William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[FredNickols]

[From Fred Nickols (2017.06.07.1512 ET)]

Hmm. I’d better clarify my last sentence. I was saying that Rick is not using purposeful the same way I do.

Fred

···

From: Fred Nickols [mailto:fred@nickols.us]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 2:56 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[From Fred Nickols (2017.06.07.1454 ET)]

I get what you’re saying, Rick. I even think I understand it. I think we have a language problem. I would readily agree that all behavior, reflex or otherwise, has a purpose. But I don’t think all behavior is purposeful, that is, consciously intentional. Clearly, you are not.

Fred

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 2:41 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.1140)]

Fred Nickols (2017.06.07.1355 ET)

FN: Okay. So if I sit on the edge of the examining table and the doctor taps my patella with his little mallet and my leg jerks outward, is that “purposeful� behavior?

RM: You betcha! (I lived in Minnesota for 11 years, don’cha know). The purpose of the behavior (the controlled variable) is to maintain the level of tension on the patellar ligament. The tap is a disturbance that increases that tension, creating a sudden, large error that drives the corrective action – contraction of the quadriceps muscle. The result is the “kick” that reduces the tension of the ligament. But since the tap-produced tension is already gone (since the tap is over) the “kick” is too late. Under normal circumstances the disturbances to the tension on the patellar ligament don’t come and go as abruptly as they do with the tap. So there is no “kick” as the tension on the tendon is disturbed by things like changes in the terrain one is walking one. So the variations in the contraction of the quadriceps perfectly compensate for these disturbances, maintaining the reference tension on the ligament and keeping you walking upright and balanced rather than constantly stumbling and falling.

FN: Or does a reflex like that qualify as behavior?

RM: You betcha. The patellar reflex (like all reflexes) is a control system. The apparent stimulus-response nature of the reflex comes from using abrupt disturbances to the controlled variable (in this case the tension on the ligament); the disturbances appear to be a stimulus that causes the “kick” behavior. Indeed, it was the use of abrupt disturbances (stimuli) in psychological research that led to the idea that behavior is not purposeful but, rather, caused by stimuli. What was being ignored (or went unseen) was the controlled variable component of the behavior. So the goal of psychological research became finding the stimuli that cause behavior where “behavior” referred only to what we would called the output component of the control loop.

RM: So it’s the abruptness of the disturbances that gives control systems like the patellar reflex the appearance of being caused output. This is all discussed in a typically wonderful paper by Powers called “A bucket of beans”, reprinted in LCS II.

Best

Rick

I happen to agree that most behavior (i.e., the activity of the organism) is purposeful; I’m just not sure that includes reflex reactions.

Fred

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 1:30 PM

To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.1030)]

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 1:48 AM, Bill Leach wrleach@cableone.net wrote:

Lord forgive me, I should NOT post on this but…

[also for some reason this reply did not open with csgnet in the ‘To:’ field. I added it so I hope this does not double post to the net]

BL: I’m sorry Boris, but behavior IS controlled,

RM: Behavior can be controlled, in the sense that outputs can be made to take on preselected values by appropriately disturbing a variable that is being kept under control by that output. But my point in this discussion is that what we call “behavior” IS control, which is really just a more technical way of saying that “behavior is purposeful”.

Best

Rick

it is exactly what the control system alters to achieve a control of perception. A control system, engineered or otherwise does not actually ‘control the perception.’ With respect to the physical world and perceptions related to that world is change it’s output in an attempt to achieve new perceptual input that more closely match the desired condition for those perceptions.

It is precisely because the biological control system can not directly control the perception that a reorganizing system is necessary. A problem that was also recognized by the engineering community at least as early as the 1950’s… that is the problem of the disturbance for which the system as presently configured does not have any output that can counter the this (not planned for in the case of engineered systems) disturbance. It was recognized as a problem for response critical systems and for remote systems. In the case for critical systems the rapid failure rate precluded engineering and implementing a correction. For remote system the problem became quite obvious with control systems deployed in outer space.

To suggest that Bill Powers was not well aware of this problem is absurd! It has been way too many years for me now so I don’t remember my discussions with Bill about these sorts of issues other than remembering how his thoughts on reorganization were elegant indeed. Brilliant thinkers like Bill Powers and Richard Feynman are sadly all too rare in human society.

B:CP is Behavior is the Control of Perception. This is the overall goal of the system. That is most certainly a beautiful statement and indeed a proper way to describe the whole system. However the fact is that the system can only ultimately control the ‘actuators’ or outputs. This is true for the particular control system as well as for subunits and even individual control loops.

Outputs or behavior is controlled with the intent to achieve control of perceptions. One view is looking at the goal or why the system works as it does (a very important concept in behavioral science especially when trying to point out what is wrong with all of the other approaches) of the system, the other is a view of what the system is actually doing. My claim is that neither view is wrong.

Obviously I am in no position to speak for Rick but, since Rick is (or at least was a very serious researcher into PCT with a strong focus on producing systems the accurately produce the same results as human systems including quality of control) it is to me no surprise that his focus would be on what the system is actually doing to achieve the goal of controlling a perception. While I don’t remember the specifics of any of the conversations that I actually had with Rick so many years ago, I will state that in all of the work of Rick’s that I have read I have never seen anything that would suggest that Rick thinks that the purpose of behavior is NOT to control perception.

Best,
Bill

On 05/25/2017 02:54 PM, Boris Hartman wrote:

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2017 9:54 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[From Rick Marken (2017.05.24. 1250)]

Lloyd Klinedinst (2017.05.24 14:14 CDT)–

from the official PCT website:

William T. Powers, the engineer/psychologist who developed Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) passed away on May 24, 2013 at the age of 86. He will be laid to rest next to his wife, Mary, in a cemetery overlooking the city of Durango, CO. His work will continue, pursued by those who came to know Powers and PCT. His theory will someday receive the recognition it deserves, and so will he.

RM: Thanks for pointing out that today is the anniversary of Bill’s passing. Indeed, it’s the fourth anniversary. I am sure that Bill’s insights (first and foremost being that behavior is control)

HB : I’m wondering Rick, when you’ll stop bullshitting with »Behavior is control« without any evidence. Your RCT control loop with central point that »Behavior is controlled« which produces some »Controlled Perceptual Variable« has nothing to do with Bills’ theory and diagrams (LCS III) where it’s obvious that »Perception is controlled«.

And to make a statement on his day of death that central point of PCT is »Behavior is control« instead of »Perception is controlled« is as I’m concerned a crime.

Let us remember how beauty of PCT function in real words and diagram :

Bill P :

Our only view of the real world is our view of the neural signals that represent it inside our own brains. When we act to make a perception change to our more desireble state – when we make the perrception of the glass change from »on the table« to »near the mouth« - we have no direct knowledge of what we are doing to the reality that is the origin of our neural signal; we know only the final result, how the result looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes, and so forth…¦It means that we produce actions that alter the world of perception…

HB : Did you citate any of his statements to honor memaory of great inventor ?

Do you see any difference Rick between you rude and rough »control of behavior« with »perceptual control« poetry ? I think it’s right that we remember that Bill was a founder of a new original theory which fundaments are »Control of Perception«.

Who are you Rick and why should anyone beleive you ? Except that all maybe is about friendship. And you play on friends feelings. Others tolerate and listen to you because you are friends. And this should be some kind of science ?

I understand that you have no evidences for your statements as many others except maybe »common sense« as Fred. I like Freds’ honest understanding that he doesn’t need PCT to understand with »common sence« that »behavior is control«. It’s probably the same for Carver and Scheier, Vancouver and you. So you could admitt it too. Then we would know that you don’t understand PCT and you don’t need it to understand how and why people behave.

RM ….and theory (that, therefore, behavior can only be expllained as the control of perceptual input) will someday receive the recognition they deserve; I just wish it would be someday sooner rather than later.

HB : Behavior is not control so it can’t control input, it can’ control anything outside. I’ll citate again great master of »perception«.

Bill P (B:CP):

CONTROL : Achievement and maintenance of a preselected state in the controlling system, through actions on the environment that also cancel the effects of disturbances.

HB : Behavior is consequence of control and it is means by which people control perception inside organism or in the controlling system. Behavior is just support for inside control. It’s not main mechanism of control ouside the system. It’s about control in the controlling system. So I hope that people will recognize soon enough that RCT is not PCT. You’ve misleaded many great people here.

I’m sure that PCT will be once leading theory when younger generation will accept the fact of »Perceptual control« and not »Behavior is control«. It’s about how organisms control inside not outside.

Best,

Boris

Best regards

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.1320)]

···

 Fred Nickols (2017.06.07.1454 ET)]

Â

FN: I get what you’re saying, Rick. I even think I understand it. I think we have a language problem. I would readily agree that all behavior, reflex or otherwise, has a purpose. But I don’t think all behavior is purposeful, that is, consciously intentional. Clearly, you are not.

RM: Yes, since I equate “purposeful behavior” with “control” then I see behavior as purposeful, whether it is conscious or not. Your view – that behavior is purposeful only if it is conscious – is certainly the more common view. But there is a linguistic problem with my view; if control (and therefore purpose) can be either conscious or unconscious, then how do we distinguish the two using common language. One way is the way Powers did it in B:CP, by referring to consciously carried out purposes as “volition” or “will” (see the “Awareness, Consciousness and Volition” section of the “Learning” chapter). Another way is to just talk about “unconsciously carried out purposes” and “consciously carried out purposes”.Â

RM: But whatever way you prefer, I think it’s important to maintain the distinction between consciously and unconsciously carried out purposes. After all, it’s those pesky unconscious purposes (not the conscious ones) that create problems for us, so the difference is important.Â

BestÂ

Rick

Â

Â

–

Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

–

Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[_Boris_Hartman]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.1050)]

WM: Hi Boris, what you are saying is almost the same as what Rick is saying.

RM: I must admit that I have read some of Boris’ posts even though they go to my spam folder now.

HB : Ha,ha, ha… you must be very amusing guy. I see you like jokes. I know that you are reading my post very precisley and if you could answer with any ergumnets you would do. But your RCT is such a lost that you haven’t let any arguments but phylosophy and imagination.

It’s hard to avoid wanting to read them, much as it’s hard to avoid wanting to look when passing a major accident on the freeway or read the latest tweet from Trump. For some reason we can’t take our eyes off disaster. What are we controlling for? Well, maybe not all of us, but plenty; looky-loos slow down traffic here in La La Land all the time.

RM: I think Boris’ problem (besides hating my guts, which is probably not a problem for him) comes down to the fact that he deals with PCT completely theoretically.

HB : Right. I went driving a car in the wind because of you (what was purely« theoretical), because you stated that everything in the loop happens in the same time (what is purely theoretical). And I went down the street, saying straneg people »hello« (it was Bills’ idea) what was again »purely theoretical« to prove to you that »people can’t control other people all the time. You are theorizing Rick, not me. Did you do these Tests as I advised you ?

RM : He has absolutely no understanding of the phenomenon that PCT explains.

HB : Yeah. You do. And what is phenomenon that PCT explains ? Did you talk to Bill what phenomenon of control PCT in organism explains ?

RM : It seems to me that this is true of many people on CSGNet, which may be why I am pushing the empirical side of PCT so strongly: the idea that PCT explains the controlling that we see as the behavior of organisms.

HB : Ha,ha ha… you are pushing »empirical side« of PCT behind a computer in a chair. What kind of  empirical »pushing is that« ??? You made some computer »pushing«  experiments and that makes you empirical giant.  I am telling you for the last time that PCT is not just theoretical science, but strongly empiricaly supported  because it contain a lot of physilogiccal evidences obtained in medicine knowledge  on mislions of people everyday. In hospitals for ex. PCT works in medicine as well as anywhere.  Physiology is not theoretical science, but RCT is.

PCT is not about behavior. Behavior is just some »side« effect (Rupert) of organisms control among other effectors in the organism that are keeping homeostasis. And that is essential that organism survive.

Bill P. at all (50th Anniversary, 2011) :

Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) provides a general theory of functioning for organisms.

HB : Do you understand the difference what is general theory and what is partial theory made on some compuetr experimnets ???

But if you prove that »Behavior can be controlled« then we can seriously talk about how organisms funcrion.

RM : I think his “theory only” approach to PCT may be why it seems like Boris is saying the same thing I am (which, of course, he often is, since he is always quoting Powers) when, in fact, he is not.

HB : Just empty talkings. I see that you don’t know to read, as I proved you many times. Go see archives and find out how many times you read wrong Bills literature and I corrected you. Our theoretical and empirical ways are totaly different. You are promoting RCT with your behavirostic »control loop«, and I promote PCT always backing up my statements with Bills diagram. Will you do the same instead of talking and phylosophing to much.

Best,

Boris

Best

Rick

···

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 7:53 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 4:55 AM, Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com wrote:

On 5 Jun 2017, at 18:15, Boris Hartman boris.hartman@masicom.net wrote:

Barb,

I thought that you will be more acceptable for your Dads’ ideas but it seems to me, that you are more supporting Ricks’ RCT then your Dads’ PCT.

I’ll try a little more this time. On the end there is my proposal about what I think PCT is. It’s some sort of summary of your Dads’ legacy. I think it’s right that somebody make such a overview over his theory every year so to honor his memory.

It takes time to go through Bills’ enormous literature. I would suggest again if You could do it and provide PCT with inserts from his work if it’s true what you told me that Your Dad and Mom are the only that are important to you.

But after you emotional »explossion« I really donIt know on which side you are : Dad and Mom’s or Ricks ???

And for that reason it seems useless to prove to Rick that he is wrong. Rick is promoting his RCT and »Behavior is control« and he never showed one single evidence that he is telling the truth. And you beleive him not your Dads’ legacy ???

They have totatly diferent concept of understanding how organisms function. .

I was shocked and appeled that Rick used particular situation to promote his RCT and »Behavior as control«. After all these years of conversations he didn’t show a single evidence that he could be right about that »Behavior is Control«. But he did admitt many times that output in PCT is not controlled. Output can be equated with behavior. At least as muscle tension is concerned.

Beside these contradiction in which he once claim that »Output is not controlled« and once that it is, there are also other contradictions. Everything can be checked in CSGnet archives.

And you are shocked because I »attacked« Rick for being ignorant about PCT and because he was promoting »Behavior is control« and his RCT instead of »Control of perception« and PCT ? Unbeleivable.

I think that you should be satisfyed that somebody is revealing PCT through your Dads’ literature and not just through imagination as Rick is doing.

I’m taking you also responsable for what Rick is doing for a long time, although I provided all evidences that his RCT theory with wrong elements in control loop is total opposite to Bills’ PCT. For now Rick didn’t deny it.

What I was aming at was to honor PCT and memory to Bill and simultaneously showing that Rick should do the same. Ricks’ RCT is just phylosophy. Will you provide necesary evidences ?

