HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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Original_cc:  TBOURBON
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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 14:10:00 CDT
From:         Tom Bourbon <TBOURBON@UTMBEACH.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: The cure for frustration?

From Tom Bourbon (921222  13:58 CST) --
Greg Williams (921222) gave his reasons for not performing experiments
and modeling to test his ideas in PCT.  I can hardly believe that he
would consider the roof over his family's head (literally) more important
than sitting down to a weekend ofprogramming in Pascal or C!  Still,
Bill's point is well taken:  Far too few of us are engaged in the experimental
science side of PCT.  Bill listed three, and by my own admission I am the
least accomplished programmer in the lot.  If three more people begin working
on experiments and modeling, I will immediately fall to sixth on the chart.

But I remember the day when, without Bill saying a word to me, I realized
I had spent a year or more asking him to do things for me  -- tweek a program
here, add a condition there, and so on.  I took some of the source code he so
generously gives away, printed it out, spread it across the floor of my
lab and started to learn.  Of course, I was doing it all backwards, but even
that clumsy approach  has let me do SOME of the things I want to do with PCT.

As Greg says, most people are busy doing what sems most important to them.
So am I.  It is just that when I got off of my duff and started hacking
away at my code, the things that seem most important to me began to change.

Like it or not, unless more people become active in experimental work on
PCT, all of the discussions and hand wringing in the world, over how to
present PCT more effectively, will lead to nothing.  That is not meant as
a harangue -- just the facts.

Until later,
  Tom Bourbon
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Date:         Thu, 24 Dec 1992 11:06:14 -0700
From:         Ed Ford <ATEDF@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Good News

from Ed Ford (921224:1108)

To All.....

I guess Bill Powers' recent post suggests we need each other
regardless of what we're doing.  I guess it is this recognition and
respect for what each person does that is the strength of our CSG.
Recently, I've received news which I wish to share with you.

The NASPA (National Systems Programmers Association) News ran a
review of my book, Freedom From Stress.  Have had some sales as a
result.  The reason was a local (Phoenix) programmer, Jim "JD"
Drechsler, with American Express who has been promoting PCT and has
gotten a lot of his peers excited about the ideas.  He has spoken
at several of their conferences and was recently elected to their
national board.

The second is with regards to my TV program produced earlier this
year by the local PBS station, KAET-TV.  They've aired it three
times and plan another airing in March.  The first half of the
program is dedicated (a lot) to explaining PCT.  I just learned
from the station's program manager that he presented my program for
possible use by other stations at the annual conference of PBS
stations in November.  Apparently, 32 PBS-TV stations throughout
the country expressed a desire for copies of the program to show in
their own areas, which included Boston, Washington(CD), and Dallas,
three of the nine largest viewing areas for PBS.  Others areas
include Denver, Atlanta, Indianapolis, plus San Jose, San Mateo and
Huntington Beech in California, and Tallahassee and Daytona Beech
in Florida, and so forth.  March would probably be the next time
stations have their promotions and would use this show, which is
designed for such use.

May all of you have a holy and joyful holiday season.    Ed

Ed Ford ATEDF@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
10209 N. 56th St., Scottsdale, Arizona 85253  Ph.602 991-4860
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Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 20:53:47 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      integration vs differentiation

[Avery Andrews 920101.2030]

(a little discussion which it seems appropriate to put on the net.  I
asked Bill Powers whether there was any evidence as to whether
pointing/reaching behavior used slowed proportional integrators
in the output, or direct control of velocity via differentiators in
the perceptual circuits.   said that it makes no difference, since
in either case, control of velocity is achieved; I reply ...)

Yes, the gross behavior would be the same, but (a) there might be subtle
differences (b) the actual circuitry would be different.  With
differentiators for example, an error in, say joint angle would set
a reference level for joint angular velocity, so the diagram would
look like this:

                  joint position ref.
                        |
                        v
            ------> comparator---->sigmoid(?) output unit
           |                           |
           |                           v
           |--->differentiator----->comparator-->---
           |                                        |
           |                                        v
      joint possie                           alpha-gamma effer.
        sensor

Which is different from what appears in Arm, I think.

So I still think there's an empirical issue to be settled here.


Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 18:31:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      The cure for frustration?

From Greg Williams (921222)

>Bill Powers (921222.0800)

>Unfortunately, all the real experimental investigation of control
>behavior is being done by a small handful of people with no
>funding or assistance, who are either retired and decrepit or
>working full time at something else to make a living.
>The timetable depends, therefore, on the person-hours available
>and the facilities for doing the research, including availability
>of human subjects. As long as the list of people actually
>devising and carrying out experiments and modeling is limited to
>Rick Marken, Tom Bourbon, and me, the queue of possible
>experiments with HPCT is going to grow while the actual work done
>trudges along at a slow pace.
>When I last looked, there were 132 subscribers to this list.
>Permit me a moment of impatience: when are some of you people
>going to get out of your armchairs?

