The Beauty of PCT (was Re: CEV and RREV)

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2019.04.23.11.28]

···

Â

      No, neither, but the RREV is that something

which I would call “picture� or “object of perception� which
makes it possible and very probable that creatures with
similar visual perceptual functions and contextual knowledge
as us will see either the wife or the mother in law, but not a
tree, a car, an elephant or something else. It could very well
be Adelbert’s office like Martin suggests, but I like somewhat
simpler speculations

  The beauty of PCT is that, unlike control-of-output (CoO) versions

of control, PCT doesn’t care how a perception in the mind is
created. All that matters is that the difference between the
perception and its reference is reduced, on average, by the output
to lower-levels reference inputs (or whatever the output
influences). All else must be consistent with that, but otherwise
there is no constraint on how the feedback path between the output
and the perception is implemented. CoO theories of organic control
do care about the implementation, because they require that the
output be calculated using knowledge of what happens in the
feedback path to create the desired effects on the perception.

  The gnomic bureaucracy I have been using as a possible model of

what is in Real Reality was chosen for two reasons 1) as a
ridiculous but impossible to refute example to illustrate that for
PCT it doesn’t matter at all how much we know about the workings
of Real Reality, and 2) to illustrate that so long as evolution
and reorganization have teamed to keep our intrinsic variables in
good enough conditions to keep us alive, the CEVs that we perceive
to be in our external environment must be closely related to
structures of relationships in Real Reality, whether those be
implemented through inter-departmental memos circulated among the
gnomic authorities and minions or by real structures that
correspond directly to the tables and chairs, trees, elephants,
and stars, of the CEVs that we perceive to be “out there”.

  Â It's the beauty of PCT that no knowledge of Real Reality is

needed beyond the consistencies of relationships provided our
sensors by whatever happens to be hidden there. Those
consistencies determine which perceptual functions survive over
changing times and which are modified out of recognition as more
and more data arrive over the lifetime of an individual, a
species, or a planet. The Perceptual Functions approximate some of
the consistencies and produce higher and higher levels of
perception to take advantage of them. We perceive them in
consciousness (as I presume most sufficiently complex mobile
organisms also do) to exist as entities of different kinds (chairs
and chair legs, distances and differences, locations and speeds,
…) set in among other such entities.

  Science produces ever more such Perceptual Functions, and

sometimes those ones puzzle us. Our unaided sensory systems never
create a pattern that we perceive as a wave and as a particle, or
one in which the state is unresolved until the state of another
“wavicle” elsewhere is observed. Why should it? Science uses
sensors sensitive to properties of Real Reality for which we have
no sensors. I think it was Einstein who said that the Universe is
not only stranger than we imagine, it is stringer than we can
imagine. But the beauty of PCT is that this doesn’t matter. What
matters is what works. No theory of control that is not a theory
of control of input can make this claim. The genius of Powers was
to see how this applies to life itself.

  Martin

[rsmarken]

[Rick Marken 2019-04-26_11:02:09]

[Martin Taylor 2019.04.23.11.28]

  MT: The beauty of PCT is that, unlike control-of-output (CoO) versions

of control, PCT doesn’t care how a perception in the mind is
created.

RM: I think when you say that PCT doesn’t care “how a perception is created” you must mean that a control system doesn’t care about how physical variables (including one’s own outputs) affect the state of the perceptual variable it is controlling. That is, indeed, what distinguishes a control of output from a control of perception system; the control of output system has to use knowledge of how physical variables affect the state of a controlled variable because they use this knowledge as the basis for calculating the outputs that are used to control the variable. But this “beautiful” aspect of control of input is true of all negative feedback control systems, not just PCT. What I think is beautiful about PCT is that it explains the controlling done by living systems, something no other theory of behavior does.Â

  MT: All that matters is that the difference between the

perception and its reference is reduced, on average, by the output
to lower-levels reference inputs (or whatever the output
influences). All else must be consistent with that, but otherwise
there is no constraint on how the feedback path between the output
and the perception is implemented. CoO theories of organic control
do care about the implementation, because they require that the
output be calculated using knowledge of what happens in the
feedback path to create the desired effects on the perception.

 RM: Right.

  MT:Â  It's the beauty of PCT that no knowledge of Real Reality is

needed beyond the consistencies of relationships provided our
sensors by whatever happens to be hidden there.