And beside that you invited me to show from time to time on CSGnet. Would you like that Rick writes whatever he wants or you want some synhronization with PCT on CSGnet. Rick is for a long time quite far from it.

I think that you should criticize Rick for what he did. I used Bill sources and honored his PCT. Is this what I should be shame of ?

What’s wrong with my argumentative way ? That I’m using your fathers’ literature to prove what PCT is ? Is this wrong argumentative way ??? Is wrong argumantative way proving that Rick is not right ? That your friend Rick is being target for his ignorancy ? Should we let him talk whatever he wants wtih no concern to PCT ? What »argumentative way« is right for you ?

O.K. let us make an agreement. As soon as anybody of you provide evidences that »Behavior is control« and that it can produce »Controlled Perceptual Variable« or PCV, I’ll appologise to you, Rick and to all those who were hurtby my statements and citations of Bills’ literature. But if you don’t provide evidences that »Behavior can be control« I hope that you’ll apologize to me. Is this fair ?

By ma oppinion CSGnet forum should be some scientific forum not only friendship discussion forum. So evidences has to be put »on the table«, like in every scientific discussion. You agreed once with this. Don’t make differences between members. If something is valid for one member it should be valid for all members.

As I saw from other discussions I could conclude that PCT is still not enough established on CSGnet forum, and Ricks’ RCT is blooming, I decided to honor Bills’ memory and also give a systematic answer to Kaufmans’ »10 big ideas« about PCT

I thought at first that somebody more close to Bill could do it, but till now I didn’t see any such contribution. As I said before I’ll try a little more, but more probable is that I’ll have enough of everything and I’ll let you to your Destiniy you choosed. If you want CSGnet forum to be dedicated to Rick and his RCT then what can I do more then I did ?

So I decided to make probbaly for the last time a brief abstract from Bills’ lietrature in 10 or maybe more points to compare them to Kaufmans’ points. But in the future I think it would be more suitable if you Barb or any member of your “core” group do it to honor the memory on your father and PCT.

Here is my interpretation of highlights from Bills’ literature which tends to give a short »abstract« of his enourmous work. The aim is also to show how it looks like when CSGnet forum is dedicated to his work so that we see really his words, not Ricks’ RCT. Ricks’ work (RCT) is in most cases what we see here. So I’m asking myself to whom CSGnet forum is dedicated ? To Bill or Rick ???

Anybody who wants to express oppinion about work of William T. Powers is welcome. In this way we could maybe establish what PCT is and come to some normal PCT agreements, not RCT agreement. So please no contributions in the form of NON-PCT theories like Rick is.

I must also emphasize that my »abstract« of »10 PCT Thesis« usees mostly Bills’ text :

1.   To control perception means to act on it in such a way as to bring it to desired state and keep it there despite other forces tending to disturb it.
   

2.   Because other forces and influences are always acting, there is no way to predict exactly what action will be needed to control perception.
   

3.   In order to control is absolutely necesary to perceive. We control perception of our and other behavior not control it directly. Our senses and further neural equipment that builds abstract perceptions out of simple ones, provide us with a world to experience and it is only that experienced world that we can control.
   

4.   Human beings and other animals produce behavior for one reason : to control their experiences of the world.
   

5.   Behavior affects the world that really exist. Those effects, after being filtered through the properties of human perception, show up as changes in the world we know about.
   

6.   "Controlling perception" means controlling the state of some specific perception, not changing one perception into a different perception. When we control a perception of the distance of the glass of water from our mouth, we are controlling the perception of distance, not changing the perception of distance into a perception of nearness.
   

7.   We can go a long way toward figuring out what another person is controlling if we are willing to do some careful observing and some experimenting. If we apply disturbances to something someone is controlling, we can, if we guessed right, expect to see or feel the other person "pushing" back, keeping the disturbance from affecting the perception they control. The point of control is to be able to coun­teract *unpredictable* influences and happenings that interfere with control.
   

8.  Every Living Control System must have certain major features**.** The system must be organized for negative (not positive) feedback, and it must be dynamically stable – it must not itself create errors that keep it huntiing about the final steady state conditions. The Living Control System of this kind must sense the controlled quantity in each dimenssion **in which the quantity is to be controlled**; this implies the inner model of the quantity in the form of a signal or set of signals. It must contain or be given something equivalent to a reference signal (or multiple reference signals) which specifies the »desired« state of the controlled quantity **that is to be controlled**. The sensor signal and the reference signal must be compared, and the resulting error signal must actuate the system's output effectors or outputs. And finally, the system's output must be able to affect the controlled quantity in **each dimension that is to be controlled**. This makes the action the clearest. The system, above the dashed line, is organized normally so as to maintain the sesnor signal at all times nearly equal to the reference signal even a changing reference signal. This is how control is achieved and maintained. The sensor signal and input quantity become primarilly a function of the reference signal originated inside the system.
   

9.   **Control loop functions and how they work :**
   

CONTROL : Achievement and maintenance of a preselected state in the controlling system, through actions on the environment that also cancel the effects of disturbances.

OUTPUT FUNCTION : The portion of a system that converts the magnitude or state of a signal inside the system into a corresponding set of effects on the immediate environment of the system…

FEED-BACK FUNCTION : The box represents the set of physical laws, properties, arrangements, linkages, by which the action of this system feeds-back to affect its own input, the controlled variable. That’s what feed-back means : it’s an effect of a system’s output on it’s own input.

INPUT FUNCTION : The portion of a system that receives signals or stimuli from outside the system, and generates a perceptual signal that is some function of the received signals or stimuli.

COMPARATOR : The portion of control system that computes the magnitude and direction of mismatch between perceptual and reference signal.

PCT interpretantion of control loop should be in form of perceptual control not control of behavior.

Bill empahsiszed importance of perception for control clearly :

»Our only view of the real world is our view of the neural signals that represent it inside our own brains. When we act to make a perception change to our more desireble state – when we make the perception of the glass change froom »on the table« to »near the mouth« - we have no direct knowledge of what we are doing to the reality that is the origin of our neural signal; we know only the final result, how the result looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes, and so forth…It means that we produce actionns that alter the world of perception«…

Bill P : Briefly, then: what I call the hierarchy of perceptions is the model. When you open your eyes and look around, what you see – and feel, smell, hear, and taste – is the model. In fact we never experience anything but the model. The model is composed of perceptions of all kinds from intensities on up.

10. HPCT: hierarchical PCT are control systems which act not by producing effects on the outside world directly, but by telling other control systems to produce effects at a more detailed level. It is up to those control systems to act in such a way as to produce the detailed effects they are asked about for, thus affecting the higher system’s perceptions in the way it wants. Many levels, obviously, could be arranged in this way. Higher systems use existing control systems at the spinal level. This can be done by adjusting their reference levels which define the state they want their perceptions to be in. We experience hierachical organization quite directly. Consider the following question-and-answer session:

Q: Why did you move your hand?

A: To pick up this knife.

Q: Why did you pick up that knife?

A: In order to cut my steak.

Q: Why cut your steak?

A: In order to fit a piece into my mouth.

Q: Why put a piece of it into your mouth?

A: Because it’s not polite to stuff the whole thing in.

Q: Why be polite?

A: So I’ll be asked to dinner again some time.

Q: Why get asked to dinner again?

A: Because I want to save money, and food is ex­pensive.

Q: Why save money?

Etc.

So, as far as we followed, this person moved his or her hand as a means of saving money. Of course the same actions, at each level, also served many other goals we didn’t ask about, among them being the goal of not being hungry. But clearly, each goal was only a subgoal, a perception to be controlled not just for its own sake, but as part of a larger hierarchical control process. There are other paths through this complex hierarchy: why not be hungry? Because it distracts me from trying to write my novel. Why write your novel? And so on.

It must be evident immediately that the brain is not just a simple control system. It’s a huge hierar­chy of control systems, with many levels and many systems at each level, all these systems operating at the same time. In principle, we could apply small well-calibrated disturbances to different aspects of a person’s environment and body, and set up tens of thousands of equations with tens of thousands of un­knowns, and use a supercomputer to figure out just which variables at each level were being controlled in which states at a given moment. It’s impossible to do it today.

The system is so huge and complicated that people who own such systems often find that the machinery isn’t working right and they don’t know how to fix it. There are natural mechanisms for resolving problems like internal con­flicts, but they work slowly and don’t always work, so people have what we call “psychological� problems even in perfectly healthy brains and bodies.

The brain goes on working as it always works, perceptions vary, control systems control, and so on, What changes is only our con­scious acquaintance with these activities, as if we were shining a small flashlight around in a huge room full of running machinery.

All those control systems are always working, which means they are controlling, which means that the perceptions of the things being controlled are still present even if not conscious. The neural signals are present, even if they aren’t reaching consciousness.

This adds up to the second main phenomenon: we experience consciously only a small part of the totality of brain activity going on at any moment, although (the first phenomenon ) it is a changeable part.

If you happen to be conscious of some control process in the middle of the hierarchy, neither at the lowest level nor at the highest, you will be aware of things happening at some modest level of abstrac­tion, and of your own actions, and of what you want to be happening. How you’re doing these things is not normally conscious—that is, you may be talk­ing, but you won’t be conscious of forming each phoneme or of how your lips and tongue move. And why you’re doing those things is also not generally conscious. At the moment that you’re explaining to the police officer why your attention was distracted from the red light you just drove through, you’re only partly conscious of the background thought of being late to work that made you decide to ignore the red light.

Specifically, we are often in a state where we are aware of a main, foreground, process, but at the same time we are somewhat, marginally, fleetingly, aware of a background process that seems to be about the foreground process. When ideas are presented so abstractly we become conscious of things we had probably been perceiving all along, but hadn’t paid proper attention to. But for some reason, a moment came when the background activities leaked into the foreground and we became aware of them, and even made a comment about them.

The Method of Levels works as non-aggressive, non-coercive, non-bullying way of helping another per­son to unravel some of the complexities of his own hierarchical structure of control processes—”if he or she has asked for help. The idea is to recognize that a background thought about the subject has just been expressed, and to indicate it, gently, in case the other person might find it significant. The agreement with the other person is that when such an indication is made, the person will at least pause for a moment and explore the background thought, idea, attitude, or whatever it is long enough to see if it’s of any im­portance. We can refer to the “other personâ€? as the “explorer,â€? the only one who can look to see what is actually going on in that brain.

The point of therapy is not to show how clever, insightful, empathetic, or understanding the guide is. The MOL is a minimalist therapy, doing only what is needed to help a person recognize a problem and find a point of view from which something can be done about it. The MOL is for people who are lost in the complexity of their own lives, who are in conflict, who are out of touch with their own motivations.

Of the highest importance seems to be the idea that people govern their own lives rather than just responding to environmental stimuli or “control their behavior” and behavior of others. People control perception in order to achieve match of actual perception with references in the hierarchy. And people are more or less succesfull at doing it. Helping them to be more succesfull (not to try control them to be “slaves” of our goals) is probably the right way.

This concept encourages us to show respect for others, recognizing that they have their own aspirations and goals and generally find their own ways of getting what they need or want, just as we do. Another important common idea that arises from the first one is that it is not helpful to try to control other people; the result of too ham-handed an approach is more likely to be opposition and downright conflict than benefit. It’s important that people tend to give others room, to put critiques in the form of questions rather than criticisms, and to rely on the client more than the therapist to come up with specific answers to problems.

In HPCT, there are levels of organization, and levels of goals, and there is some highest level of goals that is known as system concepts. But there is no reason to propose that every person ends up organized in exactly the same way at the highest level; in fact, when we consider how and why learning hap­pens, it’s highly unlikely that people will all have just one small set of most-important goals. If we want to take even a semi-scientific approach to exploring human nature, we must be more open-minded, and wait for the evidence about actual high-level control processes to come in before we even think of trying to pick out universal characteristics. What’s really universal about human beings is that they are unique control systems. What they happen to have learned to control for is far from universal.

Best,

Boris

From: bara0361@gmail.com [mailto:bara0361@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2017 12:33 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

Boris, I am shocked and appalled that you would use this particular thread as a platform for your ugly language and your argumentative ways. For shame.

Barb

On May 25, 2017 2:55 PM, “Boris Hartman” boris.hartman@masicom.net wrote:

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2017 9:54 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[From Rick Marken (2017.05.24. 1250)]

Lloyd Klinedinst (2017.05.24 14:14 CDT)–

from the official PCT website:

William T. Powers, the engineer/psychologist who developed Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) passed away on May 24, 2013 at the age of 86. He will be laid to rest next to his wife, Mary, in a cemetery overlooking the city of Durango, CO. His work will continue, pursued by those who came to know Powers and PCT. His theory will someday receive the recognition it deserves, and so will he.

RM: Thanks for pointing out that today is the anniversary of Bill’s passing. Indeed, it’s the fourth anniversary. I am sure that Bill’s insights (first and foremost being that behavior is control)

HB : I’m wondering Rick, when you’ll stop bullshitting with »Behavior is control« without any evidence. Your RCT control loop with central point that »Behavior is controlled« which produces some »Controlled Perceptual Variable« has nothing to do with Bills’ theory and diagrams (LCS III) where it’s obvious that »Perception is controlled«.

And to make a statement on his day of death that central point of PCT is »Behavior is control« instead of »Perception is controlled« is as I’m concerned a crime.

Let us remember how beauty of PCT function in real words and diagram :

Bill P :

Our only view of the real world is our view of the neural signals that represent it inside our own brains. When we act to make a perception change to our more desireble state – when we make the perception of the glass change from »on the table« to »near the mouth« - we have no direct knowledge of what we are doing to the reality that is the origin of our neural signal; we know only the final result, how the result looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes, and so forth…It means that we prodduce actions that alter the world of perception…

<image001.jpg>

HB : Did you citate any of his statements to honor memaory of great inventor ?

Do you see any difference Rick between you rude and rough »control of behavior« with »perceptual control« poetry ? I think it’s right that we remember that Bill was a founder of a new original theory which fundaments are »Control of Perception«.

Who are you Rick and why should anyone beleive you ? Except that all maybe is about friendship. And you play on friends feelings. Others tolerate and listen to you because you are friends. And this should be some kind of science ?

I understand that you have no evidences for your statements as many others except maybe »common sense« as Fred. I like Freds’ honest understanding that he doesn’t need PCT to understand with »common sence« that »behavior is control«. It’s probably the same for Carver and Scheier, Vancouver and you. So you could admitt it too. Then we would know that you don’t understand PCT and you don’t need it to understand how and why people behave.

RM ….and theory (thaat, therefore, behavior can only be explained as the control of perceptual input) will someday receive the recognition they deserve; I just wish it would be someday sooner rather than later.

