[spam] Re: Cultural Acquisition, Evolution, and Ethology: The Perceptual Control Hypothesis (DRAFT)

[Martin Taylor 2007.04.27]

[From Bjorn Simonsen (2007.04.27,11:10 EUST)]
>From Bill Powers (2007.04.26.1420 MDT)

I think this has to be done very carefully to avoid reducing
PCT to the status of a metaphor.

If I don't misunderstand what you are saying, I don't think we shall be
afraid for metaphors. They permeate the language, the thoughts and the
actions people perform.

Quite true, and more true than we sometimes realize.

I think you use metaphors yourself when you say (e.g.): "By lowering
the gain on parallel control tasks, (if necessary lowering it to near zero),
those tasks would not compete for output degrees of freedom in lower level
control loops, & thereby increase the degree of control for this other more
central task." I think upon: lowering, compete, degrees of freedom and lower
level control loops, and maybe more.

Bill can speak for himself, but if I had written that, I would not be thinking I was writing in metaphor. I would think I was describing an engineering situation that could be transcribed into a circuit diagram.

"Lowering" means "bringing closer to zero"; it's a metaphor, in that zero is made analogous to the ground or the bottom of a physical space, but the metaphoric usage isn't in PCT, it's in everyday language. The sense would be no different if Bill had said "reducing". "Compete" may be a little anthropomorphic, as it suggests agency, but what other words would you use to describe a situation in which there are more degrees of freedom at the input to a communication link than can be accommodated by the link? It's no more metaphoric than would be the term "bandwidth", which actually means exactly the same. And in what way is "degrees of freedom" a metaphor (other than in its origin in engineering terminology)?

Lots of engineering terms have their origins in metaphor, but that doesn't mean their use in an engineering context is metaphoric. Would it be metaphoric to talk about a "high" voltage "transmission" "line" when you want to describe a particular copper wire?

We can't live without metaphors

Quite so. But the usage of a word that originates in metaphor does not mean that one is using the mataphor. It is not metaphoric to talk about a high voltage transmission line, and it's not metaphoric to talk about lowering the gain, or about competition among degrees of freedom (which is the nature of conflict). If there are four degrees of freedom at the input to a link, and the link has three degrees of freedom, the output has no more than three. It's an engineering statement, not a metaphor.

>These are all really variations on a single question: does culture

exist outside of individual human brains?

Doesn't this question depend on who's brain we are talking about. I, most
often, talk about culture and I know that what I say are thoughts in my
brain.

Isn't Bill's question a variant on "does a rock exist outside the perception of the observer"?

"Culture" is a perception of something in an individual human brain, as is a rock. If the observer acts in certain ways, the perception of the rock and other things (like pain in the kicking toe) change in certain other ways, some of them consistently if the action is repeated, some of them idiosyncratically.

Switch "rock" for "culture" in the last sentence, and it remains equally true. How, then, is Bill's question different from the question that always overhangs us, about the "real" nature of the world we seem to perceive?

Martin

Bill can speak for himself, but
if I had written that, I would not be thinking I was writing in metaphor.
I would think I was describing an engineering situation that could be
transcribed into a circuit diagram.
[From Bill Powers (2007.04.27.0708 MDT)]

(Overall, this is for Ted Cloak)

Martin Taylor 2007.04.27 –

I concur with your reply to Bjorn.

Metaphors and analogies are interesting to think of in terms of the PCT
model – especially if you think in terms of the common neural language
of “more” and “less” impulses per second. Words whose
meanings go with increased or increasing neural frequencies (a rising
tone) can be used as mutual metaphors, and so on. I wonder if that really
holds up.

These are all
really variations on a single question: does culture

exist outside of individual human brains?

Bjorn Simonsen (2007.04.27,11:10 EUST)]

Doesn’t this question depend on
who’s brain we are talking about. I, most

often, talk about culture and I know that what I say are thoughts in
my

brain.

(Martin): Isn’t Bill’s question a variant on “does a rock exist
outside the perception of the observer”?

To Bjorn: I was asking if culture exists outside of ANY
human brain; “no” means that it is a kind of perception, not
something external to any individual. Long ago at Northwestern University
I had arguments with the anthropologist P. J. Bohnannan about this; he
claimed that cultural artifacts were the means by which “memes”
were transmitted, and so did exist outside of human brains. Religious
objects and buildings, written/recorded words, institutions (like the
legal and financial systems) in which individuals come and go but rules
and functions remain, and so on. If he were still alive I’d probably have
to admit he is – well, partly – right.
However, I would still maintain that without human perception, such
artifacts are meaningless, so human perception still plays a central
role. And that means that each individual must learn from scratch the
cultural significance of any cultural artifact and that what it means is
neither more nor less than what individuals come to think it means in
terms of their own private experiences.
To Martin: The question can be taken in the context of
epistemology, but it wasn’t meant that way. In the current discussion I
assume that the models we use are correct, and my meanings all refer to
those models. I’m assuming that legal and financial systems, written
words, buildings, and so forth exist outside the individual. So what I
say depends on the epistemological correctness of the models.

