Shared references

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2004.07.16 10:58 EDT)]

Bill Powers (2004.07.15.0708 MDT)–

Using the word
“model” equivocally to mean

either simulation or theoretical model invites confusion and
misunderstanding.

The equivocation is strictly in your mind and is caused by attempts
to

oversimplify.

Of course. But shouldn’t we all be held to the same standard of care in
PCT terminology? You agreed just a few months ago:

[From Bruce Nevin (2003.02.17 12:13
EST)]

Bill Powers (2003.12.20.2015 MST)–

we could ignore this whole subject without
changing anything more

important than how we talk about what we do. Of course that’s
pretty

important if we want to understand each other.

That is why I brought it up. Whenever someone talks about
“the PCT model” or “this model” or the like on
CSGnet, we have to ask, do they mean “theory” or do they mean
“simulation”. Much simpler to say either theory or
simulation.

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 07:36 AM 7/15/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

At 08:33 PM 12/20/2003 -0700, Bill Powers wrote:

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2004.07.16 11:24 EDT)]

Bill Powers (2004.07.10.0744 MDT)–

The unspoken assumption in Bruce N.'s words is
that what I have access to

in my own really real reality is the same thing someone else has access
to

in that person’s really real reality, which if course is the very

proposition that is under debate. Each of us has direct access to our
own

perceptions, we agree. But are my perceptions like your perceptions?
That

is the question; let us not beg it. It’s too important to merit a
trivial

answer.

You are very confident not only about my words but also about the
unspoken assumption in them. Pretty good for one who cannot have a
perception of what is in the mind of another. But you have forgotten the
words. Perhaps you are passing them through a filter that prefers to
admit the familiar. Talk of “my own really real reality” and
“that person’s really real reality” is nonsensical. But you
don’t mean reality when you say “really real reality”, you mean
perceptions. But did I mean perceptions when I said “really real
reality?”

Bruce Nevin (05.31.2004 22:50 EDT)–

Bill Powers (2004.05.29.0649 MDT)–

The reason you get agreement is that you are
passing all these varying sounds and constructions through a filter that
prefers to admit the familiar. What you get out of a binary filter
depends on exactly where you place the boundary between 1 and 0. Each
person says that something familiar was experienced; the others agree;
but there is no independent way to tell what they are agreeing about
(especially if you never vary what they are presented with). Each
person’s filter might be tuned a little differently, yet they will all
say “The same thing happened again.” .

Yes. Is there a problem about there being no independent way to tell what
they are agreeing about? I don’t care what they are agreeing about, in
really real Reality. All that is important is the reliably reliable
agreement.

When I put all those qualifiers in front of the word reality – the
“really real reality” – I am talking about that reality which
none of us has access to directly. For example:

Bruce Nevin (06.02.2004 22:14 EDT)–

I have not been arguing for the ultimate
really real Reality of cultural phenomena, only for the much weaker
position that there is something going on that PCT must account for, and
which the point of view that you have advanced (as I understand it) does
not allow for consideration.

Bruce Nevin (2004.06.23 14:16 EDT)]

Rick Marken (2004.06.22.2050)–

[Do] controlled variables (or any perceptions)
correspond [directly] to

physical variables that exist in a reality beyond our perception[?]
My

answer to this question would be “no”.

I think that the answer must be “probably not” or “almost
certainly not.” Success at control by means of a loop closed through
the environment confirms that there is some sort of correspondence. Among
the infinite possibilities for indirect correspondence, one possibility
after identifying and setting aside illusion and delusion is simple,
direct correspondence – e.g. that really was a real rock that Sam
Johnson famously kicked to refute Bishop Berkeley. Granted, setting aside
illusion and delusion is no simple chore, but that is a different issue,
a crucial issue of scientific method in fact, and the reason that we
engage in science with the purpose of more and more closely approximating
perceptions of real characteristics of really real
reality.

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.09 23:14 EDT)–

You know directly what a perception is.
No perceptions intermediate between you and your perceptions, in the way
that perceptions intermediate between you and the really real reality of
that pen over there.

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.14 15:33 EDT)–

In a simulation, these values would be
identical numeric values, because we can include a simulation of the real
environment in the simulation. In actual observation of another control
system we do not have practical access to neural signals in the other’s
brain…, and in principle we do not have access to real values in the
real environment (we have only our perceptions). However, this does not
matter. We are not studying the really real environment of control
systems, we leave that to physics; we are studying control
systems.

I should think it would have been clear that when I say reality I mean
reality and when I say perception I mean perception.

You are talking about perceived reality, or the perceptual universe,
which is all that we know of really real reality. This odd reversal,
referring to perceptions as reality, emerged recently in your discussion
(Bill Powers 2004.06.22.2220 MDT) of a “taxonomy of reality” –
meaning, perversely, a taxonomy of perceptions.

Perceptions are all that we know of reality, and for all practical
purposes we take them to be reality, but perceptions are not the reality
of which they are perceptions. The map is not the territory.

As you can verify above, I have consistently used words like “really
real reality” and “boss reality” in contexts where it is
clear that we know, and can know, nothing about it other than our
perceptions.

In a context in which I consistently and repeatedly contrast reality with
perceptions, you use the word reality to refer to perceptions, and then
pretend thereby to have refuted what I said. The equivocation is stunning
in its shameless boldness.

···

At 07:48 AM 7/10/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:
At 10:49 PM 5/31/2004 -0400, Bruce Nevin wrote:
At 10:13 PM 6/2/2004 -0400, Bruce Nevin wrote:
At 02:16 PM 6/23/2004 -0400, Bruce Nevin wrote:
At 11:13 PM 7/9/2004 -0400, Bruce Nevin wrote:
At 03:33 PM 7/14/2004 -0400, Bruce Nevin wrote:

---

A digression on equivocation:

Rick Marken (2004.07.15.0830)–

I think “equivocation” is the
latest

in a long line of slogans that have been developed as a way to

challenge PCT by those who can’t challenge it using modeling or

experimentation.

Rick, why do you think I am challenging PCT? Exposing muddled thinking
and terminological confusion is not a challenge to PCT. You may take it
as a challenge to you to clear up the muddled thinking about what is
“the same” when people are in conflict and to use technical
terms like model and simulation in consistent and unambiguous ways. Or
you may ignore it. But to pretend that I am an enemy of PCT is just
foolish.

---

Bill, you protest that I am claiming that perceptual signals in two
people are identical, or that I am claiming direct knowledge of the
reality of those signals, or that I am claiming direct knowledge of
environmental variables.

But it does not matter if the perceptual signal CV is a different rate
(or pattern) of firing in your brain and in mine.

It does not matter if the lower level perceptions input to constructing
that perceptual signal are not the same, or are not combined in the same
way, in the perceptual hierarchies of the two people.

It does not even matter if the ultimate nature of the really real reality
of which we assume that our perceptions CV are our respective perceptions
is different for each of us.

If we are each able to control a perception CV in such a way that each
additionally perceives that the other is also controlling what we
perceive as CV (where CV is a perception inside each of us), that
concurrence is a reality of our social interaction, real enough to go on.

Problems may arise, but our control of the perception suffices for all
practical purposes. Problems may arise because after all it is my
perception CV within me and it is your perception CV within you, and
neither of us has any access other than the perception CV to the really
real reality of EV. But problems may arise with any perceptions.
Floorboards may be rotten, doorknobs may come off in our hands. We fix
the floorboard, we put the doorknob back on and tighten the setscrew, we
renegotiate the concordance of our respective perceptions CV. The
ultimate really real reality behind the perceptions is irrelevant, the
really real neural signals do not need to be the same, we only need to
perceive, each of us, that the other is controlling that which we
perceive as CV, a perception which we project into our perceived
environment and naively presume is real.

Bill Powers (2004.07.15.0737 MDT)–

At 08:22 AM 7/15/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.15 08:14 EDT)–

Have you decided that theories and guesses are
not perceptions?

If theories and guesses are perceptions (and I can’t see how they are
not),

then a theory of someone else’s perceptions is a perception of
someone

else’s perceptions.

You never perceive anyone else’s perceptions but your own.

I never perceive my own perceptions as something to be perceived. I
simply perceive. The separation suggested by words like “perceiving
my perceptions” is an illusion, a projection of the separateness of
word and referent.

I never perceive that doorknob as anything distinct from my perception
which I call “doorknob”.

I do perceive my cat standing there, and I perceive that he wants to go
out, even though I cannot see the other side of the cat, nor can I
palpate his desires. Those are my perceptions, not the actual entirety of
the cat, nor the actual perceptions that he is controlling.

Even what you

believe to be your perception of someone else’s perception is strictly
your

own perception.

Of course. What else could it be? I never said my perception of anything
was actually the thing perceived.

That diagram you keep drawing is a perception
in your head

– I know how I see it, but I don’t know how you see it. You may have
a

guess (which is a perception of yours) about what someone else is

perceiving, but it is still a guess in your own head, and is not in
the

other person’s head. If two people have guess-perceptions about a
third

person’s perceptions, and they are different (as they are most likely
to

be), is the third person having both perceptions at once? Or are only
the

perceptions that have passed a rigorous, final-word, Test to be
considered

perceptions of someone else’s perceptions, while the others are
misperceptions?

