Video of presentation at Stanford February 2012+

[Part of this post in the 2012 archive duplicates an email thread from November 2012 that is already in the archive here. Some posts in the thread did not go to CSGnet. (An explicit email list was involved as well.) I have reconstructed the whole so that those posts also appear and are in context.]

Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 11:34 PM
To: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu

Cc: Bruce Nevin bruce.nevin@gmail.com, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, “F.X. Plooij” fplooij@kiddygroup.com, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren.mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Gary Cziko gcziko@gmail.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, mathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell csgarchive@pctresources.com

Last February, I gave a talk to a colloquium at Stanford, called the “Stanford Psychology and Language Tea”, a.k.a. SPLaT. Dag has given a lot of support to my work and to my currently in-process career change back to linguistics. On this occasion he was videographer and provided copies of a bunch of books for the attending faculty and students to see, some of which they could take and keep.

The presentation aims to introduce this audience of psychologists and linguists to PCT. It focuses on the solution to a puzzle that emerged in some recent experimental work in which speakers’ auditory perception of what they said was disturbed in real time. A proposed PCT model indicates a solution to the puzzle. We discussed this on CSGnet some years ago. A working simulation has not yet been built. (Assistance with this would be welcome.)

The video, edited to include the slides, is at SPLaT-Nevin. Previously, I had been unable to get either of the two researchers (Shira Katseff and John Houde) to reply to email, but when I was in Berkeley last February I met John Houde, who is now at UCB, and he was friendly and interested in seeing my presentation, so I will now send him the link.

In the video, there’s a plug for Frans Plooij’s work and a plug for Rick’s baseball demo. In the Q&A there are some suggestions as to where we might be more successful at getting PCT research published. The student who makes these suggestions (now graduated and a newly minted professor elsewhere) takes the Gibsonians to mean, not that information is in the environment, but that the organism and the environment are tightly coupled in a way that is expressed by integration of simultaneous equations in just the manner that we do in PCT. (IMO they equivocate, but being tactful about this, and approaching the correction of it gradually, might indeed open some publication opportunities.)

I may not see comments on this in a timely way unless you send them (or include a cc) to bruce.nevin@gmail.com.

/Bruce

Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 11:17 AM
Reply-To: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu

To: CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu

[From RIck MArken (2012.11.04.0820)]

On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 8:34 PM, Bruce Nevin <bnhpct@gmail.com> wrote:

Last February, I gave a talk to a colloquium at Stanford, called the “Stanford Psychology and Language Tea”, a.k.a. SPLaT. Dag has given a lot of support to my work and to my currently in-process career change back to linguistics. On this occasion he was videographer and provided copies of a bunch of books for the attending faculty and students to see, some of which they could take and keep.

Thanks Bruce. I have it bookmarked. I look forward to seeing it after Nov. 6, when I will, hopefully, be very happy and will no longer have to be going to the poll sites every few minutes to assure myself that Obama is going to win;-) Of course, regardless of who wins I will have to somehow live with the fact that I am living in a country where nearly half the people are comfortable (and maybe even favor) with corporate fascism.

Best

Rick

Bill Powers powers_w@frontier.net Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 3:25 PM
Reply-To: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu

To: CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu

[From Bill Powers (2012.11.04.1255 MST)]

At 11:34 PM 11/3/2012 -0400, Bruce Nevin wrote:

It’s interesting how the people involved in “ecological psychology” (Gibsonians) assume that ecological psychology appeared before PCT did. Gibson’s The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception was published in 1979, 6 years after BCP and 19 years after the original Powers-Clark-MacFarland paper. The dynamical-systems kind of modeling was well established in the PCT world shortly after 1985 when the CSG was formed, and was actually part of my activities at the VA Research Hospital using an analog computer from around 1953 to 1954 onward.

Gibson’s concept of “affordances” (“the opportunities for action provided by a particular object or environment”) is exceedingly naive, “Opportunities” is a qualitative notion, with the number of different opportunities provided by any single affordance, when expressed quantitatively, being for all practical purposes infinite. Furthermore, since organisms control not actions but consequences of actions, an affordance can actually relate to any number of different controlled variables which are affected via similar feedback functions. Gibson simply wanted to believe that we experience the real world directly, and would accept any line of reasoning, spurious or not, that led to that conclusion. As a theoretician, in my view, Gibson qualifies as a lightweight.

