i. kurtzer (970228)
there seems to be some haggling about what are the legitimite questions of
a science of purpose. Demarcations have entered the arena, each
emphasizing a portion of _one_ process. Clearly, there is a distinction
between perceptual and motoric "organization" , between eyes and legs, but
i cannot overstress that within a PCT framework these distinctions are
contrained within a unifying process, a control process. And within this
framework there is a methodological counterpart that places these
questions in context, suggesting procedure, and defining the boundaries of
its applicability, that is the Test.
How are the "a"'s of cats perceived as such and not as the "ah" of dog or
hog. This is certainly a "perceptual" question, but with few exceptions
this was studied as if the criteria was self-evident: does the individual
respond appropriately according to some criteria. Within a science of
purpose this is not so unbounded, rather it is extremely specific: the
"a"s and "ah"s can be perceptually paired to CVs as determined by their
relative invariance with respect to independent disturbances--according to
a conjecture. Now based on a clear determination of this CV pair we can
conjecture an interelation defining their phonological similaries and
differences. And how is this tested?, again with another vowel and
another Test. The Test is not about all the possible things we can
control, rather its specifies a context in which to pursue our questions
and decide the worth of our conjectures. For those who think that the
Test is not applicable to studying "perceptual" or "motoric" organization
i urge you to read "Degrees of Freedom in Behavior" and "Behavior in the
First Degree" (the size experiement), both show the logic of the Test and
its diverse applicability.
i.