Or is it just conceivably possible that every person has a unique
internal

representation of the world, unlike anyone else’s, yet capable of

satisfying every test of mutual agreement?

If it satisfies every test of mutual agreement, who cares if they are
different? And why do they care?

Please, prove to me that this is impossible.
I’d love to believe that, but

not just because I’d love to believe it.

Why do you care?

Who cares if the physical basis of the concurrence is unprovable. The
physical basis of anything that you could name is unprovable. Are you
worried that someone might be deceiving you? Skepticism is a necessary
virtue of science. I am not asking you to accept what someone offers you
as concurrence between you and that person. I am asking you to accept
that a proper subject of study for PCT is two people engaging in such
concurrence. Whether they are deceived or mistaken about it, whether the
physical basis of their concurrence is ultimately provable, is
immaterial. The interaction that leads to concurrence and a perception of
mutual trust for coordinated effort, that is a proper subject for PCT.

There is a modicum of social engagement that is necessary for science.
What does it mean to “show” something?

As I said, and I think we concur in this, it is clear that we know, and
can know, nothing about “really real reality” or “boss
reality” other than our perceptions. Science eliminates lots of
things that cannot be true of reality, so that we rely (with ever
increasing reliability) on

the whole discipline of physics, so to raise
doubts about this knowledge you would have to supply a workable
alternative to the world-view of physics. I’m not talking about hunches
and guesses here, but about the application of the most reliable of human
models which fail so seldom that they are held up as the standard of
knowledge, of what it means to know something.

The context of that remark was

Bill Powers (2004.07.07.2140 MDT)–

At 11:10 PM 7/7/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.07 21:22 EDT)

The experimenter
finds out, or himself arranges, that a disturbance of

known behavior is moving the target.

“A disturbance of known behavior”: a perception (referred to by
the word

“known”) about a disturbance, that is, about a perception of a
relationship

between the CV-perception and a perception of another aspect of the

environment. The relationship is such that it “should” change
the CV in the

“known” way.

Yes, and what is the basis of this knowledge and expectation? It’s the
whole discipline of physics, so to raise doubts about this knowledge you
would have to supply a workable alternative to the world-view of physics.
I’m not talking about hunches and guesses here, but about the application
of the most reliable of human models which fail so seldom that they are
held up as the standard of knowledge, of what it means to know something.

Despite what you said when I attempted to affirm the social
character of science …

At 05:38 PM 7/4/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

Bill Powers (2004.07.07.2140 MDT) –

The CV is shown to
resist disturbances. Is shown to whom?

To the observer.

… and despite your defense of the individual locked up in his isolated
universe of private perceptions unknowable to others (what Bill Williams
attacks as solipsism), these models of physics and other sciences were
not built by isolated individual scientists showing things to themselves.
They were built by scientists showing things to each other.

And it is clear that you expect us to show things to each other,
viz.:

Bill Powers (2004.07.14.1924 MDT)–

At 08:25 PM 7/14/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.14 17:39 EDT)–

As a first step, I am not saying that the
equation is true. Statements like

"two systems in conflict are controlling the same variable with
different

reference values" say that it is true.

But that’s only an hypothesis, not an observation. It has nothing to
do

with reality until you show that it does.

You can have no knowledge of whether or not I have shown something to
myself. Necessarily, what you are demanding here is that I show it to
you.

---

A digression – or actually popping up from the present digression to
summarize the central argument of this thread:

The thing that you are demanding that I show is not an empirical claim,
it is a logical entailment. You and others have affirmed many times, in
many places, that “two systems in conflict are controlling the same
variable with different reference values”. I have asked what
variable is the same when two people are in conflict. You have been
unable to answer. Is it the environmental variables EV? Rick has
explained that CV is a function of environment variables. Then you are
asserting something about the environment that is unknowable to you. But
your multi-control demonstration shows to you that the control systems
could be constructing a perception of “the same” EV as
functions of what the model tells you are “really” (within the
model) different variables. Is it the perception labeled CV? Then you are
asserting that a perception in one individual is “the same” as
a perception in another. So what variable is it that is the same when two
autonomous control systems are in conflict? To crystallize this dilemma,
I have said that the assertion “two systems in conflict are
controlling the same variable with different reference values” is an
assertion of the equivalence

   CV(observer) == EV ==

CV(controller)

That is a logical entailment. When you assert that “two systems in
conflict are controlling the same variable with different reference
values” you are asserting the above equivalence. So when you expand
this (Bill Powers 2004.07.14.1441 MDT, timestamped 02:37 PM) –

CV(obs) <–Perc Hierarchy(0bs)<-- EV
–>Perc Hierarchy(Ctrl) → CV(Ctrl)

and ask “What is your proof that the two perceptual hierarchies are
identical?” that is a question for you to answer yourself. Or if you
don’t like that question, then what variable is “the same” when
two people are in conflict?

I think that your multi-control demo may compel you to weaken the above
statement about interpersonal conflict. Or can you still claim that EV is
the same for both of the conflicting parties?

---

OK, returning now to your defense of the individual locked in his
isolated universe of private perceptions, and whether scientists
“show” things to each other or only to themselves. You yourself
have frequently talked of “showing” things in the former sense.
For example:

At 07:23 PM 7/14/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

Bill Powers (2004.07.14.1849 MDT)]

At the meeting I will show you the difference between force control
and position control. There is no conflict. If I am controlling the force
my hand is applying (as I sense it), I can’t also control the position of
my hand. If I am controlling the position of my hand, I can’t also
control the force I apply.

At 08:41 AM 7/10/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

Bill Powers (2004.07.10.0803 MDT)–

I showed the program to my eye surgeon, who was delighted and got it

immediately, although of course the wrong rectangle looked yellow to
him

since it was the one seen by my right eye. He had never before known
how

the world looked to a cataract patient, although he does about 18
surgeries

a week.

Bill Powers (2004.07.08.1051 MDT)

For those driving from O’Hare to the meeting,
attached is a map showing how

you get off I90 onto Fullerton Ave.

Bill Powers (2004.07.04.1655 MDT)

At 05:38 PM 7/4/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

This year, as I promised last year, I have the
multicontrol model working with reorganization. The input functions are
reorganized in a way that I’m fairly sure is tending to make the
perceptual input functions orthogonal, reducing the amount of mutual
disturbance. This is shown by the fact that control gets better with
time, while the total amount of output being used for control over all
systems decreases drastically. There is much yet to learn from this
model.

Indeed, what is a demo if its purpose is not to show something to someone
other than yourself?

To show another is to enable them to show themselves, but only if they
actually do so. In that subtle difference between showing yourself
something and showing another something lies the future success of PCT,
or its oblivion until others discover and work out the application of
negative feedback control to the sciences of living things. Does that
give you some motivation to consider that interactions that lead to
concurrence and a perception of mutual trust for coordinated effort are a
proper subject for PCT? Will you trust me that I am not trying to
subvert, or steal, or divert, and work with me on this? Or will you
continue to try to paint me as “one of those” who are
“doing that again”, e.g.

Bill Powers (2004.07.13.1604 MDT)–

I can see that if I were to prevail, you would
lose something of great value that concerns your chosen profession, or
the category of social science to which it belongs: the idea that it
stands above all other scientific endeavors in its ability to determine
what is going on in Real Reality. I do not think you will get much
agreement on this except from other social scientists who would also
enjoy thinking that they had a special place among
scientists.

Again, you are very confident not only about my words but also about the
unspoken assumption in them. But you have forgotten the words. Perhaps
you are passing them through a filter that prefers to admit the familiar.
I have no standing in linguistics or the social sciences. I have no
interest vested in preserving or promoting them as presently constituted.
I do have an interest in a PCT investigation of social and cultural
phenomena, including language.

Bill Powers (2004.07.13.1604 MDT)–

At 04:37 PM 7/13/2004 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

This is what I am talking about. This is how I think of the observer
doing the test

OK. At least some of the arrows in this diagram are also perceptions of
the Observer who is doing the Test to identify the CV. If the Observer is
doing the Test, then the observer perceives and measures the controller’s
outputs qo(Controller) and the observer’s own outputs qo(Observer) and if
the model of the Controller is to include a value for the reference input
to the comparator the Observer must measure the input quantity
qi(Controller).

In your diagram, the Observer perceives a model of the Controller and of
the environment. But there is another modeler outside the diagram, the
referent of “my” in “my model of the observer’s
perceptions”. So what we see is a model of a modeler.

So let’s include in our model that which the modeler (in the model) is
modeling. Now put the observer, the observed system, and their
environment into the same model together.

We have a model of the environment (including EV), and in it the
Controller and the observer, which in turn contains (as above) a model of
the controller and of the environment. The Observer inside this model can
only perceive the Controller as a black box in his or her environment.
However, EV is also in the environment along with the Controller. The
Observer’s perception CV is a function of perceptual inputs from EV in
the environment.

