[Martin Taylor 940829 13:45]
Rick Marken (940827.2200)
Thanks for a pretty good re-statement of the PCT view of perception, as
described on p. 75-76 and 113-114 of "Behavior: The control of
perception".
Appreciated, especially because (a) I lost my copy of PCT to some unnamed
borrower many months ago, and (b) Bill P. has been arguing recently against
the main point I was trying to make, that the value of the perceptual
signal could and should be distinguished from the value of the signal
in the "real world" that is the value of the CEV defined by the PIF.
The VALUE of a CEV is estimated by the perceptual signal output
from the defining PIFThis is either poor word selection or you are betraying some remants of
your old information processing approach to perception;-). The perceptual
signal is not really an "estimate" of anything; I would say that it is
an "analog" of variation in an aspect of the world defined by the
perceptual input function.
I don't mind this rewording.
My "old" information processing approach to perception is alive and well,
thank you. I just don't disturb you with it as much these days. Never
mind, I'm sure that the waste of net bandwidth on it will resume some day.
ยทยทยท
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On regulations
You [Bill Leach] seem to think that I was saying that we should make
guns illegal
and take them away from everyone. I am not. I advocate for guns
what I advocate for drugs and prostitution and what is already accepted
for cars, gambling, smoking and drinking: agreed-to regulations.
It seems to me that the ESSENTIAL difference between guns on the one hand
and drugs and prositution and so forth on the other is that the specific
value of a gun is to impose force on other control systems, whether they
be human or otherwise, whereas none of the other regulated items discussed
do so except incidentally, in the same way that most of our actions affect
the possibilities open to other control systems.
If one holds, as Bill Leach seems to do, that a corollary of PCT is that
it is not good to impose force to impede the ability of another control
system to control, then one has to hold that gun ownership should be
prohibited. I am not so doctinaire, either about what PCT shows to be
"good" (could PCT possibly do such a thing?), or about gun ownership. I
can see some merit in the existence of a socially agreed force-imposition
organization such as police or military, and at least the military should
be provided with guns (I'm not sure about police). But that's my opinion,
and nothing to do with PCT as such.
Regulations and laws come from a formalization of convention. Conventions
that survive over time are ones that are compatible with a stable society.
Regulations that don't conform to social convention are likely to be ones
that lead to the imposition of socially accepted force against those that
violate them. Regulations that simply codify what most people normally
do are unlikely to involve much force.
Anyway, I think that from the PCT view, gun regulations stand apart from
almost all other regulations on what one may own, since there is nothing
that a gun firing a projectile can do for its owner other than to affect
the ability of another control system to control. Target shooting can
be equally well, perhaps better and certainly less dangerously, done with
a camera gun. (And the response that target shooting isn't dangerous
should be referred to the Toronto policeman who accidentally shot his
partner at a shooting range.)
Martin