense by personal
attack begins - ridicule, denigration, belittlement, etc.

I'd like to suggest another dimension to your true statement. Beside
defending ideas intellectually, we also defend against having cherished
common-sense beliefs or customs violated. All of us here present grew up in
a world devoid of PCT concepts, which means that we learned to explain the
world to ourselves in other ways. Many of those ways are embedded in
language, which as children we simply learn without asking how anyone knows
that the implications are correct. I still, for example, say "look at,"
mostly because my language doesn't provide an equally familiar way of
describing the act of foveating some part of the visual field of view. Just
look at the jacket of B:CP. with its picture of surveyors sending
sight-rays toward various parts of a building! I was too glad to get my
book published to object.

The other aspect of this is not just familiarity, but pride. We have all
not only understood the world in non-PCT ways, we have encouraged others to
understand it the same way, and we have all enjoyed the sense of respect
that we get from others for knowing so much. That makes it hard to back
away from anything we know and consider the possibility that it's not so.
The natural response to any implication that what one knows is wrong or
incomplete is to reject it. The manner of defense -- whether one acts to
restore the controlled quantity to its reference level or acts to remove or
discredit the cause of the disturbance -- is a secondary matter. Defense of
any kind is an infallible indicator that something has been disturbed.

By the way, could we say "a person" instead of "a control system" in the
context of your comment? To say "a control system" means to me _one_
control system, implying that there is only one active control system or
level of control inside a person at one time.

Best,

Bill P.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2002.10.02.0915)]

David Goldstein wrote:

Dear Rick and other PCTers interested in this topic,

I would simply like to point out that the self-system control system(s) may
come into play here.

One may interpret comments by another person in a more general way that
creates an error signal in the self-system control systems.

I was trying to avoid discussing particular types or levels of perception. I
think doing so tends to reify concepts that are not well tested yet. But I think
you are saying the same thing that I'm saying, though you are describing what I
would call one dimension of variation of "idea" perceptions as the "self"
dimension. I think this "self" dimension of idea perceptions is captured by Bill
Powers' (2002.10.02.0539 MDT) in his analysis of the "coercion" squabble in terms
of the multidimensional (and multilevel) nature of "idea" perceptions (such as the
idea of "coercion").

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

[Bill_Powers1]

[From Bill Powers (2002.10.02.0714 MDT)]

Bruce Nevin (2002.10.01 21:35 EDT)

1. An IV/DV correlation

My error. I'm misusing the terms IV and DV, I guess. They are too strongly
associated with statistical correlations.

It was the term "correlation" that suggested statistics to me, although
you're right in saying that the idea of IV/DV also carries that flavor.
Actually independent and dependent variables are a part of any mathematical
analsyis of systems: in a control system, the disturbance and the reference
signal are independent variables relative to all other variables in the
loop, which are dependent on those two variables.

I don't mean a statistical
correlation. I mean a real correlation between A and B, so that for any
instance of A whenever A varies in a certain dimension, an intance of B,
connected to that instance of A by the mechanism in the specified way,
varies correlatively in some dimension, and it is the same covariation
correlation every time in every instance of A and B.

That's what I call a "function," by which I don't normally mean a
stochastic function. On the other hand, correlation and covariance are
pretty thoroughly identified with statistics.

The "things which contrast", the relata in the relationship, are also
perceptions, of course, but furthermore they are perceptions that subsist
only in being contrasted.

Forgive me for being dubious. I can believe that the sound of /k/ is
different in isolation from its perception in the context of other
phonemes, but is that difference sensed at the level of phonemes, or in the
sound, or at a higher level? I can think of many sensations or
configurations that seem, somehow, different in different contexts, but
where the difference is really at a higher level, or seemingly is on closer
inspection.The /k/ in "keep" seems, somehow, to be joined with /ee/, almost
on top of it, but it's the joining or on-top-ness that's different, not the
/k/ (or /ee/). It's a pretty subjective call. I think this is the kind of
thing I have tried to get at with the "event" level, where what is actually
a collection of transitions and configurations comes to seem like a single
unified perception all happening at once, like a word. But if one attends
to the perceptions of lower orders, they're still there, the same as
before. Well, maybe. I don't want to be dogmatic about that.

Generally, we are affirmed in belief that a perception corresponds with
Reality when others corroborate that perception.

That can also create shared delusions, of course. I think scientists have
to struggle to overcome this kind of influence from others. There are
supposed to be other criteria for verifying perceptions in science. On the
other hand, delusions can also arise from working alone ...