I have not cluttered this diagram with arrows showing where the
perceptions of the controller, qo(controller), qi(Controller), and other
perceptions of the environment come from. The Observer cannot perceive
the control structures inside the Controller, so the perception of the
Controller inside the Observer is a black box. (That would be represented
by an arrow from the exterior of the box labeled Controller to the box
labeled Perception of Controller inside the Observer.) Models are built
from the omniscient point of view of theory, however, so the model of
this dyad does represent the Controller as a control system, including
all the necessary structures to perceive EV and to control a perception
of it.

Within this model, EV is really present in the environment shared by the
Controller and the Observer and is really the same EV for both of them.
The Observer cannot know that and cannot prove that. Nonetheless, the
model asserts that. It is this tacit assumption that I have been working
to expose.

Bill Powers (2004.07.14.1924 MDT)–

The problem here is one of points of view, as
Martin Taylor once pointed

out. We are asking questions about what one party to a relationship
can

know about the other party, but you’re offering analyses from the

standpoint of an omniscient third party. That third party is imaginary,
and

can’t be considered equivalent to either of the real parties. What such
a

third party can know is irrelevant to what either of the real parties
can

know. If you’re going to come up with a relevant conclusion, it has to
be

in terms of what one person can know, not what we can imagine that a

nonexistent omniscient observer can know.

The omniscient observer is the modeler, outside the frame of the model.
It is you, looking at that diagram above. Actually, it is theory that has
the omniscient point of view, and the modeler is informed by (possibly
mistaken) theory. With the expanded diagram above we propose to model the
relationship between the observer and the observed control system during
the Test. In the above diagram, we can model how the observer may control
his perception of the arrow that points into the black-box perception of
the Controller, closing the control loop through the environment outside
the Observer (but still inside the above model). The Observer may cut off
or disturb that perceptual input in order to show that the Controller is
indeed perceiving what the Observer perceives as CV. And so on.

If you look at your email at the Conference, we can pursue this
further.

    /Bruce

Nevin

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2004.07.16 07:47 EDT)]

Martin Taylor 2004.07.15.1021 --

One problem with emulation as a learning mode is that all you can see
of the other person's control processes is the output effects on the
environment (e.g. their arm and foot positions when they do a good or
a bad tennis serve).

I think kids do learn in part by way of mimicry. I remember my
three-year-old daughter suprising me on the way home from the
babysitter by asking "Why does Mrs X talk like this?" and giving a
very good impression of an Irish accent. That's an accent I never
heard her use in any other circumstance.

But mimicry, I think, is only a stage on the way to learning how to
achieve one's perceptual control goals by the use of voice.

There is also statistical learning, control of perceptions of regularities
in language in use around you. With this together with mimicry you learn
the institutionalized conventions of language. You learn to make in your
own way a finite set of phonemic contrasts sufficient for distinguishing
from one another the words of a finite vocabulary from which may be
constructed the different predictably regular sentential forms (and
fragments thereof) of a language.

Those regularities are already present in the language spoken around an
infant when it is conceived and born and as it matures to adulthood. They
are present because those around the learning individual had previously
learned them (an earlier form of them). Obviously, this raises a question
of regress, which has been addressed in history and prehistory and
evolutionary theory and is not of immediate concern for PCT.
Observationally, such regularities are present.

         /Bruce Nevin

···

At 11:09 AM 7/15/2004 -0400, Martin Taylor wrote:

[Bruce_Gregory5]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0716.1354)]

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.16 11:24 EDT)

If we are each able to control a perception CV in such a way that each additionally perceives that the other is also controlling what we perceive as CV (where CV is a perception inside each of us), that concurrence is a reality of our social interaction, real enough to go on.

Problems may arise, but our control of the perception suffices for all practical purposes. Problems may arise because after all it is my perception CV within me and it is your perception CV within you, and neither of us has any access other than the perception CV to the really real reality of EV. But problems may arise with any perceptions. Floorboards may be rotten, doorknobs may come off in our hands. We fix the floorboard, we put the doorknob back on and tighten the setscrew, we renegotiate the concordance of our respective perceptions CV. The ultimate really real reality behind the perceptions is irrelevant, the really real neural signals do not need to be the same, we only need to perceive, each of us, that the other is controlling that which we perceive as CV, a perception which we project into our perceived environment and naively presume is real.

If this is the main point you have been trying to make, I find it hard to believe anyone would disagree with you. Whatever you perceive a five-dollar bill to be and whatever I perceive a five dollar bill to be, if you perceive yourself handing one to me and I perceive myself receiving one from you, a social interaction has indeed taken place.

Bruce Gregory

Certainty has more appeal than truth.

[Bill_Williams1]

From[Bill Williams 16 July 2004 1:15 PM CST]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0716.1354)]

        >>Bruce Nevin (2004.07.16 11:24 EDT)

        >>If we are each able to control a perception CV in such a way that each >>additionally perceives that the other is also controlling what we perceive >>as CV (where CV is a perception inside each of us), that concurrence is a >>reality of our social interaction, real enough to go on.

If this is the main point you have been trying to make, I find it hard to believe anyone >would disagree with you. Whatever you perceive a five-dollar bill to be and whatever I >perceive a five dollar bill to be, if you perceive yourself handing one to me and I >perceive myself receiving one from you, a social interaction has indeed taken place.

I would like to add that someone hands you a meter stick, or some other officially certified standard measuring device that has an official seal from the Bureau of Standards then this, in my perception, is also a social interaction.

While I don't neccesarily agree with every last nuance with which Bruce Nevin has argued what has now become a very extended thread, his statement today, appears to me, to identify what is at stake in regard to the sophistology we use in attempting to identify the implications involved in applying control theory to human behavior in which the situation involves a significant cultural aspect. If control theory is going to be of real and productive use outside neurology, or physiology, the issues that Bruce Nevin is concerned with-- it apears to me -- will neccesitate something more than an inconsistent _a priorism_.

Bill Williams

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2004.07.16.1130)]

Bill Williams (15 July 2004 6:20 PM CST)

Rick Marken (2004.07.15.0830)--

I think "equivocation" is the latest
in a long line of slogans that have been developed as a way to
challenge PCT by those who can't challenge it using modeling or
experimentation.

How would one go about challeging solipcism using "modeling or
experiemntation?"

Bill Powers has explained how this is done in several posts. I don't want to
waste the time trying to find them since they seem to be of no interest to
you anyway. The short answer, for what it's worth, is as follows:
experimentation shows that there are consistent constraints on our ability
to produce intended perceptions and modeling shows that these constraints
are external to ourselves and, thus, represent a reality independent of
ourselves.

The equivocation is the confusion created when it is claimed that control
theory and PCT are the same thing.

I thought it was the equivocation about whether the CV was a perceptual or
an environmental variable. It seems to me that you are equivocating about
what we are equivocating about. Anyway, there is no equivocating about
whether or not PCT is control theory. PCT is precisely control theory (in
terms of the basic equations of closed loop negative feedback organizations
of variables and functions). PCT simply maps control theory onto behavior
differently than do other applications of control theory to behavior.

My interest is primarily economics.PCT economics has assumed the guise of Bill
Powers' dad's Leakages thesis. We've had your "giant leap in tbe wrong
direction."

Well, at least I tried. The main problem with the model was that the
composite producer/consumer controlled for GNP (PQ) rather than for goods
and services alone (Q). Given what I've seen of your programming and
mathematical abilities I doubt that your evaluation of the model is based on
any understanding it, which is why you can only parrot (partially) one of
Bill Powers' comments.

We've had your "noble" effort published under my name where you
demonstrated that you didn't understand the Giffen model.

I did make a mistake by saying that increasing the budget would lead to
decreased demand for the "inferior" good with increased price. In fact,
increasing the budget just eliminates the Giffen effect (increased demand
with increased price), as can be seen in my demo of the Giffen effect at
http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Economics.html. The point I was
trying to make in your paper was simply that the control model could account
for _both_ the conventional, downward sloping demand curve (decrease in
demand with increase in price) and the "aberrant", upward sloping demand
curve of the Giffen effect. Which it can. I thought it was important for
you to point that out in the paper. I should have asked you to make that
revision yourself. But there were time constraints (and no e-mail at the
time) but I know that I did get your permission to make what I considered to
be the needed editorial changes. I'm sorry that one of those changes was
not stated as you would have stated it.

We've had Bill Powers' claim that "it isn't going to cost anything send
people to Mars."

That was not Bill's claim. His claim was that going to Mars would not cost
_the economy_ anything, where the economy is a collection of individuals
who produce the goods and services they consume. The economy can be
measured in terms of the total output produced by this collection of
producer/ consumers; this measure is called GDP and it's measured in
dollars. The dollars that are used to pay for the Mars program comes from
the governmental segment of the economy, which gets its dollars from the
producer/consumers that pay taxes. The government simply transfers these
dollars from one segment of the economy (one set of producer/ consumers) to
another. There is no change in the total dollars in the economy; GDP doesn't
change when the government does this. So the Mars program transfers dollars
from one segment of the economy -- taxpayers -- to another -- yhr
producer/consumers working on the Mars program, who are taxpayers
themselves. This transfer costs the economy nothing in the sense that GDP
does not change. The transfer simply _redistributes_ GDP from one set of
individuals to another. Of course, the Mars program will "cost" the economy
the ability to spend what is spent on the Mars program on something else.
If the mars program takes $10 billion of GDP each year, then that's $10
billion that cannot be spent on other things. That is a cost to the economy
-- but it's a resource allocation cost, not a dollar cost.

