[From Rick Marken (961024.1320)]
Bill Benzon (961023) to Bill Powers --
Sure, what I've said is as deep into armwaving as the upper levels of your
stack. And when Rick Marken applauds Pythagoras for his contributions to
the logic level, that is completely vacuuous. But it is your kind of
vacuousness...
The reason Bill likes my vacuousness better than your hand waving is because
I have done research to test my vacuous ideas. My spreadsheet model includes
(at the highest level) systems that control for logical functions of lower
order perceptions being true or false. So I know that a hierarchical control
model can control logical perceptual variables. I have also done experiments
to test people's ability to control logical and higher level variables (like
sequences and programs); I didn't publish these experiments because I've
learned that nobody outside of PCT (and hardly anyone who considers
themselves inside of PCT) is interested in them anyway.
So when I speak of Pythagoras' logic level of perception I am speaking of
something that is almost as real to a control theorist as an atom is to a
chemist.
Bruce Gregory (961024.1115)]
Martin, like Kent, is talking about the behavior of control systems.
Both are using the same "dynamical equations."
Not from what I undertand. Kent is using control system equations to model
interacting control systems; Martin is (or would like to be) using dynamical
"attractor" equations to model the behavior that _results_ from the
interaction of control system equations.
Bill's "guru" exists as an "attractor" in real space...This attractor is
not a new "force" or principle. It is simply a way of describing the
trajectories in phase space.
I think it is very misleading to talk about this kind of social convergence
using descriptive terms like "attractor". It can't help but give one the
impression that the guru actually pulls people toward him.
I claim that there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- that has been or ever
will be learned about the social behavior of control systems from looking at
this behavior in terms of attractors. The fact that social behavior
sometimes seems to resemble movement toward an attractor is no more
significant than noticing that a monkey's hand is tracing out E=mc2 as it
controls a cursor.
The only guaranteed result of talking about social behavior in terms of
attractors is obfuscation and confusion. The language we use to describe
phenomena _does_ make a difference. If we call something a "reinforcement",
for example, people tend to think of that thing as having a _strengthening
effect_ on other things. If, on the other hand, we call something a
"controlled variable" peeple tend of that that thing as having perceptual
characteristics that are under control.
Can you imagine how wonderful the world would be if we could get people to
_say_ "controlled variable" in situations where they would have said
"reinforcement" or "reinforcer". At first, I suspect, people would be
inclined to say "controlling variable" instead of "controlled variable".
This little linguistic mistake in itself would be an indication of how deeply
ingrained is the notion that reinforcers _strengthen_ (control) behavior.
Eventually, however, people would start saying "controlled variable"
appropriately -- and, I suspect, at that point they will have changed their
mental model of the relationship between an organism and a "reinforcer" to
one where the organism controls the "reinforcer" rather than vice versa.
I highy recommend that we try to talk about purposeful behavior as clearly
as possible. When people carry out the purpose of getting near the guru, why
talk about this as if the guru were an "attractor"? He's not. Why not just
say that people want to be near the guru? Because they do.
Let's abjure obfuscation;-)
Bill Benzon (961024) to Hans Blom --
Hans, you really ought to read McCulloch's paper on the reticular formation
(and/or what Hays & I did with it in our paper on "Principles and
Development of Natural Intelligence", which is available at my website
(with full citation to Kilmer, McCulloch, and Blom, 19969)).
Well, I completely agree with Bill Benzon on this one. I think you really
should check this stuff out, Hans. It's pretty clear that PCT is really not
working out for you. Like Emma, you remain completely clueless.
Best
Rick