Video of Book Launch for THE STUDY OF LIVING CONTROL SYSTEMS

Dear all

In case you missed or would like to review the Book Launch for THE STUDY OF LIVING CONTROL SYSTEMS, a video of the launch is available here.

Also, if you want to get a copy of the book but don’t want to use Amazon, you can get a discounted copy if you order directly from the publisher. Just go to here and get a 20% discount by adding code TSLCS2021 at checkout.

Finally, I should note that the publisher has set up a blog site for discussions related to the subject of the book.

Best regards

Rick

Dear All,
I am the proud owner of Rick’s new book.
It would be interesting to talk about how it relates to traditional research in Psychology. DV is the behavior being studied. IV is the attempt to change the perception hypothesized being controlled. If the DV changes in a way so that the perception stays the same then this is evidence of control. The perception under study is an IV ?
David Goldstein

Hi David

I do talk a little about this in the book. I think the relationship between research on purpose – PCT-informed research – and traditional research in Psychology turns on a difference in the aims or purposes of the researcher. The aim of traditional research is to find the causes of behavior; the aim of PCT-informed research is to find the purposes of behavior. From a PCT perspective the purpose of behavior is to keep perceptual variables in reference states; so the basic aim of PCT-informed research is to determine the perceptual variables – controlled variables – around which behavior is organized.

The methods used to determine the variables organisms control can be described in terms of the variables used in traditional research(as you did above): The IV and DV in traditional research are equivalent to the IV and DV in research on purpose. But the most important variable involved in research on purpose is one that you didn’t mention and is the one that is unknown to traditional researchers: the controlled variable or CV. In research on purpose the IV is seen as a possible disturbance to the CV and the DV is seen as the possible means used to protect that CV from that disturbance.

In traditional research the researcher’s aim is to test hypotheses about the existence of a causal relationship between the IV and DV; in PCT- informed research the researcher’s aim is to test hypotheses about the CV – whether it is actually that particular variable that is being controlled. The book describes ways to determine the nature of the variables (CVs) organisms control, the general term for these methods being the Test for the Controlled Variable. The book also describes what might be the next step once you have discovered some of these CVs such as determining how they are controlled, how organisms learns to control them, whether they are hierarchically related (as proposed in the PCT model) and whether they can be classed into a small number of different types (as also proposed in the PCT model).

I look forward to hearing what you think of the book, if you manage to get through it without falling asleep. It’s nice to hear from you. And gud yontif :slight_smile:

Best

Rick

Rick,
So a CV is a variable taking place within the person’s experience. It explains the relationship between the IV (the E’s manipulation) and the DV (the subject’s behavior). Is this an intervening variable?
David Goldstein

All variables – IV, DV and CV – take place in a person’s experience. So in this sense the CV is as “real” as the IV and DV in conventional psychological experiments. But some CVs, like some IVs and DVs, seem a bit more experiential or “cognitive” than others. For example, consider the IV in Bandura’s classic experiment on aggression. The IV is the aggressiveness of a model and the DV is the aggressiveness of kids who saw differentially aggressive models.

Aggressiveness is a variable that seems very “experiential”. In conventional experiments such IVs and DVs are “objectified” by defining them in terms of lower level experiences, such as the number of times one person hits another. This is called an “operational definition” and the aggressiveness of the model (the IV) and of the subjects (the DV) in Bandura’s were quantified by operationally defining them in this way.

The same can be done with the CV. But in PCT-informed research the operational definition of the CV is a hypothesis to be tested, not a measurement method to be invoked. So in the aggression study we might hypothesize that the CV is “imitation of the model”, which could be measured as the number of times, in a fixed time period, a kid does what the aggressive model did. Of course, in PCT-informed research, hypotheses about the definition of the CV are tested one subject at a time. So It might turn out that some kids are controlling for this definition of the CV and other kids are not (which seems to be what’s happening in the Bandura experiment).

The CV is most definitely not an intervening variable that explains the relationship between an IV and a DV. The CV is the main event; the IV and DV are the side show (or, better, the side-effect show). IV-DV relationships are typically of little interest in PCT-informed experiments, except to the extent that they confirm the definition of a CV.

The primary goal of PCT-informed research is to get accurate – preferably quantitative – definitions of CVs. This is done by applying disturbances (IV) while continuously monitoring the state of a hypothetical CV (a hypothetical definition of the variable under control) and looking for lack of an expected effect of the disturbance. If there is a lack of effect it is presumably a result of the actions of the organism which are called the DV in conventional research.