An interesting thing about
a social or cultural reality, and specifically about phonemic contrasts, is
that the corroboration of the perception takes the form of recreating the
thing that is perceived, in the course of employing it in a public way for
personal ends that require collaboration.

That brings the agreement more into the scientific realm, for it involves
experimental test of one's idea.

Bricks, quarks, and aspen trees,
or the realities behind the perceptions that we identify in those ways,
would, we presume, still be here were we all to disappear; phonemic
contrasts and other social realities would disappear with us.

Oh, yes, they are surely creations of our perceptual systems. But even
bricks, quarks, and aspen trees have questionable reality. Would anyone but
a human being recognize these categories, or would an alien draw different
lines around experiences?

>If some component of a radio also meets all the other criteria, then it

(that component) is an example of mind. That's the claim. Not that all
things that meet criterion number 1 (or 3, or 5) by itself are instances of
mind, but that things that meet all of the criteria are.

I think I could probably find things that would be in the intersection of
all these categories and still not qualify, in my own perceptions, as
"mind." The problem here is that if all you find in that intersection is
what everyone agrees is an instance of mind, then the result is trivial;
however, if we find things there that surprise us, thus providing some
point for the exercise, we can always take the surprise as indicating
incorrectness or an exception to the proposed rule.

I just don't like terms like "mind" which people take for granted have a
meaning which is really there, requiring only that we discover it.
"Intelligence" is another term like that. I use the word colloquially, as
in "changing my mind," but that's not intended as a serious scientific
statement.

You're not stepping on my toes. The only defense of Bateson that I'm making
is that you're not responding to what he said, and this seems to me to be
unfair. To be responsive you should take the entire sieve of six gratings
and not just critique the inadequacies of each grating taken singly.

Well, I thought I was being responsive, so we disagree about that. There is
more than one way to "take the entire sieve:" either you look for something
already agreed to be mind-like that will fall through all six of them, or
you argue about whether a given item, like a radio or a computer, can be
said to fall through each of them in turn. And then, if the computer were
to fall all the way through, you could still say, "But see? The sieves
failed, because computers are not mind-like."

His aims were different from yours. It's really too bad he didn't understand
control theory, and too late now, but for his purposes his sieve of five or
six statements (categories or generalizations, if you will) sufficed to
make some important distinctions, and helped him to reinstate the
legitimacy of talk about 'mind' and 'mental' without falling into a swamp
of superstitious blather that commonly goes with such talk. Or at least I
think he might put it in more or less those words. There's no requirement
that you be responsive, of course - but you were responding.

I thought I had done the same thing in the field of cybernetics six years
earlier but in terms of thought and perceptions and goals and purposes
which are pretty similar concepts. I didn't do it with sieves, though.

I'm not putting Bateson down in general. I'm just not as big a fan as some
others are. A lot of his famous statements require a pretty lenient listener.

Best,

Bill P.

···

        /Bruce Nevin

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2002.10.02 14:25 EDT)]

Bill Powers (2002.10.02.0635 MDT)–

I still … say “look at,”

mostly because my language doesn’t provide an equally familiar way
of

describing the act of foveating some part of the visual field of view.
Just

look at

so to speak

the jacket of B:CP. with its picture of
surveyors sending

sight-rays toward various parts of a building! I was too glad to get
my

book published to object.

My copy came without a jacket, alas.

By the way, could we say “a person”
instead of “a control system” in the

context of your comment? To say “a control system” means to me
one

control system, implying that there is only one active control system
or

level of control inside a person at one time.

Sure. But what I meant by “one control system” was one system
within the same person controlling a variable by alternative means, vs.
two systems within that one person concurrently controlling the two
variables, one controlling the “idea” variable, the other
controlling the “moron” variable and increasing gain as the
first one lost control.
I thought these were two alternative models. Now I don’t think so.
Following David’s suggestion, the two variables (separately controlled)
are alternative means to control something like “self esteem”.
There’s a preference for controlling by logical argument in support of
ideas (that’s the kind of person I like to be), but when that fails, I
use the other system to control my relative worth by attacking your
relative worth. I don’t have to listen to your ideas because - well,
consider the source. A key here is relative worth. But in the eyes
of some, to accept that esteem needn’t be a zero-sum proposition would
make you a Freier. Or whatever the word was. Apparently in Israel
(according to Ira Glass) virtually every interaction has a winner and a
loser. Outch!

