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Date:         Mon, 23 Nov 1992 11:09:50 -0700
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Ms communication; Science

[From Bill Powers (921123.1000)]

Penni Sibun (921123.2300) --

>>   Your post is to the point. We have to consider what people use
>>language for, not just try to explain language by examining words.

>lots of us, both ``interactionists'' and more traditional
>psychologists, have been doing this for a long time.

Funny, Mary predicted almost exactly what you would say.

It's strange how everything I suggest, working out of the PCT framework,
turns out to have been done or suggested by someone else in some branch
of linguistics or psychology. Of course these things have been done by
people who violently disagree with each other on almost every
fundamental issue about language and psychology, and there seems to be
no foundation of accepted principles in either discipline.

I detect a pulling together of the wagons in the face of outside
threats.

>>It would be interesting to devise some experiments to see why
>>people use language as they do. I'm thinking of some task that
>>requires two (or more) people to cooperate, but that requires them
>>to convey information to each other.

>herb clark and gradstuds at stanford have a whole suite of such
>experiments.  i'm not sure what they would consider primitive
>operations, if any, but i don't think naming w/b one.

How about telling us what experiments they did and what they have
discovered? This would seem to be an example of what I was asking about
a few days ago, a base of non-controversial observations on which all
linguists could agree, right? When you say they have a whole suite of
"such experiments," do you really mean experiments of the kind I have in
mind? Or are you just free-associating?

>>Suppose that the people are allowed to send symbols back and forth
>>by picking them out of a list. The symbols are arbitrary, not
>>familiar words, and can be defined only through common experiences
>>with the task and with each other.

>why should we suppose this sort of artificial task will be
>revealing of anything particular to language?

But I thought you just said this had already been done, with whole
suites of experiments of the kind I am proposing. Perhaps you don't
understand what I am proposing. I didn't mean that the passing of
symbols would be the task; that would just constitute the means of
communication. The task could be anything at all, as I said later in the
post, such as teaching someone to make brownies.

>> Some interesting problems come to mind. Attaching a symbol to an
>>object might seem easy, but with no rules, how do you get across>>that you are
 attaching the symbol to the object and not to the
>>actions by which you're calling attention to the object? How would
>>you get it across

>there's literally tons of research on symbol manipulation.

Good. So what facts have been found concerning the question I raised
above, about how you get across the nature of the perception to which
you're trying to attach a symbol? Or has the research all been too
crappy to answer a specific simple question like that? "Tons of
research" doesn't mean tons of _good_ research. If you do good research,
you don't need tons of it.

>one could cogently argue that skinner's pigeons can attach symbols
>to objects; we don't want to say this means that pigeons have
>human-like language, do we?

Is Skinner's research now accepted in linguistics? Anyway, I'm not much
interested in what one could "cogently argue." Cogently arguing is a
dilettante's game. I'm more interested in conclusions that explain good
data and that smart people can't think of any alternatives to.

>>I think the deaf community would have a lot to teach about what
>>happens when a group of people is brought together without any
>>initial means of communicating.

>i find this notion incoherent.  w/ possible exceptions of severely
>damaged individuals (eg, those w/ autism, those severely abused in
>childhood), any group of individuals you bring together are going
>to have myriads of ways of communicating.

So there was no motivation for deaf people to learn ASL, because they
already had ways of communicating? You find this notion
_incomprehensible_, Penni. There's a difference between your lack of
comprehension and the incoherence of other people's notions. It seems to
me that you're trying harder to show that you already know everything
worth knowing than to remedy your lack of comprehension.

>communication is a terribly important part of what human beings
>(and all organisms!) do.

Then why is it so hard to communicate with you?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Cziko (9211212.0120 GMT) --

>But didn't Science publish the Bizzi paper (or was that BBS)?

It was Science. In September of 1991 I wrote a technical comment on the
Bizzi paper, which was rejected. All three of the reviewers, one of whom
was Bizzi, rejected the commentary and said that I should first prove
that my model does what I say it does.

This morning, at Mary's brilliant suggestion, I wrote letters to Bizzi
and (via Science) the two anonymous reviewers. I explained to Science
that I wanted these reviewers at least to see the model, as they had
 allexpressed doubts about it. In the cover letter to Science I also quoted
the relevant parts of the 1991 reviews, as follows:

Reviewer 1 said

"Although I agree with the general point of his [my] comment, I feel
that it represents mainly a misunderstanding of ... Bizzi. I would very
much like to see the development of a more general model, one that
incorporates the basic observations of Bizzi et. al. and the philosophy
of Powers ... but I would rather see the Bizzi et. al. point of view
countered with data and research."

Reviewer 2 said

"Finally, the main point of Power's [sic] technical comment seems to be
an advertisement for his model ("Soon to appear in a journal in your
neighborhood.") Certainly, if his model can do all he claims, it would
be of interest, but too much of this technical comment is based on
acceptance of Power's stipulation that his model, offered for mid-1992
delivery, works. However, in the absence of detail, his comments fall
flat."

Emilio Bizzi (the target of the technical comment) said

"In summary, we believe the burden of proof is on Dr. Powers to show
that it is indeed simple for the CNS to generate posture and movement
using a feedback control scheme which resides predominantly in the CNS
and which must combine the diverse sensor information sources he
describes. Such a scheme must surely have to take into account the
various different feedback loop delays, and the complexity of muscle,
sensor and limb dynamics."

I corrected the mistaken reference to "Dr."

I did not say or imply that Science should reconsider the Arm article.
We will see what happens.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Best to all,


Bill P.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU