From Greg Williams (920522-2)
From Bill Powers (920522.0900)
You're not willfully misreading me, are you?!?!
If a miracle occurs, it becomes part of the history of the affected system.
Do your PCT models contain non-history-determined events (what I've been
calling "miracles"? I've always thought they didn't.
To call something a "miracle" is only to say "I don't understand how that
could have happened."
I have defined what I am calling a "miracle": non-history-determined events. I
claim that PCT models don't include such "miracles." PCT models include plenty
of "miracles" in your sense, as does the natural universe at large. So what?
How does your concept of "miracles" bear on my claim? I don't even need to
call non-history-determined events "miraculous" to make my point, which
depends on the nature of PCT models. Are they history-determined or not? If
they are history-determined, then the models offer no support for those who
claim that (at least some of) an individual's choices can be deliberate and
also completely autonomous. I admit that autonomous choices might be made in a
random way (perhaps employing quantum mechanical effects) by processes
internal to an organism modeled using PCT -- but such choices are random, and
don't correspond to traditional notions of free will. Otherwise, PCT models
(as far as I can tell) produce time histories of behavior/actions which depend
on their histories, BUT NOT NECESSARILY IN A STRICTLY NON-RANDOM WAY (for
instance, randomness could come from the dynamics of the niche). In any case,
what happens NOW in a PCT model depends on its interactions with its niche,
and so what happens NOW depends NOT ONLY on the organism modeled, but on its
environment.
The concept of a "state-determined system" comes, I believe, from LaGrange.
Give me a description of the universe at a given instant, and knowledge of
all natural laws, and I will tell you the state of the universe from then
on. This is what physical determinism is about, isn't it?
Since Lagrange, the idea has been broadened to include systems with randomness
in their state transition (dynamical) laws. I am using the notion in this
broader-than-Lagrangian-predictive-determinism sense. One more time: I AM NOT
ARGUING FOR PREDICTIVE DETERMINISM OF PCT MODELS. My problem is with claims
that PCT models give any support to absolute autonomy of organisms.
Control theory introduces a type of physical organization that can
eliminate all but a narrow range of the outcomes of chaotic and randomly
perturbed processes. What determines the outcome is then not "history", but
the present organization of the controlling living system.
Are you missing my point on purpose? (Tee hee!) If PCT models are (non-random
OR random OR stochastic) dynamical systems -- and, to date, I haven't met one
that isn't -- then the organizations, at each point in time, of those models
depend on their history (for the last time, POSSIBLY WITH RANDOMNESS IN THAT
DEPENDENCY), and that history includes interactions between the modeled
nervous system and its niche.
Once the fact of control became established in one part of the physical
universe, that part became able to preserve the kind of organization that
controls, and passed along from generation to generation this ability -- the
ability to predetermine outcomes independently of the laws governing the rest
of the universe, the ability to manipulate physical variables so that their
lawful effects are those intended by the controlling system.
As I have observed them, PCT models do not "predetermine outcomes
independently of the laws governing the rest of the universe." To the
contrary, those laws (first and foremost, CAUSALITY, which claims that the
future does not influence the past) are presumed in PCT models. Aren't they?
Did I catch a whiff of that dread opposite of the law of causality, namely
TELEOLOGY? No -- I never have smelled even a hint of teleology in PCT, just
TELEONOMY. PCT models show how intention can be physically realized via
closed-loop organizations.
PCT models determine behavioral outcomes in accordance with their histories.
What they DON'T do is autonomously determine the actions necessary to achieve
those behavioral outcomes. Neither do they autonomously determine their own
current control structure, in general. Anyone looking to pin all the "blame" on
somebody for what that somebody does had better look elsewhere for a
supportive model. And so should anyone looking to pin all the "blame" on
somebody's niche for what that somebody does. PCT models SHARE the blame
between somebody and his/her niche.
To LaGrange, as I understand his ideas, physical determinism was absolute and
fixed forever. This idea can no longer be supported.
Predictive determinism is dead. But its demise wasn't needed to make the point
that it seems (to me) several netters want to make: Success in making
deliberate manipulations of living control systems is more difficult than
Skinnerians think.
Control theory provides the final justification for "free will." Free will
is not a phenomenon of causation, but a phenomenon of organization. It
isn't a very good term for this phenomenon, but it's the best people could
do by way of describing their relationship to the nonliving world.
Why not "intention" instead? Go ask a theologian whether PCT models justify
"free will." I bet the theologian will say that's not what "free will" is
about. PCT models show how intention is a natural phenomenon of (certain kinds
of) organizations. I still think PCT models include no organization giving
rise to traditional "free will."
Prediction becomes a matter of understanding intentions. In my case, an
intention formed nearly 40 years ago is still determining outcomes, despite
four decades of random perturbations and tendencies of natural processes to
branch and branch again as they pass natural bifurcation (or multifurcation)
points.
(An aside.) As I've noted a few times before, this begins to sound ominous to
some who would prefer to not be manipulated by others. The Test in the hands
of would-be manipulators might aid them greatly. (Maybe we should all start
refusing to participate in polls? As Steve Earle has noted, "Just because you
ain't paranoid don't mean they ain't out to get ya.")
The term "free will" does not designate something that exists in an
objective universe (or not) and which we then must prove (or disprove) to
be something real. It's an attempt to describe an experience. Control
theory, by showing how purpose works, suggests a clearer view of this kind
of experience.
Yes. PCT models suggest that the experience of (traditional) free will is an
illusion.
Greg
P.S. With good weather here (eat your heart out, Bill), between work on the
house (we topped out today and had a tree ceremony!) and answering your posts,
when will I have time to look at the Little Man. The weather folks say rain
on Sunday, but they're usually wrong. Seems they are limited in their ability
to specify behavioral outcomes.