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 06:58 AM 10/2/2002 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2002.10.02 15:13 EDT)]

Bill Powers (2002.10.02.0714 MDT--

Bruce Nevin (2002.10.01 21:35 EDT)--

An interesting thing about
a social or cultural reality, and specifically about phonemic contrasts, is
that the corroboration of the perception takes the form of recreating the
thing that is perceived, in the course of employing it in a public way for
personal ends that require collaboration. Bricks, quarks, and aspen trees,
or the realities behind the perceptions that we identify in those ways,
would, we presume, still be here were we all to disappear; phonemic
contrasts and other social realities would disappear with us.

Oh, yes, they are surely creations of our perceptual systems. But even
bricks, quarks, and aspen trees have questionable reality. Would anyone but
a human being recognize these categories, or would an alien draw different
lines around experiences?

The realities behind the perceptions that we call bricks etc. we assume would still be there in our absence. The realities behind socially sustained perceptions like phonemes cannot exist in our absence. We create them. They do not exist without us. For this distinction, it does not matter whether folk from beyond Betelgeuse parse their perceptions of these realities into the same categories as we do, bricks, aspens, and quarks. We presume that the realities behind bricks etc. would be there for them to perceive in whatever way they perceive them. The phonemic contrasts of English, however, simply disappear absent any speakers of English to create and sustain them in the course of speaking English to one another.

The "things which contrast", the relata in the relationship, are also
perceptions, of course, but furthermore they are perceptions that subsist
only in being contrasted.

Forgive me for being dubious. I can believe that the sound of /k/ is
different in isolation from its perception in the context of other
phonemes,

A particular sound spliced into one context is perceived as one phoneme, and spliced into a different context is perceived as another phoneme. It is not the sound that makes it this phoneme or that. It is the contrast with possible alternative sounds in that context that makes it this phoneme rather than the possible alternative phonemes.

I'll send you Leigh Lisker's chapter in my book. Although it doesn't address the full range of the issue here, it has some relevant examples, is brief (about 8pp plus references), and I think is pretty accessibly written. The zipped PDF is only 29K, but I won't burden the list with it.

         /Bruce Nevin

···

At 08:33 AM 10/2/2002 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2002.10.02.1600)]

Bruce Nevin (2002.10.02 15:13 EDT)

The realities behind the perceptions that we call bricks etc. we assume
would still be there in our absence. The realities behind socially
sustained perceptions like phonemes cannot exist in our absence.

How do you know? All you have are the perceptions, right? A brick is a phoneme is
a rose is a ..

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

[Bill_Powers1]

[From Bill Powers (2002.10.02.1947 MDT)]

Bruce Nevin (2002.10.02 15:13 EDT)--

A particular sound spliced into one context is perceived as one phoneme,
and spliced into a different context is perceived as another phoneme. It is
not the sound that makes it this phoneme or that. It is the contrast with
possible alternative sounds in that context that makes it this phoneme
rather than the possible alternative phonemes.

I think my obtuseness has been due entirely to the use of the word
contrast, which I tend to give a restricted meaning. After reading the
paper you sent me, I think that translating into my terms I would say that
the identity of a phoneme is a function of multiple sounds occurring in
rapid sequence. In other words, the sound perceptions are of lower order
relative to the phoneme perceptions. "Bout", "spout" and "drop out" contain
many different sounds close together in time. If we imagine that there are
sound-recognizers at one level, feeding their output signals into
phoneme-recognizers at the next higher level, we can construct a model in
which a given phoneme perception depends on several sound-perceptions at
the same time (some modest short-term memory is required to allow
perceptions not actually occurring at the same instant to be considered as
if they all occurred at once). When the preceding sounds are cut out, one
of the inputs to the set of phoneme-recognizers has been eliminated, so
they might all respond, or perhaps only one of them would respond (rather
like knocking out the red channel of a TV set, so everything looks sort of
blueish-green).

I wouldn't venture to guess what the form of that function would be -- the
term "contrast" is as good a name as any, as long as we can agree that the
function probably isn't as simple as a difference in magnitudes (my
customary meaning for the term contrast).

I would conclude that the phenomenon of which you speak seems consistent
with HPCT. although the relationship to the particular levels I have
proposed is unknown (which isn't a major concern).

Best,

Bill P.

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2002.10.04 23:56 EDT)]

Bill Powers (2002.10.02.1947 MDT)--

···

At 08:06 PM 10/2/2002 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

Bill, this response of yours is of great interest to me, and requires me to think through my reply with more than usual care -- before too much longer I hope.