All of which makes me think of physics again, especially since I’ve just
finished reading Walter Isaacson’s excellent “Einstein.” (a
generous gift from Terry Goldstein, David’s wife). It was very
illuminating to see the pictures in the center of the book with all those
extremely famous old physicists standing around being photographed. The
words used to refer to the propositions put forth by these people, like
“Copenhagen Convention,” turn some guys’ wild ideas into
cultural artifacts and discourage ordinary people like me from expressing
my ignorant puzzlement about what they were trying to say. But when I
actually see the people and imagine them talking, they turn into human
beings and I realize that my ideas are not inherently inferior to theirs.
Oh, come ON, Neils, you’re just giving up because you don’t immediately
see how these observations fit together! Nature is exactly what it is,
nothing else. It is we who are uncertain. I fully understand what
Einstein was talking about when he said God doesn’t play dice. Our
theories are defective, not nature.

However, that does support Jim Bohannan’s thesis, because all these
people are dead now and I am talking to the cultural artifacts they left
behind. At the recent miniconference at David G.‘s house, we were
jokingly (sort of) wondering how this conference at 801 Edgemoor Road,
Cherry Hill NJ, would be remembered by posterity. After some debate we
arrived at “The Edgemoor Conference,” which certainly sounds
like a lot more than half a dozen guys sitting around discussing
psychotherapy. Who would dare dispute the ideas of someone who was
actually part of the Edgemoor Conference? It’s not as if they were just a
bunch of people talking in the Goldsteins’ living room!

Einstein started out by combining physical experiments with mathematical
formalisms, giving equal weight to each. But when it came time to start
his push toward a unified field theory, he followed the quantum
physicists into the world of pure formalism, and that is where his effort
foundered. On the day he died he was still scribbling equations, looking
in vain for the One Pure Form that would add up to 42. It never occured
to him, or apparently to any other physicist of his era, that mathematics
is a process that takes place in a brain, and that all the rest is
perception. The biggest mistake of them all was the assumption that
nature itself, out there beyond the brain, is mathematical.

That’s how my cultural artifact impinges on that cultural
artifact.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Bjorn Simonsen (2007.04.27,19:00 EUST)]
Martin Taylor 2007.04.27

Nice to read your thoughts again. I see you have been DU, but is that good
enough reason for not continuous keeping up the quality of this list with
your words? Bill spent one of his nights to sustain our knowledge about
Emotions when he joined a conference with David Goldstein (?).

Bill can speak for himself, but if I had written that, I would not be
thinking I was writing in metaphor. I would think I was describing an
engineering situation that could be transcribed into a circuit
diagram.

Neither I before I studied George Lakoff: Metaphors we live by. I have
always thought upon metaphors as an instrument for poetic innovation and
rhetorical embellishment.

"Compete" may be a little anthropomorphic, as it suggests
agency, but what other words would you use to describe a situation in
which there are more degrees of freedom at the input to a
communication link than can be accommodated by the link?

I am not sure I understand your sentence starting with "but". If I do, I
will propose "Capacity"(?)

I am not sure it would be better to use other words to describe a situation
in which there are more degrees of freedom at the input to a communication
link than can be accommodated by the link?
Let me try to explain why.
In the sentence "compete for output degrees of freedom in lower level
control loops" the concept "compete for" is Bill's concept and it represents
something that is abstract and difficult to delimit in our experiences. What
it stands for must be expressed with other concepts we understand more clear
(space orientations, objects, results and more). In this way we use
metaphoric concepts.
Of course some concept, e.g. PCT, must be significant. Such concepts must
describe what is inherent in the concept. But when we talk about PCT we
express ourselves in a way people can understand and how elements function
in PCT.
Such focus on how we understand experiences require other concepts than
definitions. Here metaphors are helpful.

It's no more metaphoric than would be the term "bandwidth",
which actually means exactly the same.

You said it. It means the same, Capacity. But we get help from band and
with, object and space oriented metaphors)

And in what way is "degrees of freedom" a metaphor
(other than in its origin in engineering terminology)?

I think upon "degrees of freedom" as the number of independent pieces of
information on which the precision of a parameter estimate is based. I think
"degrees of freedom" is an evident metaphor.

Lots of engineering terms have their origins in metaphor, but that
doesn't mean their use in an engineering context is metaphoric. Would
it be metaphoric to talk about a "high" voltage "transmission" "line"
when you want to describe a particular copper wire?

Yes, the engineering terms let us understand engineering from other
experience domains. and I think their metaphoric use help people to
understand their experiences.

Yes I think high voltage is a space oriented metaphor and "transmission
line" is a product metaphor.

We can't live without metaphors

If there are four degrees
of freedom at the input to a link, and the link has three degrees of
freedom, the output has no more than three. It's an engineering
statement, not a metaphor.

Yes, but very very many statements are metaphoric.

Isn't Bill's question a variant on "does a rock exist outside the
perception of the observer"?

Yes, maybe I expressed myself vague. I agree with your "rock" example.

How, then, is Bill's question different from the
question that always overhangs us, about the "real" nature of the
world we seem to perceive

I think I know what Bill thinks about the "real" nature of the world we seem
to perceive.

I think he tells us that our perceptions are the real world. And these
perceptions are representations for the "real", "real" world out there.

bjorn