All:
This is a very interesting video with, I think, implications for HPCT (and motorists and bicyclists):
–Gary
[From Bill Powers (2008.03.13.1126 MDT)]
Gary Cziko (06:47 AM 3/13/2008 -0300) --
This is a very interesting video with, I think, implications for HPCT (and motorists and bicyclists):
It worked perfectly. Here's another one. Look at your watch and see how long it is until your next meal. Now look away from the watch -- and say what time it is.
What we need now is something to show that the perceptual signals were really there all the time. The difference between presence of a perceptual signal and consciousness of it is the crux of the method of levels.
Best,
Bill P.
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[From Dag Forssell (2008.03.13.1158 PDT)]
[Bill Powers (2008.03.13.1126 MDT)]
Gary Cziko (06:47 AM 3/13/2008 -0300) --
<snip>
What we need now is something to show that the perceptual signals were really there all the time. The difference between presence of a perceptual signal and consciousness of it is the crux of the method of levels.
I am not so sure that the perceptual signals were there all the time.
Years ago, before PCT entered my life, I listened to tape albums with motivational speakers. One, Louis Tice if I remember correctly, got lots of laughs by talking about babies whimpering and how the male would block the noise while the female would wake up. Shame on the males of the species. The idea that permeates our culture is that the we all experience the world directly and select what to include or exclude from the picture. A recognition that we make what we experience from streams of pulses originating at numerous nerve-endings in our retina, ear, nose, tongue and skin etc. is not common among people living today.
With PCT, I think that we expend great effort in the making of our sounds and sights that are projected in our minds. We can focus on the moon walking bear and see the costumed character very nicely, but it is not obvious to me that my nervous system made an image of the moon walking bear for me to ignore when I focused at first on the white T-shirt players. I rather doubt it. To me, the moon walking bear did not exist at first because I did not create it.
I suppose in this case the MOL analogy would focus on the suggestion that you replay and pay attention to some background happening, something other than the first foreground "thought".
My 2 cents worth.
Best, Dag
[From Rick Marken (2008.03.13.1840)]
Bill Powers (2008.03.13.1126 MDT)--
> Gary Cziko (06:47 AM 3/13/2008 -0300) --
>This is a very interesting video with, I think, implications for
>HPCT (and motorists and bicyclists):It worked perfectly.
I agree. GREAT demo!! I'm going to use it in my seminar. Thanks Gary.
Here's another one. Look at your watch and see
how long it is until your next meal. Now look away from the watch --
and say what time it is.
Pretty good. Unfortunately I read the whole thing before I did it;-)
What we need now is something to show that the perceptual signals
were really there all the time.
YES!! I'll try to think of one but so far a convincing version of such
a demonstration has eluded even my PCT demonstration development
skills;-)
The difference between presence of a
perceptual signal and consciousness of it is the crux of the method of levels.
Yes, the demo is another lovely demonstration of the difference
between perception and consciousness.
Best regards
Rick
···
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
[From Bill Powers (2008.03.14.1242 MDT)]
Rick Marken (2008.03.13.1840)]
> Here's another one. Look at your watch and see
> how long it is until your next meal. Now look away from the watch --
> and say what time it is.Pretty good. Unfortunately I read the whole thing before I did it;-)
Try it on someone else who has a watch. Ask "How long is it until lunch?" (or something that is going to happen soon). The person will look at the watch and tell you. Then ask what time it is. The person will look at the watch again.
> The difference between presence of a
> perceptual signal and consciousness of it is the crux of the method of levels.Yes, the demo is another lovely demonstration of the difference
between perception and consciousness.
I see that Dag has a different view -- one that says that a perceptual input function does not exist, or at least doesn't work, until the person becomes aware of the signal it produces (??). I'd like to know more about how that would work in a model. It seems to me that the ability to see a bear was there before the second viewing of the video -- it was not created afresh just for the second viewing, was it?
A somewhat more direct demonstration comes when you're driving a car or doing anything that requires continuous control. According to PCT, control systems control their own perceptual signals by acting on the outside world. If successful control is occurring, then the perceptual signal must be present even if one is not, at the moment, aware of it. We control lots of things that we are not attending to at any given time. If the basic PCT model is right, there must be a perceptual signal present for each of those things that is under unconscious control.
