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Date:         Mon, 16 Nov 1992 13:52:22 -0700
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      From Mary Powers

[from Mary Powers (921116)

I am resending Hank's message without the >'s because I don't
know how to put them in. I have added or amended comments below
each of his statements, beginning with a *** and indented.

[From Hank Folson (921115)]

Being interested in PCT applications, I came up with a list of 7
questions which are intended to be an application of PCT
principles. The goal is to efficiently evaluate other theories,
in case there is a better one than PCT. After all, there has to
be something better than a theory that says: 1. You want to
control everybody because you are an independent control system,
and 2. You can't control anybody because they are all independent
control systems. The world would be in a terrible mess if it ran
on that basis.

   ***Indeed it would. But control systems don't want to control
   everything. They want to resist those disturbances which
   create an error. From infancy human control systems have their
   errors reduced by the actions of other control systems. They
   learn give and take, and cooperation, which I believe is the
   dominant mode of interaction, not conflict. Humans are social,
   and social rules are developed and maintained in order to
   avoid conflict. They break down when following the rules leads
   to big errors in individuals (as when the rules are stacked
   against them too long and too obviously).


Penni answered them about Interactionism, and here is my
answering of them about PCT, with the reasons for the questions
in []. Bill Powers can correct my sloppy scholarship.

>1.  Will you give me a couple of sentences long grossly
oversimplified outline of the theory?
See Mary Powers(921111) or Dag Forssell(921112)
[This just gives you a rough idea about what the theory covers.
It may allow you to see that there is no relationship to your
interests.]

   ***my (921111) was my best shot, for now.


>2.  Who developed the theory? About when?
William T. Powers, Clarke and about 30-40 years ago.
[This gives you an idea about the background of the theorists and
a time frame so you have some idea of how mature or complete the
theory is.]

   ***Hank dropped a stitch. Powers (Bill), Clark (Bob), and
   McFarland (Bob) in the 50's. Powers solo since 1960. Two
   physicists and a psychologist.


>3.  What did (s)he believe in before (s)he came up with the
theory?
Bill Powers was studying traditional psychology.
[This is straight PCT. The question is looking for the error
signals that drove the new theory.]

   ***Bill had taken some undergrad psych. Unimpressed. Also
   involved in non-traditional psych which he left when it
   degenerated into a cult and a scam. He was working as a
   medical physicist but the interest in psych was long-standing.


>4.  What did his/her old belief lack that the theory offered?
Traditional psychology is based on a stimulus-response model,
which Bill felt did not fully explain behavior. PCT offered an
explanation of how living organisms function.
[Again straight PCT. How did the new theory reduce the error
signals in the creators?]

   ***Their goal was to explain psychology in a way that met
   their scientific standards as physicists.


>5. Where did the basic idea of the theory come from?
Bill had been involved as a technician in WW II with control
systems for naval guns. He made a connection between mechanical
control systems and organically based ones.
[New ideas are the result of reorganization of our experiences,
per PCT. Evaluating the meaning of this answer can be very
difficult. What does aiming guns at airplanes have to do with how
living organisms work?]

   ***The basic idea came from Cybernetics. Bill was trained to
   repair control systems (radar and sonar equipment, not guns)
   in WW II. Then went to college for his BS in physics. Then
   read Norbert Wiener's book. Eagerly anticipating further
   developments in cybernetics, he began working on his own,
   drawing on his Navy background, etc., while waiting to see
   what the big scientific guns came up with. He's still
   waiting. The idea of control as a fundamental and pervasive
   property of living systems, as a key to understanding their
   organization and function, has never been seriously considered
   by the eminent and authoritative Great Minds in the life,
   social and behavioral sciences.


>6. How well has the theory worked for those who use it?
Well, it has given Bill Powers an interesting avocation.... Ed
Ford and others are successfully applying it to counseling and
education. Franz Plooij has done impressive work in biology. And
so on.
[This question gets to the applications of the theory. The proof
is in the pudding.]
   ***Applications, schmapplications, this is basic research. The
   only model that explains how consistent ends are achieved by
   varying means in a changing environment. The uses to be made
   of it are largely unknown - the problem now is to intrigue
   enough people to learn it and try it.


>7.  Has any independent research backed up the theory's claims?
My two favorites are: Studies of E. coli bacteria by a non PCTer
showed that it functions quite well using a very simple control
system. This is an evolutionary stepping stone for the more
complex control systems in humans.
Plooij studied the nipple rooting instinct in monkeys from a PCT
point of view. (In traditional psychology for "instinct" read
"magic"). He found that the lactating monkey mommy has a
temperature gradient across her breast increasing towards the
nipple. The baby monkey has temperature sensors in
its lips. A simple control system leads the baby monkey to move
its mouth towards higher temperatures. When it bites down on the
nipple, other control systems take over.
[This finds examples of real world proof or application of the
theory for your evaluation.]

   ***The people who studied bacterial chemotaxis (Koshland, et
   al) are unaware of the PCT interpretation of their data.
   There's good data all over the place - nothing wrong with
   observations. It's hard to get at, though - often all that is
   published are the results of statistical massaging while the
   good stuff (from the PCT point of view) is buried in a file
   somewhere.


Note that if these questions were asked about PCT 30 years ago,
the answers would not have been as complete. The questioner would
have to wait for years for confirmation, or help to study/prove
the theory, or decide for or against the theory with incomplete
information.

   ***Thirty years ago Bill believed he had applied some
   interesting principles of control theory to standard
   psychological data. Only after many, many years of being
   ignored, misinterpreted, and actively resisted, did he come to
   realize that control theory is a revolutionary paradigm in the
   life sciences, a systems concept that invalidates fundamental
   beliefs and commitments, and as such has been largely
   unacceptable.


Theoretically, Hank Folson

                                   ***Mary P.

          *                   *                   *
On another topic:
I saw an article in the NY Times magazine for 10-18-92 on Antonio
and Hanna Damasio - talking about convergence zones in the brain
where lower level perceptions are constructed into percepts like
specific faces. All very interesting, but what caught my eye were
the following paragraphs:

     Scientists once believed that signals flow throught the
     brain in one direction only, from low levels to high. But in
     the past decade, several researchers, notably Gary W. Van
     Hoesen and Kathleen S. Rockland, now both at Iowa, and David
     Van Essen, working at the California Institute of
     Technology, also established that high-level regions connect
     back to lower ones - providing feedback pathways by which
     convergence zones can reactivate the sensory cortices.

     None of this proves yet that Damasio is right. Cautions
     Morton Mishkin, a memory researcher at the NIH, "we know
     feedback connections exist, but we don't know their
     function."

We might have a suspicion or two - any suggestions as to how to
communicate with these guys - like suggesting they read Behavior:
the control of perception - without stepping on their toes?

                                        Mary P.
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