HB : Behavior is not control so it can’t control input, it can’ control anything outside. I’ll citate again great master of »perception«.

Bill P (B:CP):

CONTROL : Achievement and maintenance of a preselected state in the controlling system, through actions on the environment that also cancel the effects of disturbances.

HB : Behavior is consequence of control and it is means by which people control perception inside organism or in the controlling system. Behavior is just support for inside control. It’s not main mechanism of control ouside the system. It’s about control in the controlling system. So I hope that people will recognize soon enough that RCT is not PCT. You’ve misleaded many great people here.

I’m sure that PCT will be once leading theory when younger generation will accept the fact of »Perceptual control« and not »Behavior is control«. It’s about how organisms control inside not outside.

Best,

Boris

Best regards

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[_Boris_Hartman]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.1030)]

Lord forgive me, I should NOT post on this but…

[also for some reason this reply did not open with csgnet in the ‘To:’ field. I added it so I hope this does not double post to the net]

BL: I’m sorry Boris, but behavior IS controlled,

HB : Bill why you should be sorry. You just have to show me how behavior is controlled ? We are talking about output of Living control system, don’t we ? Please explain it to me through diagram in LCS III for example how can behavior be controlled ? Or you can use B:CP.

RM: Behavior can be controlled, in the sense that outputs can be made to take on preselected values by appropriately disturbing a variable that is being kept under control by that output.

HB : And how outputs »take preselected values« ? At the best shot you can control »Perception of that behavior« not behavior itself.

RM : But my point in this discussion is that what we call “behavior” IS control, which is really just a more technical way of saying that “behavior is purposeful”.

HB : These ara quite different terms. Behavior is not control in the sense that some »controlled variable« outside organism is controlled to some reference state and some »Controlled Perceptual Variable« is formed. This is nonsense. This is RCT.

But behavior is purposeful from view point of organisms control as it is supporting control in the controlling system (achieving and maintaining preselected state). The purpose of behavior (output) is to reduce »error« in organism not outside to control some »controlled variable« to some reference level.

Goal-directed behavior is at least in PCT Â :

Bill P :

The reference signal constitutes an explanation of how a goal can be determined by physical means. The reference signal is a model inside the behaving systemagainst which the sensor signal is compared. Behavior is always such as to keep the sensor signal close to the setting of the reference signal.

HB . There is no »controlled variable« in environment generally speaking. That’s also what feed-back is : effects of output on input. And that is general, so we can use these definition in any behvaior not just in those where »something outside is happening«. We need general theory about what is function of behavior in keeping homeostasis in organism. It’s the same function as effectors have inside organism. That is also purposefull »behavior«. Muscles are just a type of effectors that works through external environment.

Your analyses of »sleeping behavior« is contrary to your RCT Theory but in accordance with PCT.

RM (earlier) : Sleeping is a tough one but I think it is controlling done by the autonomic nervous system that has the aim of keeping some intrinsic physiological variables in genetically determined reference states.

HB : Is it so hard to understand that we need a general model of human behavior that will explain all behaviors not just yours qith RCT theory.

Your model Rick which was made on example of some behaviors with control »in outer environment« can not cover all behaviors. Do you understand ?

Best,

Boris

Best

Rick

···

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 7:30 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 1:48 AM, Bill Leach wrleach@cableone.net wrote:

it is exactly what the control system alters to achieve a control of perception. A control system, engineered or otherwise does not actually ‘control the perception.’ With respect to the physical world and perceptions related to that world is change it’s output in an attempt to achieve new perceptual input that more closely match the desired condition for those perceptions.

It is precisely because the biological control system can not directly control the perception that a reorganizing system is necessary. A problem that was also recognized by the engineering community at least as early as the 1950’s… that is the problem of the disturbance for which the system as presently configured does not have any output that can counter the this (not planned for in the case of engineered systems) disturbance. It was recognized as a problem for response critical systems and for remote systems. In the case for critical systems the rapid failure rate precluded engineering and implementing a correction. For remote system the problem became quite obvious with control systems deployed in outer space.

To suggest that Bill Powers was not well aware of this problem is absurd! It has been way too many years for me now so I don’t remember my discussions with Bill about these sorts of issues other than remembering how his thoughts on reorganization were elegant indeed. Brilliant thinkers like Bill Powers and Richard Feynman are sadly all too rare in human society.

B:CP is Behavior is the Control of Perception. This is the overall goal of the system. That is most certainly a beautiful statement and indeed a proper way to describe the whole system. However the fact is that the system can only ultimately control the ‘actuators’ or outputs. This is true for the particular control system as well as for subunits and even individual control loops.

Outputs or behavior is controlled with the intent to achieve control of perceptions. One view is looking at the goal or why the system works as it does (a very important concept in behavioral science especially when trying to point out what is wrong with all of the other approaches) of the system, the other is a view of what the system is actually doing. My claim is that neither view is wrong.

Obviously I am in no position to speak for Rick but, since Rick is (or at least was a very serious researcher into PCT with a strong focus on producing systems the accurately produce the same results as human systems including quality of control) it is to me no surprise that his focus would be on what the system is actually doing to achieve the goal of controlling a perception. While I don’t remember the specifics of any of the conversations that I actually had with Rick so many years ago, I will state that in all of the work of Rick’s that I have read I have never seen anything that would suggest that Rick thinks that the purpose of behavior is NOT to control perception.

Best,
Bill

On 05/25/2017 02:54 PM, Boris Hartman wrote:

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2017 9:54 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[From Rick Marken (2017.05.24. 1250)]

Lloyd Klinedinst (2017.05.24 14:14 CDT)–

from the official PCT website:

William T. Powers, the engineer/psychologist who developed Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) passed away on May 24, 2013 at the age of 86. He will be laid to rest next to his wife, Mary, in a cemetery overlooking the city of Durango, CO. His work will continue, pursued by those who came to know Powers and PCT. His theory will someday receive the recognition it deserves, and so will he.

RM: Thanks for pointing out that today is the anniversary of Bill’s passing. Indeed, it’s the fourth anniversary. I am sure that Bill’s insights (first and foremost being that behavior is control)

HB : I’m wondering Rick, when you’ll stop bullshitting with »Behavior is control« without any evidence. Your RCT control loop with central point that »Behavior is controlled« which produces some »Controlled Perceptual Variable« has nothing to do with Bills’ theory and diagrams (LCS III) where it’s obvious that »Perception is controlled«.

And to make a statement on his day of death that central point of PCT is »Behavior is control« instead of »Perception is controlled« is as I’m concerned a crime.

Let us remember how beauty of PCT function in real words and diagram :

Bill P :

Our only view of the real world is our view of the neural signals that represent it inside our own brains. When we act to make a perception change to our more desireble state – when we make the perception of the glass change from »on the table« to »near the mouth« - we have no direct knowledge of what we are doing to the reality that is the origin of our neural signal; we know only the final result, how the result looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes, and so forth…It means that we produce actions that alter the world of perception…

HB : Did you citate any of his statements to honor memaory of great inventor ?

Do you see any difference Rick between you rude and rough »control of behavior« with »perceptual control« poetry ? I think it’s right that we remember that Bill was a founder of a new original theory which fundaments are »Control of Perception«.

Who are you Rick and why should anyone beleive you ? Except that all maybe is about friendship. And you play on friends feelings. Others tolerate and listen to you because you are friends. And this should be some kind of science ?

I understand that you have no evidences for your statements as many others except maybe »common sense« as Fred. I like Freds’ honest understanding that he doesn’t need PCT to understand with »common sence« that »behavior is control«. It’s probably the same for Carver and Scheier, Vancouver and you. So you could admitt it too. Then we would know that you don’t understand PCT and you don’t need it to understand how and why people behave.

RM ….and theory (that, therefoore, behavior can only be explained as the control of perceptual input) will someday receive the recognition they deserve; I just wish it would be someday sooner rather than later.

HB : Behavior is not control so it can’t control input, it can’ control anything outside. I’ll citate again great master of »perception«.

Bill P (B:CP):

CONTROL : Achievement and maintenance of a preselected state in the controlling system, through actions on the environment that also cancel the effects of disturbances.

HB : Behavior is consequence of control and it is means by which people control perception inside organism or in the controlling system. Behavior is just support for inside control. It’s not main mechanism of control ouside the system. It’s about control in the controlling system. So I hope that people will recognize soon enough that RCT is not PCT. You’ve misleaded many great people here.

I’m sure that PCT will be once leading theory when younger generation will accept the fact of »Perceptual control« and not »Behavior is control«. It’s about how organisms control inside not outside.

Best,

Boris

Best regards

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[_Boris_Hartman]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.14.35]

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2017 9:30 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1230)]

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.15.01)–

BH: Rick is wrong. Behavior is not control…There is no physioogical way that behavior (Muscle tension) can be controlled…

MT: I don’t remember Rick ever suggesting that output is controlled.

HB : You shpould look through CSGnet archives before you came with such a statement in discussion with me. I’m used to some other Martin which has weighty arguments not such a childish.

Rick just did it.

RM : So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a control process where the controlled variable is the state of the laces,….and the outputs that produce this result are the hand movements the get the laces tied

RM : Moreover, what we see as the output component of a behavior are typically controlled variables themselves…

RM : ….what we see as the controlled variable component of behavior is typically an output itself.

HB : It’s such a terrible confussion and nonsense that I can hardly comment it in different way as Alex did :«bull….« You know what I mean.

Boris, we really do seem to have some language problems. If you hadn’t posted these quotes, I would never have interpreted them as saying that output is controlled. I would interpret them as saying that in order to control a perception of tied laces, you have to control other perceptions at lower levels, which are perceptions of components of the output that have to occur for shoelaces to be properly tied. That’s a VERY different concept from “output is controlled”.

HB : Martin thanks for answering. I’m a little sorry for my emotional explosion. I maybe over-reacted. But I just don’t like when people try to estimate me. Your discussion is on the level that I’m used from you.

Your analyses is O.K. Only the end. »…you have to coontrol other perceptions at lower levels, which are perceptions of components of the output that have to occur for perception of shoelaces to be properly tied.

»Feed-back« are just effects of output to input. There is no control. Just trials and errors.

MT : Maybe all the instances that you interpret as “output is controlled” are of this kind?

HB : I don’t see the point ?

MT : The perception of a lower-level variable, which is seem by an external observer as part of the “output” or “behaviour” of lace-tying, is being read as “control of output” of the higher-level variable (lace tying)?

HB : It’s a littel unclear. Do I understand right that the lowest level »variable« which is seen by an external oberver as part of the perception of »output« or »behavior« of lace.tying is being read as perception of control of output (if person is acquanted« with control theoey. It’s not just any oberver. Mouse and elephant and some inhabitants of Africa wouldn’t see any control in any movement of people. But they are all LCS obervers.

MT : Perhaps it is related to a dispute that I do have with Rick, which is too old a dispute to be worth restating, but since you did (and you are not alone), the old dispute is this: that Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there exists no independent reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined independently of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable itself.

HB : If I understand right, we agree that there is no »controlled variable in the environment«. Great !!!

MT : The only reference source is inside the organism, and so, therefore, is the controlled variable. Insofar as the perception is a good one-to-one function of the environmental correlate (which I call the CEV),

HB : Martin. I asked you many times what you understand under CEV. There were so many interpretations of CEV, that I don’t understand current meaning. Then we can go on…

Boris

MT : ….the CEV will appear to be conttrolled, and in casual speech, observable behaviour does control the value of the CEV. Indeed, the only survival benefit of controlling any perception is that the value of the CEV in the environment has contingencies (a concept and word taken from a Bill Powers email [From Bill Powers (931210.1145 MST)]) that affect what happens to the organism, and those contingencies can be influenced by the act of controlling the corresponding perception. If it doesn’t look to an outside observer or experimenter as though the CEV is controlled, perceptual control wouldn’t be doing its job.

When the CEV in question is that of a controlled lower-level perception that is in the output pathway of the higher perception (lace state, with a reference value of “tied”), and Rick says that CEV is a controlled variable, it certainly sounds like “control of output”. But in context, it isn’t, because you would be talking about two control levels as though they were the same. All I see in your quotes from Rick is a set of assertions that perceptual control is done by a bunch of perceptual control systems arranged hierarchically.

The language is certainly a problem to puzzle out when “the controlled variable” is claimed to be in the environment.

Martin

···

From: Martin Taylor [mailto:mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 9:01 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

On 2017/06/7 10:01 AM, Boris Hartman wrote:

On 2017/06/5 1:17 PM, Boris Hartman wrote:

[Alison_Powers]

Martin - I am confused because you say:

MT: Rick says the
controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be
true, because in the environment there exists no independent
reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined
independently of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the
environmental variable itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer environment; rather it is a function of physical variables that are in the outer environment; the function is called a perceptual function.

Â

···

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 3:43 PM, Boris Hartman boris.hartman@masicom.net wrote:

Â

Â

From: Martin Taylor [mailto:mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 9:01 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

Â

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.14.35]

Â

On 2017/06/7 10:01 AM, Boris Hartman wrote:

Â

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2017 9:30 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

Â

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.05.1230)]

Martin Taylor (2017.06.05.15.01)–

Â

On 2017/06/5 1:17 PM, Boris Hartman wrote:

BH: Rick is wrong. Behavior is not control…There is no physioogical way that behavior (Muscle tension) can be controlled…

MT: I don’t remember Rick ever suggesting that output is controlled.

Â

HB : You shpould look through CSGnet archives before you came with such a statement in discussion with me. I’m used to some other Martin which has weighty arguments not such a childish.

Â

Rick just did it.

Â

RM : So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a control process where the controlled variable is the state of the laces,…>.and the outputs that produce this result are the hand movements the get the laces tied

Â

RM : Moreover, what we see as the output component of a behavior are typically controlled variables themselves…

Â

RM : ….what we see as the controlled variable component of behavioor is typically an output itself.

Â

HB : It’s such a terrible confussion and nonsense that I can hardly comment it in different way as Alex did :«bull….« YYou know what I mean.

Boris, we really do seem to have some language problems. If you hadn’t posted these quotes, I would never have interpreted them as saying that output is controlled. I would interpret them as saying that in order to control a perception of tied laces, you have to control other perceptions at lower levels, which are perceptions of components of the output that have to occur for shoelaces to be properly tied. That’s a VERY different concept from “output is controlled”.

HB : Martin thanks for answering. I’m a little sorry for my emotional explosion. I maybe over-reacted. But I just don’t like when people try to estimate me. Your discussion is on the level that I’m used from you.

Your analyses is O.K. Only the end. »…you have to control otherr perceptions at lower levels, which are perceptions of components of the output that have to occur for perception of shoelaces to be properly tied.

»Feed-back« are just effects of output to input. There is no control. Just trials and errors.

