What PCT is (and is not)

[Bruce Gregory (2004.1219.0836)]

If I were to propose that thermostats were sentient, that they
experience a range of emotions and are frustrated when the do not
achieve their goals, you might be a bit reluctant to accept my story.
More than likely, you would ask what evidence I have that thermostats
are not simple control systems that lack the properties I was
attributing to them. You might even point out that there is no need to
invoke such anthropomorphic imagery (as Bryan notes) to explain the
behavior of the thermostat.

I am making the same point about PCT models and awareness, memory,
imagination, and emotions. The models work perfectly well in the
absence or these embellishments. Awareness, imagination, memories and
emotions are, as far as I can tell, epiphenomena. They do none of the
lifting, but are simply along for the ride. The work is none by the
hardware described in the block diagrams.

This is not a criticism of PCT, but an attempt to clarify the domain in
which PCT applies. B:CP spells out this domain: behavior. Behavior is
where PCT has been tested and this is the domain where its success is
undeniably impressive. Bill has conjectured about links between PCT and
emotions, for example. But such conjectures are not part of the theory
and do not affect the way PCT models are constructed or the way they
work. Again this is not a criticism, but simply an observation.

The enemy of truth is not error. The enemy of truth is certainty.

[From Bill Powers (2004.122.19.0623 MST)]

Bruce Gregory (2004.1218.1442) –

Despair,
I am proposing, is not a causal factor but a serious

internally-generated disturbance.

But disturbances are causal factors, are they not? Control systems
act

to resist disturbances so the latter would seem to be causal
factors.

A disturbance is not a cause in that it is either necessary or sufficient
to account for the action that ensues. If you didn’t have a low reference
setting for experiencing despair you wouldn’t have to do anything about
it (which shows that no particular disturbance is sufficient to
account for the action). You could shoot yourself even if you didn’t feel
despair (which shows that no particular disturbance is necessary
to account for the action).

But that wasn’t my main point. The main point was that according to my
PCT-based theory of emotion, despair is a combination of goals and
feelings. The feelings result from having the goals and not being able to
achieve them – from being physiologically prepared to act but being
unable to act, or unable to act successfully, or unable to act without
making some other equally important error worse. Emotions are the result
of this situation, not the cause of it. Of course they are also
experiences, and we often try to control them – they can be disturbances
of higher-level control systems, such as a system with the reference
level “I am not an emotional person” or “I do not
experience bad emotions.”

My only point was that a PCT
model does not need to refer to emotions,

imagination, or memories.

In the case of emotion, you are quite right. But that is, I claim,
because emotion is not a fundamental process in the same way imagination
and memory are. My claim is that it is a natural consequence of a
hierarchy of learned neural control systems operating through the use of
a physiological hierarchy of biochemical control systems (to which I have
alluded in the past but have not tried to explore in any detail).

As to imagination and memory, you must not have read Chapter 15 of B:CP
where I try to work out a model that includes both of them. I have yet to
produce a working model of this arrangement, but at the time B:CP was
published I had no working models of anything: only ideas about how they
might be organized. I’m doing all I can in the sequence that seems
possible and best for me. If someone else wants to take on the projects
of producing working models of emotion, memory, and imagination to test
and extend the models proposed in B:CP, I offer strong encouragement, not
to mention my gratitude. But drawing conclusions from the fact that this
work has not yet been done seems premature.

The thermostat does not imagine
that turning

on the furnace will reduce the error it experiences. It does not
feel

frustrated if the furnace fails to heat the room because it is out
of

fuel, and the thermostat does not despair because it cannot reduce
the

persisting error.

On the other hand, you could embed this simple one-variable control
system in a hierarchy of control systems and equip it with the ability to
sense its own physical states. You could give the robot goals of
satisfying its Master’s desire to be warm and to keep from wasting fuel
and achieve other conditions. And you could teach it that the sense of
effort resulting from trying to achieve those goals, plus the condition
of extreme cold that causes a conflict between keeping warm and saving
fuel, add up to a constellation of perceptions that can be called
by a name. The robot would think and feel “I am failing, my efforts
are futile, I am in despair”. Which means “I feel myself trying
to do right, but I know I am unable to succeed.”