RM: To a large extent this is true. But I can think of many cases of human controlling that does require knowledge of real reality, For example, consider launching a satellite in to low earth orbit. This requires very accurate knowledge of real reality in the for of models provided by the physical sciences.Â

BestÂ

Rick

···

  Science produces ever more such Perceptual Functions, and

sometimes those ones puzzle us. Our unaided sensory systems never
create a pattern that we perceive as a wave and as a particle, or
one in which the state is unresolved until the state of another
“wavicle” elsewhere is observed. Why should it? Science uses
sensors sensitive to properties of Real Reality for which we have
no sensors. I think it was Einstein who said that the Universe is
not only stranger than we imagine, it is stringer than we can
imagine. But the beauty of PCT is that this doesn’t matter. What
matters is what works. No theory of control that is not a theory
of control of input can make this claim. The genius of Powers was
to see how this applies to life itself.

  Martin

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2019.04.26.14.27]

[Rick Marken 2019-04-26_11:02:09]

[Martin Taylor 2019.04.23.11.28]

            MT: The beauty of PCT is that, unlike control-of-output

(CoO) versions of control, PCT doesn’t care how a
perception in the mind is created.

        RM: I think when you say that PCT doesn't care "how a

perception is created" you must mean that a control system
doesn’t care about how physical variables (including one’s
own outputs) affect the state of the perceptual variable it
is controlling. That is, indeed, what distinguishes a
control of output from a control of perception system; the
control of output system has to use knowledge of how
physical variables affect the state of a controlled variable
because they use this knowledge as the basis for calculating
the outputs that are used to control the variable.

That captures what I wanted to get across.

        But this "beautiful" aspect of control of input is true

of all negative feedback control systems, not just PCT.

True, but nevertheless, few people unacquainted with PCT realize

this, and many researchers in the field continue to publish peer
reviewed papers in which they explain how much better is their way
of computing the required output than other ways of doing the same
thing. Few papers get published to say that you really don’t need
that computation if you allow your system to reorganize and find its
own way.

        What I think is beautiful about PCT is that it explains

the controlling done by living systems, something no other
theory of behavior does.

I'm always reluctant to accept absolute statements like that. If you

had finished the sentence “no other theory of which I am aware does”
I would quite agree with you (apart from the implied restriction to
living systems).

            MT:

All that matters is that the difference between the
perception and its reference is reduced, on average, by
the output to lower-levels reference inputs (or whatever
the output influences). All else must be consistent with
that, but otherwise there is no constraint on how the
feedback path between the output and the perception is
implemented. CoO theories of organic control do care
about the implementation, because they require that the
output be calculated using knowledge of what happens in
the feedback path to create the desired effects on the
perception.

 RM: Right.

            MT:Â 

It’s the beauty of PCT that no knowledge of Real Reality
is needed beyond the consistencies of relationships
provided our sensors by whatever happens to be hidden
there.

        RM: To a large extent this is true. But I can think of

many cases of human controlling that does require knowledge
of real reality, For example, consider launching a satellite
in to low earth orbit. This requires very accurate
knowledge of real reality in the for of models provided by
the physical sciences.

Yes. But I'm not clear whether this is supposed to contradict

anything I said. The phrasing suggests it is, but the content says
it isn’t.

All these models and procedures rely on perceptions built by the

consistent relationships among the influences from Real Reality that
we can sense. We call the most consistent sets of relationships
“Laws of Nature” which almost always work. We know that our current
“Laws of Nature” don’t work all the time, because the laws of
General Relativity (which are needed for satellite operations) are
inconsistent with Quantum Chromodynamics laws (which are needed for
nuclear operations). Still, the relationships provided by Real
Reality from which we extract the Laws of Nature that we now have
seem to be better chosen than those that produced older Laws of
Nature such as the phlogiston law of heat or the Ptolemaic laws of
planetary motion.

You talk about "accurate knowledge of real reality" when there's no

way for us ever to know what in Real Reality produces the
relationships from which we are able to choose. I doubt that anyone
will ever be able to disprove my goblin bureaucracy suggestion, just
as I doubt that anyone will ever believe it to be correct. The CEVs
of our perceptions are of structures that produce perceived
relationships that match the relationships given us by Real Reality
as closely as the evolution/reorganization of our perceptual
functions allows. Maybe there’s something in RR that looks like
them, but we would never know. All we know is that there is
something in RR that behaves much as our CEVs do.

