# \[SPAM\] Re: Discouraged

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/spam-re-discouraged/12746>\
**Category:** CSG2003\
**Created:** [December 11, 2003, 2:01am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/spam-re-discouraged/12746 "2003-12-11T02:01:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_Gregory4](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@Bruce\_Gregory4](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bruce_Gregory4)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 2:01am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/spam-re-discouraged/12746/1 "2003-12-11T02:01:00Z")

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[From Bruce Gregory (2003.12.10.20.50)]

> [Martin Taylor 2003.12.10.1734 EST]
> 
> The big perceptual control hierarchy, according to this view of  
> reorganization, developed because successive refinements of the  
> criteria for perceptual control improved the precision with which  
> perceptual control side-effects had the appropriate influence on the  
> intrinsic variables. One lives longer if one stops when confronted  
> with a patch of red, if one can identify that patch as belonging to a  
> traffic light rather than to an autumnal maple tree.
> 
> So, if there are many intrinsic variables, presumably survival (or  
> rather, preferential propagation of the genes) involves many  
> interactions and interaction loops among them. The complexity of  
> these interactions requires corresponding complexity in the  
> perceptual control hierarchy that acts on the environment so as to  
> maintain the intrinsic variables near their (genetically determined)  
> reference values.
> 
> What, then, does it mean to say "how closely the perception is  
> coupled to intrinsic variables"? And how would the answer relate to  
> the case under discussion?

I believe that my view of the hierarchy is essentially the same as  
yours. The reference level for the highest levels of the hierarchy are  
determined by reorganization. Maintaining these highest levels at their  
associated reference levels controls intrinsic variables as side  
effects. It was in this sense that I said that the highest levels "are  
closely coupled to intrinsic variables. That is, the reference levels  
of these perceptions are not established by still higher levels in the  
hierarchy. I hope this is a bit clearer now.

In this picture you can 'voluntarily reorganize' in the way you  
described \_only\_ if the perception is \_not\_ at the highest level. So  
discovering that you can effect such a change tells you at once that  
you are acting somewhere below the highest level.

For some individuals, religious beliefs seem to be at the highest  
levels. The reference level associated with these beliefs cannot change  
without having a negative effect on the control of intrinsic variables.  
I should say, without \_likely\_ having a negative effect on intrinsic  
variables. Each 'fundamental belief' is a local maximum on a fitness  
landscape. Small changes tend to reduce fitness, and so are very  
difficult to make.

Other individuals seem to have no such religious beliefs. Or, I should  
say, it is not clear what replaces religious beliefs in these  
individuals. They must have controlled perceptions at the highest level  
of their hierarchies, but it is not obvious what they are.

For example, I have a standard that says that we are all entitled to  
our own beliefs, not not to our own evidence. If you want me to believe  
something, i want to know the evidence that supports it and the  
evidence that would count against it. I hold to this standard because  
it is the only way I know to make progress. I can perfectly well  
imagine adopting an arbitrary belief such as, "There is no God but  
Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet." But I decline to do so because I  
find no reason to prefer this particular belief to dozens of other  
beliefs such as, "Salvation only comes to those who accept Shiva as  
their personal saviour."

I am a pragmatist for pragmatic reasons. I know that the Mormons could  
be right, but I know of no way to discover wither this is the case.  
What are my highest level perceptions -- the ones I am unwilling to  
change because to do so would move me off a local maximum on the  
fitness landscape?

Bruce Gregory

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no  
one was listening, everything must be said again."

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Andre Gide

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Powers](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Bill\_Powers](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bill_Powers)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/spam-re-discouraged/12746/2 "2003-12-11T14:23:20Z")

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[From Bill Powers (2003.12.11.0703 MST)]

Bruce Gregory (2003.12.10.20.50)–

> I believe that my view of the  
> hierarchy is essentially the same as
> 
> yours. The reference level for the highest levels of the hierarchy  
> are
> 
> determined by reorganization.

This is a bit tricky. What you say agrees with _part_ of my  
proposal, in that one of the possible sources of highest-order reference  
levels is reorganization. But I also allow for the possibility of genetic  
sources (not for things like religion, of course), experience and  
experiment, and “zero”: don’t forget that zero is a point on a  
scale of perception and is not the same thing as absence of a perception.  
The exterior angle at the elbow may range from zero (as sensed) to some  
maximum, with a zero reference signal meaning fully extended.

Also, since reorganization can change physical circuitry, it can change  
the amount of contribution of a higher-level system’s output to a  
lower-level system’s net reference signal. Thus with a constant  
higher-level output, reorganization can change the lower reference  
signal.

But the main trickiness is that reorganization can work anywhere in the  
hierarchy, so it’s not like a higher-level system setting reference  
levels for the next lower one. That would imply a systematic relationship  
between intrinsic error and the highest-order reference signals, but as  
Martin’s post made clear, there is no such systematic relationship in  
this theory.

> Each ‘fundamental belief’ is  
> a local maximum on a fitness
> 
> landscape. Small changes tend to reduce fitness, and so are very
> 
> difficult to make.

I don’t think that “fitness” is the best term for something  
that pertains to a single lifetime, since the only test of fitness (in  
evolutionary theory) is survival and reproduction. A local minimum of  
intrinsic error would seem a better term for the same phenomenon,  
especially since intrinsic error is suppose to be an indication of how  
well the life-support systems are functioning, or something like that.  
The relationship to evolutionary fitness would come through the settings  
of intrinsic reference levels, which must change slowly over evolutionary  
time, and must be partly determined by natural selection.

> "Everything that needs to be  
> said has already been said. But since no
> 
> one was listening, everything must be said  
> again."

I noticed that in one of yesterday’s posts, this epigram was attached  
twice. Was that a recursive illustration of the truth of the  
statement?

> **···**
>
> > Andre Gide