I suppose that most of us are either retired and decrepit or working full time
at something else to make a living, AND ALSO (instead of doing PCT
experiments) doing other things we think are more important TO US than doing
PCT experiments. All of that needn't prevent some of us from suggesting
possible PCT experiments to you and Rick and Tom; you might not have thought
of doing them, and, on occasion, you might actually decide to give them higher
priority FOR YOU than the experiments (and other PCT-related activities)
you've been working on. My notion in suggesting step-tracking modeling by you
was that it would be interesting to see how general the (low-error) continuous
tracking model is, and that you and Tom are the ones who are set up to do it
(with software and hardware -- I don't even have a working joystick right now
-- my kids are primo joystick torturers). Maybe more netters would be moved to
become experimenters if they could get the tracking software you use from you
or Tom (that would save them a LOT of development time). Maybe you could even
give a higher priority to preparing a tracking experiment lab kit for
students. If I had a "plug-and-play" tracking lab, I'd know I'd buy a new
joystick. So here's a middle way: you and/or Tom come up with a "tracking
experiments for nonprogrammers" disk, and I bet several of us will get out of
our armchairs. Scolding us isn't a sufficient influence to make ANY of us
learn C or Pascal, I'll bet.

As ever,

Greg
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Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 18:46:56 EST
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      unnoticed

[From: Bruce Nevin (Wed 921230 15:52:04)]

(Ed Ford (Wed, 30 Dec 1992 13:18:04) ) --

Once Mohandas Gandhi was asked by a reporter what he thought of
Christian civilization.  "I think," he said, "that it would be a
very good idea."

Here is the Chesterton quote:

        "The Christian ideal," it is said, "has not been tried
        and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left
        untried."
                _What's Wrong with the World_ (1910)

Re beliefs and imagination, a twist with a holiday theme:

I just heard with half an ear on NPR something about a recent
study of obesity at Columbia and Cornell.  Those who failed to
lose weight turned out not to be reporting accurately either how
much they actually ate or how much they actually exercised--and
they appeared not to be registering these perceptions accurately
themselves.  They were eating roughly twice as much as they
recorded themselves eating.  The added calories and reduced
exercise accounted quite well for the differences in weight loss
(or gain) with respect to those who did well on the test diet.

Is it simply a matter of not attending?  Or of attending to
imagined perceptions at the expense of actual ones?  Or some
combination of phasing out at critical junctures, and then
substituting imagined perceptions that are comforting?  (Perhaps
"comforting" means "satisfying control of higher-level perceptions?)

Simply paying careful attention when one finds oneself indulging
in a "bad" behavior (you're trying to quit smoking, say, and
suddenly become aware that a cigarette is somehow in your fingers
and that you have just lit it).  Simply paying careful attention,
without judgement or emotional reaction, seems often to be a
prerequisite to subsequent change.  Maybe we can now explain this
phenomenon.

All the "religious" practices that seem to me to be serious (as
opposed to being mere social and cultural institutions) have at
their heart some form of individual practice that could be called
meditation.  Coming to one's senses, in place of customary
fantasies.  The distinction between religious experience and
religious institutions is fundamental.  Ideally, the latter
support the former.  But given the former, you don't need any of
the latter.  And in the absence of the former, the latter are
worse than empty shells.

When we pay attention to our active perceptions, it seems to me
that there is a lot more going on than our philosophies or
imaginations dream of.  It does make sense that imagination would
simplify things by leaving levels below the imagination loop out
of account.

        Bruce
        bn@bbn.com
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Date:         Sun, 3 Jan 1993 08:33:28 -0400
From:         Bill Silvert <bill@BIOME.BIO.NS.CA>
Subject:      SIMCON, uploads

Just to clarify a couple of items:

[Bill Silvert 930103]

>Bill Powers (921208.1500) said:
>>I have posted three files to Bill Silvert's server. As Bill is out of
>>town until Jan 2, I have put them in pub/public, which is apparently the
>>only place to which files can be uploaded. Bill, I presume, will move
>>them later to pub/csg/programs/source.

Files should be uploaded to uploads, not pub/public.  I monitor uploads,
the other is a scratch directory.

From Gary Cziko:
>Add to the file mentioned by Bill:
>simcon3.exe.  MS-DOS Executable binary file

All of these files are in csg/simcon now.

During my extended absence a lot of mail sent me got lost, so if you
sent me mail and it doesn't get answered soon, contact me again.