And, then the aspiration to develop an economic test bed which was taken
up, played with for a bit and then abandoned.

My own work on economics continues, but it certainly takes a backseat to my
other work. I'm sure Bill Powers will continue working on the testbed. But
I think he was hoping to be able to team up with a "real" economist, which
you are, at least by credential. I imagine that the work on the testbed has
been slowed by his disappointment over the way things have gone with you.

PCT seems to be on its way to becoming another episode in what Horgan
describes as "the catastrophy of cybernetics."

Let's hope so, for your sake.

Bill Powers used to talk about
the dangers involved when the "lunatic fringe" appeared. If I had been a bit
more perceptive, I might have recognized that the "lunatic" element was
present from the very beginning.

I think your problem was not so much lack of perceptiveness as lack of a
mirror.

Regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

[Bruce_Gregory5]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0716.1438)]

Bill Williams 16 July 2004 1:15 PM CST

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0716.1354)]

If this is the main point you have been trying to make, I find it hard to believe anyone >would disagree with you. Whatever you perceive a five-dollar bill to be and whatever I >perceive a five dollar bill to be, if you perceive yourself handing one to me and I >perceive myself receiving one from you, a social interaction has indeed taken place.

I would like to add that someone hands you a meter stick, or some other officially certified standard measuring device that has an official seal from the Bureau of Standards then this, in my perception, is also a social interaction.

Fine. But nothing in either interaction requires any modification to the basic PCT model. At least as far as I can see.

Bruce Gregory

Certainty has more appeal than truth.

[Philip_J_Runkel]

Phil Runkel to Rick Marken:

Commenting on Bill P's of 2004.07.15.0949 MDT:

I just now reread, too, your "coming out of the closet" as a part of Dag
Forssell's website. I agree; it was courageous, forthright,
penetrating, and RIGHT.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2004.07.16.1400)]

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.16 11:24 EDT)

A digression on equivocation:

> Rick Marken (2004.07.15.0830)--

I think "equivocation" is the latest
in a long line of slogans that have been developed as a way to
challenge PCT by those who can't challenge it using modeling or
experimentation.

Rick, why do you think I am challenging PCT?

You said that PCT equivocates about the nature of controlled variables,
sometimes saying they are perceptions and sometimes saying they are
environmental variables. This sounds like a challenge to the PCT definition
of a controlled variable.

Exposing muddled thinking and terminological confusion is not a challenge to
PCT.

Sure it is. But there is nothing wrong with challenging PCT. I think PCT
should be challenged. I just think it should be challenged using modeling
and experimentation. I think that's really the best way to expose muddled
thinking and terminological confusion. Your challenge, regarding
"equivocation" in the PCT definition of CV, fails by the test of modeling
and experimentation. A number of us have built models in which the
controlled variables are clearly defined as mathematical functions of
physical variables (eg. my baseball simulations, Kennaway's multi-joint
cranes) ; others have developed experimental methods that identify
controlled variables (like my "Mind reading" demo). Your "challenges" are
just not very challenging. If they were based on modeling and/or
experimentation, however, then they would be.

You may take it as a
challenge to you to clear up the muddled thinking about what is "the same"
when people are in conflict and to use technical terms like model and
simulation in consistent and unambiguous ways.

But there is no muddled thinking about what is "the same" when people are in
conflict -- except, possibly, yours. People are controlling the same
variable when they are controlling the same or a similar function of
physical variables in their common environment. This fact about the
"sameness" of the variable controlled in a conflict has been demonstrated
over and over again with models and experiments.

But to pretend that I am an enemy of PCT is just foolish.

I don't think you are an enemy of PCT. I think some of your "challenges"
(like the argument that there is "equivocation" about whether a CV is a
perceptual or environmental variable) are not challenging because they
reflect an understanding of PCT that is more verbal than scientific. I think
that may be why you think so highly of the non-challenging "challenges" to
PCT by people who are, indeed, its avowed enemies.

Regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2004.07.17 23:55 EDT)]

I would clean this up some more but I’m out of time.

Rick Marken (2004.07.16.1400)–

Rick, why do you think I am challenging
PCT?

You said that PCT equivocates about the nature of controlled
variables,

sometimes saying they are perceptions and sometimes saying they are

environmental variables. This sounds like a challenge to the PCT
definition

of a controlled variable.

Oh, is that all. I’m glad. I thought maybe you saw my proposal about
modeling the tester along with the observed control system as a
challenge, the proposal about the perception that the tester is
controlling (a perception which we might call the tester’s theory about
the controller’s perception of the controlled variable – or, more
briefly, the tester’s perception of the controller’s perception).

OK, let’s deal with the terminological issue first. It came up for me as
a question, which definition do you mean. Since it is perception that is
controlled, the CV is often referred to as the controlled perception.
That’s problematic because two people can’t have the same perception.

In B:CP, the definition of a “controlled quantity” is
An environmental variable corresponding to the perceptual signal in a
control system; a physical quantity (or a function of several physical
quantities) that is affected and controlled by the outputs from a control
system’s output function."This is unequivocal. It corresponds to the term EV in our recent
discussions. This definition says that EV is controlled by the outputs
from a control system’s output functions.
You give much the same definition in the section titled “Controlled
Variables” in the paper “The nature of behavior: Control as
fact and theory,” reprinted in Mind Readings:
A controlled event is a physical variable (or a function of several
variables) that remains stable in the face of factors that should produce
variability.

Again, in “Behavior in the first degree” in the section
titled “Controlled Variables”
A controlled (or intended) result is always some variable property of
the environment. Controlled results are called controlled
variables.
In “Spreadsheet analysis of a hierarchical control system model
of behavior”, it is the input quantity i that is controlled,
where i is identified as being in the environment, where it is
influenced by the output variable o and disturbances
d.
In “Perceptual organization of behavior: A hierarchical control
model of coordinated behavior”, in the section titled “Basic
Control System,” the controlled variable (labeled Q) is identified
as being in the environment.
These are all in Mind Readings. Moving on to More Mind
Readings, the paper “A science of purpose” in Figure 2 and
associated text identifies the controlled variable as B in the
environment.
In “The blind men and the elephant” the controlled variable is
the “sensory variable s” which is identified as being in
the environment (Fig. 1).

This all seems to contradict the slogan that behavior is the control of
perception. In “Mind reading: a look at changing intentions”,
you provided a more nuanced formulation:
To understand the behavior of a control system one must determine
what perceptions are being controlled. Although we cannot see what a
system perceives we can measure physical variables in the system’s
environment (such as the room temperature near a thermostat) which may
correspond to controlled perceptions.
“The dancer and the dance” (I like this paper especially,
BTW) identifies the controlled variable as the “proximate
cause” S of the outputs DV that together with
disturbances IV determine its state (Fig. 2). All of these are
variables that may be observed and (if modeling is to be possible)
measured in the environment. Farther on, in the section titled
“Controlled Variables,”
the visible “dance” of behavior makes sense as soon as we
know what sensory input (S) the subject is controlling. Controlled
sensory inputs are called controlled variables. So we can
understand the behavior of living control systems if we can identify the
variables they are controlling: controlled variables. Controlled
variables are aspects of the system’s own sensory experience that it is
keeping under control.
So S is in the environment, but it is identified as sensory
input. It is EV “at the input” of the controller. Hence, the
controlled variable for catching a ball is described as a change in the
retinal image, not as the movement of the ball through its trajectory
overhead.

In all of these writings, BTW, variables are in the environment and
quantities within the system are called signals in contradistinction to
variables. This is a distinction that Bjørn recently asked us to adhere
to. The term “Controlled Variable” according to this convention
could only refer to something in the environment. It could not refer to a
perception. A controlled perception could only be called a controlled
signal, not a controlled variable.

A bit farther on from the passage I quoted above from “The dancer
and the dance” you provide a very nice exposition of the relation of
observer’s perceptions to the perceptions of the observed system.
The fact that organisms are controlling their own perceptions
explains why it is often difficult to tell what an organism is doing,
even though we can see its every action. We see the dance of behavior
(the actions that keep perceptions under control) but not the reason for
the dance (the perceptions that the organism controls). For example, we
see a person bolting across the street but we don’t see why (to catch the
bus that is pulling away from the stop). It is difficult to tell what an
organism is doing because it is difficult to see what an organism is
controlling. Controlled variables are perceptual variables and we can’t
get inside an organism to see what it perceives. But we can determine
what aspects of our own perceptions of the environment correspond to the
perceptions the organism is controlling. In order to be able to tell what
an organism is doing (controlling) we have to be able to perceive the
world as the organism perceives it.

This sounds very much like what we commonly call empathy. The
observer develops an hypothesis about what it is like to perceive the
environment as the observed controller does, then tries very hard to
disprove that hypothesis. The hypothesis is a function of the observer’s
own perceptions, and is itself a perception. A guess or hypothesis as to
the controller’s perception is a perception of the controller’s
perception.

