HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 13:22:28 EST
From:         "(Avery Andrews)" <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      there's more to meaning than perception

Although meaning is obviously grounded in perception, I think people
may be underestimating the subtlety of the connection.  Consider
the meaning of the NP `the Iliad'.  There are many different kinds of
perceptions that this can be hooked up to.  In the benign environment
of your local library, you can ascertain that a book is the Iliad by
noting that it has `Iliad' written on its spine, or by opening up
and seeing that the text starts out `Sing, Muse, of the wrath of
Achilles',  So a wide range of different perceptual functions will
suffice distinguish copies of the Iliad from other things.  On the
other hand, you can imagine more treacherous worlds, where books
say on their covers that they are the Iliad, but have something
completely different inside, or have all sorts of omissions and
interpolations in the text, so that some expertise (e.g. a large and
sophisticated perceptual function) is required to distinguish
good copies of the Iliad from bad ones (the Ancient world was like
this, before the Alexandrians cleaned up the text).

But regardless of what kind of perceptual function you may have to
recognize copies of the Iliad, I am in the wrong if I sell you something
on the basis that it is a copy of the Iliad, & it isn't acceptable
as such to an expert (if I do this on purpose, I'm a crook, otherwise
a jerk).  So meaning depends on perceptions, but not necessarily
perceptions of any of the people actually involved in a linguistic
communication where the meaning figures.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
From: zzwz@rrzn.uni-hannover.de (Wolfgang Zocher)
Subject: Re: Primer for modelers: draft
Organization: RRZN
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 10:06:07 GMT

POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU (William T. Powers) writes:
: 
:                Experimenting with the control paradigm
:                    A primer for computer modelers
:                         DRAFT: William T. Powers
: 
 [ beginning part deleted ...]

:  The simplest control system to model on a digital computer is one in
:  which all the functions are simple proportionalities except the
:  output function, which is an integrator. Alternatively, the feedback
:  function or the input function can be made into an integrator;
:  however, only one function should be an integrator and the rest
:  should be proportional multipliers. We will use a design with an
:  integrator in the output function; you can experiment with the other
:  possibilities.

Why should there be only one integrator? 

..stuff deleted...

:  NOTE: I would appreciate it if programmers versed in BASIC, Pascal,
:  and other languages would write versions of the above program, test
:  them, and transmit them to me for inclusion in an appendix to this
:  primer. Programs should be as generic as possible so as to run on as
:  many computers as possible. I especially need versions for mainframes
:  and workstations. In the future I will simplify the program and make
:  it easier for the user to change parameters from the keyboard. For
:  now, I hope that all programmers and would-be programmers will try
:  the program as it stands and learn from it, even if you have to get
:  some help from a 14-year-old. As this primer evolves I will post
:  revisions and again ask for your help.
:  ------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a PASCAL-Version of your program. It should work on whatever
platform ..


program control;
const kd = 1.0;
      ki = 1.0;
      ko = 8.0;
      kf = 1.0;
      dt = 0.1;

var   sp, sr, se : real;
      qi, qo, qd : real;
      i : integer;

begin
(* initialize variables *)
   sp := 0.0;
   sr := 20.0;
   se := 0.0;
   qo := 0.0;
   qi := 0.0;
   qd := 0.0;

   for i := 0 to 24 do begin
       if i > 12 then qd := 10.0 else qd := 0.0;
       qi := kf*qo + kd*qd;
       sp := ki*qi;
       se := sr - sp;
       qo := qo + ko*se*dt;

       write   ('qd = ',qd:6:2,' qi = ',qi:6:2,' qo = ',qo:6:2);
       writeln (' sp = ',sp:6:2,' sr = ',sr:6:2,' se = ',se:6:2);
   end;
   readln;
end.

:  Best,
: 
:  Bill P.

--
Wolfgang Zocher
Regionales Rechenzentrum f. Niedersachsen
Schlosswender Strasse 5
3000 Hannover
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 10:53:39 EST
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      unwanted meanies

[From: Bruce Nevin (Wed 921111 10:37:20)]

(Bill Powers (921110.1430) --

>Do you agree that we also control for unwanted meanings?
>I.e., some traversals lead to words that have unwanted meanings that
>stick out enough to cause us to switch to a different traversal, or to
>insert a specific denial of the unwanted meaning, or to loop back and
>repeat part of the traversal in different terms.

Yes, skill in using language is largely avoiding such built-in pitfalls.

>>It seems to me that we use the socially learned structure of
>>language as an framework for organizing how our attention traverses
>>our perceptions (the combination of perceptions from the
>>environment with perceptions from memory and imagination).
>
>Yes, I agree that when we think in words (not always the case) we use
>the socially (well, individually) learned structure as a way of guiding
>the traversal of meanings -- for creating a scenario to go with the words

I suspect that reference signals that get set when we tell stories about
our perceptions persist when we're not thinking in words.

>>Failure of social agreements is probably occasion for intrinsic >error
>in mammals (possibly in other creatures as well).
>
>I can think of lots of ways in which such failure would lead to
>intrinsic error without the failure itself being an intrinsic error.