MT : Maybe all the instances that you interpret as “output is controlled” are of this kind?

HB : I don’t see the point ?

MT : The perception of a lower-level variable, which is seem by an external observer as part of the “output” or “behaviour” of lace-tying, is being read as “control of output” of the higher-level variable (lace tying)?

HB : It’s a littel unclear. Do I understand right that the lowest level »variable« which is seen by an external oberver as part of the perception of »output« or »behavior« of lace.tying is being read as perception of control of output (if person is acquanted« with control theoey. It’s not just any oberver. Mouse and elephant and some inhabitants of Africa wouldn’t see any control in any movement of people. But they are all LCS obervers.

MT : Perhaps it is related to a dispute that I do have with Rick, which is too old a dispute to be worth restating, but since you did (and you are not alone), the old dispute is this: that Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there exists no independent reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined independently of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable itself.

HB : If I understand right, we agree that there is no »controlled variable in the environment«. Great !!!

MT : The only reference source is inside the organism, and so, therefore, is the controlled variable. Insofar as the perception is a good one-to-one function of the environmental correlate (which I call the CEV),

HB : Martin. I asked you many times what you understand under CEV. There were so many interpretations of CEV, that I don’t understand current meaning. Then we can go on…

Boris

Â

Â

MT : ….the CEV will appear to be controlled, and iin casual speech, observable behaviour does control the value of the CEV. Indeed, the only survival benefit of controlling any perception is that the value of the CEV in the environment has contingencies (a concept and word taken from a Bill Powers email [From Bill Powers (931210.1145 MST)]) that affect what happens to the organism, and those contingencies can be influenced by the act of controlling the corresponding perception. If it doesn’t look to an outside observer or experimenter as though the CEV is controlled, perceptual control wouldn’t be doing its job.

When the CEV in question is that of a controlled lower-level perception that is in the output pathway of the higher perception (lace state, with a reference value of “tied”), and Rick says that CEV is a controlled variable, it certainly sounds like “control of output”. But in context, it isn’t, because you would be talking about two control levels as though they were the same. All I see in your quotes from Rick is a set of assertions that perceptual control is done by a bunch of perceptual control systems arranged hierarchically.

The language is certainly a problem to puzzle out when “the controlled variable” is claimed to be in the environment.

Martin

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.1815)]

···

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 5:25 PM, Alison Powers controlsystemsgroupconference@gmail.com wrote:

AP: Martin - I am confused because you say:

MT: Rick says the

controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be
true, because in the environment there exists no independent
reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined
independently of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the
environmental variable itself.

AP: But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer environment; rather it is a function of physical variables that are in the outer environment; the function is called a perceptual function.Â

RM: I noticed that too, Allie, and I would sure like to know why Martin keeps saying that. But I would also like to know if I am right in thinking that, for Martin, the controlled variable exists only as a perception in the controller.Â

BestÂ

Rick

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.22.48]

I construed that sentence from Rick to be a shot in a different

long-standing and apparently irresolvable argument, which I had
intended to ignore. I realize there’s no point in reiterating the
fact that the result of applying a function to a bunch of variables
is itself a variable, but that’s the nub of the argument in which
that sentence was a shot. Rick disagrees – it’s mathematics and
therefore just an opinion open to contradiction.
However, to me he certainly suggests in that sentence that the
controlled variable is in the environment, whether it is a function
of other variables in the environment (presumably controlled ones)
or should be treated as the result of that function. Certainly the
function that defines the CEV is the perceptual function. We have
never had any disagreement about that. The question is whether the
arguments to that function are in the environment as he explicitly
says they are.
But consider instead Rick’s recent statements about “behaviour”,
which provide the context for interpreting the sentence you quote

···

On 2017/06/7 8:25 PM, Alison Powers
wrote:

Martin - I am confused because you say:

      MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment,

which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there
exists no independent reference variables nor sources from
which they can be determined independently of observation of
the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable
itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

      RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer

environment; rather it is a function of physical
variables that are in the outer environment; the function is
called a perceptual function.

  [From Rick

Marken (2017.06.06.1225). I have highlighted a few phrases and
sentences. I don’t think I need more than this, though I could go
back into the archives and find
interactions between us when Rick has argued against me that the
controlled variable IS in the environment, quite explicitly.
Yesterday’s message should be enough to make the point:

  -------------

RM: Saying that “behavior is control”
simply calls attention to the fact what we call “behaviors” are
both actions and results; in PCT lingo, behaviors are both outputs and ** the variables controlled
by those outputs --** controlled variables . So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a
control process where ** the controlled variable is the state
of the laces** , the reference state of this variable is
“tied” and the outputs that produce this result are the hand
movements the get the laces tied. Moreover, ** what we see as
the output component of a behavior are typically controlled
variables themselves** and what we see as the controlled
variable component of behavior is typically an output itself.
For example, the movements (outputs) used to produce the
reference state of a controlled variable (tied laces) are
themselves a controlled variable; their speed and direction are
the controlled result of muscle forces. And ** the tied laces
(the controlled variable)** that result from those outputs
(movements) are themselves outputs that are the means of
controlling another variable, the “onness” of the shoes.

    RM:

So “control” is just a more precise definition of the informal
term “behavior”. ** “Control” refers to the observation of a
variable being maintained in a reference state** , protected
from disturbance. And this is what we can see is what is going
on with the things we call “behaviors”. ** “Tying shoelaces”,
for example, refers to the observation that a variable (the
state of the laces) is maintained** in a reference state
(consistently brought to the state “tied”) protected from
disturbance (the different initial state of the laces,
variations in the forces the affect the laces, etc). When you
are able to see behavior – any named behavior – as being both
output that affects the state of a controlled variable and a
controlled variable itself – you have learned to see behavior
through control theory glasses. By the way, this is all
discussed in the first 2 chapters of “Controlling People”.

    -----------------

    MT. In all of that is there any suggestion that a controlled

variable might be a perception? I think not. Everything refers
to the controlled variable being a state of the environment that
can be observed by another person. In those two paragraphs, the
only reference to perception is in the “P” of “PCT” up front. If
Rick had said, for example, in the second highlighted clause
“the controlled variable is the [perceived] state of the laces”,
I would have no problem. But he didn’t, and any casual reader
might think he meant (and maybe he did mean) the actual state of
the laces in the environment.

    MT. We all know the form of the control loop, at least in its

simplest “canonical” form. We also know that real organisms have
limitations such as sensory thresholds, which mean that any
particular value of an external variable gives rise to an
uncertain value of the perceptual variable that is produced by
its perceptual function (actually a hierarchy of perceptual
functions), and we know that neural firings are actually not a
continuous smooth “neural current”. What we also know is that
the reference value for a perceptual signal is generated from
within the organism, and does not exist in the environment
(contrary to what Rick seems to imply in the fourth line of each
paragraph). Control of a perception may not even correspond to
control of anything another observer could perceive in the
environment, if the perception includes any component from
imagination.

    MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick's mind

(and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the
control of perception), the words he uses can easily lead a
reader to conclude that controlled variables exist in the
environment. I would like to keep clear that however well the
perception corresponds to a state of the environment, it is not
the state of the environment, though it is the state that is
controlled. To confuse the two is…confusing.

    Martin

[bnhpct]

[Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)]

Begin with some PCT truisms.

All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it.

All that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it.

I control many perceptions of our environment without exerting the actions that maintain them under control. Other people, or other agents, exert the actions that maintain them under control.

Among the evidence that I control such perceptions is the observation that, should control of them lapse, I act in such a way that other people or agents resist the disturbance and re-establish control of them.

A recent example: the street signs for Pinehurst Avenue and Chase Road were swapped, so that each designated the other road. My wife called my attention to it. We contacted the Public Works Department. They fixed it.

What’s the point of this? All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it, and we presume that our perceptions are the realities that we perceive. (We presume this even though we know that our perceptions are selective and omit infinitely many aspects of the environment, some of which we know about because we or others have extended the senses with scientific instruments.) This presumption is justified by our success controlling in the environment and by the like success of all our human and pre-human ancestors without whose survival we would not be here.

By this justified presumption, we project the universe of our perceptions into the otherwise unknowable universe of our environment.

That justified presumption extends to the fact that all that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it. We are justified in the presumption that the controlled variable is in the environment. Every time two or more of us control what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment we obtain further justification of that presumption. Examples of two or more of us controlling what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment are conflict, collective control, and the Test for the Controlled Variable.

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.

It is impossible to argue whether or not the controlled variable is in the environment without forgetting that we make this presumption, and that it is a presumption. If we accept the justification (which we must, in order to do things together, including arguing, and which we routinely do to survive) then we thereby assert that it is in the environment. But when we wish to identify things in a control theory diagram as a tool of analysis, we remember that this is a presumption, merely the projection of our perceptions onto the otherwise unknowable environment, and we must acknowledge that it is in the perceived environment, the universe of perception, which we perceive to be shared between and among us, and really out there, largely because of the routine successes of collective control.

I know of no way out of the conundrum other than to acknowledge it. I believe it is foolish to argue about it.

/Bruce

···

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.22.48]

  On 2017/06/7 8:25 PM, Alison Powers

wrote:

Martin - I am confused because you say:

      MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment,

which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there
exists no independent reference variables nor sources from
which they can be determined independently of observation of
the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable
itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

      RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer

environment; rather it is a function of physical
variables that are in the outer environment; the function is
called a perceptual function.

I construed that sentence from Rick to be a shot in a different

long-standing and apparently irresolvable argument, which I had
intended to ignore. I realize there’s no point in reiterating the
fact that the result of applying a function to a bunch of variables
is itself a variable, but that’s the nub of the argument in which
that sentence was a shot. Rick disagrees – it’s mathematics and
therefore just an opinion open to contradiction.

However, to me he certainly suggests in that sentence that the

controlled variable is in the environment, whether it is a function
of other variables in the environment (presumably controlled ones)
or should be treated as the result of that function. Certainly the
function that defines the CEV is the perceptual function. We have
never had any disagreement about that. The question is whether the
arguments to that function are in the environment as he explicitly
says they are.

But consider instead Rick's recent statements about "behaviour",

which provide the context for interpreting the sentence you quote [From Rick
Marken (2017.06.06.1225). I have highlighted a few phrases and
sentences. I don’t think I need more than this, though I could go
back into the archives and find
interactions between us when Rick has argued against me that the
controlled variable IS in the environment, quite explicitly.
Yesterday’s message should be enough to make the point:

  -------------

RM: Saying that “behavior is control”
simply calls attention to the fact what we call “behaviors” are
both actions and results; in PCT lingo, behaviors are both outputs and ** the variables controlled
by those outputs --** controlled variables . So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a
control process where ** the controlled variable is the state
of the laces** , the reference state of this variable is
“tied” and the outputs that produce this result are the hand
movements the get the laces tied. Moreover, ** what we see as
the output component of a behavior are typically controlled
variables themselves** and what we see as the controlled
variable component of behavior is typically an output itself.
For example, the movements (outputs) used to produce the
reference state of a controlled variable (tied laces) are
themselves a controlled variable; their speed and direction are
the controlled result of muscle forces. And ** the tied laces
(the controlled variable)** that result from those outputs
(movements) are themselves outputs that are the means of
controlling another variable, the “onness” of the shoes.

    RM:

So “control” is just a more precise definition of the informal
term “behavior”. ** “Control” refers to the observation of a
variable being maintained in a reference state** , protected
from disturbance. And this is what we can see is what is going
on with the things we call “behaviors”. ** “Tying shoelaces”,
for example, refers to the observation that a variable (the
state of the laces) is maintained** in a reference state
(consistently brought to the state “tied”) protected from
disturbance (the different initial state of the laces,
variations in the forces the affect the laces, etc). When you
are able to see behavior – any named behavior – as being both
output that affects the state of a controlled variable and a
controlled variable itself – you have learned to see behavior
through control theory glasses. By the way, this is all
discussed in the first 2 chapters of “Controlling People”.

    -----------------

    MT. In all of that is there any suggestion that a controlled

variable might be a perception? I think not. Everything refers
to the controlled variable being a state of the environment that
can be observed by another person. In those two paragraphs, the
only reference to perception is in the “P” of “PCT” up front. If
Rick had said, for example, in the second highlighted clause
“the controlled variable is the [perceived] state of the laces”,
I would have no problem. But he didn’t, and any casual reader
might think he meant (and maybe he did mean) the actual state of
the laces in the environment.

    MT. We all know the form of the control loop, at least in its

simplest “canonical” form. We also know that real organisms have
limitations such as sensory thresholds, which mean that any
particular value of an external variable gives rise to an
uncertain value of the perceptual variable that is produced by
its perceptual function (actually a hierarchy of perceptual
functions), and we know that neural firings are actually not a
continuous smooth “neural current”. What we also know is that
the reference value for a perceptual signal is generated from
within the organism, and does not exist in the environment
(contrary to what Rick seems to imply in the fourth line of each
paragraph). Control of a perception may not even correspond to
control of anything another observer could perceive in the
environment, if the perception includes any component from
imagination.

    MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick's mind

(and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the
control of perception), the words he uses can easily lead a
reader to conclude that controlled variables exist in the
environment. I would like to keep clear that however well the
perception corresponds to a state of the environment, it is not
the state of the environment, though it is the state that is
controlled. To confuse the two is…confusing.

    Martin

[EetuP]

[Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-08]

Bruce, I largely agree. Some comments though:

[Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)]

Begin with some PCT truisms.

All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it.

(Not sure about this, but I will turn to it sometimes later – it depends on definitions. I agreee that all our knowledge is based on perceptions.)

All that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it.

That is funny and fuzzy saying, at least for me: sounds like our perceptions were in the environment. I would say that we cannot control anything in the environment but only our perceptions of it.

I control many perceptions of our environment without exerting the actions that maintain them under control. Other people, or other agents, exert the actions that maintain them under control.

Or they just happen to be (temporarily) so that our perceptions of them remain near the reference.

Among the evidence that I control such perceptions is the observation that, should control of them lapse, I act in such a way that other people or agents resist the disturbance and re-establish
control of them.

A recent example: the street signs for Pinehurst Avenue and Chase Road were swapped, so that each designated the other road. My wife called my attention to it. We contacted the Public Works
Department. They fixed it.

What’s the point of this? All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it, and we presume that our perceptions are the realities that we perceive. (We presume this even though
we know that our perceptions are selective and omit infinitely many aspects of the environment, some of which we know about because we or others have extended the senses with scientific instruments.) This presumption is justified by our success controlling
in the environment and by the like success of all our human and pre-human ancestors without whose survival we would not be here.

That is extremely important. Our success in control of our perceptions is highly depending on other people and other actors – and finally on the objects or our perceptionns.