I have a demo on the net that shows how you can test to determine whether or not a person is controlling some rather abstract variables: a sequence and a program. Both of these CVs are right out there in front of you though you can only see these CVs when the display rate is set appropriately; you can see (and control) the CV that is a sequence when the display rate is “medium” or “slow” and you can only see (and control) the CV that is a program when the display rate is “slow”. I hope doing these demos will show what it means when I say that CVs are just as “real” as IV and DVs.

Best regards

Rick

Rick,
Yes, all variables take place in a person’s experience. However, the IV and DV are observable to others. The CV is not. Others may correctly infer it.
David

Hi David

DG: Yes, all variables take place in a person’s experience. However, the IV and DV are observable to others. The CV is not. Others may correctly infer it.

RM: I think this unfortunate idea has pulled a red herring across the path of progress in the study of living control systems. In fact, it’s not controlled variables (CVs) that are inferred; it’s the theory that explains them (PCT) that is inferred. CVs are the observable phenomena that PCT was developed to explain. As Bill says in his paper “A Cybernetic Model for Research in Human Development” that is reprinted in Living Control Systems I: “In these [CVs, variables maintained in reference states] we have the heart of the problem to which control theory [now called PCT] is addressed”.

RM: As I said in my previous post, some CVs, such as the distance between the cursor and the target in a tracking task, seem very concrete; they appear to be “out there” in the real world. Other CVs, such as the degree to which one is following the principle “try to control the center” in chess, seem very abstract; they seem to exist “in there” in the mind of the behaving system. It’s these more abstract CVs that seem to exist only as inferred mental states.

RM: But all CVs are perceptual variables that are based ultimately on sensed effects of variables in the environment. And it is possible to describe even the most abstract CVs in terms of perceptual variables that are more “concrete” inasmuch as they more directly reflect the sensed effects of variables in the environment. We are doing this when we describe the variable controlled in a tracking task as the distance between cursor and target. We can do this to describe the “control of center” variable controlled in chess in terms of the number of center squares threatened by one’s pieces.

RM: It should also be noted that “abstract” controlled variables do not necessarily appear to be more “inferred” than “concrete” ones. For example, it’s just as hard to see that the position of a teacup is a controlled variable as it is to see that a political position is being controlled (an illustration of seeing teh position of a teacup as controlled is given in this talk). In order to see that a variable is being controlled, you have to be able to see that it is being maintained in a fixed or variable reference state protected from disturbances. As noted in this talk, the problem is that disturbances to a controlled variable are often invisible so when control is good it looks like there is no control going on at all. Being a physicist, Powers was able to “see” that many of the behavioral variables that seem to be emitted by organisms are actually controlled variables.

RM: I don’t know if my little book will successfully disabuse people of the notion that controlled variables exist only as inferences that explain IV-DV relationships. But my main goal was simply to try to encourage people to give PCT-based research a try. If I get one or two people to start doing it then it will all have been worth it.

Best

Rick

Rick,
Thanks for your answers. How would you apply PCT to answer the question of the behavior of people who entered the Capital on January 6? I suppose that different people had different reasons. Interviewing some people and asking them for the the desired results would be needed. What would success look like for each person which would have made their behavior stop?
David Goldstein

Rick and other PCT fans,
Some Questions to ask people about January 6

  1. Would you have gone to Washington DC if Donald Trump had won the election?
  2. Would you have gone to Washington DC if Donald Trump had said that it was a fair election?
  3. Would you enter the Capital if the police told you not to enter?
  4. Would you have done what you did on January 6 if the election was redone?

What questions would you ask?
David Goldstein

Hi David

DG: Thanks for your answers. How would you apply PCT to answer the question of the behavior of people who entered the Capital on January 6?

RM: Demonic possession? :wink:

DG:I suppose that different people had different reasons.

RM: Surely.

DG: Interviewing some people and asking them for the the desired results would be needed. What would success look like for each person which would have made their behavior stop?

RM: I don’t think this kind of naturalistic experiment is particularly useful for doing the basic research needed to provide an evidentiary basis for Bill’s PCT model. I sketched out (in the last chapter of the book) what I think a basic research program in PCT might look like, drawing heavily on the suggestions Bill has made I various places. I think there are ways to use naturalistic observation in PCT-based research – mainly as a source of hypotheses for basic research – but I think “one off” situations like the January 6 insurrection should just be analyzed in retrospect using an understanding of the participants as input controllers.