In brief, and in part: speech phonetics has two aspects, acoustic and articulatory. The acoustic part works reasonably well for us in PCT: what is measurable acoustically, what of that is perceivable, what of that is perceived, and what of that in turn is controlled. The articulatory part requires more reformulation. It's usually framed descriptively in terms of articulatory gestures. Folks at Haskins Labs developed an excellent model of a kind of choreography of gestures of the different articulators. But of course the gestures are behavioral outputs, and the question is, what perceptions are being controlled by means of those gestures.

Acoustic perceptions, yes, of course, but also kinesthetic and/or pressure/touch perceptions. Just as a skeet shooter improves the calibration of aim with practice over time, acoustic perceptions must be used to 'tune' the targets for articulation, targets which are perceived by non-acoustic means; we've discussed this in the past. So that is where some experimental investigations are required. Perhaps the studies have been done. I haven't looked since I did my preliminary exams, back in 1992. But so far as I know, no one is questioning the adequacy of the 'articulatory gesture' description.

In the particular examples that Lisker uses, several acoustic and gestural trajectories coincide in the same acoustic and gestural 'space', so that if you segment out that moment of the speech signal, they are interchangeable. The apparent paradox is due to the segmentation. This may have more to do with our alphabetic traditions and expectations than with the way speech is perceived and controlled. Harris's notion of simultaneous "long components" and the Haskins model of concurrent gestures both free the representation of the speech signal from the tyranny of this segmental presumption, and that is the kind of framework in which to search for answers to the above questions.

I have some speech signal software installed, but haven't learned to use it. I just need to pry the time free from other obligations.

I will reply more particularly to your suggestions, soon I hope.

  /Bruce Nevin

[Bill_Powers1]

Hello, Bruce --

>Bill, this response of yours is of great interest to me, and requires me to

think through my reply with more than usual care -- before too much longer
I hope.

In brief, and in part: speech phonetics has two aspects, acoustic and
articulatory. The acoustic part works reasonably well for us in PCT: what
is measurable acoustically, what of that is perceivable, what of that is
perceived, and what of that in turn is controlled.

Articulation, too, is of interest, but not exactly what I was getting at. I
was speaking of levels of acoustical perception. the lowest level would be
intensity, where the dimension perceived is strictly "how much" rather than
"what". The next level, according to my conjectures, would be the sensation
level, where we identify the experience as sound, and even as various kinds
of sound such as hiss, buzz, tone -- ask a linguist for the rest of the
list of sound sensations. Maybe this is where vowel formants are perceived
individually. Then we have the configuration level where (I would guess) we
hear phonemes as combinations of the various acoustical sensations. Next
comes the transition level where we would hear diphthongs and consonants,
and finally the event level where transitions of configurations of
sensations in various combinations are perceived as events (like "bout").

According to the HPCT scheme, perceptions exist at all five of these levels
(as well as higher levels) when we hear a word like "bout". When we get the
same perceptions in other arrangements they are just sounds, not words or
phonemes; the perceptual signals could actually be the same, but they would
not excite the "bout" recognizer. On the other hand, there is a range of
signals over which the "bout" recognizer would still produce a signal, and
we would say we heard the word "bout", perhaps indistinctly.

My rationale for these levels was that we are likely to find the same kinds
of computing processes taking place in the brain across all sensory
modalities at a given organizational level, so I was looking for terms
which could apply to sights, sounds, taste/smells, kinesthesias,
biochemical feelings, and so forth -- all kinds of perceptions. Thus each
of the terms for the levels in HPCT can be applied to. and makes sense in,
any modality of perception, and even in combinations of perceptions (like
the kinesthetic and auditory aspects of sound production/experience).

Of course I've stuck my neck out pretty far by proposing all this.

>I have some speech signal software installed, but haven't learned to use

it. I just need to pry the time free from other obligations.

Is it the sort of software I could acquire at reasonable cost?

Best,

Bill

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2002.10.06 18:02 EDT)]

Rick Marken (2002.10.02.1600)

Bruce Nevin (2002.10.02 15:13 EDT)

The realities behind the perceptions that we call bricks etc. we
assume

would still be there in our absence. The realities behind
socially

sustained perceptions like phonemes cannot exist in our
absence.

