From Tom Bourbon [940419.1018]
(This reply could be subtitled: "Straight is the gate and narrow is the
way.")
<Martin Taylor 940415 19:30>
I tried to post the following to Tom Bourbon at the address from which
his successful posting to CSG-L today came. It was returned to me
with the following explanation:
550 <tbourbon@HEART.MED.UTH.TMC.EDU>... User unknown
So all is not yet well.
I have passed that good news along to our system people. It will make their
day. I sent that test post later on Friday, then left town and did not
learn the results until this morning. *This* is what it is like to act in
an open loop -- not at all like most things I do. Actually, this isn't so
bad -- I can fire away with impunity, knowing that any replies to me will be
public and tactful, not private and nasty.
Here, Tom, is the message I tried to send directly to you.
=====================
Tom,
As for:
Don't let it happen, people.
How can we prevent it? They are already there.
Martin:
I was thinking of how often PCT people get slapped down, and hoping that
the narrowing would not happen here--not that there's much evidence of it
doing so.
I knew what you meant -- in my haste to test the new operating system and
mail softwaer, I omitted the seemingly all-important ;-> which might have
revealed that I believe the narrowing and sclerosis have already set in,
but on the side of the slap happy traditional neuro-behavioral-cognitive
sciences. Martin, in what follows, I do not imply that *you* said the
narrowing has occurred here.
It is true that the research base for PCT is small, but that fact testifies
more to the priorities of PCT "advocates" than to PCT as science. Most
followers of PCT, many of whom are on this net, say they are too busy with
other things to get on with the tedious business of gathering hard data
(not anecdotes) to demonstrate the facts of control of all sorts, among all
kinds of living things. Even fewer advocates have taken the time and
trouble to learn something about programming and modeling; on this point,
people profess ignorance and lack of ability, as though those constructs
operate in classical C-->E fashion to cause the absence of active modeling
-- as in "My history won't let me do it," or "It must be my genes," or "I'm
a victim, don't you see?"
Small though the body of PCT research and modeling may be, I welcome anyone
to show me a body of research conducted under any other research "paradigm"
or "programme" in which one clearly stated quantitative model produces
detailed and accurate predictions or recreations of behavior with a scope as
broad as in PCT. Where has the "narrow" PCT modeling effort taken us?
Learning in rats, and by extension in other species; "chemotaxis" in E.
coli and similar results for people, and by extension a model for
reorganization in all living things; the production, among multiple
independent PCT models working in parallel, of trajectories and static
patterns that resemble those seen in movements and gatherings in social
species of many kinds; the parallel and hierarchical PCT models in the Arm
program, which refutes the popular theories of motor control and planning;
additional data on, and models of, hierarchical control and multiple degrees
of freedom in control; "mind reading"; good old fashioned tracking, by
people acting alone and in pairs (or more), using one hand, or two,
interacting with PCT models in real time, in combinations that raise
challenges to conventional "explanations" and theories in social psychology,
neurology, cognitive science, neuroscience, person-machine interaction, and
beyond. Guess how many people have worked on those models.
My list is not intended to be exhaustive. Certainly it is not a trumpeting
of great achievements on which to rest. Consider it my shout of defiance
to anyone tempted to say PCT modelers have been slapped into narrowness and
triviality. Consider it my lamentation that so many followers of PCT are
content to remain safely away from the gathering of hard data -- the kinds
one can submit for rejection by "real" scientific journals -- and from the
rigors of modeling -- modeling, an exercise that can leave its
practitioners looking cold and heartless and tactless to those who do not
submit themselves and their ideas to repeated testing and failure. Utter
and absolute failure -- nature telling you, tactlessly, unambiguously,
without so much as a thank you in the middle of the night, that your ideas
are wrong.
The gate is straight and narrow is the way, but I am in awe of the results.
Think how much more there could be, if only a few more people took up part
of the work.
Now that you seem to have access, do you have anything to say in reference
to the dialogue between Bill P and me, that should have all been copied to
you?
Glad to see you reconnected.
Only partially so, but thanks. I'll say more about the exchange when I am
completely re-attached.
Later,
Tom