Best,

Bill P

Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 4:07 PM
Reply-To: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu

To: CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu

[From Rick Marken (2012.11.04.1310)]

Bill Powers (2012.11.04.1255 MST)–

BP: Gibson’s concept of “affordances” (“the opportunities for action provided by a particular object or environment”) is exceedingly naive, “Opportunities” is a qualitative notion, with the number of different opportunities provided by any single affordance, when expressed quantitatively, being for all practical purposes infinite. Furthermore, since organisms control not actions but consequences of actions, an affordance can actually relate to any number of different controlled variables which are affected via similar feedback functions. Gibson simply wanted to believe that we experience the real world directly, and would accept any line of reasoning, spurious or not, that led to that conclusion. As a theoretician, in my view, Gibson qualifies as a lightweight.

Ouch! Glad I didn’t say that :wink:

Best

Rick|
||

Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:53 AM
To: Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com, bruce.nevin@gmail.com

Cc: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, “F.X. Plooij” fplooij@kiddygroup.com, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren Mansell Warren.Mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Gary Cziko gcziko@gmail.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, “mathwerkx@yahoo.commathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell csgarchive@pctresources.com

Hi Bruce, this is great to see, and I really like the level of detail you go into Bruce! It is now linked from pctweb on the psychology page.

I watched the questions afterwards too.

I think it is important to maybe correct what you said about publication. It may be hard to get PCT stuff published but this makes us sound fringe. We are not. Most of the good empirical work on PCT is published. See the downloadable working document I have produced.

I think there is a balancing act to do between validating some of the similarities between PCT and Gibson, at the same time as being very clear about the differences too. I think the student is being too opinionated to say that the equations are ‘exactly the same’ - this could not be established from such a comparison based on his memory and viewing your talk - it would need to be analysed in much more detail.

We commonly get the argument that PCT is the same as this or that theory - and it is a really hard one to counter, I think because there are so many components to compare. We can’t just say PCT is completely different and they just can’t say it is the same. There needs to be a thorough, systematic analysis.

Great stuff and thanks for the link!

Warren||

Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 7:28 AM
To: Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com

Cc: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu, Bruce Nevin bruce.nevin@gmail.com, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, “F.X. Plooij” fplooij@kiddygroup.com, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren Mansell Warren.Mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Gary Cziko gcziko@gmail.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, “mathwerkx@yahoo.commathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell csgarchive@pctresources.com

Just wondering whether stairs works all ways. Do people say all the other theories said to be ‘the same’ as PCT are the same as one another? This is the logical conclusion. If not, it must be about overlap, and therefore if the overlap is greater between PCT and other theories than they are with one another, this suggests PCT is tapping the common theoretical substrate of living things…

Warren

F.X. Plooij fplooij@kiddygroup.com Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 7:28 AM
To: Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com, Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com, bruce.nevin@gmail.com

Cc: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren Mansell Warren.Mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Gary Cziko gcziko@gmail.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, mathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell csgarchive@pctresources.com

Hi Warren,

The student that made remarks after Bruce’s presentation said that according to him PCT is a subset of what is going on in Ecological Psychology and Dynamic Systems Theory. I am inclined to reverse that and say: Ecological Psychology and Dynamic Systems Theory are subsets of PCT as a unifying theory for psychology, since there is so much more in psychology that can be explained by PCT compared to those two fields. That is an important characteristic of a theory for it to be preferred over other theories.

By the way, did you see Louise Barrett’s book “Beyond the Brain” already? She refers in a very positive way to Bill’s 1973 book.

Warm regards,

Frans Plooij

Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 7:36 AM
To: “F.X. Plooij” fplooij@kiddygroup.com

Cc: Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com, bruce.nevin@gmail.com, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren Mansell Warren.Mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Gary Cziko gcziko@gmail.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, mathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell csgarchive@pctresources.com

Hi Frans, I was thinking exactly the same! Bruce, maybe you could have a word if you have his email!

I have ordered the book you refer to [Frans] - thanks for the heads up!