By this justified presumption, we project the universe of our perceptions into the otherwise unknowable universe of our environment.

That justified presumption extends to the fact that all that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it. We are justified in the presumption that the controlled variable is
in the environment. Every time two or more of us control what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment we obtain further justification of that presumption. Examples of two or more of us controlling what we perceive to be the same variable in
the environment are conflict, collective control, and the Test for the Controlled Variable.

Here I disagree. This is a natural presumption of our everyday life. But I think that PCT just makes us abandon that presumption at least in theoretical i.e. scientific context. In everyday talk and thinking we may
say that we control something in the environment and that something is possibly controlled also by some other person. But we should know better that we and those other persons are controlling only our or their own perceptions and nothing in environment. That
object or something in the environment OF which our perception is may be the same OF which the other persons’ perceptions are. But we do not control that object or whatever there is in the environment but just our own perceptions.

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.

No, we are not justified in doing so if we are scientifically studying “behavior as control of perceptionâ€?.

It is impossible to argue whether or not the controlled variable is in the environment without forgetting that we make this presumption, and that it is a presumption. If we accept the justification
(which we must, in order to do things together, including arguing, and which we routinely do to survive) then we thereby assert that it is in the environment. But when we wish to identify things in a control theory diagram as a tool of analysis, we remember
that this is a presumption, merely the projection of our perceptions onto the otherwise unknowable environment, and we must acknowledge that it is in the perceived environment, the universe of perception, which we perceive to be shared between and among us,
and really out there, largely because of the routine successes of collective control.

Yes that is right, I agree with this.

I know of no way out of the conundrum other than to acknowledge it. I believe it is foolish to argue about it.

The only way out perhaps is staying strict and careful with our concepts. We must tell when we use every day “controlâ€? and when PCT “Controlâ€?.

[_Boris_Hartman]

RM: When you’re good, Martin, you are very good!

HB : I couldn’t agree more with you Rick J

<

···

From: Martin Taylor [mailto:mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 5:33 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.22.48]

On 2017/06/7 8:25 PM, Alison Powers wrote:

Martin - I am confused because you say:

MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment, which I say can
not be true, because in the environment there exists no independent reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined independently of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer environment; rather it is a function of physical variables that are in the outer environment; the function is called a perceptual function.

I construed that sentence from Rick to be a shot in a different long-standing and apparently irresolvable argument, which I had intended to ignore. I realize the
re’s no point in reiterating the fact that the result of applying a function to a bunch of variables is itself a variable, but that’s the nub of the argument in which that sentence was a shot. Rick disagrees – it’s mathematics and therefore just an opinion open to contradiction.

However, to me he certainly suggests in that sentence that the controlled variable is in the environment, whether it is a function of other variables in the environment (presumably controlled ones) or should be treated as the result of that function. Certainly the function that defines the CEV is the perceptual function. We have never had any disagreement about that. The question is whether the arguments to that function are in the environment as he explicitly says they are.

But consider instead Rick’s recent statements about “behaviour”, which provide the context for interpreting the sentence you quote [From Rick Marken (2017.06
.06.1225). I have highlighted a few phrases and sentences. I don’t think I need more than this, though I could go back into the archives and find interactions between us when Rick has argued against me that the controlled variable IS in the environment, quite explicitly. Yesterday’s message should be enough to make the point:

RM: Saying that “behavior is control” simply calls attention to the fact what we call “behaviors” are both actions and results; in PCT lingo, behaviors are both outputs and the variables controlled by those outputs – controlled variables. So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a control process where the controlled variable is the state of the laces, the reference state of this variable is “tied” and the outputs that produce this result are the hand movements the get the laces tied. Moreover, what we see as the output component of a behavior are typically controlled variables themselves and what we see as the controlled variable component of behavior is typically an output itself. For example, the movements (outputs) used to produce the reference state of a controlled variable (tied laces) are themselves a controlled variable; their speed and direction are the controlled result of muscle forces. And the tied laces (the controlled variable) that result from those outputs (movements) are themselves outputs that are the means of controlling another variable, the “onness” of the shoes.

RM: So “control” is just a more precise definition of the informal term “behavior”. ** “Control” refers to the observation of a variable being maintained in a refere
nce state**, protected from disturbance. And this is what we can see is what is going on with the things we call “behaviors”. “Tying shoelaces”, for example, refers to the observation that a variable (the state of the laces) is maintained in a reference state (consistently brought to the state “tied”) protected from disturbance (the different initial state of the laces, variations in the forces the affect the laces, etc). When you are able to see behavior – any named behavior – as being both output that affects the state of a controlled variable and a controlled variable itself – you have learned to see behavior through control theory glasses. By the way, this is all discussed in the first 2 chapters of “Controlling People”.

MT. In all of that is there any suggestion that a controlled variable might be a perception? I think not. Everything refers to the controlled variable being a state of the e
nvironment that can be observed by another person. In those two paragraphs, the only reference to perception is in the “P” of “PCT” up front. If Rick had said, for example, in the second highlighted clause “the controlled variable is the [perceived] state of the laces”, I would have no problem. But he didn’t, and any casual reader might think he meant (and maybe he did mean) the actual state of the laces in the environment.

MT. We all know the form of the control loop, at least in its simplest “canonical” form. We also know that real organisms have limitations such as sensory thresholds, which mean that any particular value of an external variable gives rise to an uncertain value of the perceptual variable that is produced by its perceptual function (actually a hierarchy of perceptual functions), and we know that neural firings are actually not a continuous smooth “neural current”. What we also know is that the referen
ce value for a perceptual signal is generated from within the organism, and does not exist in the environment (contrary to what Rick seems to imply in the fourth line of each paragraph). Control of a perception may not even correspond to control of anything another observer could perceive in the environment, if the perception includes any component from imagination.

MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick’s mind (and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the control of perception), the words he uses can easily lead a reader to conclude that controlled variables exist in the environment. I would like to keep clear that however well the perception corresponds to a state of the environment, it is not the state of the environment, though it is the state that is controlled. To confuse the two is…confusing.

Martin

[_Boris_Hartman]

Hi all,

···

From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 3:16 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: William T. Powers is dead - long live William T. Powers

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.07.1815)]

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 5:25 PM, Alison Powers controlsystemsgroupconference@gmail.com wrote:

AP: Martin - I am confused because you say:

MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there exists no independent reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined independently of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable itself.

AP: But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer environment; rather it is a function of physical variables that are in the outer environment; the function is called a perceptual function.

RM: I noticed that too, Allie, and I would sure like to know why Martin keeps saying that. But I would also like to know if I am right in thinking that, for Martin, the controlled variable exists only as a perception in the controller.

HB : It doesn’t exist only for Martin. It exist for many other members. For example Rupert, Kent, Bill, Mary Powers… I will not mention Bill and Mary as I already posted their thesis about PCT where can be found most of »Control of perception«.

RY earlier : Sure, a perceptual signal (q.i*g) may correspond to, or be a function of, variable aspects of the environment (q.i) but it is the perceptual signal that is controlled not the variable aspects of the environment.

RY earlier : Yes, you manipulate variables in the environment, but I don’t think that is the same as controlling an aspect of the environment. To control the perception of the sweetness of your lemonade you vary the amount of sugar until the desired sweetness is realised.

Kent M. :

Even when directing attention most closely to our actions and doing our best to act in a “controlled” manner … we end up controlling perceptions of our actionns, not the actions themselves, because our perceptions are our only means for controlling anything.

BN : The key insight is that we do not control our behavior. Rather, behavior is variable in just the manner and extent necessary to make our experience be the way we want it to be. The title of the locus classicus of this science of psychology is Behavior: The control of perception, published in 1973 by William T. Powers.

HB : And for the bonus I still didn’t find any PCT diagram that would point to »controlled variable« in the outer environment. Did you Rick, Alison ?

Best,

Boris

Best

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[_Boris_Hartman]

Lord forgive me, I should NOT post on this but…

[also for some reason this reply did not open with csgnet in the ‘To:’ field. I added it so I hope this does not double post to the net]

BL: I’m sorry Boris, but behavior IS controlled,

HB : Where you get lost Bill ? I was thinking then, if you can’t prove to me that beahvior can be controled, Â you could maybe want to change something on CSGnet forum, if you are so sure that behavior IS controlled…

How about changing some statements of founders of PCT. For example :

Original Bil P : To control perception means to act on it in such a way as to bring it to desired state and keep it there despite other forces tending to disturb it.

Changed : To control behavior means to act on aspect of environment in such a way as to bring it to desired state and keep it there despite other forces tending to disturb it.

Original Bill P : “Controlling perception” means controlling the state of some specific perception,

Changed : “Controlling behavior” means controlling the state of environment of some specific behavior…

Original Bill P : In order to control is absolutely necesary to perceive.

Changed : In order to control is absolutely necesary to behave.

Mary Powers original : PCT requires a major shift in thinking from the traditional approach : that what is controlled is not behavior, but perception.

Changed : PCT requires a major shift in thinking from the traditional approach : that what is controlled is not perception, but behavior.

HB : You have any more suggestions Bill ? Rick ?

Best,

Boris

···

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 1:48 AM, Bill Leach wrleach@cableone.net wrote:

[JohnK]

[John Kirkland 2017.06.09 1934 Israel]

I’m sure PCTers can help me out here.

If somebody was to make a PCT-informed pitch to a certain President about global warning, what could be the gist of for and against arguments in a (reasonable) debate?

The entrenched affirmative: “You’re been right all along mate. It’s merely a figment of people’s biased perceptions, right outside anything they do intentionally.”

The greenie negative: “Hey look, this is serious. There are multiple repeated measurements suggesting the environment is at risk from human interventions and is being wrecked even as we speak. It’s up to us all to something constructive about this, now”.

Yeah, I remain confident potential contributors can see what I’m driving at here.

Cheers

JohnK

···

On Fri, Jun 9, 2017 at 12:58 AM, Eetu Pikkarainen eetu.pikkarainen@oulu.fi wrote:

[Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-08]

Â

Bruce, I largely agree. Some comments though:

Â

[Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)]

Begin with some PCT truisms.

All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it.

Â

(Not sure about this, but I will turn to it sometimes later – it deepends on definitions. I agree that all our knowledge is based on perceptions.)

Â

All that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it.

Â

That is funny and fuzzy saying, at least for me: sounds like our perceptions were in the environment. I would say that we cannot control anything in the environment but only our perceptions of it.

Â

I control many perceptions of our environment without exerting the actions that maintain them under control. Other people, or other agents, exert the actions that maintain them under control.Â

Â

Or they just happen to be (temporarily) so that our perceptions of them remain near the reference.

Â

Among the evidence that I control such perceptions is the observation that, should control of them lapse, I act in such a way that other people or agents resist the disturbance and re-establish
control of them.

A recent example: the street signs for Pinehurst Avenue and Chase Road were swapped, so that each designated the other road. My wife called my attention to it. We contacted the Public Works
Department. They fixed it.

What’s the point of this? All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it, and we presume that our perceptions are the realities that we perceive. (We presume this even though
we know that our perceptions are selective and omit infinitely many aspects of the environment, some of which we know about because we or others have extended the senses with scientific instruments.) This presumption is justified by our success controlling
in the environment and by the like success of all our human and pre-human ancestors without whose survival we would not be here.

Â

That is extremely important. Our success in control of our perceptions is highly depending on other people and other actors – and finally on tthe objects or our perceptions.

Â

By this justified presumption, we project the universe of our perceptions into the otherwise unknowable universe of our environment.

Â

That justified presumption extends to the fact that all that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it. We are justified in the presumption that the controlled variable is
in the environment. Every time two or more of us control what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment we obtain further justification of that presumption. Examples of two or more of us controlling what we perceive to be the same variable in
the environment are conflict, collective control, and the Test for the Controlled Variable.

Â

Here I disagree. This is a natural presumption of our everyday life. But I think that PCT just makes us abandon that presumption at least in theoretical i.e. scientific context. In everyday talk and thinking we may
say that we control something in the environment and that something is possibly controlled also by some other person. But we should know better that we and those other persons are controlling only our or their own perceptions and nothing in environment. That
object or something in the environment OF which our perception is may be the same OF which the other persons’ perceptions are. But we do not control that object or whatever there is in the environment but just our own perceptions.

Â

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.

Â

No, we are not justified in doing so if we are scientifically studying “behavior as control of perception�.

Â

It is impossible to argue whether or not the controlled variable is in the environment without forgetting that we make this presumption, and that it is a presumption. If we accept the justification
(which we must, in order to do things together, including arguing, and which we routinely do to survive) then we thereby assert that it is in the environment. But when we wish to identify things in a control theory diagram as a tool of analysis, we remember
that this is a presumption, merely the projection of our perceptions onto the otherwise unknowable environment, and we must acknowledge that it is in the perceived environment, the universe of perception, which we perceive to be shared between and among us,
and really out there, largely because of the routine successes of collective control.

Â

Yes that is right, I agree with this.

Â

I know of no way out of the conundrum other than to acknowledge it. I believe it is foolish to argue about it.

Â

The only way out perhaps is staying strict and careful with our concepts. We must tell when we use every day “control� and when PCT “Control�.

Â

Â

–

Eetu Pikkarainen

PhD (Ed.), Dos., University Lecturer (in Education)

Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Finland

Â

Schools in Transition: Linking Past, Present, and Future in Educational Practice

   Edited by Pauli Siljander, Kimmo Kontio and Eetu Pikkarainen

  Â
[

https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/other-books/schools-in-transition/](https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.sensepublishers.com_catalogs_bookseries_other-2Dbooks_schools-2Din-2Dtransition_&d=DwMGaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=-dJBNItYEMOLt6aj_KjGi2LMO_Q8QB-ZzxIZIF8DGyQ&m=0nhfyP3k5-Wr6mhZrUnj5mPm1NDoqG-YillmP7AEVms&s=0r7kgNNHJhKIUPUNRy_M4-6gMGtyCTrV7vOjwub4cW4&e=)

Â

Â

Â

                            /Bruce

Â

Â

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Martin Taylor mailto:mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.22.48]

Â

On 2017/06/7 8:25 PM, Alison Powers wrote:

Martin - I am confused because you say:

Â

MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there exists no independent reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined independently
of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

Â

RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer environment; rather it is a function of physical variables that are in the outer environment; the function is called a perceptual function.

Â

Â

I construed that sentence from Rick to be a shot in a different long-standing and apparently irresolvable argument, which I had intended to ignore. I realize there’s no point in reiterating the fact that the result
of applying a function to a bunch of variables is itself a variable, but that’s the nub of the argument in which that sentence was a shot. Rick disagrees – it’s mathematics and therefore just an opinion open to contradiction.

