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Posted-Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 14:21:19 PDT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 1992 14:21:19 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject: Re: interactionism

[From Rick Marken (920819.1400)]

Martin Taylor (920819 14:15) to penni sibun

>PCT does not deal with the human as a
>single control system that controls "all the stuff my eyes take in" as "a
> single unified thing."

Nice post Martin. I think you honed in on a common misconception about
PCT. If I didn't already understand your point I know that your nice
discussion would have helped me towards that understanding.

Dennis Delprato (920819) says:

>On the conundrum of locus of control:  It is my understanding that
>HPCT takes the traditional question of locus of control
>...as poorly put.  Rather one part of the control
>does not control any other part.  The entire system IS a control
>system.

Well, I'd be inclined to say that control theory does place the locus
of control squarely inside the control system (not in the environment).
Variables in the environment are controlled (maintained in reference states
against disturbance) and this occurs because of the nature of the control
system itself (closed loop, negative feedback and, especially, HIGH GAIN);
not because of the nature of the environment. So whoever said that the locus
of control was inside the organism (like the cognitivists, maybe) was right;
PCT just shows why this is the case and what it imples about the nature of
behavior (it is controlled perceptual experience; I like to say it means
that behavior is a subjective, not an objective phenomenon -- the cognitivists
never got THAT part).

> there is behavior and there is behavior.  In
>the most elementary sense, it is crucial to distinguish between behavior-1,
>or physical behavior (the behavior of the moon, of molecules, of stones),
>and behavior-2, or psychological behavior.  Most psychology up to the
>present (as exhibited in behaviorism, information-processing theory)
>has usually taken behavior as behavior-1.

Nice distinction. Yes, PCT is interested in behavior-2, and sees behavior-1
as just a side-effect of behavior-2, interesting to an observer, perhaps,
but usually irrelevant to the behaving system.

>In the absence of certain strategies (perhaps "the test"),
>an observer cannot except speculatively identify what the psychological
>event here is. [In the mind reading program]

Correct. And the main reason is because the disturbances (which are
continuously influencing all 5 "behavior-1" behaviors are invisible.
So it is truly impossible to tell (just by looking at the behavior of
all 5 objects -- or, I might add, by doing any kind of analysis of their
behavior-1 behavior) which is being moved intentionally. In fact, the idea
that ANY one is moving intentinoally would not even occur to most observers;
all the objects just move around in an arbitrary pattern. The fact that
one of the visible behavior-1's is the result, in part, of a person's
active efforts to resist a disturbance is completely invisible -- because
you can't see the disturbances. The situation is similar to the one we are
in when we just watch people behave; all that behavior looks like behavior-1
because the disturbances are invisible so the resistance to disturbance
is invisible.  Control theory suggests that some of the events we see as
behavior-1 may be the result of behavior-2 -- ie. control. We can tell
which behavior-1's are the result of behavior-2 by disturbing a behavior-1
variable and looking for lack of (or considerably reduced) effect. The
mind reading program does this because it can "see" the disturbances that
the observer of the behavior of the objects cannot see; so the program
can determine which disturbance is being systematically opposed.

Best regards

Rick

      **************************************************************

Richard S. Marken                   USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
The Aerospace Corporation                   Los Angeles, CA 90024
E-mail: marken@aero.org
(310) 336-6214 (day)
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