Chris Cherpas (970923.1108 PT)--
Anyway, I wonder where the information to switch
modes comes from and this is one possibility.
Bill Powers (970924.0905 MDT)--
I still think of reorganization as basically a random process. Any
systematic effects on "modes" or connections would result from the
operation of a learned system.
I was thinking of the possibility that the reorganization
system may randomly vary the modes in a perceptual control
system. One form of "creating" a control system would be
to assume that there are huge numbers of what would amount
to control systems that are in passive observation mode
whose modes get switched to control mode. So these "proto
control systems" are _already connected_ to the controlling
network/hierarchy, but are not participating in the control
of perception until reorganization randomly switches modes
in the neighborhood of high error and the resulting change
in control happens to (indirectly) lower intrinsic error.
Best regards,
cc
[From Bill Powers (970926.0536 MDT)]
Chris Cherpas (970923.1108 PT)--
I was thinking of the possibility that the reorganization
system may randomly vary the modes in a perceptual control
system. One form of "creating" a control system would be
to assume that there are huge numbers of what would amount
to control systems that are in passive observation mode
whose modes get switched to control mode. So these "proto
control systems" are _already connected_ to the controlling
network/hierarchy, but are not participating in the control
of perception until reorganization randomly switches modes
in the neighborhood of high error and the resulting change
in control happens to (indirectly) lower intrinsic error.
The problem with having predefined control systems is that their perceptual
functions would have to be born with the ability to perceive things that
are peculiar to the experiences of a single individual in one lifetime, and
their output functions would have to be organized, likewise, to fit at
least the appropriate _signs_ of connections through lower systems and the
environment into which one happens to have been born.
My objection to this is basically that it makes theorizing too easy. If you
say that the brain is hard-wired, then anything you can't explain can be
put down to evolution; you don't even have to try. My bias is to go as far
as possible toward the tabula rasa end, which of course is not ALL the way.
Anyway, let's not forget that the evidence for mode-switching, so far, is
anecdotal. I wouldn't devote too much effort to exploring its details until
we know it really happens.
Best,
Bill P.