Bruce,
As I wrote before I think that your “control unit” thinking as far as basic analysis in organisms functioning is concerned by my oppinion couldn’t be better.
But I hope we can also establish that you are on the beggining of the very “hard task” to comprehend the whole control unit functioning of organism as Ashby and Bill Powers has started the “hard task”.
Your partial analysis has to be put into much wider main frame of control unit functioning of organism.
So I’m sorry that I can’t comment yet specific cases of “Control unit analyses” becasue I have to present the whole functioning of organism from genetic control system to top of the hierarchy, which will be quite different from Bills imagined diagram in B:CP, 2005, p. 191.
You can see from my diagram on the end of presentation that is much more comprehensive in respect to control areas which work synhronously in organism. It results from knowledge of mentioned Cyberneticians and scientific findings. The main principle of control organiization are :
-
Organisms function as a whole (part to part), what was quite good presented by Ashby and physiological findings fully support
-
Organisms function as a closed system what was presented by Maturana. He showed that also through evolution perspective. All in all closed loop functiong of organism removes “question mark” on the top of the hierarchy Bill had presented in his diagram p.191 (B:CP, 2005).
-
Organisms functioning on the principles of connections between genetic pattern and ultrastability was presented by Ashby and Bill tried to integrate main principles in his original diagram (B:CP, 2005, p.191) through genetic source but without control connection to intrinsic variables which are levitating in “nothing” connected through disturbances from external environment (input) and genetic source (output). In this way Bill showed in diagram that external output (behavior) and disturbances are the only source of keeping homeostatic conditions in organism and of course in hierarchy. But they both made a mistake and didn’t close system inside, so they contradicted Maturana’s biological experiments and basic physiological “facts”. Suplemented diagram from p. 191 (B:CP, 2005) with “arrows” from genetic source to intrinsic variables under my influence was published by Dug after Bills death.
-
Organisms functioning on the bases of physiological and neurophysiological principles show that organism functions as integrated whole and closed system, with thousands of control functions that help maintain constant conditions in the organism.
Your analyses includes only partial control structures in organism so it’s not included in the whole analyses of the organism what is basic condition if you want to understand clearly what is happening in organisms whole control while keeping homeostatic conditions.
Brainstem is interesting structure in the whole control hierarchy considering mostly negative and some positive control loops through higher and lower levels. Here I think it’s necesary to understand some kind of “somatotopy” where output signals will reach the areas where input signals originate thus closing complex loops. Even more complex loops are closing functioning of lower and the highest levels of nervous system.
Direct connections between specific sensory and motor neurons are usually called “reflexes”. Direct connections usually do not involve any “intermediate” neurons or any other control structures of control units as are present in more complex relations through numerous “macro- and micro-circuits” on higher levels of central nervous system.
Brainstem is quite clear anatomical structure and thus quite well researched. Bio-electrical signals produced by different control areas inside brainstem, can be quite well traced through “inputs and outputs”.
Limbic subsytem is much more complex control structure and is quite imperfectly defined as anatomical structure as it includes many anatomical structures. So usually is in physiological literature refered as functional structure (that’s also how I called it) with many control functions which are combined through different anatomical structures and were functionally changing place through history probably along with understanding of nervous system. So it was not clear which anatomical functions perform certain anatomical control structures.
So Limbic subsystem as much more complex control structure is not so well defined in research work but it can be researched also in your way using control unit organization and tested through TCV or some experiments. Even more problems are with highest control structures in Telencephalon which has also direct control loop connections with brainstem.
Perceptual signals from outside as you presented your example are including into internal functioning of organism.
I’ll try to explain that in my next presentation as much as time will be availlable, because John president of CS is very precise about the time availabel for presentation. So I’ll have to make quite precise “parcel” of informations which will present control functiong from genetic source to wherever I’ll manage to come in presentating some logical whole.
It’s not easy to deal with such a complex structure as nervous system is. But control unit idea as was presented by Bill was an alleviation for me.
And it seems also, that such a “control unit analyses” (CUA) makes you possible to see more clear control structures involved in explaining your problem. That was by my oppinion the greatest advantage of your presentation. But as I wrote before. Hard times await us, first to convince PCT community and then wider public that LCS III is the basics for multidimensional analysis of control units and Bill Powers place in history of Cybernetics has to be assured.
So one of the most important task will be persuading people that Bill Powers was right about analysing control unit organization through synchonization of their functioning. That’s also the point of placing Bill Powers into history of Cybernetics. Simply I don’t see any better method for analyzing complex Living sysems and research work that could advance for decades “paralysed” advancement in Cybernetics.
I hope at least in minimum this is how I saw your explanation. The rest of my explanation will come through time.
You can see at the end of my presentation diagram with “complex control unit organization” (CCUO) that has removed “question mark” from top of the PCT hierarchy. It was not such an easy task. It concerns the whole functioning of organism on the bases of main principles I mentioned above.
Any “Complex Control Unit Analyses” (CCUA) like yours will demand considering the whole control functioning of organism as any control structure contribute to the whole negative feedback control and any structure benefit from it. If there are any positive feedback loops they are “traped” into negative control loops as the final result has to be returning to the “same state” if organism is to survive.
So my oppinion is that your partial control structural analysis has to be part of the whole control functioning of organism to be seen whether is right or wrong and what kind of control loops are involved. There can be also “feedforward” signals which are part of complex feedback loops as I presented in diagram in the beggining of presentation.