Pay attention to Martin Taylor’s comnments. He has it right. It would
help the discussion if, as he suggests, you could say just what this
theory of emotion omits.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Bruce Gregory (2004.1210.1005)]

Bill Powers (2004.122.19.0623 MST)

As to imagination and memory, you must not have read Chapter 15 of
B:CP where I try to work out a model that includes both of them. I
have yet to produce a working model of this arrangement, but at the
time B:CP was published I had no working models of anything: only
ideas about how they might be organized. I'm doing all I can in the
sequence that seems possible and best for me. If someone else wants to
take on the projects of producing working models of emotion, memory,
and imagination to test and extend the models proposed in B:CP, I
offer strong encouragement, not to mention my gratitude. But drawing
conclusions from the fact that this work has not yet been done seems
premature.

You are absolutely correct. I will await the development of working
models of emotion, memory, and imagination before drawing any
conclusions about them. For the time being, I will simply agree with
you that they do not yet exist.

The enemy of truth is not error. The enemy of truth is certainty.

[From Bill Powers n(2004.12.19.0730 MST)]

Bruce Gregory (2004.1219.0836)–

If I were to propose that
thermostats were sentient, that they

experience a range of emotions and are frustrated when the do not

achieve their goals, you might be a bit reluctant to accept my
story.

More than likely, you would ask what evidence I have that
thermostats

are not simple control systems that lack the properties I was

attributing to them.

I would say you are absolutely right. No single control system could
possibly explain a complex multidimensional multiordinate phenomenon like
emotion. Emotions require systems at several levels operating at the same
time, so that one system can perceive the consequences of other systems
in operation (or failing to operate right). This is why we can’t consider
emotion to exist at the same explanatory level as control. Emotion can
arise only as (in your terms) an epiphenomenon, or more properly, emotion
is an emergent phenomenon rather than a primary one.

You might even point out that
there is no need to invoke such anthropomorphic imagery (as Bryan notes)
to explain the behavior of the thermostat.

I think it is quite admissible to use anthropomorphic imagery when
talking about human beings. It’s only when we speak of other species,
whose experiences we do not (to our knowledge) share, or nonliving
systems and processes (like evolution), that anthropomorphism is a
logical mistake. The mistake when speaking of human beings is to
fail to anthropomorphize.

However, anthropomorphizing is not the right objection to attributing
emotions to a thermostat. A thermostat has only one goal. It can’t sense
its own efforts (the heat output of the furnace, the turning of the fan
motors), and it has no higher levels from which to judge its own success
or failure. So it is not sufficiently complex to support the phenomena we
call emotions. That, and not anthropomorphizing, would be the mistake in
attributing emotions to a thermostat.

I am making the same point about
PCT models and awareness, memory,

imagination, and emotions. The models work perfectly well in the

absence or these embellishments. Awareness, imagination, memories
and

emotions are, as far as I can tell, epiphenomena. They do none of
the

lifting, but are simply along for the ride. The work is none by the

hardware described in the block diagrams.

But that isn’t true. Awareness, imagination, memories, and emotions are
observable phenomena that require explanation. They are not
“epi” phenomena – they are real products of the operation of a
real system, real phenomena. A model of human organization can’t be said
to work “perfectly well” if it can’t reproduce these phenomena.
Contrary to your post of a day or so ago, PCT is not a theory of
“behavior.” It’s a theory that includes explanations of
behavior, but it is also intended to explain how the world, including our
own actions and their consequences, appears to us. Its very name,
perceptual control theory, refers to something that is known only
to each of us as a subjective phenomenon (even if we sometimes mistakenly
think it is objective). In fact, one of the earliest findings from this
theory is that “behavior” is never the point of our control
actions; the point is to make perceptions be in the states
we want. Behavior is what other people observe; perception is what we
observe of our own control operations.

This is not a criticism of PCT,
but an attempt to clarify the domain in

which PCT applies. B:CP spells out this domain:
behavior.

