[Martin Taylor 951107 11:15]
Bill Powers (951104.0500 MST)
Martin Taylor 951103 19:30
I think you are still not seeing the idea I am trying to get at--the source
of my original "puzzlement" (which is getting to be less of a puzzle the
more I mull it over). You are focussing on the Test and its interpretation,
whereas my puzzlement relates that to what the cat is controlling, with the
emphasis on seeing from inside the cat. I'm only considering the case in
which everything the cat does purposefully is actually irrelevant to what the
God-experimenter knows to be effective.
WTP:
the cat
would compensate by changing its position during the "marking" phase,
assuming that marking requires contact....
That last "assuming" is where the cross-purposes start. I'm
assuming that marking does NOT require contact, ...
...And I assumed that the cat had no perception of rubbing against
the stick, and was controlling for completely different things.In that case, if I moved the stick so that the cat no longer brushed
against it, the cat would do nothing to restore contact and I would
reject contact as part of the controlled variable.
But the cat WOULD do something to restore contact, or it wouldn't get out
of the box.
Perhaps a better example would involve the cat's controlling for a skin
sensation created by rubbing against the stick, as if it believes that
this skin sensation is causing the door to open. In that case, the
deflection of the stick would not be the controlled variable, but if we
assumed that it was, the Test would, by your reasoning, be passed.
I am assuming that the cat completely ignores the stick and any related
sensations, so this isn't a better example. It's an example of something
quite different.
Initially, the cat is doing a lot of what we call "random" things. It has
an unsatisfied reference to see itself out of the box, at the food. When
there is no pre-organized control structure that affects that perception,
given the currently available environmental feedback paths, reorganization
begins. Things get "tried out." And at some point, the desired perception
comes to pass and reorganization stops. If that new organization isn't
altered in the interim, then when the cat is put into the box at a time
that it has the same reference level, it will "do" the same things and
get out of the box.
But if the environmental feedback paths have been changed--the stick has
been moved, for example, or it must be pushed to the left instead of the
right, then when the cat "does" the same things, the desired perception
does not occur, and more reorganization happens. The cat does more random
things, until it happens to brush the stick. And then that period of
reorganization stops.
And so forth, whenever the environment changes in any way at all.
Now assume that in all this the cat is topically anaesthetized, so that
it can't feel the stick. Maybe the stick is even not a real stick, but
a virtual one in an experimenter interface, so that the cat's "brushing"
it is an event detectable only to the experimenter. The cat nevertheless
gets out on one occasion by "marking the box and lying down on its left
facing the clock," and will do so on future occasions SO LONG AS THE
ENVIRONMENTAL FEEDBACK FUNCTIONS REMAIN THE SAME.
I think what you may be trying to set up is a case where the action of
controlling one variable _necessarily_ has some side-effect directly and
proportionally linked to the variable the cat is actually perceiving and
controlling, but it is the side-effect that has the desired secondary
effect. In other words, the cat misunderstands what it is about the
first control process that is having an effect on the second one.
The cat "understands" nothing, but gets out of the box as a consequence
of actions that involve control of NO perception that incorporates the
truly effective environmental connection.
I am indeed trying to deal with the situation in which it is the side-effects
of control that do the intended job.
Furthermore, I am trying to relate that to what is going on in "classical"
reorganization, as described by Bill P. Let's simplify "classical"
reorganization to the case of there being only one intrinsic variable,
for example blood CO2 concentration. There is a genetically preset value
for the desired level. Let's further imagine that there is one way to
increase this level--by ingesting sugar--and one way to decrease it--by
exercise. (I know that won't work in a practical sense, but imagine it
anyway).
Now, a real perceptual control for this variable would involve a perception
of sucrose, and of perceive level of exercise. But "sugar" is not a
perceptible thing. Fruit are perceptible. Meat is perceptible. Grain
is perceptible. And starches convert to sucrose. Fruits contain sugars,
and meat doesn't (or so we shall say for the purposes of this exercise).
Grain has a little, but it has starches.
Now our CO2 control system finds itself a little low. WE SCIENTISTS know
it needs sugar, but it doesn't. It tries certain already available
controllable perceptions at different levels, and pushes them around,
until either the organism eats some fruit (instant recovery of the desired
value of the CO2 perception) or some grain (delayed but more permanent
recovery). The organism learns to eat fruit in order to build up its CO2
level, or possibly grain, depending on how much else it has "done" between
eating the grain and recovering the desired CO2 level.
So long as the environmental feedback paths don't change, eating fruit
will always work to raise the CO2 level. But now suppose that something
does change, and the available fruit no longer has sugar (don't ask me how).
The PERCPTUAL control still tries to bring a fruit perception to its
reference level, and the organism still eats fruit. But that was only
a side effect of the attempted control of the CO2 perception, which is
now not working, at least by that mechanism. The system must reorganize.
But there is no way for the system to perceive directly the factor that
it needs, in order to control its intrinisic variable. It cannot control
its perception of the intrinsic variable by eating sugar. It must find
a perception to control that has AS A SIDE EFFECT the eating or production
of sugar.
The thesis, which I am beginning the think is what you have been saying about
reorganization all along, is that the ENTIRE perceptual control hierarchy
depends on the consistency of the side-effects, in the environment, of
intrinsic control. Intrinsic control is what is really happening. There
are lots of different perceptual controls that influence variations in
the values of the intrinsic variables, as pure side effects that are more
or less consistent. Some reorganizations build one hierarchy, others
build quite different hierarchies, but in all survivable cases the side
effects influence the intrinsic variables (and probably a lot else).
What this analysis highlights is that the reorganized PERCEPTUAL hierarchy
is highly likely to contain a great deal of conflict. Since it is the
side-effects of perceptual control that really matter to survival, there
is no reason why conflict itself should not, in some instances, ensure
that those side effects continue to occur.
Food for thought? Sorry if this is just retracing your own steps. On
second thoughts, not sorry. Reinventing wheels is one way of finding out
how they work.
Martin