Warren|
||

Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 11:44 AM
To: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu

Cc: “F.X. Plooij” fplooij@kiddygroup.com, bruce.nevin@gmail.com, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren Mansell Warren.Mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Gary Cziko gcziko@gmail.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, mathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell csgarchive@pctresources.com, Dag Forssell dag@livingcontrolsystems.com, Bill Powers powers_w@frontier.net

Yes, his address is

Stephen Flusberg <stephen.flusberg@purchase.edu>

I sent him the pctweb link and he has responded. The comments here from Bill, Frans, and you will inform my reply, you may be sure! I’ll certainly link him to the summary of publications at

http://pctweb.org/EmpiricalEvidencePCT.pdf

This is really good to see, and will be of lasting usefulness. Thank you for putting it together and maintaining it. This will be a good antidote to my unbalanced complaint about publishing – point taken! I continue to be a great admirer of your acumen in presenting PCT effectively.

Your comment about intersection of theories is an interesting test, useful in the aggregate, but might not be effective pairwise with just one advocate at a time, because the same logic can be employed in the converse way. A proponent of, say, Gibson = PCT and a proponent of theory X = PCT could each just say that the other’s claim to be ‘the same as’ PCT is wrong, precisely because in their view theory X and Gibsonian theory are not ‘the same’.

I probably won’t get my reply to Flusberg out until late or perhaps tomorrow, as today is shaping up to be rather crowded.

Dag has pointed out that replies just to csgnet are not reaching everyone who is on the cc list; and as I mentioned, I see email to bruce.nevin@gmail.com much more timely than email to csgnet.

/Bruce

Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 8:28 PM
To: Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com

Cc: “F.X. Plooij” fplooij@kiddygroup.com, “bruce.nevin@gmail.combruce.nevin@gmail.com, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren Mansell Warren.Mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Gary Cziko gcziko@gmail.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, “mathwerkx@yahoo.commathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell csgarchive@pctresources.com, Dag Forssell dag@livingcontrolsystems.com, Bill Powers powers_w@frontier.net

I think Bill’s comments are extremely accurate.

H|
||

Bruce Nevin bruce.nevin@gmail.com Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 9:37 PM
To: Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu

Cc: Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com, “F.X. Plooij” fplooij@kiddygroup.com, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren Mansell Warren.Mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Gary Cziko gcziko@gmail.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, “mathwerkx@yahoo.commathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell csgarchive@pctresources.com, Dag Forssell dag@livingcontrolsystems.com, Bill Powers powers_w@frontier.net, CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu

Yes. But these understandings are a consequence of understanding PCT. Presenting them as conflicting beliefs is probably not an effective inducement to learning. Maybe if I were a professor and he was my student; and if we were able to negotiate conflict with his other teachers. Hence, the need for the tact that Warren has exemplified.

Warren, is there a better quality video record of your talk? I mean the one at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92HaoYRVGcA

/Bruce

Gary Cziko <gcziko@gmail.com> Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 10:11 PM

To: “F.X. Plooij” fplooij@kiddygroup.com

Cc: Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com, Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com, bruce.nevin@gmail.com, “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@listserv.illinois.edu, Hugh Petrie hgpetrie@acsu.buffalo.edu, Hugh Gibbons hgibbons@law.unh.edu, Henry Yin hy43@duke.edu, Tim Carey tim.carey@flinders.edu.au, Sara Tai sara.tai@manchester.ac.uk, Warren Mansell Warren.Mansell@manchester.ac.uk, Tom Bourbon tombourbon@sbcglobal.net, Karin Forssell k.forssell@gmail.com, Bart Madden bartmadden@yahoo.com, Mohammad Goli mgoli@ryerson.ca, Bjorn Leffler bjorn@leffler.org, Monica Leffler monica@leffler.org, Lisa Forssell lisa.forssell@gmail.com, Bruce Abbott bbabbott@frontier.com, Alice Powers McElhone powers.mcelhone@gmail.com, Lloydk Klinedinst lloydk@klinedinst.com, Dick Robertson R-Robertson@neiu.edu, mathwerkx@yahoo.com, j richard kenneway jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Dag Forssell <csgarchive@pctresources.com>

Franz wrote:

By the way, did you see Louise Barrett’s book “Beyond the Brain” already? She refers in a very positive way to Bill’s 1973 book.

Some screen shots of the book provided by Google books (Chapter 6, pp. 99 ff.)

Barrett

Screen Shot 2012-11-05 at 9.03.55 PM

Screen Shot 2012-11-05 at 9.04.10 PM

Screen Shot 2012-11-05 at 9.04.27 PM

Screen Shot 2012-11-05 at 9.04.38 PM

Barrett-r