Here is an image representing the model of the observer that Bill
offered:

The Observer has a perception of the variable CV as he perceives that the
Controller perceives it. He also has a perception of the perceptual input
to the Controller and the control output from the Controller (the two
arrows to the left of CV. In the diagram as shown he is controlling the
perception of the variable CV, but at another point in the investigation
he may control his perception of the Controller’s perceptual input (e.g.
obstructing the Controller’s view of the variable, since if control
continues undisturbed this shows that he is not controlling a visual
perception of the variable). And he may control his perception of the
Controller’s control actions to see if the Controller resists certain
influences of that type. All of these are perceptions inside the
Observer.

Now put the model of the Observer together with a model of the observed
Controller within a model of their shared environment:

The Observer’s control of the perception CV(Observer) affects the
environment variable EV just as the Controller’s control of the variable
CV(Controller) also affects the environment variable EV. The Observer’s
control of the perception of the Controller’s input or output affects the
input from the environment which the Controller receives from EV, or
affects the influence that the Controller’s output into the environment
has on EV. What we have added is another point of view, the observer of
this model of a dyad. from this point of view we can confirm the
Observer’s theory about what the Controller is perceiving and
controlling.

As this observer outside the frame we have a model of the interior of the
Controller only because we are informed by theory (PCT), and we have a
model of the interior of the Observer because we are informed by our own
experience as observers Testing for controlled variables. To start with
we only have two black boxes and their interactions

But from this vantage point we perceive one variable, EV, the state of
which is influenced by the outputs of one control system, and should be
influenced by the outputs of the other but is not. From this observation
we can deduce the theoretical constructs inside them as shown above.

For another pair of controllers, we perceive one variable, EV, the state
of which is influenced by the outputs of both control systems, but not as
much as we would expect for their actions alone, because the effect of
each is countered by the effect of the other. From this observation we
can deduce the theoretical constructs inside them as shown below:

Then we come upon another pair of controllers, except that the outputs of
one have no effect upon the value of EV. The state of EV is completely
determined by the outputs of the other controller, for whom the outputs
of the first controller are among the disturbances that it successfully
resists.

So far, there is no difference between the model of the Observer applying
force to EV which the Controller completely counters, and the model of
the weak Controller applying force to EV which the strong Controller
completely counters. To see a difference, you have to add another level
of hierarchical control. In the weak Controller, there is a reference for
changing the state of the perception of EV, and in the Tester, according
to Bill, there is not.

Now, back to an aspect of this discussion that I said I was glad you did
not perceive as a challenge to PCT. I agree, it is not. It requires no
change to the theory. It just requires what is represented by Bill’s
model of the Observer’s perceptions to have company.

Each Controller perceives the other as a Controller much like himself.
“In order to be able to tell what an organism is doing (controlling)
we have to be able to perceive the world as the organism perceives
it.” Just as the Observer constructs a (hypothetical, theoretical)
perception CV of the environment variable EV as the observed Controller
perceives it, by the same kinds of processes people project their own
perceptions onto others. We fill in that black box labeled
“perception of controller” with our perceptions of the
environment, perhaps changed imaginatively as though perceived from their
viewpoint, and with our self-perceptions. Within that model of the other
person, just as within ourselves, is a perception of the other, only now
that “other” within the other is a perception of ourselves. So
we not only have (hypothetical, theoretical) perceptions of their
perceptions, in particular and most interestingly we have (hypothetical,
theoretical) perceptions of their perceptions of us.

Surely there can be no doubt that we harbor perceptions of what others
are perceiving. You do it yourself, e.g.

I think

that may be why you think so highly of the non-challenging
“challenges” to

PCT by people who are, indeed, its avowed enemies.

You are describing your perception that I perceive as a good thing
(“think highly of”) challenges to PCT by unnamed people who you
perceive as avowed enemies of PCT.

Once we acknowledge the phenomenon, I think maybe you can see that it
requires no change to PCT to account for it. Modeling such things will be
difficult because these are difficult things to quantify – and that, my
friend, is the fundamental reason that I have not plunged into
programming simulations yet – but conceptually it’s pretty
straightforward.

Now I wonder if you would be willing to go over some of your java code
with me in Chicago? There are no comments in it, and I would like to
understand it. The mind reading demo, perhaps? I will be flying to
California tomorrow early, and will get to Chicago late Wednesday night.
(Dick, I hope someone will be meeting me? UA Flight 152 from SF,
10pm.)

Now to bed.

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 02:04 PM 7/16/2004 -0700, Richard Marken wrote:

[Kenneth_Kitzke_Value]

[From Kenny Kitzke (2004.07.18, 08:16EDT)]

<Bruce Nevin (2004.07.17 23:55 EDT)>

<I would clean this up some more but I’m out of time.>

Even without cleaning it up, all I can say is BRAVO! And, I look forward to seeking you in the windy city.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2004.07.18.0930)]

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.17 23:55 EDT) --

OK, let's deal with the terminological issue first.

Thanks for all the quotes of my stuff. I'm glad _someone_ is reading
my books.

This all seems to contradict the slogan that behavior is the control
of perception.

It's hard to make it clear verbally. But, of course, the PCT model
does control its own perceptions. The main problem when talking about
this, I think, is the term "environmental variable" (EV), which refers
to the observer's perception of a variable that corresponds to the
"perceptual variable" that is being controlled by the controller. Like
the perception controlled by the controller, the EV is a _function_ of
physical variables in the environment. But from the observer's point of
view the EV is "in the environment". The EV is like the patterns of
coins controlled in the coin game. The pattern is the perception
controlled by the controller and the EV (also a perception, of course)
is what is perceived by the observer.

Hence, the controlled variable for catching a ball is described as a
change in the retinal image, not as the movement of the ball through
its trajectory overhead.

Right. The trajectory of the ball is a physical reality outside the
system. This trajectory is sensed by the system and some _function_ of
that sensed variable is what is perceived and controlled.

The term "Controlled Variable" according to this convention could only
refer to something in the environment.

I think Bill Powers tried to solve this problem by referring to the
controlled variable as a controlled "quantity". I think the best
solution is to learn the model, which makes these verbal ambiguities
less troubling. A controlled variable or EV (like the Z pattern of
coins controlled in the coin game) appears be in the environment. But,
like all perceptions, the EV is a function of variables that the
physics model says are actually "out there" in the environment. The EV
is a perception in the brain of the observer.

A bit farther on from the passage I quoted above from "The dancer and
the dance" you provide a very nice exposition of the relation of
observer's perceptions to the perceptions of the observed system.

The fact that organisms are controlling their own perceptions
explains why it is often difficult to tell what an organism is doing,
even though we can see its every action. We see the dance of behavior
(the actions that keep perceptions under control) but not the reason
for the dance (the perceptions that the organism controls). For
example, we see a person bolting across the street but we don't see
why (to catch the bus that is pulling away from the stop). It is
difficult to tell what an organism is doing because it is difficult
to see what an organism is controlling. Controlled variables are
perceptual variables and we can't get inside an organism to see what
it perceives. But we can determine what aspects of our own
perceptions of the environment correspond to the perceptions the
organism is controlling. In order to be able to tell what an organism
is doing (controlling) we have to be able to perceive the world as
the organism perceives it.

I agree. I think this is probably my clearest verbal statement of what
a controlled variable is: an aspect of one's own perceptions that
correspond to the perception that the organism is controlling.

This sounds very much like what we commonly call empathy.

Yes. I think that I, myself, have described The Test as "systematic
empathy".

A guess or hypothesis as to the controller's perception is a
perception of the controller's perception.

I think that's a rather confusing way to say it. You are not
perceiving the controller's perception. You are perceiving a variable
(like the pattern of coins) that appears to be in the environment of
the controller, noticing that it is protected from disturbances and
_imagining_ that what you are perceiving is what the controller is
perceiving (and controlling). Saying that you are perceiving the
controller's perceptions, I think, gives an impression of certainly
about what another agent is experiencing that is quite unwarranted.

Surely there can be no doubt that we harbor perceptions of what others
are perceiving. You do it yourself, e.g.

Actually, I have never perceived what another person is perceiving. I'm
pretty confident that I experience the world as others experience it.
So I _imagine_ that I perceive as others perceive. In your words, I
harbors "imaginings" of what others are perceiving. But I have never
harbored perceptions of what others are perceiving. What I have done,
using the Test as well as informal questioning methods, is an
approximation to "mind reading", which involves finding aspects of _my
own perceptions_ that correspond to those perceptions that are
experienced and, perhaps, controlled by others. What you seem to be
talking about is Heinlein's grokking, where one person actually becomes
one with another. If people could grok, then they could, indeed,
perceive what another person is perceiving. The Test can do something
very close to mind reading, but grokking is well beyond its current
capabilities.

I think that may be why you think so highly of the non-challenging
"challenges" to
PCT by people who are, indeed, its avowed enemies.

You are describing your perception that I perceive as a good thing
("think highly of") challenges to PCT by unnamed people who you
perceive as avowed enemies of PCT.

I am imagining that you see merit in Bill Williams' comments, for
example. But I don't perceive your perception of those comments.