There is still an open question about how awareness affects the quality of control. I can think of numerous examples, after one of which, yesterday, I ended up on my hands and knees on the kitchen floor mopping up some spilled cocoa. Having attention distracted does seem to make control worse -- but that's not entirely clear, since the "distraction" in my case involved transferring the direction of gaze away from the cup to something else about roll off the counter. Since the gaze was changed, the visual information required to keep the cup level was diminished, and that alone could account for the deterioration of control. We need some tests in which all the perceptual information remains the same but only the aspect of the scene being consciously examined changes. For example, the fact that the "h" in the previous word "changes" is taller than the "c" and the "a" beside it, a relationship perception. Did the ability to perceive that relationship come into being only after I had pointed it out? And if the ability, the perceptual input function, was there, why would there not be any perceptual signal coming out of the input function?
Best,
Bill P.
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[From Dag Forssell (2008.03.14.1300 PDT)]
Bill Powers (2008.03.14.1242 MDT)]
I see that Dag has a different view -- one that says that a perceptual input function does not exist, or at least doesn't work, until the person becomes aware of the signal it produces (??).
Or looks in that direction??? What I actually suggested was: "Until the pixels were focused on and made into a bear, this was just noise in the present environment."
I'd like to know more about how that would work in a model. It seems to me that the ability to see a bear was there before the second viewing of the video -- it was not created afresh just for the second viewing, was it?
Why not? The ability to see is no doubt there, but why take for granted that the particular perception of a bear was fully formed as a clear image just because there were some muddy pixels dancing around on the retina? If there is one thing that PCT does not cover in detail, it is how perception works. Nobody knows.
In this case, there were four players in white T-shirts, moving quickly, for you to focus on, four players in dark T-shirts, moving quickly, to deliberately ignore and then that very dark bear walking slowly through the scene against a dark background.
When you admire a landscape, do you really take in the last detail in high definition even though you do not pay attention in that direction? I sure don't. If animals did, no predator would ever be successful stalking prey, would it?
Best, Dag
[From Martin Taylor 2008.03.14.17.06]
[Bill Powers (2008.03.14.1242 MDT)]
A somewhat more direct demonstration comes when you're driving a car or doing anything that requires continuous control. According to PCT, control systems control their own perceptual signals by acting on the outside world. If successful control is occurring, then the perceptual signal must be present even if one is not, at the moment, aware of it. We control lots of things that we are not attending to at any given time. If the basic PCT model is right, there must be a perceptual signal present for each of those things that is under unconscious control.
There is still an open question about how awareness affects the quality of control. I can think of numerous examples, after one of which, yesterday, I ended up on my hands and knees on the kitchen floor mopping up some spilled cocoa. Having attention distracted does seem to make control worse -- but that's not entirely clear, since the "distraction" in my case involved transferring the direction of gaze away from the cup to something else about roll off the counter.
I have an exaple in which awareness apparently involved little or no diminution of control, at quite a high level.
I picked up at the airport a good friend I had not seen for a long time, and drove out of the airport along a busy expressway, catching up on what had happened since we last met. About 10 km later I became aware for some reason of the highway, and had to figure out where we had got to, because I simply had not been keeping a conscious record of our progress. We were actually approaching the desired turn-off interchange. I had no conscious awareness of having been driving, though obviously I had been driving quite safely in the traffic.
I do believe that quality of control can be reduced by awareness, at least at lower levels. Trying to be aware of what fingering I use when playing the piano causes all sorts of muddles!
Martin
[From Bill Powers (2008.03.14.1947 MST)]
Dag Forssell (2008.03.14.1300 PDT) --
I'd like to know more about how that would work in a model. It seems to me that the ability to see a bear was there before the second viewing of the video -- it was not created afresh just for the second viewing, was it?
Why not? The ability to see is no doubt there, but why take for granted that the particular perception of a bear was fully formed as a clear image just because there were some muddy pixels dancing around on the retina? If there is one thing that PCT does not cover in detail, it is how perception works. Nobody knows.
The assumption has been that perceptual input functions, at all levels, are neural networks that form through reorganization after extensive experience with the environment. Under that assumption, it would take more than a few seconds to construct a circuit that could emit a signal when a bear-shaped object appears in the field of view, and not when other shapes appear. Regardless of how the bear-recognizer input function works, past experience seems to suggest that such input functions are slow to be learned, requiring months or years to form.
What we know about what happened during the video is that the pixels on the retina were there, as you say, all the time, but we have a choice as to what to believe about the higher-order systems. It is possible, for example, that the systems for converting signals from the retina into signals representing sensations like white and yellow and black were working, also, but the configuration signals representing some shapes were not present, while others were present at that same level. That seems to be about what you are proposing.
