···
[Rick Marken 2018-11-19_19:05:51]
[Martin
Taylor 2018.11.20.15.34]
Rick frequently says that my approach to PCT is "theory
first",
RM: It’s really more like “theory only”.
MT: Apart
from my thesis, my very first solo published paper was very
purely
"theory first". It was based entirely on the mathematics of
geodesics in
a non-Euclidean space, using some findings from observations
in my
thesis of consistent patterns of error in placing dots on
index cards.
RM: It looks like "phenomena first" to me since you used
some observations as the basis of the mathematics that
p[redicted the illusion.
Would you care to say which of these phenomena were "first",
before the theory?
-
The existence of a previously undescribed visual illusion.
-
The relation between the size of the illusion and the radius
of the disk in the illusion-inducing display.
-
That people whose vision is most precise are the most affected
by the illusion.
-
That the patterning of the disk affects the magnitude of the
illusion.
These were all unknown, at least to me and so far as I know
unknown also to the scientific literature before the theory.
So what led to the theory? Phenomena leading to data, of course,
and what led to them? Earlier theory partly, unexplained earlier
data partly, but the unexplained early data had led to different
kinds of theory based on peculiarities of memory or of mind. The
difference with this particular theory was that it was based on
analytical geometry, and was not an extension of the psychological
theory of the time, or at least not much.
As I see the intellectual path to the idea that one should look
to see whether these previously unobserved phenomena actually
exist, it is a continuous feedback loop between theory (perceptual
function) and data (an approximation to real reality).
MT: If you
don’t have theory that extends beyond what is known, you
will not
look for new kinds of data.
RM: I think every good theory extends beyond what is
known in the sense that it makes predictions about what will
be observed that has never been observed before.
Well, that is a paraphrase of what I said. At least we agree. But
I would not use your word “good”, unless you also add that the
predictions turn out to be correct. Any so-called “theory” that
does not extend beyond a description of what has been observed is
just a description undeserving of the name of “theory”.
MT: To say
theory or data should come first makes no sense to me. Some
people do both theory and data, some people prefer to gather
data, which, with luck, they will not be able to understand,
while some people extend theory which, with luck, will lead
other people to seek data they would otherwise not have
sought.
Another paraphrase of what we both said.
RM: It's extending theory just for the sake of extending
theory that I have been calling “theory first”.
Who in their right mind would do that? You are suggesting that
someone has a reference value for a perception of some theory that
differs from their current perception of the theory, quite
independent of any data the theory purports to be able to predict.
I suppose you might say that this is what all mathematicians do,
since their topic is the internal consistency of their theorems,
and in that sense, it is what all good theorists or experimenters
might be expected to do as well. Inconsistency within a theory
suggests that the theory needs to be extended, at least if you
have a reference perception for perceiving the world as being
unified under one set of internally consistent “Natural Laws”.
I should call it "theory only". Theories get usefully
extended or completely revised based on data! Extending
theory just for the sake of extending theory is not just a
waste of time; it’s an impediment to the the development of
a scientific understanding of the nature of reality.
Wrong, as myriads of examples show. Theories do get incrementally
extended because data is not completely explained by them. Even in
a standard PCT tracking study the data show anomalies that have
not been explained. More importantly, the only serious advances in
the “development of a scientific understanding of the nature of
reality” have come from a consideration of the intellectual base
of the current theory and the substitution of a quite different
base. The need for such a radical rethinking certainly may come
from a recognition either of some anomaly in the data, but it may
also come from rethinking the “why” of the theory. The very
existence of PCT comes from just such a radical reconception of
the underlying basis of all intentional behaviour.
In my example of the illusion based on visual space curvature,
the earlier data had been sought and found because of theories of
how the brain and mind work. I ignored that way of thinking about
the problem, apart from recognizing that something in the brain
was capable of visually stretching and compressing perceived space
relative to other measures of the space. That wasn’t new. Lots of
space-distorting illusions have been known for centuries. What was
new was to see that looking at the problem as being of the
curvature of space rather than of the workings of the brain could
lead to seeking (and finding) previously unsought data.
At the moment, and for the last several decades, the big problem
in physics is not that QCD or Relativity don’t predict data. They
both do, with amazing precision always limited by the ability to
measure the data. But they can’t (or haven’t yet) been reconciled.
Most probably, neither gives us a good idea of the nature of
reality, any more than the long-successful phlogiston theory gave
us a good idea about the nature of the flow of heat from a hot
body to a cold one. The anomaly to that one was the finding that
phlogiston was imponderable, not that it wrongly predicted
temperature changes. I have faith that somebody, sometime, will
find a different way of looking at the world that replaces QCD and
Relativity in the way that Relativity replaced Newtonian gravity
forces while not replacing the accuracy of Newton’s equations
where their sizes and/or velocities are human-scale.
As for my "extending PCT for the sake of it" there are at least
two independent facets. Firstly, I don’t. If I extend PCT as a
theory, it is because either the theory is insufficiently
precisely defined to account for some data and needs extending in
the precision with which the theory is described, or because the
theory does not take into account data that other science have
discovered, such as the pervasive (and clearly necessary) use of
lateral inhibition by the brain, or the effects of hormonal
changes in the body.
I don't consider it "extending PCT" when I consider how PCT
applies to understanding the effects of many people controlling
their perceptions by influencing closely related aspects of their
environment. Collective control is just an application of PCT, as
is the CROWD demo. I do consider it “extending PCT” when I
consider possible ways in which reorganization might happen. That
is an issue that worried Bill throughout the 60 or 70 years he
worked with PCT. It’s an extension PCT sorely needs, and in that
area I do try to find new ways of thinking about the problem. I
don’t think it to be “extending PCT” when I use findings from
other sciences, or casual observations of current political
problems as a reason for thinking about whether straight HPCT can
account for them or is consistent with them. As I said before, I
have faith that there is one world, and if PCT disagrees with some
findings in other sciences, something is wrong somewhere.
And I have faith that PCT, whether based on HPCT or not (I
suspect it will be), has to be part of all life if life and
thermodynamics are to be mutually consistent.
Martin