How do you know? All you have are the perceptions, right? A brick
is a phoneme is a rose is a …

Of course I don’t know. The operative word here is
“assume”. We do assume that there is some reality behind
the perception of a brick or a rose, and that this reality(whatever it may be) is not dependant upon someone perceiving it.
On the other hand, the word “rose” does not exist as an audible
phenomenon unless someone utters it and someone who understands English
hears it (setting aside robots and tape recordings and the like which
only complicate the statement without affecting the substance of the
point). Absent a speaker saying the word “rose”, that
particular audible phenomenon is not present; and given the audible
phenomenon, if there is no-one present who understands English, the word
“rose” is not present. The set of perceptions that for us
constitute the word “rose” is all there is to the word
“rose”. If we go away, taking our perceptions with us, there is
no reality underlying those perceptions, which we might have left
behind. To be sure, if there is a speaker of Japanese present, maybe they
hear a Japanese word “los”, maybe it means “wood
tick” or “wobble”. So there is an underlying realityto the sounds that for us constitute “rose”, and
which for her constitute “los”. But that is not the realityunderlying either our word “rose” or her word
“los”, it is merely the reality underlying what we and
our pet cat perceive as sounds.
Of bricks and roses, we presume there is some underlying reality,
of which we can only know our perceptions***.*** Of words, there
is only our perceptions.

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 03:59 PM 10/2/2002 -0500, Richard Marken wrote:

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2002.10.07.0900)]

Bruce Nevin (2002.10.06 18:02 EDT)–
Of course I don’t know. The operative word here is “assume”.
We do assume that there is some reality behind the perception of
a brick or a rose, and that this reality(whatever it may be) is
not dependant upon someone perceiving it.

On the other hand, the word “rose” does not exist as an audible phenomenon
unless someone utters it and someone who understands English hears it

I assume (and I think this is a basic assumption of the PCT model) that
the reality that corresponds to the word “rose”, like the reality that
corresponds to the sight of a rose, exists whether or not someone is there
to hear or see it. I assume that the reality that corresponds to
the word “rose” is sound waves just as I assume that the reality that corresponds
to the sight of the rose is light waves. I assume that perception
(or a word, a thing, a relationship, a principle, etc.) is a function of
some physical reality that exists outside the organism: p = f (v1, v2…vn)
when p is the perception, v1…vn are physical variables and f is the very
complicated perceptual function that maps the physical variables (physical
reality) into perceptual experience.

Absent a speaker saying the word “rose”, that particular
audible phenomenon is not present;
While it’s true that a speaker is the most reliable source of the sound
waves that are heard as “rose” I believe it is also possible that all kinds
of physical processes (leaves rustling, brooks babbling, etc.) could combine
to produce the sound “rose”. The same is true for the visible experience
of rose as well (as in animals that imitate the appearance of flowers).
if there is no-one present who understands English,
the word “rose” is not present.
I agree that, in this case, the perception of the word “rose” would not
be present. But the physical reality that corresponds to “rose” in such
a speaker could certainly exist without the hearer being present. At least,
I assume that that’s true.
The set of perceptions that for us constitute the
word “rose” is all there is to the word “rose”. If we go away, taking our
perceptions with us, there is no reality underlying those perceptions,
which we might have left behind.
So you are a “word solipsist”? I am not. I think there is a reality underlying
the perception of words (just as it, I assume, underlies the perception
of everything) . And I think the way that reality maps into the perception
of words is surprising well understood, as demonstrated by the remarkable
success of word recognition systems. Of course, those systems are not perfect;
they are speaker dependent and reach only 97% accuracy on the trained speaker.
But that’s probably because human speech recognition occurs at many perceptual
levels simultaneously. Word recognition programs work mainly at the lower
levels of perception. But they make a very convincing case that the perception
of words is based on aspects of the auditory signal, a physical reality
that exists independent of the hearer.
Of bricks and roses, we presume there is some underlying
reality,
of which we can only know our perceptions***.*** Of words, there
is only our perceptions.
I think you don’t really believe this. For example, in your discussion
of phonetics you say “An oral stop consonant such as p, t, k, b, d, g is
signaled by silence in the speech signal”. You are saying here that
perception is a function of aspects of the acoustic speech signal; in the
case of stops it’s a silent period. And I agree with this point of
view. Word perceptions, like all perceptions (I assume) are a function
some underlying reality. In the case of words that assumed reality is the
speech signal.
Best regards

Rick

···

–

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.

The RAND Corporation

PO Box 2138

1700 Main Street

Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138

Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971

Fax: 310-451-7018

E-mail: rmarken@rand.org