[From Bill Powers (940507.0735 MDT)]
Thomas Baines (940507.0134) --
The hardest thing to learn about tracking is that you must
not try to predict the behavior of the "trackee", but
rather concentrate on discerning intent.'
Tell that to those who think that control always entails prediction.
Discerning intent is what the Test is all about, isn't it?
In tracking someone or something capable of exhibiting
intent, the key to success is to try and think like the
trackee. You must try to percieve the world as he does.
That's what the concept of the Test is for: to check whether your
guess about his perception is correct, and discover the reference
setting for that perception. Of course you know that.
Trying to predict whether he will turn left or right, climb
up or down, is hopeless, because you will always be one
step or so behind. You will be analyzing his last gee
while he is executing the next haw.
Predicting actions requires not only knowing what is being perceived
and its reference level, but predicting disturbances. That often
makes predicting actions impossible.
If, however, you can gain some insight as to how he is
viewing the world that you both are simultaneously
experiencing, you stand some chance of doing what John
Boyd called "getting inside his decision cycle."
At least you will know what constitutes a disturbance for the other
guy. But unless you can predict disturbances better than he can, the
best you can hope for is to act at the same time that the other guy
acts. And the fact that the other guy is reacting to error, while
you have to make a prediction first and then act, means that you
will always be a little behind an equal adversary. I presume that
you are speaking of adversaries.
RE: Habits
As I said, I think that words like "habit" are from an older
vocabulary and don't tell us a lot. My own experiments with
subjectivity (informed by some reading in the Eastern philosphies)
have led me to distinguish between what most people call
"consciousness" and "awareness." Most of what is meant by
consciousness, as witness AI, is symbol manipulation, which I see as
a particular level of brain function. The name given to this level
of brain activity by Eastern experimental philosophers is "monkey
chatter." We Westerners call it thinking or analyzing or
understanding.
We manipulate symbols according to rules, first by representing the
analog perceptions of lower levels as symbols, which are the
perceptions at these higher levels, then by plugging the symbols
into computational processes that work with discrete or at least
formal representations of experience. These computations are very
slow, and in addition are incapable of handling very many details.
When we try to act "consciously," we become aware primarily of the
symbolic representations of experience, and the manipulations we use
to arrive at symbolic conclusions or decisions. We talk to
ourselves, or engage in mental algebra or arithmetic or
logical/verbal reasoning. While we are computing angles and
centroids and one-to-one correspondences, someone operating at the
analog level has already cut the cake and handed out the pieces.
You say
The objective is NOT, however, to develop a habitual
reaction to any given situation. That is precisely what
karate, kung fu, akido, et al try to keep you from doing.
The desired skill is to move, without thinking, to deal
with the environment - whether a threat is present at that
moment or not. The objective is not habit, but rather
awareness.
I'd put it this way. To move without "thinking" is to react to
disturbances at the analog levels -- awaredly, but without symbol
manipulation. It is to conceive of intentions directly in terms of
the perceptions to be controlled, rather than by naming the
perceptions and going through a symbolic decision process that ends
up with the name of the desired movement, which must then be
translated into a reference signal that is of the correct perceptual
type.
Trying to "decide" about actions only slows them down. What you want
is a tight control system that is already maintaining each relevant
perception in a desired state. Then the only reaction time involved
is what is required for a change in perception to register as an
error signal and alter lower-level reference signals for action
systems. Nothing can happen any faster than that.
An interesting experiment is to track a randomly moving object with
your finger (like someone else's finger), and arrange for the target
occasonally to pause for a few seconds and then resume its random
movements. While you're continuously tracking, the control systems
are continuously active, and the total transport lag is something
like 0.16 sec. But when there are pauses, the transport lag goes up
to about 0.2 to 0.3 seconds. In tracking experiments where the
target jumps randomly among five fixed positions, we measure more
like 0.3 seconds transport lag. Higher-order systems get into the
act, because now they are trying to anticipate when the movement
will start up again. I would guess that a senior sensei would show a
reaction time of 0.16 sec.
I have read that all yogas are the Yoga, all ways are the Way. I
have approached an understanding of behavior -- which is no
different from an understanding of experience -- by way of the Raja
Yoga (speaking metaphorically and through a bullshit filter), by
thinking. But wherever you start, you eventually have to become
aware of all the levels of functioning, because they're all
necessary and part of the whole picture. To understand PCT you have
to be familiar with the lower levels as well as the higher, which
means paying attention to them, identifying awaredly with them. You
have to be able to shut off the monkey chatter occasionaly, to see
what experience is like without it.
I'm not one of those who think that all ancient wisdom is
necessarily wise, or that Eastern minds have found The Answers that
Western minds have lost. Eastern philosphers haven't been big on
testing hypotheses, so a lot of what they have gained by way of
insight into subjective functioning is offset by myths and fairy
tales that substitute for more productive ways of employing thought
processes. I like to think that PCT is a creature of the Middle Way;
that it preserves the baby while finally dumping a lot of pretty
yucky bathwater that has been used too many times.
One last subject, brought up by your remark:
The reason one feels so awkward when first learning, for
example, the Tai Chi step, is that the motion, although
absolutely natural, is unfamiliar.
Why should the mere fact of "familiarity" make a movement easier to
produce? I think the answer is in a seldom-used postulate of HPCT,
which is that reference signals are replayed perceptions, derived
from memory. Bob Clark has been the most active in keeping this
postulate in front of us; the rest of us seldom use it for anything.
I have had in mind for a long time a series of experiments for
testing this hypothesis. It would involve having people do tasks in
which errors can be corrected by using only a few handle positions
out of the total number possible. After asymptotic skill has been
reached, a new disturbance would be presented, opposing which
requires using one of the handle positions that has never been
experienced as the final position required for control. This means
that this position would be underrepresented in memory, and thus
more difficult to access as the source of the required reference
signal for lower systems. If memory is indeed the source of
reference signals, control should be difficult at first whenever
this new value of disturbance is presented, and would show the same
learning curve as for all other disturbances when the task is first
encountered.
"Awareness" exercises, as in Feldenkrais physiotherapy, might be
just as much "memory" exercises -- accumulating finely-spaced
memories of body configurations over the whole range of
configurations rather than the narrow range that we -- excuse me --
habitually employ. And not just configurations, but transitions,
events, and relationships.
Is walking, jete', or washi giri habitual movement? I
don't think so. I think they are the absence of habit -
the constant reassessment of position and desired location.
Aren't these elements of PCT?
Aw, come on now. PCT is an abstract theoretical system, isn't it?
···
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Bill Cunningham <940507.0900>
How would your scenario play out if the intrepid musher hadn't
seen the terrain before, but established intent based on
prestart briefing that might contain map/terrain and weather
forecast for duration of the race?
The briefing might help somewhat, particularly if you have 100 tries
so you can get some help from averages.
The phrase "Head 'em off at the pass" involves knowledge of the
territory (assumed to be shared by all parties), and also the
reasonable assumption that nobody would be so dumb as to try to get
across the mountains by climbing over a peak.
Maps obviously help because, down to a certain scale, they tend to
be pretty accurate. They won't tell you, however, that a bridge is
washed out or a trail drifted over, or that your lead bitch has
inconveniently gone into heat. The map is not the territory, by a
long shot. While you're comparing the map with the territory, you
can step into a hole that isn't on the map.
As to weather forecasts, it's better to be prepared for anything.
The weather you can be sure about you can already see.
I understand that you've retired. I trust you'll find a way to stay
on the net. Congratulations: now you can get to work on what matters
to you.
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Best to all,
Bill P.