Once we acknowledge the phenomenon

You mean the phenomenon you describe as perceiving others perceptions?
I think this "phenomenon" is just a poor way of describing what I
describe in the "Dancer and the Dance" paragraph that you quote above:
What we perceive about another's perceptions when we do the Test are
aspects of _our own_ perceptions that we imagine, with some confidence,
to correspond to perceptions that the controller is controlling.

, I think maybe you can see that it requires no change to PCT to
account for it.

I agree. Because it is a phenomenon already explained by PCT.

Modeling such things will be difficult because these are difficult
things to quantify

Modeling such things is what we do all the time when we build models of
behavior. We are putting into those models aspects of our own
perceptions that correspond to what we imagine to be the perceptions
the organism is controlling.

-- and that, my friend, is the fundamental reason that I have not
plunged into programming simulations yet -- but conceptually it's
pretty straightforward.

Well, then, tragically, I think, you've delayed taking the plunge
unnecessarily.

Now I wonder if you would be willing to go over some of your java code
with me in Chicago? There are no comments in it, and I would like to
understand it. The mind reading demo, perhaps?

Of course. I'll be very happy to go over them with you. If you know
java perhaps you could help me improve the user interface and upgrade
some of the code, which is now considered deprecated (though it still
compiles and runs).

Regards

Rick

···

---
Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (2004.07.19 20:55 PDT)]

Rick Marken (2004.07.18.0930)–

I’m glad someone is reading [what I
write]

I know the feeling.

This all seems to
contradict the slogan that behavior is the control

of perception.

It’s hard to make it clear verbally. But, of course, the PCT
model

does control its own perceptions.

There’s a little problem here with ambiguous use of the word
“model”. Better to distinguish between model and simulation. I
don’t think you mean the PCT model. The theoretical model is about the
control of perceptions, theory doesn’t have perceptions or control them.
I think you mean any given PCT simulation. A PCT simulation does control
its own perceptions, that is, quantities identified in the simulation as
perceptual signals. It also controls the quantity called EV, which is
equally well specified in the simulation as the quantities for perceptual
signals. In this respect, a simulation is different from the situation
that it simulates. In the real situation, the perceptual signal is well
specified to the controller but not to the observer; EV is known to the
controller only as the perceptual signal, and is a variable distinct from
the controller’s perceptual signal only for the observer. But the
observer does not know EV directly, but rather as a perception. So that
which the simulation represents as a quantity in the environment is
actually knowable only as a perception in the observer and a perception
in the controller.

The main problem when talking about

this, I think, is the term “environmental variable” (EV), which
refers

to the observer’s perception of a variable that corresponds to the

“perceptual variable” that is being controlled by the
controller.

Yes, EV refers to the observer’s perception of what (in the judgement of
the observer) the controller is controlling. Therefore, EV is a fortiori
the observer’s perception of the controller’s perception. This is
possible without input from the controller’s perceptual signal to some
kind of other-people’s-perceptual-signal-detector just as it is possible
for you to have a perception that I am not (or am) an enemy of PCT, or
that I do (or do not) agree with you.

Like the perception controlled by the
controller, the EV is a function of

physical variables in the environment.

Hang on. That’s an assumption. A very well supported assumption, having
the weight of all the physical sciences behind it, not to mention the
glacial weight of millennia of evolution. But the fulcrum of this dilemma
is expressed in the slogan “it’s all perception,” we cannot
leap so lightly and glibly to a contrary assumption.

But from the observer’s point of view the EV
is “in the environment”.

In a simulation, such as a simulation of the interaction of controller
and observer/tester, EV is in the environment as the
“physical variables” of which the perceptual signals of both
controller and observer are functions. The simulation pretends to direct
knowledge of the environment beyond the perceptual signals. In the
simulation it is perfectly clear that two systems in conflict are
controlling the same value EV at different reference values for the
corresponding perceptions. This is why I have been asking the question
“what exactly is the same?” again and again, to bring out this
unwarranted (thought well supported) assumption which flies in the face
of the slogan “it’s all perception”.

BTW, I wonder what conflict would look like in Bill’s multi-control demo.
If 100 controllers can control 100 unique perceptions, each perception
being a different function of a common set of environmental variables,
then it would seem that any two controllers would be in conflict over the
values at which they control the environmental variables while perceiving
different perceptions. If not, then the notion of the loop being closed
through the (unknowable) environment goes haywire.

Like the perception controlled by the
controller, the EV is a function of

physical variables in the environment. The EV is like the patterns
of

coins controlled in the coin game. The pattern is the perception

controlled by the controller and the EV (also a perception, of
course)

is what is perceived by the observer.

But what you go on to say here is that EV is no more than the observer’s
perception. EV is in the environment exactly to the extent that the
controller’s perception is in the environment. But the observer is
designing the simulation, so it is the observer’s perceptions that are
represented in the simulated environment.

Hence, the
controlled variable for catching a ball is described as a

change in the retinal image, not as the movement of the ball through

its trajectory overhead.

Right. The trajectory of the ball is a physical reality outside the

system.

The trajectory of the ball is another perception – one that both the
observer and the ball catcher might have, but if the ball-catcher has a
perception of ball trajectory, that is not the perception that he is
controlling. We assume that the trajectory is a physical reality, and the
assumption has all the weighty backing noted earlier, but in this context
where we know “it’s all perception” we cannot simply assert
that the assumption is so.

This trajectory is sensed by the system and
some function of

that sensed variable is what is perceived and
controlled.

We assume that something is really going on. Whatever is really going on
is sensed. The trajectory is one function of sensed variables.
Acceleration in the retinal image is another function of sensed
variables.

The EV is a perception in the brain of the
observer.

Oops! Now we are back again to the assertion that two systems in conflict
are controlling the same variable. See above, where I said

In a simulation, such as a simulation of the
interaction of controller and observer/tester, EV is in the
environment as the “physical variables” of which the perceptual
signals of both controller and observer are functions. The simulation
pretends to direct knowledge of the environment beyond the perceptual
signals. In the simulation it is perfectly clear that two systems in
conflict are controlling the same value EV at different reference values
for the corresponding perceptions. This is why I have been asking the
question “what exactly is the same?” again and again, to bring
out this unwarranted (thought well supported) assumption which flies in
the face of the slogan “it’s all perception”.

A simulation asserts something about the environment that we cannot know.
The observer, however, asserts something about the perceptions of the
observed controller. The Observer asserts

    CV(observer)

= CV(controller)

Or, if we accept that EV = CV(observer), the Observer asserts

    EV =

CV(controller)

The simulation, however, puts EV in the environment and not inside the
observer as a perception. The simulation therefore asserts something that
the observer cannot know

    CV(observer)

= EV = CV(controller)

a controlled variable is … an aspect of
one’s own perceptions that

corresponds to the perception that the organism is controlling.

This sounds very much like what we commonly
call empathy.

Yes. I think that I, myself, have described The Test as
"systematic

empathy".

And this is what I meant when I said that the observer has a perception
of the observed controller’s perception. By interaction with other
controllers, the observer develops perceptions about the environment,
about what other controllers are perceiving, and about how other
controllers are controlling those perceptions.

An aunt of mine, one of my mother’s sisters, was always teasing and
provoking conflict among others. I asked her why. She said she found
things out that way. I think this is pretty common.

A guess or
hypothesis as to the controller’s perception is a

perception of the controller’s perception.

I think that’s a rather confusing way to say it. You are not

perceiving the controller’s perception. You are perceiving a
variable

(like the pattern of coins) that appears to be in the environment of

the controller, noticing that it is protected from disturbances and

imagining that what you are perceiving is what the controller is

perceiving (and controlling). Saying that you are perceiving the

controller’s perceptions, I think, gives an impression of certainty

about what another agent is experiencing that is quite
unwarranted.

I agree that it is confusing. Careful adherence to principles of PCT does
result in awkward language sometimes. The principle I am trying to adhere
to is expressed in the slogan “it’s all perception.” A theory
is a perception. An imagined perception is a perception. However, if it
is imagined I am not clear how the “imagination connection”
works with this sort of perception. This is not an existing perception
whose inputs at some level or levels in the hierarchy are copies of
stored reference signals. The inputs are from the environment, and the
perception itself could be novel.

Surely there can be
no doubt that we harbor perceptions of what others

are perceiving. You do it yourself, e.g.

Actually, I have never perceived what another person is perceiving.
I’m

pretty confident that I experience the world as others experience
it.

So I imagine that I perceive as others perceive. In your words, I

harbor “imaginings” of what others are perceiving. But I have
never

harbored perceptions of what others are perceiving. What I have
done,

using the Test as well as informal questioning methods, is an

approximation to “mind reading”, which involves finding aspects
of _my

own perceptions_ that correspond to those perceptions that are

experienced and, perhaps, controlled by others. What you seem to be

talking about is Heinlein’s grokking,

Not at all. I am simply saying that it’s all perception. What you call
“imagining” is not exempt.

I am imagining that you see merit in Bill
Williams’ comments, for

example. But I don’t perceive your perception of those
comments.

The syllogism goes this way: Your imagining is a perception. It is an
imagining of my perception. Therefore it is a perception of my
perception. It sounds like you deny the major premise, that your
imagining is a perception. If it is not a perception, what is it? EV is
the controller’s perception. It is not the controller’s imagining which
is somehow something other than a perception.