RM: So just based on observation of their behavior it is clear that a large number were controlling for getting into the capital building; this is evident from that fact that they did what they could to get part the guards. It’s also clear that once inside some wanted to get to specific locations as evidenced by the fact that one heroic guard who supposedly was running to protect the Senate chamber was followed by a crowd of insurrectionists. And the higher level goal for some was likely to stop the vote certification; for others it might have been simply to follow orders, etc.

DG: Some Questions to ask people about January 6

1. Would you have gone to Washington DC if Donald Trump had won the election?
2. Would you have gone to Washington DC if Donald Trump had said that it was a fair election?
3. Would you enter the Capital if the police told you not to enter?
  1. Would you have done what you did on January 6 if the election was redone?

DG: What questions would you ask?

RM: Actually, I wouldn’t have asked any. I would do what I would do with any misbehaving child; I’d ignore them, which is what President Biden is doing. I don’t care what they say about why they did what they did; they might not know themselves. I just want them to stop doing it and never do it again.

RM: In the book launch I used the January 6 event – actually, Trump’s behavior at that event – to show that you can’t understand what people are doing by just looking at their behavior. I used it as an example to make that point dramatically. But that might have been a mistake because some people seem to have taken it as me giving an example of how to do PCT-informed research. It’s not.

RM: I said there was evidence that Trump was, indeed, controlling for the insurrection because he did nothing to try to stop it; the behavior of the crowd was not a disturbance to the variable being controlled so the controlled variable was likely seeing the crowd overthrow the government. But in actual PCT-informed research testing for the controlled variable is not a one-shot affair. PCT theory can be used to explain, post hoc, what Trump was very likely to be controlling on Jan 6 (insurrection) but the fact that he made no effort to stop the insurrection is not evidence that he was, in fact, controlling for insurrection and not something similar; what that might be I have no idea.

Best

Rick

Rick,
You say: “ I just want them to stop doing it and never do it again.”
I agree. However, interviewing them along the lines of MOL Therapy still seem like a possible way of identifying their CVs.
David

Hi David

DG: You say: “ I just want them to stop doing it and never do it again.”
I agree. However, interviewing them along the lines of MOL Therapy still seem like a possible way of identifying their CVs.

RM: As I understand it, MOL therapy is not designed to identify CVs. Indeed, my understanding is that the identification of CVs is not really a part of MOL therapy since that would involve the therapist in guessing what the client’s problems are and possibly suggesting ways to solve them. But your point led me to think about how I conceive of the relationship between the basic PCT-based research program described in The Study of Living Control Systems (SCLS) and the practical application of PCT to things like conflict resolution and psychotherapy.

RM: Very little of the PCT-based research program described in SLCS has been done. I believe that what PCT-based research has been done (and what PCT relevant but non-PCT-based research exists) supports the general tenets of the PCT model: that organisms control a hierarchy of perceptual variables that range from simple sensory magnitudes to more complex “cognitive” type perceptions that are constructed from these sensory magnitudes; that this hierarchy of control systems is built up and maintained by a biased random walk learning process called reorganization; and that the reorganization process is directed in some way by consciousness (the evidence for this is mainly introspective but it’s better than nothing).

RM: I think these general tenets of the PCT model are currently the basis of MOL therapy. The PCT-based research program described in SLCS would be testing the details of the model, such as the types of variables controlled at each level of the hierarchy, the way higher level systems use lower level systems, what the role of consciousness is in reorganization, etc. I view this research program as going on in parallel to the applied aspects of PCT, such as MOL. The relationship would be like that between basic research in physics/chemistry and various relevant fields of engineering, such as electrical and computer engineering. I don’t know how (or whether) the knowledge that comes from carrying out the PCT-based research program described in SCLS would lead to improvements in therapy or other applications of PCT. But I trust that it should. But that’s way in the future.

Rick,
You said: As I understand it, MOL therapy is not designed to identify CVs.
In the process of talking to a person, the CVs becomes more apparent to the person and the therapist. This is important for resolving the person ‘s issues.

I do understand the difference between basic and applied research you are pointing out. When it comes to the higher levels, like self-image, some different kinds of research methods than tracking may be needed.

David Goldstein

Thanks Rick