Martin

···

BestÂ

Rick

            Science produces ever more such Perceptual Functions,

and sometimes those ones puzzle us. Our unaided sensory
systems never create a pattern that we perceive as a
wave and as a particle, or one in which the state is
unresolved until the state of another “wavicle”
elsewhere is observed. Why should it? Science uses
sensors sensitive to properties of Real Reality for
which we have no sensors. I think it was Einstein who
said that the Universe is not only stranger than we
imagine, it is stringer than we can imagine. But the
beauty of PCT is that this doesn’t matter. What matters
is what works. No theory of control that is not a theory
of control of input can make this claim. The genius of
Powers was to see how this applies to life itself.

            Martin

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

                                "Perfection

is achieved not when you have
nothing more to add, but when you
have
nothing left to take away.�
   Â
            --Antoine de
Saint-Exupery

[rsmarken]

[Rick Marken 2019-04-27_12:45:23]

[Martin Taylor 2019.04.26.14.27]

MT: All these [scientific] models and procedures rely on perceptions built by the

consistent relationships among the influences from Real Reality that
we can sense.

RM: OK.Â

Â

MT: We call the most consistent sets of relationships

“Laws of Nature” which almost always work.

 RM: I think the phrase “Laws of Nature” in an unfortunate one because it implies that what is observed is the way reality really works. In fact, “Law of Nature” refers to observations that fit current physical models accurately. So it was a “law of nature” that light travels in straight lines because that model fit all observations. Then another model came along and predicted that the path of light is bent by gravity. This new “law of nature” is really a new, more successful model of nature.Â

MT: We know that our current

“Laws of Nature” don’t work all the time, because the laws of
General Relativity (which are needed for satellite operations) are
inconsistent with Quantum Chromodynamics laws (which are needed for
nuclear operations).

RM: Right. It’s not the laws of nature that don’t work all the time; it’s the models of nature being eventually replaced by better models. This is because the models are simply our best current guess about the nature of reality. Science progresses to the extent that the models get better and better as approximations to that reality; each new iteration of these models should explain what the previous models explained and some new, previously unexplained observations. This is why “the environment” or "real reality"Â in PCT is our best current physical science models of the nature of reality.Â

MT: Still, the relationships provided by Real

Reality from which we extract the Laws of Nature that we now have
seem to be better chosen than those that produced older Laws of
Nature such as the phlogiston law of heat or the Ptolemaic laws of
planetary motion.

RM: Right. But sometimes the “old”, somewhat imperfect models will serve as the models of reality for practical purposes. We still use Newton’s model to fly satellites; as far as I l know we only use Einstein’s model to accurately synchronize the clocks on the fast moving satellites with those on the relatively slow moving earth.

MT: You talk about "accurate knowledge of real reality" when there's no

way for us ever to know what in Real Reality produces the
relationships from which we are able to choose.

RM: I’m talking about scientific accuracy, not cosmic accuracy (or epistemological accuracy or whatever you want to call it). Scientific accuracy just means how well our theories account for the observations (perceptions) predicted by those theories.Â

Â

MT: I doubt that anyone

will ever be able to disprove my goblin bureaucracy suggestion

RM: You can’t disprove a theory that makes no predictions. And the predictions of the theory must be clearly derivable from the assumptions of the theory. I see no way of deriving testable predictions from your description of the goblin theory.Â

Â

MT: The CEVs

of our perceptions are of structures that produce perceived
relationships that match the relationships given us by Real Reality

RM: So now CEVs are “of our perceptions” rather than being perceptions themselves? This seems to take us back to the idea that CEVs are entities in the environment that we perceive. Indeed, you say they are “structures that produce relationships that match the relationships given us by real reality”. Why not just go with the PCT idea that what you call CEV’s are perceptions that are a function of real reality, where real reality is defined by our current best models of physical reality.Â

MT: Maybe there's something in RR that looks like

them, but we would never know. All we know is that there is
something in RR that behaves much as our CEVs do.

RM:Â Yes, we know that variable aspects of RR that are our perceptions vary as as expected from our models of RR. So, for example, I can control the position of a table (a variable aspect of my environment) only by applying the forces Newton says I have to apply in order to produce that perception.

