[From Rick Marken (930914.0830)]
Michael Fehling (930912 5:49 PM PDT)
I really think that you'll get more satisfaction about competence theories
if, as I suggested earlier, you go to the source (i.e., Chomsky himself).
Also, I do not want to waste CSG-L time on a tuturial on (psycho)linguistics.
I think I speak for the entire CSG community when I say "not to
worry"; nothing is too basic for discussion on CSGNet. In fact,
the best way to understand PCT is to start by taking _nothing_ for
granted. Often psychologists don't even know what they are taking for
granted -- but if it seems ridiculously elementary or self-evident then
it is almost certainly worth discussion on CSGNet. One of Bill Powers'
most important papers (Psych Review, 1978; reprinted in "Living Control
Systems") is subtitled "Some spadework at the foundations of scientific
psychology". That was the paper that put this scientific psychologist
over the PCT edge. It made me realize that the problems of psychology
were not whether theory A owas better than theory B; the problems of
psychology started with everything that I (and every other psychologist)
was taking for granted -- the fundamental, unspoken assumptions of
scientific psycholgy.
I have spent the last 12+ years doing exactly what Bill describes in the
subtitle of that article -- picking away (experimentally) at the most
obvious, the most foundational assumptions of my discipline. "Mind
Readings" is the result of that effort. It is a collection of experiments
that remove the legs from the table of scientific psychology. One set
of experiments shows that sensory inputs are not the cause of response
outputs when there is feedback from output to input. These harmless looking
little "tracking" studies shows that the conventional independent-dependent
variable approach to studying organisms (the approach used in ALL areas
of scientific psychology, cognitive included) will tell you next to nothing
about the nature of the organism under investigation (not good news for
all the writers of experimental methodology texts -- like myself). Another
set of experiments shows that you can not tell what a person is doing by
looking at their behavior (this is what my "mind reading" program is about).
Behavior is NOT an objective phenomenon -- it is a subjective phenomenon;
an intended state of a perception. Although behavior is subjective it is
possible to find out what a person is doing (trying to perceive) by using
"The Test". The "mind reading" program is a "real time" application of the
test -- revealing a person's intentions when those intentions are completely
invisible in overt behavior.
PCT shows that the basic assumptions of ALL behavioral science (including
cognitive science and psycholinguistics) are wrong. This is why PCT people
don't get excited about looking at all the new theories in these areas.
It's a bit like looking for good theories of matter in the alchemical
literature. If the life sciences have blundered at step one then it is
highly unlikely that anything that was said or done after that step
is of much value -- except by chance (so we do keep looking, just in case).
Michael Fehling (930913 10:39 PM PDT)--
More generally, I'm becoming less convinced of your interpretation as t why
S-R people misunderstand your theory
There are probably many reasons for the misinterpretations of PCT -- not
only by S-R people, by the way. Ccognitive types have made quite a hash
of it -- and published quite a bit of that hash in major journals (see
a recent [Jan 1992?] Psych Review article by Carver and Scheier). One
of the reasons for the misunderstandings is probably related to my point
above. Most psychologists, cognitve scientists, psycholinguists, etc
seem very anxious to go out there and "explain it all". They want complex
theories of adaptive behavior (artificial life) they want grand theories of
intellgent behavior (SOAR) -- that want it big and they want it NOW.
PCT, on the other hand, is about fundamentals. PCT says that these
ornate mansions -- these grand theories (like Chomsky's and Newell's) --
are built on sand. PCT aims to create a science of life built on a strong
foundation. We prefer to work carefully in the trenches -- making sure the
basic facts and assumptions are solid before moving on (carefully) to the
next step. We don't know what the grand mansion of PCT will look like;
that's far in the future. Right now, all we are doing is making sure
that the foundation is properly set -- with 99.99% accuracy.
So people who want the grand mansion -- and want it NOW -- will surely
find much of PCT quite boring. We're like Galileo, rolling those little
balls down planes -- not knowing that "black holes" and "background
radiation" lies in the future. But when radio astronomy comes along,
those rolling balls (we hope) will provide a solid factual and
theoretical foundation for understanding THE UNIVERSE.
So I'd add impatience to the list of reasons why PCT has not caught on
like wildfire. PCT is for the tortoises of the world (like Newton and
Galileo) not for the hares (like Newell and Chomsky).
Slowly but surely,
Rick