But this is an attempt to limit, not clarify, the domain, both
unnecessarily and incorrectly. The domain of PCT is human
experience
. That includes both actions and the effects of actions; it
includes both external and internal effects. It includes hierarchies of
effects, in which one effect is produced by whatever action is necessary
at the moment as a means of producing more general effects. It includes
effects that are controlled and effects that are not controlled, as well
as effects we experience that are caused and controlled by other
organisms, or by non-sentient natural processes. You will find all these
elements in even the simplest control tasks such as tracking.

To understand PCT you have to understand HPCT. It is a mistake to draw
conclusions about the whole system from characteristics of one of its
elementary components. You have to consider what phenomena can
emerge from an complex assembly of many such components – phenomena such
as emotion.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Rick Marken (2004.12.19.0900)]

Bill Powers (2004.12.19.0730 MST)--

Bruce Gregory (2004.1219.0836)--

This is not a criticism of PCT, but an attempt to clarify
the domain in which PCT applies. B:CP spells out this
domain: behavior.

But this is an attempt to limit, not clarify, the domain,
both unnecessarily and incorrectly. The domain of PCT is
human experience...

Well put. Since you know the ugly game he's playing, why play?

Very best regards

Rick

···

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marken@mindreadings.com
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From David Wolsk (2004.12.19.10.35PST)

On Dec 18, 2004, at 6:11 AM, Bill Powers wrote: on suicide as an end to
despair.

I like your explanation. I've been trying, without much feeling of
success, for an explanation of the ease with which young people are
recruited to blow themselves up as a response to Israeli or USA
policies/actions. I would appreciate your (and anyone else's) thoughts
on this. Reading a recent book by D. Benjamin and S. Silverman
(ex-National Security Council terrorism experts) has me very scared
.... and full of despair.
David

[From Bill Powers (2004.12.18.0655 MST)]

Bruce Gregory (2004.1217.1718) --

Perhaps an example would help. People do not kill themselves because
of
despair. People kill themselves because they have a reference for
"putting the gun to their heads and pulling the trigger." or at least
that seems to me to be a reasonable PCT model.

Yes, the example makes it easier to come to grips with your objection.
I
would agree that I don't think people kill themselves because of
despair
(PCT aside). That is, despair is not some independent force that causes
suicide. I think that some people commit suicide as a way to put an
end to
despair.

The state of despair, I would maintain, is a combination of cognitive
factors and somatic factors: thoughts and feelings. The thoughts
concern
errors that are deemed both extremely important and uncorrectable. The
feelings are those of being physiologically keyed up to correct errors
--
but since nothing can actually be done, those feelings persist instead
of
being "used up." This state is unpleasant to an extreme, and the inner
conflicts involved are crippling. For some people the only solution is
simply to escape by any means possible, death if necessary.

Despair, I am proposing, is not a causal factor but a serious
internally-generated disturbance.It is a physical and mental reaction
to
problems that has become severe enough to constitute a problem in
itself --
an intolerable state of being. Some people, but by no means most, deal
with
it by killing themselves, which does in fact solve the problem.

Does that make any sense to you?

Best,

Bill P.
'

Dr. David Wolsk
Associate, Centre for Global Studies
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Education
University of Victoria, Canada

[From Rick Marken (2004.12.19.1530)]

David Wolsk (2004.12.19.10.35PST)

On Dec 18, 2004, at 6:11 AM, Bill Powers wrote: on suicide
as an end to

despair.

I like your explanation. I've been trying, without much
feeling of success, for an explanation of the ease with
which young people are recruited to blow themselves up as
a response to Israeli or USA policies/actions. I would
appreciate your (and anyone else's) thoughts on this.

My thought is that these kids are living in desperate poverty with no
obvious hope for the future. They have lots of error (producing the somatic
component of despair) and they are being taught (by their elders) and shown
(by Israel, the US and their own leaders) that there is little hope of their
gaining control in their lifetime (the cognitive component of despair).

These kids are probably experiencing intense despair. And they were probably
raised to believe in things like an afterlife. I think it would be fairly
easy to convince someone laboring under this combination of despair and
religious belief that a good way to eliminate the despair and at the same
time do something to reduce future despair for one's own people and get a
great reward in heaven to boot is to blow oneself and a bunch of Israelis or
Americans up.

Best

Rick

···

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Home 310 474-0313
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