RM: Also, note that what we control are variables. A table is not a variable; it is the state of a variable that could be called “type of furniture”. You might control for a particular value of that variable when you are furnishing a room; putting the table in this room, the bed in that room and the couch in the other room. I don’t think it’s necessary to assume that there is a variable in the real world – an RREV – that corresponds to “type of furniture”. This “type of furniture” variable is certainly a function of variables in the real world but it exists only as a perceptual variable. At least, that’s the way it works in PCT.Â

RM: But since this idea of an RREV seems to be popular with everyone but me, I suppose I’ll just have to get used to it. But I would like to know how the notion of an RREV fits into research on living control systems. How, for example, is the RREV relevant to the work on object interception? How does the concept of an RREV relate to the perceptual variables that I found to be pretty accurate predictors of the behavior seen in object interception tasks?

 Best

Rick

···

Martin

BestÂ

Rick

            Science produces ever more such Perceptual Functions,

and sometimes those ones puzzle us. Our unaided sensory
systems never create a pattern that we perceive as a
wave and as a particle, or one in which the state is
unresolved until the state of another “wavicle”
elsewhere is observed. Why should it? Science uses
sensors sensitive to properties of Real Reality for
which we have no sensors. I think it was Einstein who
said that the Universe is not only stranger than we
imagine, it is stringer than we can imagine. But the
beauty of PCT is that this doesn’t matter. What matters
is what works. No theory of control that is not a theory
of control of input can make this claim. The genius of
Powers was to see how this applies to life itself.

            Martin

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

                                "Perfection

is achieved not when you have
nothing more to add, but when you
have
nothing left to take away.�
   Â
            --Antoine de
Saint-Exupery

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[MartinT]

[2019.04.27.16.35]

So far, you seem to agree with me completely. That's good.

···

Up to where I mark with *****, you
either restate of agree with what I said, so I’ll ignore that
part.

[Rick Marken 2019-04-27_12:45:23]

[Martin Taylor 2019.04.26.14.27]

          MT: All these [scientific] models and procedures rely on

perceptions built by the consistent relationships among
the influences from Real Reality that we can sense.

RM: OK.Â

Â

          MT: We call the most consistent sets

of relationships “Laws of Nature” which almost always
work.

        Â RM: I think the phrase "Laws of Nature" in an

unfortunate one because it implies that what is observed is
the way reality really works. In fact, “Law of Nature”
refers to observations that fit current physical models
accurately. So it was a “law of nature” that light travels
in straight lines because that model fit all observations.Â
Then another model came along and predicted that the path of
light is bent by gravity. This new “law of nature” is really
a new, more successful model of nature.Â

          MT: We know that our current "Laws of

Nature" don’t work all the time, because the laws of
General Relativity (which are needed for satellite
operations) are inconsistent with Quantum Chromodynamics
laws (which are needed for nuclear operations).

        RM: Right. It's not the laws of nature that don't work

all the time; it’s the models of nature being eventually
replaced by better models. This is because the models are
simply our best current guess about the nature of reality.
Science progresses to the extent that the models get better
and better as approximations to that reality; each new
iteration of these models should explain what the previous
models explained and some new, previously unexplained
observations. This is why “the environment” or "real
reality"Â in PCT is our best current physical
science models of the nature of reality.Â

          MT: Still, the relationships provided

by Real Reality from which we extract the Laws of Nature
that we now have seem to be better chosen than those that
produced older Laws of Nature such as the phlogiston law
of heat or the Ptolemaic laws of planetary motion.

        RM: Right. But sometimes the "old", somewhat imperfect

models will serve as the models of reality for practical
purposes. We still use Newton’s model to fly satellites; as
far as I l know we only use Einstein’s model to accurately
synchronize the clocks on the fast moving satellites with
those on the relatively slow moving earth.

          MT: You talk about "accurate

knowledge of real reality" when there’s no way for us ever
to know what in Real Reality produces the relationships
from which we are able to choose.

        RM: I'm talking about scientific accuracy, not cosmic

accuracy (or epistemological accuracy or whatever you want
to call it). Scientific accuracy just means how well our
theories account for the observations (perceptions)
predicted by those theories.Â

Â

          MT: I doubt that anyone will ever be

able to disprove my goblin bureaucracy suggestion

        RM: You can't disprove a theory that makes no

predictions. And the predictions of the theory must be
clearly derivable from the assumptions of the theory. I see
no way of deriving testable predictions from your
description of the goblin theory.