The signals that were not present at first appeared when mention was made of a bear in the picture, and the video was run again (in my case, within 15 seconds). Then I immediately saw the bear, and fixated on it. While I was looking at the bear, I couldn't have told you (as I now realize in retrospect) what any of the other figures were doing, though at the sensations level I was aware that light-colored blobs were there. Once I saw the bear I tracked it with my eyes, so it remained relatively stationary in the field of view while the other figures began moving sideways (relatively). That made it easier to see the bear.
Then I paused to appreciate the effect, and just at that moment I couldn't have said whether the bear was still in the picture. So whatever effect selective awareness had on consciousness of the bear (and other things in the scene), it was changeable and reversible over a very short span of time.
Rather than assuming rapid changes in the organization of the neural circuits which respond to the dark sensations (and dark-light contrasts) making up the bear, it seems simpler and more parsimonious to assume that it is something about the information-receiver that we call awareness that changes, while the neural circuits go on working as usual. My assumption is that awareness can take in information first from one place in the nervous system, then from another place, like a television set being tuned first to one channel, then to another. When we tune a TV from channel 5 to channel 7, we don't (I presume) assume that channel 5 has gone off the air, or that its camera has stopped producing video signals, or that our television set has suddenly become unable to detect signals in the frequency range of channel 5. We assume that tuning the TV set simply makes it sensitive to signals that continue to be there all the time, and makes it insensitive to others. Without the antenna and RF amplifiers, there would be no signals to display on the screen, but in fact it is a part of the circuitry farther along in the chain that determines what will be picked out to be displayed on the screen and played through the speaker. In fact, some TVs have a second set of detectors that can pick out another channel at the same time as the main one-- the picture-in-picture sets, which can show two channels at once. Kind of like a background thought.
I agree that we know very little about how perceptual circuits work. But if you just think about how you would try to design something to generate the same effects we saw in the video, wouldn't it be easier to imagined changing the receiver of information instead of all the circuits that are generating the information to be received?
Best,
Bill P.
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[From Dag Forssell (2008.03.14.2005 PST)]
Bill Powers (2008.03.14.1947 MST)]
Bill, I find much to agree with in your post. My original post was very limited in its scope and claims. I said "I am not so sure that the perceptual signals were there all the time."
As I read you now, it seems to me that you substantially agree with me.
My point was that we construct the images we project in our mind's eye (by processing lower level signals at progressively higher levels of perception) and that this is hard work. Seems to me that I do not have the capacity to process all nine of those images in the video with high fidelity all at once. I have to be selective and focus attention on some, not all, of it.
As I read your post, as much as anything you are elaborating on my point, not refuting it.
Best, Dag
(Gavin Ritz, 2008.03.15.16.59NZT)
[From Dag Forssell (2008.03.14.2005 PST)]
Bill Powers (2008.03.14.1947 MST)]
My point was that we construct the images we project in our mind's
eye (by processing lower level signals at progressively higher levels
of perception) and that this is hard work.
What surprised me some years ago was, I was driving and saw a goat by the
side of the road, however I knew that was impossible. But my mind actually
reconstructed (very quickly though- maybe a few milliseconds) what I saw and
made sense of it. The goat quickly turned into a dog standing strangely
between two poles.
Another incident also surprised me, some years ago a friend who is a
forensic psychiatrist was defending a hit and run driver in court. What came
out of the psychiatric assessment was this guy just couldn't see certain
shapes and objects at all, and had no idea that he couldn't. He was as much
surprised as the psychiatrist's were. He actually got off on this account
(the pedestrian was killed) but was never allowed to drive again.
So much for eye witness accounts, they forgot about PCT.
[From Bill Powers (2008.03.15.0400 MDT)]
Dag Forssell (2008.03.14.2005 PST) --
Bill, I find much to agree with in your post. My original post was very limited in its scope and claims. I said "I am not so sure that the perceptual signals were there all the time."
As I read you now, it seems to me that you substantially agree with me.
Well, yes, except I lean toward assuming that they -- or at least some of them -- are there all the time, at every level, like the picture on a TV set in a room with nobody in it.
