[From Bjorn Simonsen (2006.03.27,12:40 EUST)]
From Bryan Thalhammer (2006.03.26.0845 CST)
“imagined result” and "without any
disturbances from
the World": Well, I wonder what that result is, a
perception of a standard or principle, a perception of
an output, or a perception of the current state of
disturbances. Not that any of those is correct
according
to the theory, but that they are possibly
misunderstandings
by you, by me, or by a non-PCT reader of that
paragraph.
Maybe I should not comment what you wrote above
because my imagined sentence below is contradicted by Martin in his [Martin Taylor 2006.03.26.10.56]
From Martin’s mails I imagine his answer is
something like this:
“ We need a model that predicts an imagined
result in such a way that we
can perceive it without any disturbances from
the World out there”.
But I will go more thoroughly into your “Well, I
wonder what that result is”. My statement was butter on pork, an imagination is
a perception not affected by any disturbances in the world out there. If I
imagine I go with the bus to downtown at twelve o’clock and downtown is ten
kilometres away. And I continue imagining that the bus has an average velocity
like 30 km/hr. Then my imagined result is that I will reach downtown at twenty
past twelve.
Just a thought here, the language leads us into
cause-effect, serialized
depictions of the cycle of control. Then the thing
about disturbances
kinda bothers me.
Well I should not have mentioned the word disturbance.
But here is an example where I am disturbed and perceive something in real time
and continue in imagination mode.
I look out a window at twelve o’clock and watch a bus
passing by (disturbance). I close my eyes (I don’t need to, but in that way I
leave out the disturbance) and imagine that the bus will reach downtown in
twenty minutes (look above). Then my imagined result is that the bus will reach
downtown at twenty past twelve.
The loop, the reflex loop, etc. You know, just as
above there is a
reflexive relationship between perception and
disturbance, there is a
relationship between any control system and its
environment.
I guess I understand, but I wouldn’t use the word “relationship”.
I think the environment (the input quantity constituted by the feedback effect
and the disturbance) is a part of all control systems including the lowest
level. When I imagine something, the actual systems don’t include the lowest
level.
What powers the loop?
I thought I described how I think about that in my “Basis
for thoughts” in [From Bjorn Simonsen (2006.03.26,13:35 EUST)]. Maybe you
disagree (?). Let me repeat.
- Since most of the feedback loops are
negative, the normal state, if
no disturbances are affecting, of the loops
will have a zero error state.
You “have” (remember the loops are a model) a loop
representing “grasping for a glass of water”. When you drive your car in busy traffic,
this loop has a zero error state. Most of your other loops also have this zero
error state (always).
As soon as a new disturbance is sensed by your sensory
cells, energy from the environment is reversed to a neural current defined as
the number of impulses pushing through a cross section of all parallel redundant
fibres in a given bundle per unit of time. This represents energy you don’t
find in the loops when they have a zero error state.
What drives the reference signal, the perceptual
signal?
This neural current passes a first level loop. The
axon has many branches and some branches lead the neural current to higher
levels (copies). The perceptual signal is led to comparators and errors are
formed. The output signal is a part of reference signals at lower levels. I
think the energy in the input quantity at the lowest level is one part that
drives the perceptual signals and reference signals.
How does the output signal get its uuumph to drive
into the environment
(including down to other control systems as well
as ballistic events)?
All nerves have their threshold of firing. The
dendrites lead energy to the central part of nerve cells. When the energy reach
the threshold of firing, some cells get their uuumph. Some gamma-efferent
signals reach muscle spindles and the muscles contract.
I should not have written what I have done above because
I know you know it better than me. But you asked.
I like that answer, “they are always
working” since it has to be that
way, if we can remember (as in the movie Tin Drum)
all the way back to
before being born.
It depends how you define “remembering”.
Neuron-based perceptual control suggests that once
formed, memories (or in our explanation) control
systems, never go away
unless destroyed. What is their state?
Well, I suggest, because of the negative feedback,
that their state is zero error state.
Here is a new sidestep. I once read a story from Chowchilla (California) where three masked
men captured a school bus in 1976. The children and the driver were transferred
to a van and later transferred to a furniture bus and buried in a stone quarry.
They were found.
The driver could not remember the registration number
on the van, but some weeks later he was hypnotized and could retell the
registration number.
I don’t know if the story is real. But I think it is
correct that once formed, memories never go away.
There, but not outputting much on
their own, being only conduits for waves of
reference settings, other
outputs, and reference signals. Let there be a
disturbance within the
perceptual signal that differs from the reference
setting from above,
and they send output signals.
If there is a zero state error, there is no output. But
we don’t perceive the output. We perceive the perception (perceptual signal),
and there must be a perceptual signal if the error is zero (reference not like
zero). I think we perceive the perception leading to zero error when we imagine
something.
I am not sure about switches or the mixing
function, not sure where that
comes from, so I need better definitions by the
source of those ideas,
or I need to let that go.
I think upon the switches as a model. It is a model
Bill used to teach us about memory.
However, the notion of a need for a world
model? I think that the statement “always
there, always working” is a
good starting point.
Agree.
I am not so sure that we can say "when we are
aware" since that means being turned on or
off like a self-deterministic
machine like Mr. Data of Trek, or HAL of 2001
Space Odyssey. Once
controlling, always controlling, until an untimely
accident (we almost
always think that is untimely).
I guess you misunderstood what I wrote. I think “always
there, always working”. They are always there in zero error state. They are
always working and the perception changes when a disturbances are affecting.
As well, the world model should include
the notion that control, I mean the real notion of
control, never comes
into being–it only dies. A parent cell passes its
control directly to
its daughter cells during mitosis, and even in
sexual reproduction, the
new individual’s control never really
“starts,” it is only passed on in
a little gift box of haploid molecules during
meiosis. I am not sure
that gametes can control, but they seem to, based
on the tough cell wall
of the egg and the outputs of the sperm during
approach to and burrowing
into the egg. But for sure, perceptual control in
living control systems
never “starts” only keeps going on until
an accident occurs.
Agree. But I expressed “when we are aware”
to express which mode we are aware of.
Action vs. imagination. I don’t see those as two
different modes.
Neither I. But if we are disturbed and the disturbance
forms a perception different from our references, there is an error. And if
there is an error, there usually are muscle contractions. And if there are
muscle contractions there are actions. Actions helping us to perceive what we
wish to perceive. This is a control mode. When I imagine something, there is no
feedback from muscles in the loops I use to imagine.
Imagination or thinking is not a result of there
being more or fewer
disturbances, I think. It is a matter of there
being not enough error
(???) between reference and perception signals to
have a strong enough
output to set different reference levels of lower
level control systems.
I think we agree. But I still think I am able to think
without having perceptual signals formed by disturbances. And those times I am
not controlling my perceptions. They have their value quite near a reference
value. I am in imagination mode.
Disturbance happens all the time. It is only a
matter of interest (if
one can say that) to the control system when the
perceptual signal is
not consonant with the reference.
If you close your eyes far away from a person you know
and imagine the face of the person. Are there any disturbances when you imagine
her face. I don’t think upon the pressure you feel from the chair you are
sitting in (disturbance). That is another control loop.
Bjorn, again, I am just reacting, and I may not be
right, but perhaps
this is some help to you.
I appreciate your comments. You make me think. Cheers to you.
bjorn