Â

          MT: The CEVs of our perceptions are

of structures that produce perceived relationships that
match the relationships given us by Real Reality

        RM: So now CEVs are "of our perceptions" rather than

being perceptions themselves? This seems to take us back to
the idea that CEVs are entities in the environment that we
perceive. Indeed, you say they are “structures that produce
relationships that match the relationships given us by real
reality”. Why not just go with the PCT idea that what you
call CEV’s are perceptions that are a function of real
reality,

•  just go with the PCT idea that what you call CEV's are
  

perceptions that are a function of real reality*

•  You can't disprove a theory that makes no
  

predictions. And the predictions of the theory must be clearly
derivable from the assumptions of the theory. I see no way of
deriving testable predictions from your description of the goblin
theory*

        where real reality is defined by our current best models

of physical reality.

          MT: Maybe there's something in RR

that looks like them, but we would never know. All we know
is that there is something in RR that behaves much as our
CEVs do.

        RM:Â  Yes, we know that variable aspects of RR that are

our perceptions vary as as expected from our models of RR.
So, for example, I can control the position of a table (a
variable aspect of my environment) only by applying the
forces Newton says I have to apply in order to produce that
perception.

RM: Also, note that what we control are variables .
A table is not a variable;

        it is the state of a variable that could be called "type

of furniture".

        You might control for a particular value of that

variable when you are furnishing a room; putting the table
in this room, the bed in that room and the couch in the
other room. I don’t think it’s necessary to assume that
there is a variable in the real world – an RREV – that
corresponds to “type of furniture”. This “type of furniture”
variable is certainly a function of variables in the
real world but it exists only as a perceptual variable.

•  At least,
  

that’s the way it works in PCT*

At least, that’s the way it works in PCT.Â

        RM: But since this idea of an RREV seems to be popular

with everyone but me, I suppose I’ll just have to get used
to it. But I would like to know how the notion of an RREV
fits into research on living control systems. How, for
example, is the RREV relevant to the work on object
interception? How does the concept of an RREV relate to the
perceptual variables that I found to be pretty accurate
predictors of the behavior seen in object interception
tasks?

 Best

Rick

          Martin

BestÂ

Rick

                      Science produces ever more such Perceptual

Functions, and sometimes those ones puzzle us.
Our unaided sensory systems never create a
pattern that we perceive as a wave and as a
particle, or one in which the state is
unresolved until the state of another
“wavicle” elsewhere is observed. Why should
it? Science uses sensors sensitive to
properties of Real Reality for which we have
no sensors. I think it was Einstein who said
that the Universe is not only stranger than we
imagine, it is stringer than we can imagine.
But the beauty of PCT is that this doesn’t
matter. What matters is what works. No theory
of control that is not a theory of control of
input can make this claim. The genius of
Powers was to see how this applies to life
itself.

                      Martin

–
Richard S.
MarkenÂ

                                          "Perfection

is achieved not when you
have nothing more to add,
but when you
have
nothing left to take
away.�
Â
            Â
  --Antoine de
Saint-Exupery

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

                                "Perfection

is achieved not when you have
nothing more to add, but when you
have
nothing left to take away.�
   Â
            --Antoine de
Saint-Exupery

[rsmarken]

[Rick Marken 2019-04-27_22:10:05]

Â

          MT: The CEVs of our perceptions are

of structures that produce perceived relationships that
match the relationships given us by Real Reality

        RM: So now CEVs are "of our perceptions" rather than

being perceptions themselves?..

MT: This is a neat debating trick you seem to favour -- taking

statements out of the context of the ongoing thread.

RM: I’m not debating you. I’m just trying to figure out what this CEV and RREV stuff is about.Â

 MT: As you have to know, having been a thread participant, I do

“* just go with the PCT idea that what you call CEV’s are
perceptions that are a function of real reality*,”

RM: OK, great. So CEVs are exactly the same as controlled quantities.Â

MT: But I do NOT go along with this. Real Reality is not defined by

anything since we can know nothing of it other than the
relationships it induces among our sensory inputs and our actions.

 RM: OK, so that is different than the PCT view, which is that reality is taken to be the models of the physical sciences.Â

MT: Our current "best models of physical reality" can be derived from

the data provided by the goblin bureaucracy exactly as well as they
can by any other of the several that have been seriously proposed.
Those same data are all you have to work with, and you simply cannot
“define” real reality as being any one of them rather than any
other.

RM: This doesn’t make sense to me; nor does it correspond to anything in PCT. Â

MT: I remain puzzled why for so many years you treat functions of

variables as though they were not variables themselves in the same
sense of the word.

RM: And I remain puzzled why you think that. I’ve always said that perception is a variable – the perceptual signal – that is a function of other variables. You can’t build PCT models without knowing that.