Once we acknowledge
the phenomenon

You mean the phenomenon you describe as perceiving others
perceptions?

I think this “phenomenon” is just a poor way of describing
what I

describe in the “Dancer and the Dance” paragraph that you quote
above:

What we perceive about another’s perceptions when we do the Test are

aspects of our own perceptions that we imagine, with some
confidence,

to correspond to perceptions that the controller is
controlling.

Sure.

, I think maybe you
can see that it requires no change to PCT to

account for it.

I agree. Because it is a phenomenon already explained by
PCT.

Good. Then you agree that “theory of mind” phenomena underlying
culture are not challenging in the sense of requiring fundamental change
to the theory.

Modeling such
things will be difficult because these are difficult

things to quantify

Modeling such things is what we do all the time when we build models
of

behavior. We are putting into those models aspects of our own

perceptions that correspond to what we imagine to be the perceptions

the organism is controlling.

But we are not modelling two or more systems, each of which controls
perceptions – imaginings if you insist, or theories, or informed
guesses, but these are all perceptions – of what the other is
controlling.

Now I wonder if you
would be willing to go over some of your java code

with me in Chicago? There are no comments in it, and I would like to

understand it. The mind reading demo, perhaps?

Of course. I’ll be very happy to go over them with you. If you know

java perhaps you could help me improve the user interface and
upgrade

some of the code, which is now considered deprecated (though it
still

compiles and runs).

I don’t, but Ive done some programming and I’m willing to learn. I
brought a starter book with me and might even get some time to work
through some of it.

I’m in CA now for some training; my email contact is sporadic and
somewhat unpredictable.

    /Bruce

···

At 09:42 AM 7/18/2004 -0700, Rick Marken wrote:

[Bill_Williams1]

From[Bill Williams 20 July 2004 5:00 AM CST]

[From Rick Marken (2004.07.16.1130)]

Bill Williams (15 July 2004 6:20 PM CST)

Rick Marken (2004.07.15.0830)--

I think "equivocation" is the latest
in a long line of slogans that have been developed as a way to
challenge PCT by those who can't challenge it using modeling or
experimentation.

How would one go about challeging solipcism using "modeling or
experiemntation?"

You use of "shows" indicates that you don't understand the meaning of "solipcism." The sort of agent to whom it is possible to "show" something is not a solipcist.

You argument is so internally inconsistent that it isn't worth worrying about. However, you could attend to Bruce Nevin's argument concerning the concept of "show."

The equivocation is the confusion created when it is claimed >>that control theory and PCT are the same thing.

I thought it was the equivocation about whether the CV was a >perceptual or
an environmental variable.

Equvication is everywhere.

It seems to me that you are equivocating about what we are
equivocating about.

When you one is talking to soplicists there is only one thing that is being equvocated and that is regarding perception.

Anyway, there is no equivocating about whether or not PCT is >control theory. PCT is precisely control theory (in
terms of the basic equations of closed loop negative feedback >organizations of variables and functions). PCT simply maps >control theory onto behavior differently than do other >applications of control theory to behavior.

What about the equivocation about the theory of perception? Is perception even proximately? Well, of course not.

My interest is primarily economics.PCT economics has assumed >>the guise of Bill Powers' dad's Leakages thesis. We've had your >>"giant leap in tbe wrong direction."

Well, at least I tried.

I wouldn't call what you did _trying_.

You say,

Given what I've seen of your programming and mathematical >abilities I doubt that your evaluation of the model is based on
any understanding it,

Is there actually something there that is worth _understanding_?

which is why you can only parrot >>>(partially) one of Bill Powers' comments.

You've forgotten my comment about your sophisticated use of control theory to make two sides of an indentity equal each other.

We've had your "noble" effort published under my name where you
demonstrated that you didn't understand the Giffen model.

I did make a mistake by saying that increasing the budget would >lead to decreased demand for the "inferior" good with increased >price. In fact, increasing the budget just eliminates the Giffen >effect (increased demand
with increased price), as can be seen in my demo of the Giffen >effect at

http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Economics.html.

In fact? Well then you have still got it wrong. First of all the Giffen effect is not defined by a situation in which increased demand is associated with an increased price. In the standard version of economics increased demand generates an increased price, and an increased price genrates a decrease in the quantity demanded. You don't know what the terms mean so, of course, you made and make and will continute to make mistakes-- partly as a result of equvocation.

The point I was
trying to make in your paper was simply that the control model >could account
for _both_ the conventional, downward sloping demand curve >(decrease in
demand with increase in price) and the "aberrant", upward >sloping demand
curve of the Giffen effect. Which it can. I thought it was >important for
you to point that out in the paper.

Actually what you tried to do was eliminate the paper entirely. So, it is very doubtful how "important" anything in the paper was as a matter of your perception.

I should have asked you to make that
revision yourself. But there were time constraints (and no e->mail at the
time) but I know that I did get your permission to make what I >considered to
be the needed editorial changes.

I suppose you can producde a record of this? You seem to have forgotten we had a face to face talk in Boulder Colorado three days before the ABS paper issue came up. Did you take advantage of that face to face encounter to clear up this issue? No you did not. Your raising the time constraint, and lack of email is dishonest.

I'm sorry that one of those changes was not stated as you would > have stated it.

This isn't the issue. The way you changed the paper introduced a mistake that wasn't my fault. You keep attempting to avoid fessing up to the fact that you didn't understand the Giffen concept then, and apparently don't understand it now.

We've had Bill Powers' claim that "it isn't going to cost >>anything send people to Mars."

Your explaination adds more mistakes to what continues to be a growing exercise in equvocation.

You keep making mistakes such as equating GDP with "total output" which it is not. GDP is fairly obviously a "Gross" measure of domestic production.

I think your problem was not so much lack of perceptiveness as >lack of a mirror.

Well, I guess I fixed that didn't I?

Bill Williams

[Bill_Williams1]

From[Bill Williams 20 July 2004 5:20 AM CST]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0716.1438)]

        >Bill Williams 16 July 2004 1:15 PM CST

                [From Bruce Gregory (2004.0716.1354)]
          
                If this is the main point you have been trying to make, I find it hard to believe anyone >would disagree with you. Whatever you perceive a five-dollar bill to be and whatever I >perceive a five dollar bill to be, if you perceive yourself handing one to me and I >perceive myself receiving one from you, a social interaction has indeed taken place.

        >>I would like to add that someone hands you a meter stick, or some other >>officially certified standard measuring device that has an official seal from >>the Bureau of Standards then this, in my perception, is also a social >>interaction.

Fine. But nothing in either interaction requires any modification to the basic PCT >model. At least as far as I can see.

OK. Suppose what you say is true.

Then how would you explain Bill Powers' inability to understand the Keynesian system?

Or, the claim that it isn't going to cost anything to send people to Mars?

Bill Williams

[Bruce_Gregory5]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0720.0837)]

Bill Williams 20 July 2004 5:20 AM CST

OK. Suppose what you say is true.

Then how would you explain Bill Powers' inability to understand the Keynesian system?

Or, the claim that it isn't going to cost anything to send people to Mars?

I think it may be a good idea to keep our personal views (and shortcomings) distinct from what models predict. As far as I know, there are no semi-realistic PCT models of an economy based on large numbers of interacting agents.

Bruce Gregory

Certainty has more appeal than truth.

[Bruce_Gregory5]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0720.1235)]

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.19 20:55 PDT)

Yes, EV refers to the observer's perception of what (in the judgement of the observer) the controller is controlling. Therefore, EV is a fortiori the observer's perception of the controller's perception. This is possible without input from the controller's perceptual signal to some kind of other-people's-perceptual-signal-detector just as it is possible for you to have a perception that I am not (or am) an enemy of PCT, or that I do (or do not) agree with you.

Since Bruce Nevin is so committed to this way of talking about the model, I recommend that we all cease resisting. I not only perceive that he is in an enemy of PCT, I perceive that he perceives that he is an enemy of PCT. Or not. It's all perception, after all.

Bruce Gregory

Certainty has more appeal than truth.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (204.07.20.1045)]

Bruce Nevin (2004.07.19 20:55 PDT)

Rick Marken (2004.07.18.0930)--

The main problem when talking about
this, I think, is the term "environmental variable" (EV), which refers
to the observer's perception of a variable that corresponds to the
"perceptual variable" that is being controlled by the controller.

Yes, EV refers to the observer's perception of what (in the judgement of the
observer) the controller is controlling. Therefore, EV is a fortiori the
observer's perception of the controller's perception.

OK. This is kind of a metaphorical way of saying it. But as long as you
understand that the observer perceives only what the observer perceives and
not what the controller perceives then all is well.

Like the perception controlled by the controller, the EV is a _function_ of
physical variables in the environment.

Hang on. That's an assumption.