Mail to me should be sent to silvert@biome.bio.ns.ca -- the account in
the name bill is for mailing lists and because of the large amount of
traffic it is not read frequently, and messages are often lost.

--
Bill Silvert at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2
InterNet Address: silvert@biome.bio.ns.ca
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Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 13:37:05 EST
From:         goldstein@SATURN.GLASSBORO.EDU
Subject:      e-mail address change

Please be informed that my email address has changed.

It was: goldstein@saturn.glassboro.edu

It is: goldstein@saturn.rowan.edu

The reason is that the college changed it name after
Mr. Rowan donated 100 million dollars to it.

David Goldstein
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Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 16:13:01 EST
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      auditory configurations

[From: Bruce Nevin (Mon 921221 15:54:55)]

Bill,

Apologies for being such a sketchy presence.  Hopefully, things
will lighten up.

Harris (_A Theory of Language and Information_) suggests that
both in language acquisition and in the evolution of language a
relatively small stock of words comes first, then later the
system of shared, socially instituted contrasts, which in turn
support acquisition and control of a larger and more complex
vocabulary and (in the case of acquisition) the distinguishing of
morpheme boundaries in more complex heard utterances (by the
stochastic dependence that we have discussed).

The initial vocabulary is probably mostly monosyllables.  It
strikes me that a syllable could be an auditory configuration
perception. The tricky issue is that there must be duration for
auditory perception.  From an analytic point of view adopted
*after* acquisition of the contrasts, the duration of a syllable
means sequence or the seeming sequence of the event level.  But
if duration (without analysis into sequential components) is
necessary for auditory configuration perception, then no event
level of perception is required to account for it.

Perhaps the same argument could be extended to bisyllabic or even
trisyllabic morphemes (and a fortiori monomorphemic words).

How well does it transfer to other sensory modalities?  Is some
duration implicit in other kinds of configuration perceptions?

The issue of configurations of configurations, which still I have
not properly digested, provides a related angle on all of this.

Sorry to be so brief.  Got to sprint for the train now.

        Be well,

        Bruce
        bn@bbn.com
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Posted-Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 18:16:18 PST
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Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:16:18 PST
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject: Re: PCT Fanatics

[From Rick Marken (921223.1800)]

Martin Taylor (921223 17:40) --

>Rick, would you accept a small revision--

>Not all of these examples are theories of behaviour, and so I might
>suggest adding to your first paragraph " ... ALL BE WRONG as applied
>to behaviour."

The Xmas tree is up, the logs are on the fire (to protect us from
the fierce 50 degree temps outside) and I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH
MARTIN TAYLOR. I thought of this after I posted and your amendment
would strengthen my point considerably. There is nothing wrong with
any of the theories I mentioned "per se" and in some applications
they are very useful. It's the way they have been applied to behavior
that's the problem -- all are applied to behavior under the assuption
that behavior is caused output rather than controlled input.

Good point, Martin.

Regards

Rick
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 08:23:00 CDT
From:         Tom Bourbon <TBOURBON@UTMBEACH.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: PCT Fanatics

Rick,
  As you probably saw, I was NOT on the net during the break.  Just logged
on and read your post from the 23rd first.  I will send a more detailed
reply after reading the rest of the mail, but for now:
   1. It was amazing, but true to form, to see Martin retreat all the way
back to, "I'll think about it and say more if I think it is worthwhile,
and by the way it probably won't be what I said when I told all of you
I knew more than you did."  I relly don't know what he is up to, except
for ego-puffing.
  2.  Your rock em, sock em post to Martin was hot, but not off the wall.
He had muddied the discussion with notation and wording that confounded
several key points, then he had failed to point out where and why he did
that.
   3.  The levels business does seem to help, doesn't it.  If that was
what you used before your calm and tranquil post in follow up to Martin,
the clinicians and counselors can use you as a case study!
  4.  I am curious as to whether Wayne replied to my comments.  I will
look for something from him in the rest of the mail, but he probably was
down for the break, also.
  What is this stuff on PCT fanatics going to be about, I wonder?  Better
go look.
   !Bienvenidos a la semana nueva!
  Tom Bourbon
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Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 16:35:08 CST
From:         URROBERT@ECNUXA.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Beliefs and Imagination
              93

[From Dick Robertson] (230101.1630CST)
How can I endorse your message so heartily Ed, and at the same time Rick's to
which you were responding!  But I do!  I loved both your posts as yourselves
and damn the contradictions, full spead ahead in 93.  Bless us all in csg
Best, Dick Robertson
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Date:         Sat, 26 Dec 1992 11:15:40 EST
From:         Eileen Prince <eprince@LYNX.DAC.NORTHEASTERN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: PCT and other disciplines

Apologies to all.  I had meant my last posting to go to Bill but sent it
to the entire list instead.