Â

MT: As far as perceptions are concerned, the only

functions of interest are the perceptual functions, which produce
functions of their inputs that we call Perceptions. * At least,
that’s the way it works in PCT*.

RM: Yes, that is indeed the way it works in PCT.Â

        RM: But since this idea of an RREV seems to be popular

with everyone but me, I suppose I’ll just have to get used
to it. But I would like to know how the notion of an RREV
fits into research on living control systems. How, for
example, is the RREV relevant to the work on object
interception? How does the concept of an RREV relate to the
perceptual variables that I found to be pretty accurate
predictors of the behavior seen in object interception
tasks?

MT: I'm not sure what you are asking. Are you asking how predictions

based on an unknowable RREV can improve on predictions based on our
perceptions, the answer is that it can’t.

RM: OK, great. So it’s useless for research purposes, as I suspected.Â

MT: The fact that control

works and often works very well is testament to the ability of
evolution and reorganization to provide functions that fit parts of
Real Reality quite closely.

RM: How do you know that perceptions fit parts of real reality quite closely? In order to know this you must know what real reality is. So can you tell how close someone’s perceptions are to real reality?

MT: If they didn't, you wouldn't be able to

control very well using the derived perceptions.

RM: Ah, so how well one controls a perceptual variable is a measure of how well that perceptual variable corresponds to real reality? Is that right?

Â

MT: What the notion of

an RREV can do is allow you an escape hatch if your predictions
based on perceptions/CEVs doesn’t fit your experiments. And that, I
think, would by itself be enough to demonstrate the importance of
the concept for scientific research of any kind, PCT included.

 RM: This sounds interesting. Could you explain it in more detail.

Â

MT: As I pointed out several times, the fact that you may have created a

perception/CEV from sensory data does NOT mean that there exists a
corresponding RREV out there in Real Reality. What it does mean is
that you cannot control that perception by acting on the RREV.

RM: Could you give me an example of that. So if I am perceiving something that I can’t control it’s because the perception doesn’t correspond to an RREV? Couldn’t it be because I have no means of influencing that perception? Or that I have not yet developed the skill to control that perception? How do I know when my inability to control a perception is because the perceptual variable doesn’t correspond to an RREV?

MT: You

would have to act on its elements in ways that maintain the sensory
relationships that led to the perception in the first place. Just
imagine trying to create a picture by individually colouring each
pixel, rather than by sweeping a paintbrush over many pixels all
together! Sometimes, when your CEV seems to be “out there” in the
consciously perceived environment, there is a corresponding RREV,
sometimes there isn’t. The famous “taste of lemonade” is an example
of when there probably isn’t.

 RM: But if the taste of lemonade doesn’t correspond to an RREV then I shouldn’t be able to control for it. But I can? I’m so confused!

MT: If thinking of the RREV doesn't help you get some ideas clearer in

your head, don’t use the concept.Â

RM: Yes, I think that would go a long way to eliminating my confusion.Â

Â

MT: Nobody is pressuring you to use

it, though I am and have been trying to illustrate to you how and
when it might be useful.

RM: Well, thanks for trying.

Â

MT: It helps me shed light on a few murky

issues, and it may help one or two others if not you, so I think it
is worth thinking through.

RM: When I think it trough it just makes things murkier. I guess I’m just the scarecrow to your wizard;-)

 BestÂ

Rick

···

Martin

 Best

Rick

          Martin

BestÂ

Rick

                      Science produces ever more such Perceptual

Functions, and sometimes those ones puzzle us.
Our unaided sensory systems never create a
pattern that we perceive as a wave and as a
particle, or one in which the state is
unresolved until the state of another
“wavicle” elsewhere is observed. Why should
it? Science uses sensors sensitive to
properties of Real Reality for which we have
no sensors. I think it was Einstein who said
that the Universe is not only stranger than we
imagine, it is stringer than we can imagine.
But the beauty of PCT is that this doesn’t
matter. What matters is what works. No theory
of control that is not a theory of control of
input can make this claim. The genius of
Powers was to see how this applies to life
itself.

                      Martin

–
Richard S.
MarkenÂ

                                          "Perfection

is achieved not when you
have nothing more to add,
but when you
have
nothing left to take
away.�
Â
            Â
  --Antoine de
Saint-Exupery

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

                                "Perfection

is achieved not when you have
nothing more to add, but when you
have
nothing left to take away.�
   Â
            --Antoine de
Saint-Exupery

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery