[From Rick Marken (961025.1020)]
Bill Benzon:
Hmmm...I might be interested in publishing those experiements [on control
of sequence and program variables]...The only issue is whether or not the
work is appropriate to JSES...
Thanks for thinking of me but, based on my perusal of the Website, I don't
think JSES is the forum I'm after. I'm interested in publishing for an
audience that either doesn't already have an agenda or has _my_ agenda (the
understanding and promulgation of PCT). One of the only places where such an
audience exists is on CSGNet.
Why wouldn't folks inside PCT be interested in these experiments?
Because very few people who are "inside" PCT are research oriented. Moreover,
very few of those who get inside PCT want to go "all the way" with it. Some
folks get into PCT thinking that it supports or explains some conventional
idea about behavior to which they are already deeply (and often
unconsciously) committed; these folks are willing to understand PCT only up
to the point where it starts to conflict with those ideas. Others get into
PCT because they like some things about it (the emphasis on perception, human
autonomy, whatever) but, again, not those things that conflict with their
existing beliefs about behavior; these folks usually think that PCT is pretty
interesting but that it will never "make it" until it takes into account idea
X (where X is a theory of, approach to or observation of behavior that these
folks think is real important but is already known to be either irrelevant
to or contradicted by PCT).
Just call metaphysics the upper levels stuff, that'll make it kosher
in this crowd.
And how do you feel about making metaphysics kosher in this crowd? 
Though you might have to use the secret handshake next time you sign-on.
PCT shows that many of the things that are taken for granted in the
behavioral amd life sciences -- starting with the idea that behavior is an
objective phenomenon -- are simply wrong. So it's not surprising to find that
people who have not yet learned the basics of PCT -- the secret handshake, so
to speak -- often find PCT-based discussions of behavior frustrating and
idiosyncratic. PCT starts with a whole new set of assumptions about the
nature of behavior itself. If you think that PCT is about behavioral
phenomena in the same way that conventional behavioral and life sciences
are about these phenomena, then our discussions of PCT are bound to seem
pretty strange.
The secret handshake for PCT (really the secret decoder ring) is B:CP. But
you can learn the "secret code" only if you are willing to reconsider some
cherished (and usually taken for granted) assumptions about the nature of
behavior itself.
Me:
Kent is using control system equations to model interacting control systems;
Martin is (or would like to be) using dynamical "attractor" equations to
model the behavior that _results_ from the interaction of control system
equations.
Martin Taylor (961024 18:30) --
I'm afraid I don't see the distinction.
I _know_ you don't see the distinction;-)
Kent works in a background theoretical system that has a lot of engineering
behind it
Yes. Control engineering.
I'm placing the modelling in the context of a theoretical system that has a
lot of mathematical knowledge behind it.
I agree. This is exactly what you are doing. I am wondering why you are doing
it. It is what you did with information theory; you tried to place the model
of a simple control system in the context of information theory. The result
was Bill Powers' demonstration that informational descriptions of control
system behavior are basically useless and both Bill and my demonstrations
that the verbal descriptions of the control process based on information
theory are misleading (there is no information available to the control
system about disturbing variables _or_ the resulting influence of those
variables on controlled variables).
Instead of just theorizing about reorganization, how about _doing it_
Best
Rick