Eileen
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Posted-Date: Sat, 02 Jan 93 12:35:39 PST
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Sat, 2 Jan 1993 12:35:39 PST
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      evolution of system concepts

[From Rick Marken (930102.1200)]

Bill Powers (930102.0930) --

Your discussion of a possible scenario for the historical
evolution of system concept beliefs -- from animism to
anti-animism to control theory -- would be a wonderful basis
for your next book about control theory. Evidence of
the "over-generalization" of animism is rife in the written
and spoken legends of all cultures. Evidence of the over-
generalization of anti-animism is what much of our research
in PCT has been about -- trying to show where the non-animistic
models of science DON'T apply. The final section of the book
could discuss our efforts to "sort things out" -- just what
aspects of behavior are "animistic" (purposive) and which are not.

One of the nice things about this way of presenting PCT is that
is shows the enormity of the revolution that PCT represents. I
think the scientific revolutions documented by Kuhn have all
occurred within the "anti-animistic" framework (though there have
been some unsatisfying attempts to bring animistic concepts back
into the anti-animistic tradition via quantum physics). PCT is,
indeed, an attempt to show the limits of "anti-animism" and to
bring back animism where it is appropriate. I think this way of
developing PCT ideas would not only be intrinsicly fascinating
(to those of us who love both animism and anti-animism) but it also
would make it clear why there might be considerably more resistence
to the control revolution (given the fact that anti-animism is one of
the pillars of ALL science) than to revolutions WITHIN science (like
relativity, evolution or whatever). The control revolution is not
a revolution WITHING scince; it is a revolution OF science; the last
time a revolution of that magnitude occured was probabaly when science
itself separated from "religion" -- and the belief in "anti-animism"
took off.

If you don't write this book, Bill, I will! (Visions of a PBS
documentary are already starting to dance in my head). That was
a really incredible post.

Best

Rick

PS. Dag. I was thinking of you also when I wrote the above. I think
the ideas in Bill's post would be a GREAT way to develop your thoughts
about the scientific revolution represented by Demming and PCT; both
are showing where animism was inappropriately "generalized" OUT
OF SCIENCE. Demming could be thought of a someone who noticed that
animism is sometimes appropriate -- in particular, when applied to
the behavior of animals.
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Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 15:27:04 -0800
From:         Marken@COURIER4.AERO.ORG

Peter Cariani

You send this to

>Dr. Arkin,

(I'm Dr. Marken)

>    Regarding intelligent buildings, I think there was a book
>published by MIT Press in the early-mid 1970's called The
>Adaptive House, which discussed user-modifiable structures and
>(if my memory is correct) self-adapting structures and materials.

Why was this sent to me?

Regards

Rick
marken@courier4.aero.org
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Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 12:45:54 EST
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      tapping my gas

[From: Bruce Nevin (Wed 921223 12:33:51)]

/*****************************************************************************
* (Martin Taylor 921222 18:15)                                               *
*                                                                            *
* . . . it always feels to me to be patronizing when I start to explain      *
* something that the listener presumably knows.  This problem causes great   *
* confusion when I start speculating on the basis of things that are not     *
* known to the other parties.                                                *
*****************************************************************************/

A universal problem.

Once years ago my wife and I stopped at a park in a small town in
the wastes of Nevada and there over picnic lunch struck up a
conversation with a Basque sheep man.  He had been a miner, and
when I asked him what that was like he started his response thus:
"Now you're tappin' my gas." I hope you'll indulge me as I did
him, though I'm not so entertaining or colorful as he.

A writer's maxim: never underestimate the reader's intelligence;
never overestimate the reader's prior knowledge.  The general
tone is "you probably already know this, bear with those reading
this who are not so familiar with it."  It's the reason I think
it's a good idea to spell out familiar acronyms like ECS
(elementary control system) on their first occurrence in a
discussion of any length.  It seems obvious and redundant, but
can make a big difference to a newcomer, and precisely because of
the redundancy the burden on the practiced reader is light.

        Bruce
        bn@bbn.com
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Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 13:23:59 IST
From:         Hillel Arkin <CVRARHI@TECHNION.BITNET>
Subject:      Intelligent Buildings

Subject:    Intelligent buildings

We are now conducting a literature search on the State-of-the-Art of
Intelligent Buildings.  To this end, I will appreciate any info.
regarding research in this field (published articles, ongoing research
projects, technical data on intelligent buildings (existing or at the
design stage) etc.  Any such information will be greatly appreciated.

Any help in this issue will be greatly appreciated.


           Dr. Hillel Arkin.
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