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 Vyv Huddy (2015.12.10.1342)–
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VH:
My nascent understanding is that PCT takes a realist stance and not a functionalist stance. This is based on things Iâve read in LCS III that back that up I donât have the book here so canât
add direct quotes yet. As a PCT novice Iâm trying do some foundational work so any ideas from the group would be welcome on this!
RM: Do you mean a “stance” regarding perception? If so, I would call the PCT stance “constructivist”, though I’m not sure I know exactly what the “realist” or “functionalist” stances are. I say “constructivist” because, per the basic PCT control diagram, the perceptual input function can be seen to be “constructing” a perception from the sensory effects of environmental stimulation.Â
RM: In PCT the environment side of the control diagram is not the environment that we experience – the one made up of people, trees, houses, books, music, etc. Rather, it’s the model of the environment that we get from physics and chemistry – a model that includes variables like electromagnetic and acoustic energy and gravitational forces-- variables that constitute the environmental stimuli that produce the sensory effects that are the raw materials from which our perceptual experience is created.Â
RM: This is called a “constructivist” view of perception to distinguish it from what I would call a “detectionist” view of perception. The “detectionist” view is probably the one that is most common in psychology and also most intuitively comfortable to lay people. It is the view that perception is seeing reality “though a glass darkly”. This view assumes that there is a world out there – the environment made up of people, trees, houses, books, music, etc. – and that the job of perception is to “detect” these things.
RM: The PCT view is that what we experience as an environment made up of people, trees, houses, books, music, etc. is a construction based on the sensory stimulation caused by the environment modeled by physics and chemistry. At the sensory surface this environment is William James’s “booming, buzzing confusion”. According to PCT, the perceptual functions at different levels of the nervous system construct different types of perceptions: intensities, sensations, configurations, transitions, … system concepts – based on this booming, buzzing sensory input. Â
RM: Implicitly, PCT says that all humans come pre-wired to construct these different types of perception. So PCT says that everyone perceive the world in the same way – in terms of the perceptual types in the hierarchy. My guess is that the nervous system constructs perceptions of these types for evolutionary reasons; people who perceived the world in these terms were able to control more successfully – and, thus, were more likely to survive and reproduce – than those who didn’t. So I believe that there is functional significance to the way we perceive the world, so I guess I’m a constructivist-functionalist.Â
RM: I think I’m also a realist in the sense that I believe that there is a real world out there, even though I know that what I experience as “reality” is a perceptual construction. I believe that the real world out there is pretty closely approximated by the models of physics and chemistry. And I also think that the lowest level types of perceptual variables we construct – intensities, sensations, configurations, transitions – correspond pretty closely to what is “really” going on in reality. The perception of intensity corresponds (though non-linearly) to the intensity of the physical variables of the physical model of reality. Same with sensations, like color, which correspond to specific combinations of the intensity of physical variables.Configurations correspond to physical variables that group together, as in collections of molecules that we see as objects of a particular shape.Â
RM: I think once we get to the hypothetical event level the perceptions that are constructed are more arbitrarily related to what the physical models say is actually “out there”. I don’t think there is anything in physical reality that constrains us to construct perceptions of events, programs, principles or system concepts. I think primates, and the homo line in particular, have evolved the ability to construct perceptions of this type in order to be able to control what they have to control in order to survive – language (program perception), sets of rules for interpersonal interaction (principles) and collections of principles to allow the formation of large societies (system concepts).Â
RM: So I would say that the PCT stance on perception (or, epistemology) is that the perceptions that we control are constructions based on sensory data that is caused by an external (environmental) reality that is approximated by the models of physics and chemistry, and these constructions are not arbitrary but have functional significance in the sense that they allow us to control the aspects of physical reality that we have to be able to control in order to be able to survive. In other words, I would say that the PCT stance is constructivist – realist – functionalist.Â
BestÂ
Rick
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Richard S. MarkenÂ
www.mindreadings.com
Author, with Timothy A. Carey, of  Controlling People: The Paradoxical Nature of Being Human.Â
Available at Amazon on December 22