The higher-level perceptions show up in the method of levels, as controlled variables of a level higher than the place where awareness happens to be focused at a given time. The higher systems are active and controlling, as shown by the fact that they are supplying reference signals for the systems in which awareness is involved. If the higher systems were not active (I assume) those reference signals would all drop to zero. And if the higher systems are active, then by the basic concept of PCT, they are controlling perceptions of the appropriate type, without the aid of awareness.
I can bring the higher systems to awareness by asking "Why are you reading this?" If you pause and actually try to find the answer (instead of just trying to make one up), you will bring higher systems into the field of awareness. They are the ones telling you to read this.
My point was that we construct the images we project in our mind's eye (by processing lower level signals at progressively higher levels of perception) and that this is hard work.
Only if you're doing it consciously. When it's happening automatically, no effort is detectable.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the images we project in the mind's eye." I'm referring to things you see with your eyes open in the ordinary world of experience, that look like a 3-D world full of people, relationships, logical processes, and so on. If you see that a plate is on the table in front of you, all those things are perceptions, including the color, shapes, and the "on" relationship. Those don't seem to take any effort to perceive, do they?
Shelley Bierley wrote an off-list comment pointing out that under hypnosis, people can recover memories of perceptions they were not aware of at the time, including bears dancing, or details of an accident, and that sort of thing. I mentioned in B:CP an experiment in which a woman was shown the left-eye view of a binocular pair of images, and 24 hours later, the right-eye view, and was able to see the combined image and identify a raised pattern (it was a random-dot image of the kind Julecz investigated). Those are lower-level perceptions, but I think similar things happen at every level.
Seems to me that I do not have the capacity to process all nine of those images in the video with high fidelity all at once. I have to be selective and focus attention on some, not all, of it.
That only determines what you consciously experience. There is far more activity in the brain that anyone is conscious of in one instant. By definition, you aren't conscious of perceptions of which you are unaware! We have to deduce the existence of such perceptions from evidence that says they must have been there all the time -- for example, evidence that something was being controlled at a higher level without your being conscious of controlling it, or evidence like the sudden appearance in consciousness of an experience that must have been going on all the time, like a sensation of pressure from sitting on something that you weren't paying attention to until it was mentioned.
Best,
Bill P.
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[Goldstein (2008.03.15.0634 EDT)]
Bill Powers (2008.03.14.1947 MST)
It also occurs to me that I was blocking for the dark shirts and noticing the white shirts.
My awareness was on the sensation level but I was also noticing the passes, which was an event level.
and I was counting which used a category and program level.
If the bear was in a different colored outfit, this might have made a difference. For example,
suppose that it was a white polar bear or a red bear?
Another thought was that it was a very complicated scene that probably exhausted all of my working memory capacity.
No wonder airplane flight controllers experience so much stress. They are doing this task all the time.
[From Dag Forssell (2008.03.15.0825 PST)]
[From Bill Powers
(2008.03.15.0400 MDT)] MST yesterday, MDT todayDag Forssell (2008.03.14.2005 PST) –
Bill, I find much to agree with
in your post. My original post was very limited in its scope and claims.
I said “I am not so sure that the perceptual signals were there all
the time.”As I read you now, it seems to me that you substantially agree with
me.Well, yes, except I lean toward assuming that they – or at least some of
them – are there all the time, at every level, like the picture on a TV
set in a room with nobody in it.
Fair enough, but now we have to consider whether we record those images
that are displayed or created when we are in the next room, turned away
from the TV, or look at a person six feet to the left of the TV.
The higher-level perceptions
show up in the method of levels, as controlled variables of a level
higher than the place where awareness happens to be focused at a given
time. The higher systems are active and controlling, as shown by the fact
that they are supplying reference signals for the systems in which
awareness is involved. If the higher systems were not active (I assume)
those reference signals would all drop to zero. And if the higher systems
are active, then by the basic concept of PCT, they are controlling
perceptions of the appropriate type, without the aid of
awareness.I can bring the higher systems to awareness by asking “Why are you
reading this?” If you pause and actually try to find the answer
(instead of just trying to make one up), you will bring higher systems
into the field of awareness. They are the ones telling you to read
this.
Seems to me the reference to MOL seems shaky at best since I was
questioning whether the recognition of the bear was there at all the
first time around.
If I had been viewing the movie an a normal, casual way, my higher level
systems might have brought the bear into view, assisted by my stored
perceptions that relate to the concept or category of bear. But from the
outset, written instructions asked me to focus intensely on the
categories of white T-shirt and ball.
