[From Fred Nickols (2014.06.23.1356 EDT)]
Actually, I like Perceptual-Control-System-Engineer. I like Perception-Control-System-Engineer even more. I learned the hard way many years ago that you have to be careful using the word “engineer.� The licensed engineers will be all over you. I’m sure some of you qualify so I’ll settle for being a “Perception Control Technician.�
Fred Nickols
···
From: PHILIP JERAIR YERANOSIAN [mailto:pyeranos@ucla.edu]
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 1:38 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: What’s in a name?
[phil 6/23/12 10:12]
Honestly, who even looked at the phenomenology page? I got 0 feedback, thanks allot feedback guys. Anyway, if you looked, you’d find that phenomenology CONTAINS teleonomy. It is about the observation of experience, of the observation of the phenomenon or the fact of control, or of any other experience. Perceptual control places the stress on the controlled nature of the perceptual experience. Phenomenology seeks to describe this experience as a hierarchical structure. If you study telenomy you’re going to get entangled in time-tunneling quantum sci-fi bullshit. I’m sick of these new age scientists trying to come up with stupid adjectival juxtapositions to describe something they hope exists. What exists is perception, and if that perception is not actively controlled, then purpose does not exist, simple as that.
As for what you should call yourself, as if you needed to figure this out in 2014. You guys are perceptual-control-system engineers: not psychologists (because psychologists refuse to grant you entry into their stupid club), not engineering control theorists (as they too do not grant you entry). Define a group in terms of how its members’ behavior includes or excludes membership. You generate all of human history, from science to genocide. You cannot hijack names, I’m sorry, but all a person needs to do to foil your intention is to resist an disturbance to an imaginary abstract conception in their head and your name is controlled. In the stupid, childish, apocalyptic game called science, it’s not important what you think your name is. What is important is how the others will control what to call you in order to resist disturbances to what they will call themselves. As a result, you need to resist the proper disturbances to your study. You should know not to control other peoples’ behavior by applying disturbances (changing your name, changing what they’re supposed to call you). People will do what they want and YOU need to do the extra work, thinking in circles, to figure out why.
I don’t want to keep reading about how everybody else needs to drop what they’re doing and start calling you guys teleopathologists (how do you like that for a name). If you haven’t figured it out yet, scientists are a bunch of pathetic dream chasers running after a science which has gotten lucky by feeding off of the work of pure math. Most of quantum mechanics is ACCIDENTALLY discovered because people have been doing totally applicationless math. That’s like accidentally perceiving something and then pretending like you were actively controlling it and having it as the purpose of your behavior all along. Do you think the geometry which went into the pyramids and into the structures on mars came from a race of people sitting at desks collecting grant money while…I’m just not even going to get into this.
Long story short, I don’t see in you guys the proper attitude it takes to further this field. I’m sorry, but if you refuse to start describing PCT more in terms of why what everyone else is doing is CORRECT instead of fundamentally wrong, you will get nowhere. Try reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people”. That teaches you more about PCT than a study of the disturbance, the feedback, the output, etc.
On Monday, June 23, 2014, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2014.06.23.0840)]
David Goldstein (2014.05.23.1023)
RM: Damn! It’s not the name of a field; it’s the name of what is thought to be an illusion (purposefulness). But I can hijack it as the name of a field; the study of the real phenomenon of purpose (control).
Or I can just keep saying that I’m a psychologist and live with the consequences;-)
Best
Rick
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 12, 2014, at 7:04 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2014.06.12.1600)]
Kent McClelland (2014.06.12.1410 CDT)
RM: Thanks for the history, Kent. I knew that you get the credit for coining the term PCT but I didn’t remember the details of the back story. I found this part particularly interesting:
KM: If I’m remembering correctly, Bill Powers’s preference for the name of the theory during that 1990s CSGnet debate was Hierarchical Control Theory, a name that describes the theory a little better, perhaps, but was regarded as poison by sociologists like myself, who didn’t want to be associated with anything smacking of hierarchy, let alone hierarchical control!
RM: This is really too bad because Hierarchical Control Theory (HCT) really is, indeed, the name that describes Bill’s theory the best. Perceptual Control Theory is fine, too, but the fact is that all control theories are perceptual control theories. This is just the way closed negative feedback systems work; they controls perceptual representations of the variables they control. So the control theory that describes the behavior of a thermostat is a perceptual control theory as much as is the control theory that describes the behavior of a human.
RM: All control systems control a perceptual representation of controlled variable(s). This fact is rarely explicitly taken into account in engineering applications of control theory because the control engineer knows what variable is to be controlled and, therefore, what variable should be sensed (perceived). The main concern for the engineer is that the system be built so that it controls well. But it is crucial to be aware of the fact that it is perception that is controlled when trying to understand the controlling (behavior) of control systems that have already been built – living control systems. One of Powers’ main contributions was pointing this out to students of the behavior of living control systems; that to understand the behavior of such systems you have to understand what perceptions they are controlling. So naming Bill’s application of control theory Perceptual Control Theory was brilliant because it called attention not only to what is most important about the application of control theory to the behavior of living systems but also to what distinguishes Bill’s application of control theory from others that were also being applied in psychology.
RM: But I think Bill’s most important contribution to understanding the behavior of living systems was pointing out that behavior is control and that, therefore, only control theory can account for such behavior. He then went on to propose a hierarchical version of control theory to show how control theory could account for all aspects for behavior, from controlling the position of a limb to controlling one’s position on political issues. This Hierarchical Control Theory (HCT) model is the one that Bill hoped researchers would test; it’s the theory that Bill was sure was not completely correct and that would surely have to be change. It’s HCT that is Bill’s theory of behavior that has to be tested; there is no need to test PCT because virtually all of what we call “behavior” is control and all control is perceptual control; if behavior is control then it’s perceptual control. The only way to reject PCT is to reject the fact that behavior is control or to reject that fact that control involves active resistance to disturbance – both of which are arguments used by opponents of PCT. But I’m pretty tired of fighting (via research) to show that PCT is right. That’s why I was suggesting that maybe we should change the name of field of study of PCT to indicate that PCT is only relevant to the study of control in living organisms. Then we could start doing the science that Bill hoped to see emerge out of his work; a science dedicated to testing theories, like Bill’s HCT, of how control works in living organisms.
Best regards
Rick
Richard S. Marken PhD
www.mindreadings.com
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Richard S. Marken PhD
www.mindreadings.com