Of course. It's assumed that an EV, like the color of a cup, is a function
of physical variables in the environment, like the wavelengths of light
reflected from a cup. Say that the amplitude of three of those wavelengths
are x,y and z. Then the EV -- the color we see "out there" -- is f(x,y,z).
For example, EV = .2x+.4y+.8z. This variable, EV, is the perceived color of
the cup. It is not really out there in the environment. Rather, it's a
_function_ of variables that we assume, based on physics, to be out in the
environment. So the EV is really a _function_ of environmental (physical)
variables; but we call it an EV because it seems to be out in the
environment.

But the fulcrum of this dilemma is expressed in the slogan "it's all
perception," we cannot leap so lightly and glibly to a contrary assumption.

The assumption that there are variables (like x, y, and z) out in the
environment does not create a dilemma for PCT. The slogan "It's all
perception" doesn't mean that PCT assumes that nothing exists but one's own
perceptions. It means that all one one can know of the world outside oneself
is perception. There is very strong evidence that there _is_ a world beyond
one's own perceptions and that that world is well described by the models of
physics and chemistry. The physics/chemistry models have always been a part
of PCT, showing up in diagrams of control systems as the system's
"environment".

But from the observer's point of view the EV is "in the environment".

In a simulation, such as a simulation of the interaction of controller and
observer/tester, EV is in the environment as the "physical variables" of which
the perceptual signals of both controller and observer are functions.

Ah, I think I see your confusion. The EV is _not_ the physical variables in
the environment. The EV is a _function_ of those variables. It is a
perception (in the observer) that we _call_ an EV to distinguish it from the
perception (in the controller) that we call the controlled variable (CV).
This is really only complicated when one deals with it verbally. Once you
start doing the modeling it all becomes second nature and there is no
confusion.

The simulation pretends to direct knowledge of the environment beyond the
perceptual signals.

Yes, it "pretends" to knowledge based on the physics model. But a
sophisticated modeler knows that the physical variables in the environment
are known only via the physics model, not via direct knowledge.

In the simulation it is perfectly clear that two systems
in conflict are controlling the same value EV at different reference values
for the corresponding perceptions.

It doesn't have to be exactly the same value of EV. There can be conflict
even if two systems control different but very similar EVs. For example, if
one system controls .2x+.4y+.8z (which might correspond to the color green)
and the other controls for .2x+.4y+.6z (which might correspond to the color
bluish-green) there will be conflict (regarding how much z there should be).

This is why I have been asking the question "what exactly is the same?"
again and again, to bring out this unwarranted (thought well supported)
assumption which flies in the face of the slogan "it's all perception".

And I have answered it again and again. What is "the same" (or similar) in a
conflict is the _function_ of the physical variables in the environment that
is controlled by the parties to the conflict. This function of physical
variables is called the CV when we refer to the variable controlled by the
controller (or controllers) and the EV when we refer to the variable
perceived by the observer. There is no conflict with the phrase "It's all
perception" because PCT assumes that all that is known of the world by
anyone -- controllers and observers of controllers -- is their perception
of it. The physical variables in the PCT model are understood to be
assumptions (based on physics) about what is _really_ out there. The EV is
not part of the physics model, by the way, so it is not assumed to be really
out there. What is assumed to be really out there are the physical variables
-- x, y and z. The EV is a _function_ of those variables. It is an abstract
representation of some aspect of the physical variables that are assumed to
exist on the other side of our senses.

BTW, I wonder what conflict would look like in Bill's multi-control demo.

It would look like a conflict -- two or more systems trying to get the same
or a similar function of the elementary physical variables -- into different
states.

If 100 controllers can control 100 unique perceptions, each perception being
a different function of a common set of environmental variables, then it would
seem that any two controllers would be in conflict over the values at which
they control the environmental variables while perceiving different
perceptions.

But the point of the demonstration is that the 100 controllers _can_ control
100 different _functions_ of the 100 environmental (better to call them
physical) variables without any conflict. Each just has to control an
independent _function_ of the 100 physical variables.

But what you go on to say here is that EV is no more than the observer's
perception.

That's right. The EV is a perception in the observer. I think the confusion
is caused by the fact that we have been using the term "environmental
variable" to refer to both physical variables in the environment and the
_function_ of those variables that is seen by an observer to be controlled
by a controller. I think we can clear this up by referring to physical
variables in the environment as "physical variables" and using the term
"environmental variable" (EV) only to refer to the observer's perception of
the variable controlled by a controller.

The simulation, however, puts EV in the environment and not inside the
observer as a perception.

No, not at all. Actually, the EV doesn't generally even exist in a control
simulation. It exists only if one includes in the simulation a model of the
observer of the controller. In that case, the perception that the observer
takes to be the variable controlled by the controller is the EV.

The principle I am trying to adhere to is expressed in the slogan "it's
all perception."

I really think you would be better off sticking to the principles expressed
in the equations rather than in the slogans of PCT. If you must think in
terms of slogans, perhaps you would do better if you made the slogan a
little clearer. The slogan should probably be something "Living systems know
the presumed real world only as perception". I think that's a more accurate,
if less catchy, slogan.

Good. Then you agree that "theory of mind" phenomena underlying culture are
not challenging in the sense of requiring fundamental change to the theory.

Of course. I've always thought that. I think the CROWD program is a nice
demonstration of how to go about modeling these kinds of social phenomena.

Modeling such things will be difficult because these are difficult
things to quantify

Modeling such things is what we do all the time when we build models of
behavior. We are putting into those models aspects of our own
perceptions that correspond to what we imagine to be the perceptions
the organism is controlling.

But we are not modelling two or more systems, each of which controls
perceptions -- imaginings if you insist, or theories, or informed guesses, but
these are all perceptions -- of what the other is controlling.

That's because I haven't seen any evidence that there is a phenomenon to be
modeled. We're not modeling reincarnation either.

Regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

[Bruce_Gregory5]

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0720.1452)]

Rick Marken (204.07.20.1045)

I really think you would be better off sticking to the principles expressed
in the equations rather than in the slogans of PCT. If you must think in
terms of slogans, perhaps you would do better if you made the slogan a
little clearer. The slogan should probably be something "Living systems know
the presumed real world only as perception". I think that's a more accurate,
if less catchy, slogan.

It's hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with it. (Which may limit its utility as a slogan for PCT.)

Bruce Gregory

Certainty has more appeal than truth.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2004.07.20.1210)]

Bill Williams (20 July 2004 5:00 AM CST)

Bill Williams (15 July 2004 6:20 PM CST)

How would one go about challeging solipcism using "modeling or
experiemntation?"

You use of "shows" indicates that you don't understand the meaning of
"solipcism." The sort of agent to whom it is possible to "show" something is
not a solipcist.

That was my point, actually. You keep saying that PCT is solipsism but it's
not. You (like Bruce Nevin) seem to base your assessment on a slogan, "It's
all perception", which you take to be an assertion that there is nothing but
one's own perception; that one's own perception is the only reality (which
is what solipsism is). But that's not what the slogan means. It means that
organisms can know the real world only as perception. The reality of a world
separate from one's own perceptions has always been an explicit part of the
PCT model. This external reality exists in the form of disturbance
variables, physical variables (of which perceptual variables are a function)
and the feedback function (which represents real world constraints on the
way system outputs can affect the variables on which it's perceptions are a
function).

Anyway, there is no equivocating about whether or not PCT is control theory.

What about the equivocation about the theory of perception? Is perception even
proximately? Well, of course not.

What do you mean by "Is perception even proximately"?

Is there actually something there [in the H. Economicus model-RM] that is
worth _understanding_?

Yes.

I did make a mistake by saying that increasing the budget would lead to
decreased demand for the "inferior" good with increased price. In fact,
increasing the budget just eliminates the Giffen effect (increased demand
with increased price), as can be seen in my demo of the Giffen effect at

http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Economics.html.

In fact?

Yes. Try the "Rich Man" version of the demo. The effect also disappears
(even in the "Poor man" version) if there is no preference for meat.

Well then you have still got it wrong.

Darn.

First of all the Giffen
effect is not defined by a situation in which increased demand is associated
with an increased price.

Really? Then what is the Giffen effect "defined by"?

In the standard version of economics increased demand
generates an increased price, and an increased price genrates a decrease in
the quantity demanded.

OK. So what's the Giffen effect?

You don't know what the terms mean

What terms?

so, of course, you made and make and will continute to make mistakes-- partly
as a result of equvocation.

You have just told me absolutely nothing about what mistake I made or what
the correct approach to the Giffen effect is. I imagine that this kind of
"argument" appeals to your base but it makes no sense to me.

You keep attempting to avoid fessing up to the fact that you didn't
understand the Giffen concept then, and apparently don't understand it
now.

Actually, the problem is that I think I did and still so think I understand
the Giffen concept pretty well. But it's certainly possible that I don't.
Perhaps you could explain what it is that I don't understand about the
Giffen effect. Perhaps the best way to do this is in the context of a nice,
tangible demonstration of the effect, like the one at:

http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Economics.html

You keep making mistakes such as equating GDP with "total output" which it is
not. GDP is fairly obviously a "Gross" measure of domestic production.

You keep saying I make mistakes but you never explain what these mistakes
are. How about srating with a nice, clear explanation of what my mistake was
regarding the Giffen effect. Once we work that one out we can move to GDP
and all the other things I don't understand about economics.

RSM

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400