My point was that we construct
the images we project in our mind’s eye (by processing lower level
signals at progressively higher levels of perception) and that this is
hard work.Only if you’re doing it consciously. When it’s happening automatically,
no effort is detectable.
I meant to contrast the huge effort of the brain, which I agree is not
detectable, with what I think is a widely held idea that the world is out
there and we experience it directly. Therefore, what you experience must
be the same as what I experience (memory not involved at any level).
Fathers who sleep through a baby’s whimper must be deliberately uncaring
and good for ridicule and a laugh. If we interact in the same environment
and you do something I don’t like, the reason must be that you are
deliberately nasty because it will never occur to me that your brain
constructs a display of the world and an interpretation of what is
happening that is very different from what my brain generates. Anyhow,
this is how I rationalize that some people I know never cease complaining
about their upbringing, controlling, selfish parents and people and
happenings all around.
I’m not sure what you mean by
“the images we project in the mind’s eye.” I’m referring to
things you see with your eyes open in the ordinary world of experience,
that look like a 3-D world full of people, relationships, logical
processes, and so on. If you see that a plate is on the table in front of
you, all those things are perceptions, including the color, shapes, and
the “on” relationship. Those don’t seem to take any effort to
perceive, do they?
It seems effortless all right, and what you describe above is all what I
mean by images you project in your mind’s eye. It is all neural signals
in your brain. None of it is “out there” in the ordinary world
of experience. But your experience of the table is most likely very close
to mine. Problems arise when we project this expectation that we
experience things the same way to arbitrary categories and higher level
mental concepts, such as “caring” (whatever that means) about
that unfortunate, overheating, person wearing a fur coat, struggling to
escape the madness of ten people running into each other by walking
backwards.
Shelley Bierley wrote an
off-list comment pointing out that under hypnosis, people can recover
memories of perceptions they were not aware of at the time, including
bears dancing, or details of an accident, and that sort of thing. I
mentioned in B:CP an experiment in which a woman was shown the left-eye
view of a binocular pair of images, and 24 hours later, the right-eye
view, and was able to see the combined image and identify a raised
pattern (it was a random-dot image of the kind Julecz investigated).
Those are lower-level perceptions, but I think similar things happen at
every level.
And this binocular experiment included the instruction to focus on
something else during the ten seconds when the image was within the field
of view? It is too late to hypnotize me about the bear because I ran the
video a second time.
Seems to me that I do not
have the capacity to process all nine of those images in the video with
high fidelity all at once. I have to be selective and focus attention on
some, not all, of it.That only determines what you consciously experience. There is far more
activity in the brain that anyone is conscious of in one instant. By
definition, you aren’t conscious of perceptions of which you are unaware!
We have to deduce the existence of such perceptions from evidence that
says they must have been there all the time – for example, evidence that
something was being controlled at a higher level without your being
conscious of controlling it, or evidence like the sudden appearance in
consciousness of an experience that must have been going on all the time,
like a sensation of pressure from sitting on something that you weren’t
paying attention to until it was mentioned.
I think this thread is very instructive, but also that we must be careful
about jumping to conclusions about the experience of that bear and the
analogy with MOL therapy.
Best, Dag
[From Rick Marken (2008.03.17.0740)]
Dag Forssell (2008.03.15.0825 PST)--
Bill Powers (2008.03.15.0400 MDT)] MST yesterday, MDT today
Well, yes, except I lean toward assuming that they -- or at least some of
>them -- are there all the time, at every level, like the picture on a TV set
in a room with nobody in it.
I meant to contrast the huge effort of the brain, which I agree is not
detectable, with what I think is a widely held idea that the world is out
there and we experience it directly. Therefore, what you experience must be
the same as what I experience (memory not involved at any level). Fathers
who sleep through a baby's whimper must be deliberately uncaring and good
for ridicule and a laugh. If we interact in the same environment and you do
something I don't like, the reason must be that you are deliberately nasty
because it will never occur to me that your brain constructs a display of
the world and an interpretation of what is happening that is very different
from what my brain generates.
It seems to me that this kind of thing is at least as well (and
possibly better) explained in terms of reference signals rather than
perceptions. Though it might be that the father perceives the baby's
cry differently than someone else, like the mother, (the father may
be hard of hearing, for example) it seems more likely to me that the
father hears and perceives the cry just as does the mother who is
woken by it. The father might just have a different reference for
crying. While some parents might want to keep crying at zero this
father seems to accept a higher level of it.
Best
Rick
···
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com