[FROM: Dennis Delprato (921215)]
Only skimmed over reviewer's comments on Rick's most
recent clash with tradition. Two quick points:
1. On goals: One impediment to people like the reviewers
grasping PCT is the tendency to treat PCT as saying something
about what they know as goals (fine). BUT the problem is that
they do not get away from the conventional notion that the
goals are "out there." I suggest that this one important factor
in many not grasping what the likes of Rick are saying.
2. On feedback control: The crude reactions to feedback control
especially frustrate me. Mainstreamers seem to take one or more
of the following positions:
a. Feedback control is not important in psychological behavior.
b. It is important but we know all there is to know about what's
going on here. Let's get on with the important stuff.
c. Feedback? Oh, you mean reinforcement. This has been beaten
to death. Or--I am quite up on reinforcement, am continuing
the work of the great learning theorists.
d. Feedback control -- I agree it is important for motor skills,
but we are not interested in this area.
e. Feedback? -- Too mechanical, OK for machines but not for....
f. Feedback? That's information on how well one is approximating
a goal that is out there in one's external environment.
g. Feedback? Control? I don't know what your are talking about
and that ain't all 'cause I don't give a damn either.
This is not a very sophisticated classification of reactions to
feedback control, but it does begin to give some idea of how
it is that K. U. Smith's and now Powers's work tends to be met
with wide yawns.