Â

However, to me he certainly suggests in that sentence that the controlled variable is in the environment, whether it is a function of other variables in the environment (presumably controlled ones) or should be treated
as the result of that function. Certainly the function that defines the CEV is the perceptual function. We have never had any disagreement about that. The question is whether the arguments to that function are in the environment as he explicitly says they
are.

Â

But consider instead Rick’s recent statements about “behaviour”, which provide the context for interpreting the sentence you quote [From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.1225). I have highlighted a few phrases and sentences.
I don’t think I need more than this, though I could go back into the archives and find interactions between us when Rick has argued against me that the controlled variable IS in the environment, quite explicitly. Yesterday’s message should be enough to make
the point:

---

RM:  Saying that “behavior is control” simply calls attention to the fact what we call “behaviors” are both actions and results; in PCT lingo, behaviors are both outputs and the variables controlled by those outputs
– controlled variables. So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a control process where the controlled variable is the state of the laces, the reference state of this variable is “tied” and the outputs that produce this result are the hand movements
the get the laces tied. Moreover, what we see as the output component of a behavior are typically controlled variables themselves and what we see as the controlled variable component of behavior is typically an output itself. For example, the movements (outputs)
used to produce the reference state of a controlled variable (tied laces) are themselves a controlled variable; their speed and direction are the controlled result of muscle forces. And the tied laces (the controlled variable) that result from those outputs
(movements) are themselves outputs that are the means of controlling another variable, the “onness” of the shoes.

Â

RM: So “control” is just a more precise definition of the informal term “behavior”. “Control” refers to the observation of a variable being maintained in a reference state, protected from disturbance. And this is what
we can see is what is going on with the things we call “behaviors”. “Tying shoelaces”, for example, refers to the observation that a variable (the state of the laces) is maintained in a reference state (consistently brought to the state “tied”) protected from
disturbance (the different initial state of the laces, variations in the forces the affect the laces, etc). When you are able to see behavior – any named behavior – as being both output that affects the state of a controlled variable and a controlled variable
itself – you have learned to see behavior through control theory glasses. By the way, this is all discussed in the first 2 chapters of “Controlling People”.

---

Â

MT. In all of that is there any suggestion that a controlled variable might be a perception? I think not. Everything refers to the controlled variable being a state of the environment that can be observed by another
person. In those two paragraphs, the only reference to perception is in the “P” of “PCT” up front. If Rick had said, for example, in the second highlighted clause “the controlled variable is the [perceived] state of the laces”, I would have no problem. But
he didn’t, and any casual reader might think he meant (and maybe he did mean) the actual state of the laces in the environment.

Â

MT. We all know the form of the control loop, at least in its simplest “canonical” form. We also know that real organisms have limitations such as sensory thresholds, which mean that any particular value of an external
variable gives rise to an uncertain value of the perceptual variable that is produced by its perceptual function (actually a hierarchy of perceptual functions), and we know that neural firings are actually not a continuous smooth “neural current”. What we
also know is that the reference value for a perceptual signal is generated from within the organism, and does not exist in the environment (contrary to what Rick seems to imply in the fourth line of each paragraph). Control of a perception may not even correspond
to control of anything another observer could perceive in the environment, if the perception includes any component from imagination.

Â

MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick’s mind (and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the control of perception), the words he uses can easily lead a reader to conclude that controlled
variables exist in the environment. I would like to keep clear that however well the perception corresponds to a state of the environment, it is not the state of the environment, though it is the state that is controlled.
To confuse the two is…confusing.

Â

Martin

Â

[bnhpct]

[Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.2017.17:27 ET)]

Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)–

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.
Â

Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-08–
No, we are not justified in doing so if we are scientifically studying “behavior as control of perceptionâ€?.

I believe that you are convinced that this settles the matter.

The most direct evidence of the reality of that which is perceived is that the environment pushes back and sometimes even bites. To perceive as we wish to perceive requires control; that control often requires effort (against what?); that control is often disturbed by unforeseen and even unperceived disturbances (whence?); that control often has unintended consequences (arising from what?). John Kirkland’s post in this thread alludes to unintended consequences of that complex of controlled variables called “industrialization since 1800”.

It would be most peculiar to say that to be scientific  we must deny that our experiments, models, and theory give us knowledge of reality. An essential point about PCT is that if the performance of a model conforms very closely to that of a living subject then the structure of the model informs us about what must necessarily be structures in the living subject.Â

Look at the fundamental first methodological steps of PCT, the Test for the Controlled Variable. When the experimenter E succeeds in determining what perception (perceptual variable) the subject S is controlling, E is justified in saying that S really has that perception and is controlling it. This is because E is controlling what E perceives to be the same variable in such a way as to disturb S’s control of it.Â

To do this, E imagines a transform or translation of a perception that E is controlling. To identify what perception to control, E guesses what S is controlling. The transformation is from E’s point of view to S’s point of view. Point of view upon what? Upon that which E presumes to be a real variable in the environment which E and S are perceiving from their respective points of view. It is not obvious how one might make sense of the Test, much less carry it out, without this presumption of reality.Â

Another way to put the conundrum, coming at it from the other direction, is the truism that science never proves anything. Proof is possible only for mathematics and logic.Â

What science yields us is a succession of provisional and serviceable models of reality (that is, of that aspect of reality of which the particular field of science treats). In other words, it gives us perceptions plus the best available justification for assuming that when we control those perceptions we are controlling realities in the environment.

When I say provisional and serviceable, I mean that we make do with the best theory that is still standing when the dust of argument settles, or (as in the case of Newtonian vs. relativistic vs. quantum physics) the best theory for the purposes at hand–or to pick another familiar example, sometimes waves are a more useful model of light, sometimes particles are.Â

In short, the conclusions of science are high-level perceptions that enable us to control lower-level perceptions better and more reliably than non-science and nonsense conclusions do. And they do so precisely because they (apparently) correspond better to whatever it is that is really real, independent of our perceptions. They better equip us to identify and control variables that matter to us, to resist disturbances to our control, and maybe even to avoid unintended side effects, or at least recognize them in time to bring them, too, under control.Â

Conversely, our perception that we are better able to control under system concepts and principles of science than we are with non-science or nonsense system concepts and principles is our justification for taking the system concepts and principles of science to be true–that is, taking them to be realities. The argument is circular, but it appears to have been a virtuous circle so far.

···

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 8:58 AM, Eetu Pikkarainen eetu.pikkarainen@oulu.fi wrote:

[Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-08]

Â

Bruce, I largely agree. Some comments though:

Â

[Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)]

Begin with some PCT truisms.

All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it.

Â

(Not sure about this, but I will turn to it sometimes later – it depends on definitions. I agree that all our knowlledge is based on perceptions.)

Â

All that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it.

Â

That is funny and fuzzy saying, at least for me: sounds like our perceptions were in the environment. I would say that we cannot control anything in the environment but only our perceptions of it.

Â

I control many perceptions of our environment without exerting the actions that maintain them under control. Other people, or other agents, exert the actions that maintain them under control.Â

Â

Or they just happen to be (temporarily) so that our perceptions of them remain near the reference.

Â

Among the evidence that I control such perceptions is the observation that, should control of them lapse, I act in such a way that other people or agents resist the disturbance and re-establish
control of them.

A recent example: the street signs for Pinehurst Avenue and Chase Road were swapped, so that each designated the other road. My wife called my attention to it. We contacted the Public Works
Department. They fixed it.

What’s the point of this? All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it, and we presume that our perceptions are the realities that we perceive. (We presume this even though
we know that our perceptions are selective and omit infinitely many aspects of the environment, some of which we know about because we or others have extended the senses with scientific instruments.) This presumption is justified by our success controlling
in the environment and by the like success of all our human and pre-human ancestors without whose survival we would not be here.

Â

That is extremely important. Our success in control of our perceptions is highly depending on other people and other actors – and finally on the objects or our perceptions.

Â

By this justified presumption, we project the universe of our perceptions into the otherwise unknowable universe of our environment.

Â

That justified presumption extends to the fact that all that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it. We are justified in the presumption that the controlled variable is
in the environment. Every time two or more of us control what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment we obtain further justification of that presumption. Examples of two or more of us controlling what we perceive to be the same variable in
the environment are conflict, collective control, and the Test for the Controlled Variable.

Â

Here I disagree. This is a natural presumption of our everyday life. But I think that PCT just makes us abandon that presumption at least in theoretical i.e. scientific context. In everyday talk and thinking we may
say that we control something in the environment and that something is possibly controlled also by some other person. But we should know better that we and those other persons are controlling only our or their own perceptions and nothing in environment. That
object or something in the environment OF which our perception is may be the same OF which the other persons’ perceptions are. But we do not control that object or whatever there is in the environment but just our own perceptions.

Â

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.

Â

No, we are not justified in doing so if we are scientifically studying “behavior as control of perceptionâ€?.

Â

It is impossible to argue whether or not the controlled variable is in the environment without forgetting that we make this presumption, and that it is a presumption. If we accept the justification
(which we must, in order to do things together, including arguing, and which we routinely do to survive) then we thereby assert that it is in the environment. But when we wish to identify things in a control theory diagram as a tool of analysis, we remember
that this is a presumption, merely the projection of our perceptions onto the otherwise unknowable environment, and we must acknowledge that it is in the perceived environment, the universe of perception, which we perceive to be shared between and among us,
and really out there, largely because of the routine successes of collective control.

Â

Yes that is right, I agree with this.

Â

I know of no way out of the conundrum other than to acknowledge it. I believe it is foolish to argue about it.

Â

The only way out perhaps is staying strict and careful with our concepts. We must tell when we use every day “controlâ€? and when PCT “Controlâ€?.

Â

Â

–

Eetu Pikkarainen

PhD (Ed.), Dos., University Lecturer (in Education)

Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Finland

Â

Schools in Transition: Linking Past, Present, and Future in Educational Practice

   Edited by Pauli Siljander, Kimmo Kontio and Eetu Pikkarainen

  Â
[

https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/other-books/schools-in-transition/](https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.sensepublishers.com_catalogs_bookseries_other-2Dbooks_schools-2Din-2Dtransition_&d=DwMGaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=-dJBNItYEMOLt6aj_KjGi2LMO_Q8QB-ZzxIZIF8DGyQ&m=0nhfyP3k5-Wr6mhZrUnj5mPm1NDoqG-YillmP7AEVms&s=0r7kgNNHJhKIUPUNRy_M4-6gMGtyCTrV7vOjwub4cW4&e=)

Â

Â

Â

                            /Bruce

Â

Â

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Martin Taylor mailto:mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.22.48]

Â

On 2017/06/7 8:25 PM, Alison Powers wrote:

Martin - I am confused because you say:

Â

MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there exists no independent reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined independently
of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

Â

RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer environment; rather it is a function of physical variables that are in the outer environment; the function is called a perceptual function.

Â

Â

I construed that sentence from Rick to be a shot in a different long-standing and apparently irresolvable argument, which I had intended to ignore. I realize there’s no point in reiterating the fact that the result
of applying a function to a bunch of variables is itself a variable, but that’s the nub of the argument in which that sentence was a shot. Rick disagrees – it’s mathematics and therefore just an opinion open to contradiction.

Â

However, to me he certainly suggests in that sentence that the controlled variable is in the environment, whether it is a function of other variables in the environment (presumably controlled ones) or should be treated
as the result of that function. Certainly the function that defines the CEV is the perceptual function. We have never had any disagreement about that. The question is whether the arguments to that function are in the environment as he explicitly says they
are.

Â

But consider instead Rick’s recent statements about “behaviour”, which provide the context for interpreting the sentence you quote [From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.1225). I have highlighted a few phrases and sentences.
I don’t think I need more than this, though I could go back into the archives and find interactions between us when Rick has argued against me that the controlled variable IS in the environment, quite explicitly. Yesterday’s message should be enough to make
the point:

---

RM:  Saying that “behavior is control” simply calls attention to the fact what we call “behaviors” are both actions and results; in PCT lingo, behaviors are both outputs and the variables controlled by those outputs
– controlled variables. So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a control process where the controlled variable is the state of the laces, the reference state of this variable is “tied” and the outputs that produce this result are the hand movements
the get the laces tied. Moreover, what we see as the output component of a behavior are typically controlled variables themselves and what we see as the controlled variable component of behavior is typically an output itself. For example, the movements (outputs)
used to produce the reference state of a controlled variable (tied laces) are themselves a controlled variable; their speed and direction are the controlled result of muscle forces. And the tied laces (the controlled variable) that result from those outputs
(movements) are themselves outputs that are the means of controlling another variable, the “onness” of the shoes.

Â

RM: So “control” is just a more precise definition of the informal term “behavior”. “Control” refers to the observation of a variable being maintained in a reference state, protected from disturbance. And this is what
we can see is what is going on with the things we call “behaviors”. “Tying shoelaces”, for example, refers to the observation that a variable (the state of the laces) is maintained in a reference state (consistently brought to the state “tied”) protected from
disturbance (the different initial state of the laces, variations in the forces the affect the laces, etc). When you are able to see behavior – any named behavior – as being both output that affects the state of a controlled variable and a controlled variable
itself – you have learned to see behavior through control theory glasses. By the way, this is all discussed in the first 2 chapters of “Controlling People”.

---

Â

MT. In all of that is there any suggestion that a controlled variable might be a perception? I think not. Everything refers to the controlled variable being a state of the environment that can be observed by another
person. In those two paragraphs, the only reference to perception is in the “P” of “PCT” up front. If Rick had said, for example, in the second highlighted clause “the controlled variable is the [perceived] state of the laces”, I would have no problem. But
he didn’t, and any casual reader might think he meant (and maybe he did mean) the actual state of the laces in the environment.

Â

MT. We all know the form of the control loop, at least in its simplest “canonical” form. We also know that real organisms have limitations such as sensory thresholds, which mean that any particular value of an external
variable gives rise to an uncertain value of the perceptual variable that is produced by its perceptual function (actually a hierarchy of perceptual functions), and we know that neural firings are actually not a continuous smooth “neural current”. What we
also know is that the reference value for a perceptual signal is generated from within the organism, and does not exist in the environment (contrary to what Rick seems to imply in the fourth line of each paragraph). Control of a perception may not even correspond
to control of anything another observer could perceive in the environment, if the perception includes any component from imagination.

Â

MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick’s mind (and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the control of perception), the words he uses can easily lead a reader to conclude that controlled
variables exist in the environment. I would like to keep clear that however well the perception corresponds to a state of the environment, it is not the state of the environment, though it is the state that is controlled.
To confuse the two is…confusing.

Â

Martin

Â

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.08.1445)]

···

Martin Taylor (2017.06.07.22.48)–

  On 2017/06/7 8:25 PM, Alison Powers

wrote:

Martin - I am confused because you say:

      MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment,

which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there
exists no independent reference variables nor sources from
which they can be determined independently of observation of
the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable
itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

      RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer

environment; rather it is a function of physical
variables that are in the outer environment; the function is
called a perceptual function.

Â

MT: I construed that sentence from Rick to be a shot in a different

long-standing and apparently irresolvable argumen which I had
intended to ignore.

–

RM: Well, there’s no construing your construing. I can’t help construing my sentence above as being my definition of a controlled variable as a variable that is NOT in the environment but is, rather, a function of variables in the environment.

    MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick's mind

(and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the
control of perception), the words he uses can easily lead a
reader to conclude that controlled variables exist in the
environment.

RM: Ignoring the fact that I know that controlled variables are not in the environment, what would be so bad about a reader concluding that they are variables in the environment?

Best

Rick

Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[bnhpct]

[Bruce Nevin (2017.06.09.12:23 ET)]

Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-09 2 –

Except for imagination, the environment is necessary in order to have a closed loop. Think about that.Â

···

On Fri, Jun 9, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Eetu Pikkarainen eetu.pikkarainen@oulu.fi wrote:

[Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-09 2]

Â

EP: Bruce, again I agree largely, but I think you understood me wrong. I was not talking about knowledge (I intended to resume to it sometimes later…) but only about the conncept of control. What you write here about the
reality of our environment and the possibility of the reliability of our knowledge about it and especially the truthfulness of scientific knowledge is quite OK. But that was not the issue.

Â

EP: The issue was just the concept of control. And it comes up also below: “[Science]
gives us perceptions plus the best available justification for assuming that
when we control those perceptions we are controlling realities in the environment. [italics by EP]�

Â

EP: From the next possible facts:

• a person perceives something in the environment
• there really is something in the environment “causingâ€? just that perception (not a hallucination or error)
• the person has a reference value for that perception
• there is a difference between perceptual and reference values causing error and output
• the output manages to cause certain kind of changes to that something in the environment
• as a consequence of those changes the person’s perception changes to the refence value
  it does NOT follow that the person controls that something in the environment. It follows only that she controls her perception (of that something). As an everyday experience this seems and sounds like the person were
  controlling that something in the environment. But just the beauty of the PCT is that we can make the differentiation and understand that all we can ever control is our perceptions.

Â

EP: In everyday life we cannot help saying that someone controls the temperature of the room or that someone did a controlled somersault. But here is theoretical / scientific PCT discussions this either unjustified assumption
or unjustified incoherence causes endless confusion.

Â

EP: We don’t control our environment by controlling our perceptions because strictly speaking there are two different kind of processes which do not both justify the use of the term “controlâ€?. Neither do we control our
perceptions by controlling our environment. What we do is that we control our perceptions by affecting some aspect of our environment and as a consequence of that the aspect of environment (usually) becomes stabilized somehow (in a certain way). Â Â

Â

Eetu

–

 Please, regard all my statements as questions,

 no matter how they are formulated.

Â

Â

Â

Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)–

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.

Â

Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-08–

No, we are not justified in doing so if we are scientifically studying “behavior as control of perceptionâ€?.

Â

I believe that you are convinced that this settles the matter.

Â

The most direct evidence of the reality of that which is perceived is that the environment pushes back and sometimes even bites. To perceive as we wish to perceive requires control; that control often requires effort (against what?);
that control is often disturbed by unforeseen and even unperceived disturbances (whence?); that control often has unintended consequences (arising from what?). John Kirkland’s post in this thread alludes to unintended consequences of that complex of controlled
variables called “industrialization since 1800”.

Â

It would be most peculiar to say that to be scientific  we must deny that our experiments, models, and theory give us knowledge of reality. An essential point about PCT is that if the performance of a model conforms very closely to that of a living subject
then the structure of the model informs us about what must necessarily be structures in the living subject.Â

Â

Look at the fundamental first methodological steps of PCT, the Test for the Controlled Variable. When the experimenter E succeeds in determining what perception (perceptual variable) the subject S is controlling, E is justified in saying that S really has that
perception and is controlling it. This is because E is controlling what E perceives to be the same variable in such a way as to disturb S’s control of it.Â

Â

To do this, E imagines a transform or translation of a perception that E is controlling. To identify what perception to control, E guesses what S is controlling. The transformation is from E’s point of view to S’s point of view. Point of view upon what? Upon
that which E presumes to be a real variable in the environment which E and S are perceiving from their respective points of view. It is not obvious how one might make sense of the Test, much less carry it out, without this presumption of reality.Â

Â

Another way to put the conundrum, coming at it from the other direction, is the truism that science never proves anything. Proof is possible only for mathematics and logic.Â

Â

What science yields us is a succession of provisional and serviceable models of reality (that is, of that aspect of reality of which the particular field of science treats). In other words, it gives us perceptions plus the best available justification for assuming
that when we control those perceptions we are controlling realities in the environment.

Â

When I say provisional and serviceable, I mean that we make do with the best theory that is still standing when the dust of argument settles, or (as in the case of Newtonian vs. relativistic vs. quantum physics) the best theory for the purposes at hand–or
to pick another familiar example, sometimes waves are a more useful model of light, sometimes particles are.Â

Â

In short, the conclusions of science are high-level perceptions that enable us to control lower-level perceptions better and more reliably than non-science and nonsense conclusions do. And they do so precisely because they (apparently) correspond better to
whatever it is that is really real, independent of our perceptions. They better equip us to identify and control variables that matter to us, to resist disturbances to our control, and maybe even to avoid unintended side effects, or at least recognize them
in time to bring them, too, under control.Â

Â

Conversely, our perception that we are better able to control under system concepts and principles of science than we are with non-science or nonsense system concepts and principles is our justification for taking the system concepts and principles of science
to be true–that is, taking them to be realities. The argument is circular, but it appears to have been a virtuous circle so far.

Â

/Bruce

Â

Â

Â

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 8:58 AM, Eetu Pikkarainen eetu.pikkarainen@oulu.fi wrote:

[Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-08]

Â

Bruce, I largely agree. Some comments though:

Â

[Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)]

Begin with some PCT truisms.

All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it.

Â

(Not sure about this, but I will turn to it sometimes later – it depends on definitions. I agree that aall our knowledge is based on perceptions.)

Â

All that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it.

Â

That is funny and fuzzy saying, at least for me: sounds like our perceptions were in the environment. I would say that we cannot control anything in the environment but
only our perceptions of it.

Â

I control many perceptions of our environment without exerting the actions that maintain them under control. Other people, or other agents, exert the actions that maintain them under control.Â

Â

Or they just happen to be (temporarily) so that our perceptions of them remain near the reference.

Â

Among the evidence that I control such perceptions is the observation that, should control of them lapse, I act in such a way that other people or agents resist the disturbance and re-establish control of them.

A recent example: the street signs for Pinehurst Avenue and Chase Road were swapped, so that each designated the other road. My wife called my attention to it. We contacted the Public Works Department. They fixed it.

What’s the point of this? All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it, and we presume that our perceptions are the realities that we perceive. (We presume this even though we know that our perceptions are selective and
omit infinitely many aspects of the environment, some of which we know about because we or others have extended the senses with scientific instruments.) This presumption is justified by our success controlling in the environment and by the like success of
all our human and pre-human ancestors without whose survival we would not be here.

Â

That is extremely important. Our success in control of our perceptions is highly depending on other people and other actors – and finally on the objects or our perceptions.

Â

By this justified presumption, we project the universe of our perceptions into the otherwise unknowable universe of our environment.

Â

That justified presumption extends to the fact that all that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it. We are justified in the presumption that the controlled variable is in the environment. Every time two or more of us
control what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment we obtain further justification of that presumption. Examples of two or more of us controlling what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment are conflict, collective control,
and the Test for the Controlled Variable.

Â

Here I disagree. This is a natural presumption of our everyday life. But I think that PCT just makes us abandon that presumption at least in theoretical i.e. scientific
context. In everyday talk and thinking we may say that we control something in the environment and that something is possibly controlled also by some other person. But we should know better that we and those other persons are controlling only our or their
own perceptions and nothing in environment. That object or something in the environment OF which our perception is may be the same OF which the other persons’ perceptions are. But we do not control that object or whatever there is in the environment but just
our own perceptions.

Â

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.

Â

No, we are not justified in doing so if we are scientifically studying “behavior as control of perceptionâ€?.

Â

It is impossible to argue whether or not the controlled variable is in the environment without forgetting that we make this presumption, and that it is a presumption. If we accept the justification (which we must, in order to do things together,
including arguing, and which we routinely do to survive) then we thereby assert that it is in the environment. But when we wish to identify things in a control theory diagram as a tool of analysis, we remember that this is a presumption, merely the projection
of our perceptions onto the otherwise unknowable environment, and we must acknowledge that it is in the perceived environment, the universe of perception, which we perceive to be shared between and among us, and really out there, largely because of the routine
successes of collective control.

Â

Yes that is right, I agree with this.

Â

I know of no way out of the conundrum other than to acknowledge it. I believe it is foolish to argue about it.

Â

The only way out perhaps is staying strict and careful with our concepts. We must tell when we use every day “controlâ€? and when PCT “Controlâ€?.

Â

Â

–

Eetu Pikkarainen

PhD (Ed.), Dos., University Lecturer (in Education)

Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Finland

Â

Schools in Transition: Linking Past, Present, and Future in Educational Practice

   Edited by Pauli Siljander, Kimmo Kontio and Eetu Pikkarainen

  Â

https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/other-books/schools-in-transition/

Â

Â

Â

                            /Bruce

Â

Â

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Martin Taylor mailto:mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.22.48]

Â

On 2017/06/7 8:25 PM, Alison Powers wrote:

Martin - I am confused because you say:

Â

MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there exists no independent reference variables nor
sources from which they can be determined independently of observation of the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

Â

RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer environment; rather it is a function of physical variables that are in the outer environment; the function is called a perceptual
function.

Â

Â

I construed that sentence from Rick to be a shot in a different long-standing and apparently irresolvable argument, which I had intended to ignore. I realize there’s no
point in reiterating the fact that the result of applying a function to a bunch of variables is itself a variable, but that’s the nub of the argument in which that sentence was a shot. Rick disagrees – it’s mathematics and therefore just an opinion open to
contradiction.

Â

However, to me he certainly suggests in that sentence that the controlled variable is in the environment, whether it is a function of other variables in the environment
(presumably controlled ones) or should be treated as the result of that function. Certainly the function that defines the CEV is the perceptual function. We have never had any disagreement about that. The question is whether the arguments to that function
are in the environment as he explicitly says they are.

Â

But consider instead Rick’s recent statements about “behaviour”, which provide the context for interpreting the sentence you quote [From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.1225).
I have highlighted a few phrases and sentences. I don’t think I need more than this, though I could go back into the archives and find interactions between us when Rick has argued against me that the controlled variable IS in the environment, quite explicitly.
Yesterday’s message should be enough to make the point:

---

RM:  Saying that “behavior is control” simply calls attention to the fact what we call “behaviors” are both actions and results; in PCT lingo, behaviors are both outputs
and the variables controlled by those outputs – controlled variables. So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a control process where the controlled variable is the state of the laces, the reference state of this variable is “tied” and the outputs
that produce this result are the hand movements the get the laces tied. Moreover, what we see as the output component of a behavior are typically controlled variables themselves and what we see as the controlled variable component of behavior is typically
an output itself. For example, the movements (outputs) used to produce the reference state of a controlled variable (tied laces) are themselves a controlled variable; their speed and direction are the controlled result of muscle forces. And the tied laces
(the controlled variable) that result from those outputs (movements) are themselves outputs that are the means of controlling another variable, the “onness” of the shoes.

Â

RM: So “control” is just a more precise definition of the informal term “behavior”. “Control” refers to the observation of a variable being maintained in a reference state,
protected from disturbance. And this is what we can see is what is going on with the things we call “behaviors”. “Tying shoelaces”, for example, refers to the observation that a variable (the state of the laces) is maintained in a reference state (consistently
brought to the state “tied”) protected from disturbance (the different initial state of the laces, variations in the forces the affect the laces, etc). When you are able to see behavior – any named behavior – as being both output that affects the state of
a controlled variable and a controlled variable itself – you have learned to see behavior through control theory glasses. By the way, this is all discussed in the first 2 chapters of “Controlling People”.

---

Â

MT. In all of that is there any suggestion that a controlled variable might be a perception? I think not. Everything refers to the controlled variable being a state of
the environment that can be observed by another person. In those two paragraphs, the only reference to perception is in the “P” of “PCT” up front. If Rick had said, for example, in the second highlighted clause “the controlled variable is the [perceived] state
of the laces”, I would have no problem. But he didn’t, and any casual reader might think he meant (and maybe he did mean) the actual state of the laces in the environment.

Â

MT. We all know the form of the control loop, at least in its simplest “canonical” form. We also know that real organisms have limitations such as sensory thresholds, which
mean that any particular value of an external variable gives rise to an uncertain value of the perceptual variable that is produced by its perceptual function (actually a hierarchy of perceptual functions), and we know that neural firings are actually not
a continuous smooth “neural current”. What we also know is that the reference value for a perceptual signal is generated from within the organism, and does not exist in the environment (contrary to what Rick seems to imply in the fourth line of each paragraph).
Control of a perception may not even correspond to control of anything another observer could perceive in the environment, if the perception includes any component from imagination.

Â

MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick’s mind (and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the control of perception), the words he uses
can easily lead a reader to conclude that controlled variables exist in the environment. I would like to keep clear that however well the perception corresponds to a state of the environment, it is not the state of the environment, though it is the state that
is controlled. To confuse the two is…confusing.

Â

Martin

Â

Â

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.09.1250)]

···

Martin Taylor (2017.06.07.22.48)Â

…

MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick’s mind (and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the control of perception), the words he uses can easily lead a reader to conclude that controlled variables exist in the environment.

RM: Ignoring the fact that I know that controlled variables are not in the environment, what would be so bad about a reader concluding that they are variables in the environment?Â

RM: I don’t know if you saw this before, Martin; it ended up being posted in a different thread for some reason. But I would really appreciate hearing your answer to this question.Â

BestÂ

Rick

–

Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.09.16.34]

[From Rick Marken (2017.06.09.1250)]

I am tempted to echo Eetu, and say "Are you serious?" The

poissibility never occurred to me that you might be asking a real
question. Why did Bill title his book :… control of perception" if
it was not to emphasize that perception inside the organism, not
something in the environment is the controlled variable in EVERY
case?

Of course (a dangerous phrase when communicating with you), if the

perception is truly a relatively noise-free representation of
something in the environment on which the control system is acting,
then a reader could buy into the all too seductive illusion that
some environmental variable is being controlled. And again “of
course”, the effectiveness of controlling a perception on the
organism’s welfare depends almost entirely on the perception being
of something really in the environment. The corresponding property
or variable in the environment is made to do what a controlled
variable would do. But that doesn’t mean that the controller uses
some telekinetic and telepathic connection to the environment
instead of sensory input to create a controlled variable and
influence it. Using the environment by controlling perception is
what PCT is all about. Controlling variables in the environment is
not.

If that reader is just a passer-by with no special interest in PCT

as a theory, who cares? But if that observer is interested in
learning PCT or refining her appreciation of PCT, then it matters a
lot (to that person, not necessarily to anyone else). That’s why I
was surprised to read that you had actually asked this as a real
question – but I think not a serious one, because at best it is
only a trick question.

Martin

···

Martin Taylor (2017.06.07.22.48)

…

                        MT.

It seems to me that regardless of what may
be in Rick’s mind (and he agreed with me the
other day about Behaviour being the control
of perception), the words he uses can easily
lead a reader to conclude that controlled
variables exist in the environment.

                    RM: Ignoring the

fact that I know that controlled
variables are not in the environment, what would
be so bad about a reader concluding that they
are variables in the environment?

        RM: I don't know if you saw this before, Martin; it ended up

being posted in a different thread for some reason. But I
would really appreciate hearing your answer to this
question.

[EetuP]

[eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-10]

Perhaps I expressed myself badly - or you did not read it properly. I have nothing against the reality or importance or necessity of environment.

The issue is ONLY that we do NOT control anything in the environment but only our own perceptions - even though the control is realized by affecting the environment. Question is about the definition of control in PCT.

Eetu
(Lähetetty kännykästä / Sent from mobile)

Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com kirjoitti 9.6.2017 kello 19.24:

···

On Fri, Jun 9, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Eetu Pikkarainen
eetu.pikkarainen@oulu.fi wrote:

[Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-09 2]

EP: Bruce, again I agree largely, but I think you understood me wrong. I was not talking about knowledge (I intended to resume to it sometimes later…) but only about the concept of control. What you write here about the
reality of our environment and the possibility of the reliability of our knowledge about it and especially the truthfulness of scientific knowledge is quite OK. But that was not the issue.

EP: The issue was just the concept of control. And it comes up also below: “[Science]
gives us perceptions plus the best available justification for assuming that
when we control those perceptions we are controlling realities in the environment. [italics by EP]”

EP: From the next possible facts:

• a person perceives something in the environment
• there really is something in the environment “causing” just that perception (not a hallucination or error)
• the person has a reference value for that perception
• there is a difference between perceptual and reference values causing error and output
• the output manages to cause certain kind of changes to that something in the environment
• as a consequence of those changes the person’s perception changes to the refence value
  it does NOT follow that the person controls that something in the environment. It follows only that she controls her perception (of that something). As an everyday experience this seems and sounds like the person were
  controlling that something in the environment. But just the beauty of the PCT is that we can make the differentiation and understand that all we can ever control is our perceptions.

EP: In everyday life we cannot help saying that someone controls the temperature of the room or that someone did a controlled somersault. But here is theoretical / scientific PCT discussions this either unjustified assumption
or unjustified incoherence causes endless confusion.

EP: We don’t control our environment by controlling our perceptions because strictly speaking there are two different kind of processes which do not both justify the use of the term “control”. Neither do we control our
perceptions by controlling our environment. What we do is that we control our perceptions by affecting some aspect of our environment and as a consequence of that the aspect of environment (usually) becomes stabilized somehow (in a certain way).

Eetu

–

Please, regard all my statements as questions,

no matter how they are formulated.

Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)–

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.

Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-08–

No, we are not justified in doing so if we are scientifically studying “behavior as control of perception”.

I believe that you are convinced that this settles the matter.

The most direct evidence of the reality of that which is perceived is that the environment pushes back and sometimes even bites. To perceive as we wish to perceive requires control; that control often requires effort (against what?);
that control is often disturbed by unforeseen and even unperceived disturbances (whence?); that control often has unintended consequences (arising from what?). John Kirkland’s post in this thread alludes to unintended consequences of that complex of controlled
variables called “industrialization since 1800”.

It would be most peculiar to say that to be scientific we must deny that our experiments, models, and theory give us knowledge of reality. An essential point about PCT is that if the performance of a model conforms very closely to that of a living subject
then the structure of the model informs us about what must necessarily be structures in the living subject.

Look at the fundamental first methodological steps of PCT, the Test for the Controlled Variable. When the experimenter E succeeds in determining what perception (perceptual variable) the subject S is controlling, E is justified in saying that S really has that
perception and is controlling it. This is because E is controlling what E perceives to be the same variable in such a way as to disturb S’s control of it.

To do this, E imagines a transform or translation of a perception that E is controlling. To identify what perception to control, E guesses what S is controlling. The transformation is from E’s point of view to S’s point of view. Point of view upon what? Upon
that which E presumes to be a real variable in the environment which E and S are perceiving from their respective points of view. It is not obvious how one might make sense of the Test, much less carry it out, without this presumption of reality.

Another way to put the conundrum, coming at it from the other direction, is the truism that science never proves anything. Proof is possible only for mathematics and logic.

What science yields us is a succession of provisional and serviceable models of reality (that is, of that aspect of reality of which the particular field of science treats). In other words, it gives us perceptions plus the best available justification for assuming
that when we control those perceptions we are controlling realities in the environment.

When I say provisional and serviceable, I mean that we make do with the best theory that is still standing when the dust of argument settles, or (as in the case of Newtonian vs. relativistic vs. quantum physics) the best theory for the purposes at hand–or
to pick another familiar example, sometimes waves are a more useful model of light, sometimes particles are.

In short, the conclusions of science are high-level perceptions that enable us to control lower-level perceptions better and more reliably than non-science and nonsense conclusions do. And they do so precisely because they (apparently) correspond better to
whatever it is that is really real, independent of our perceptions. They better equip us to identify and control variables that matter to us, to resist disturbances to our control, and maybe even to avoid unintended side effects, or at least recognize them
in time to bring them, too, under control.

Conversely, our perception that we are better able to control under system concepts and principles of science than we are with non-science or nonsense system concepts and principles is our justification for taking the system concepts and principles of science
to be true–that is, taking them to be realities. The argument is circular, but it appears to have been a virtuous circle so far.

/Bruce

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 8:58 AM, Eetu Pikkarainen eetu.pikkarainen@oulu.fi wrote:

[Eetu Pikkarainen 2017-06-08]

Bruce, I largely agree. Some comments though:

[Bruce Nevin (2017.06.08.07:48 ET)]

Begin with some PCT truisms.

All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it.

(Not sure about this, but I will turn to it sometimes later – it depends on definitions. I agree that all our knowledge is based on perceptions.)

All that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it.

That is funny and fuzzy saying, at least for me: sounds like our perceptions were in the environment. I would say that we cannot control anything in the environment but only our perceptions of it.

I control many perceptions of our environment without exerting the actions that maintain them under control. Other people, or other agents, exert the actions that maintain them under control.

Or they just happen to be (temporarily) so that our perceptions of them remain near the reference.

Among the evidence that I control such perceptions is the observation that, should control of them lapse, I act in such a way that other people or agents resist the disturbance and re-establish control of them.

A recent example: the street signs for Pinehurst Avenue and Chase Road were swapped, so that each designated the other road. My wife called my attention to it. We contacted the Public Works Department. They fixed it.

What’s the point of this? All that we can know of our environment is our perceptions of it, and we presume that our perceptions are the realities that we perceive. (We presume this even though we know that our perceptions are selective and
omit infinitely many aspects of the environment, some of which we know about because we or others have extended the senses with scientific instruments.) This presumption is justified by our success controlling in the environment and by the like success of
all our human and pre-human ancestors without whose survival we would not be here.

That is extremely important. Our success in control of our perceptions is highly depending on other people and other actors – and finally on the objects or our perceptions.

By this justified presumption, we project the universe of our perceptions into the otherwise unknowable universe of our environment.

That justified presumption extends to the fact that all that we can control of our environment is our perceptions of it. We are justified in the presumption that the controlled variable is in the environment. Every time two or more of us
control what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment we obtain further justification of that presumption. Examples of two or more of us controlling what we perceive to be the same variable in the environment are conflict, collective control,
and the Test for the Controlled Variable.

Here I disagree. This is a natural presumption of our everyday life. But I think that PCT just makes us abandon that presumption at least in theoretical i.e. scientific context. In everyday talk and thinking we may say that we control something
in the environment and that something is possibly controlled also by some other person. But we should know better that we and those other persons are controlling only our or their own perceptions and nothing in environment. That object or something in the
environment OF which our perception is may be the same OF which the other persons’ perceptions are. But we do not control that object or whatever there is in the environment but just our own perceptions.

We routinely forget that this is a presumption, and we are justified in doing so.

No, we are not justified in doing so if we are scientifically studying “behavior as control of perception”.

It is impossible to argue whether or not the controlled variable is in the environment without forgetting that we make this presumption, and that it is a presumption. If we accept the justification (which we must, in order to do things together,
including arguing, and which we routinely do to survive) then we thereby assert that it is in the environment. But when we wish to identify things in a control theory diagram as a tool of analysis, we remember that this is a presumption, merely the projection
of our perceptions onto the otherwise unknowable environment, and we must acknowledge that it is in the perceived environment, the universe of perception, which we perceive to be shared between and among us, and really out there, largely because of the routine
successes of collective control.

Yes that is right, I agree with this.

I know of no way out of the conundrum other than to acknowledge it. I believe it is foolish to argue about it.

The only way out perhaps is staying strict and careful with our concepts. We must tell when we use every day “control” and when PCT “Control”.

–

Eetu Pikkarainen

PhD (Ed.), Dos., University Lecturer (in Education)

Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Finland

Schools in Transition: Linking Past, Present, and Future in Educational Practice

Edited by Pauli Siljander, Kimmo Kontio and Eetu Pikkarainen

[

https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/other-books/schools-in-transition/](https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.sensepublishers.com_catalogs_bookseries_other-2Dbooks_schools-2Din-2Dtransition_&d=DwMGaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=-dJBNItYEMOLt6aj_KjGi2LMO_Q8QB-ZzxIZIF8DGyQ&m=0nhfyP3k5-Wr6mhZrUnj5mPm1NDoqG-YillmP7AEVms&s=0r7kgNNHJhKIUPUNRy_M4-6gMGtyCTrV7vOjwub4cW4&e=)

                         /Bruce

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Martin Taylor mailto:mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.06.07.22.48]

On 2017/06/7 8:25 PM, Alison Powers wrote:

Martin - I am confused because you say:

MT: Rick says the controlled variable is in the environment, which I say cannot be true, because in the environment there exists no independent reference variables nor sources from which they can be determined independently of observation
of the moment-by-moment values of the environmental variable itself.

But then Rick responded to me in the PCT Research thread:

RM: The controlled variable is not in the outer environment; rather it is a function of physical variables that are in the outer environment; the function is called a perceptual function.

I construed that sentence from Rick to be a shot in a different long-standing and apparently irresolvable argument, which I had intended to ignore. I realize there’s no point in reiterating the fact that the result of applying a function
to a bunch of variables is itself a variable, but that’s the nub of the argument in which that sentence was a shot. Rick disagrees – it’s mathematics and therefore just an opinion open to contradiction.

However, to me he certainly suggests in that sentence that the controlled variable is in the environment, whether it is a function of other variables in the environment (presumably controlled ones) or should be treated as the result of that
function. Certainly the function that defines the CEV is the perceptual function. We have never had any disagreement about that. The question is whether the arguments to that function are in the environment as he explicitly says they are.

But consider instead Rick’s recent statements about “behaviour”, which provide the context for interpreting the sentence you quote [From Rick Marken (2017.06.06.1225). I have highlighted a few phrases and sentences. I don’t think I need more
than this, though I could go back into the archives and find interactions between us when Rick has argued against me that the controlled variable IS in the environment, quite explicitly. Yesterday’s message should be enough to make the point:

---

RM: Saying that “behavior is control” simply calls attention to the fact what we call “behaviors” are both actions and results; in PCT lingo, behaviors are both outputs and the variables controlled by those outputs – controlled variables.
So the behavior called “tying shoelaces” points to a control process where the controlled variable is the state of the laces, the reference state of this variable is “tied” and the outputs that produce this result are the hand movements the get the laces tied.
Moreover, what we see as the output component of a behavior are typically controlled variables themselves and what we see as the controlled variable component of behavior is typically an output itself. For example, the movements (outputs) used to produce the
reference state of a controlled variable (tied laces) are themselves a controlled variable; their speed and direction are the controlled result of muscle forces. And the tied laces (the controlled variable) that result from those outputs (movements) are themselves
outputs that are the means of controlling another variable, the “onness” of the shoes.

RM: So “control” is just a more precise definition of the informal term “behavior”. “Control” refers to the observation of a variable being maintained in a reference state, protected from disturbance. And this is what we can see is what is
going on with the things we call “behaviors”. “Tying shoelaces”, for example, refers to the observation that a variable (the state of the laces) is maintained in a reference state (consistently brought to the state “tied”) protected from disturbance (the different
initial state of the laces, variations in the forces the affect the laces, etc). When you are able to see behavior – any named behavior – as being both output that affects the state of a controlled variable and a controlled variable itself – you have learned
to see behavior through control theory glasses. By the way, this is all discussed in the first 2 chapters of “Controlling People”.

---

MT. In all of that is there any suggestion that a controlled variable might be a perception? I think not. Everything refers to the controlled variable being a state of the environment that can be observed by another person. In those two paragraphs,
the only reference to perception is in the “P” of “PCT” up front. If Rick had said, for example, in the second highlighted clause “the controlled variable is the [perceived] state of the laces”, I would have no problem. But he didn’t, and any casual reader
might think he meant (and maybe he did mean) the actual state of the laces in the environment.

MT. We all know the form of the control loop, at least in its simplest “canonical” form. We also know that real organisms have limitations such as sensory thresholds, which mean that any particular value of an external variable gives rise
to an uncertain value of the perceptual variable that is produced by its perceptual function (actually a hierarchy of perceptual functions), and we know that neural firings are actually not a continuous smooth “neural current”. What we also know is that the
reference value for a perceptual signal is generated from within the organism, and does not exist in the environment (contrary to what Rick seems to imply in the fourth line of each paragraph). Control of a perception may not even correspond to control of
anything another observer could perceive in the environment, if the perception includes any component from imagination.

MT. It seems to me that regardless of what may be in Rick’s mind (and he agreed with me the other day about Behaviour being the control of perception), the words he uses can easily lead a reader to conclude that controlled variables exist
in the environment. I would like to keep clear that however well the perception corresponds to a state of the environment, it is not the state of the environment, though it is the state that is controlled.
To confuse the two is…confusing.

Martin