Bateson was starting a lecture and suddenly began demanding of the
(small) audience "What are you sitting there looking at me for?" etc. in
a way that they did feel (as they afterwards confessed) that they were
doing something inappropriate.  He then went on to talk about this
distress at being wrong--existentially wrong, not belonging, odd man out
goes y o u yes I mean YOU!  This feeling of distress, which I suspect we
can all identify in our memories somewhere or other, does not so far as
I can tell depend upon consequences of a failure of agreement nor even
upon such consequences as anticipated in imagination.  It is very
immediate.  Many social arrangements, from club membership to the
cultivated persona of a tough, independent outsider, are strategies for
avoiding this distress.  Peer pressure, and all that.

	Bruce
	bn@bbn.com

PS--oh, yes, Bateson talks about this in connection with mammalian
communication, not just human double bind, etc.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 10:22:16 MST
From:         Ed Ford <ATEDF@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      dear Rick

from Ed Ford (921105:1030)

(From Rick Marken 921104.1400)

>It's over.  The 12 year nightmare of greed, division, deceit, and
>selfishness is kaput...

I don't know what election you were watching, my friend, but most of
the U.S. Congress is back, bad check passers and all, the organization
that creates and passes the bills and funds the projects, pork and all.
You democrats in control theorists clothing have placed the problem
only on the president.  Now it's all yours, completely yours.  To quote
New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of Bill Clinton's victory. "My
God, now it's OUR deficit."

>ALL people are control systems -- not just rich, protestant,
>heterosexual, white males.

Gee, what do you call Clinton and Gore, Buddhists?

To paid up members of the CSG..the new Closed Loop goes out snail mail
tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 5th), unless there's a glitch at the printers.

Ed Ford ATEDF@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
10209 N. 56th St., Scottsdale, Arizona 85253            Ph.602 991-4861
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From: ATEDF@ASUACAD.BITNET (Ed Ford)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: CSG Membership
Date: 6 Nov 92 03:03:05 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU

from Ed Ford (921105:2005)

To Eileen Prince and other non-CSG members......

Membership in the Control Systems Group is $45.  This supports the
Closed Loop, our quarterly edition of a condensed version of the
CSGnet.   It also allows us to give scholarship money to students who
would otherwise not be able to attend our annual conference in Durango,
scheduled in 1993 from Wednesday evening, July 28th through Sunday
morning, August 1st.  Those signing up midyear get the back issues of
Closed Loop for that year.  Part of the conference fee is your dues, so
that's when our new year begins.   If you are interested in joining,
send $45 payable to Control Systems Group and mail your check to Mary
Powers, 73 Ridge Rd., CR 510, Durango, CO 81301.

Best, Ed...

Ed Ford ATEDF@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
10209 N. 56th St., Scottsdale, Arizona 85253            Ph.602 991-4861
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1992 12:47:25 EST
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      o tell me where is BRAVO bred?

Thanks, Rick!  My, that did feel good!  Much appreciated.

        Bruce
        bn@bbn.com
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Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1992 14:10:45 PST
From:         Penni Sibun <sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM>
Subject:      charles dodgson's white knight

                    THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

                        by LEWIS CARROLL

              THE MILENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION (C)1991


[...]

                          CHAPTER VIII

                     `It's my own Invention'


[...]

  `You are sad,' the Knight said in an anxious tone:  `let me
sing you a song to comfort you.'

  `Is it very long?' Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal
of poetry that day.

  `It's  long,' said the Knight, `but very, VERY beautiful.
Everybody that hears me sing it -- either it brings the TEARS
into their eyes, or else -- '

  `Or else what?' said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden
pause.

  `Or else it doesn't, you know.  The name of the song is called
"HADDOCKS' EYES."'

  `Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to
feel interested.

  `No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little
vexed.  `That's what the name is CALLED.  The name really IS "THE
AGED AGED MAN."'

  `Then I ought to have said "That's what the SONG is called"?'
Alice corrected herself.

  `No, you oughtn't:  that's quite another thing!  The SONG is
called "WAYS AND MEANS":  but that's only what it's CALLED, you
know!'

  `Well, what IS the song, then?' said Alice, who was by this
time completely bewildered.

  `I was coming to that,' the Knight said.  `The song really IS
"A-SITTING ON A GATE":  and the tune's my own invention.'
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1992 10:13:13 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      lousy argument form

[Avery Andrews 191112.1013]

Recently on csgnet I've seen instances of a really lousy argument, to
whit, X doesn't understand PCT because they're controlling for
believing something else.  Aside from the fact that this kind of
argument can also be used to explain why people think that PCT is true
(you guys believe in this stuff because you want to think you have
some control over what you do, rather than the truth, which is that you
are the idle playthings of Zeus & Co. on Mt. Olympus), but also it
should be evident that anyone who bothers to get CSGNet is not
committed to believing the standard stories being told in their
discipline. After all, even deleting the traffic without reading it is
a substantial investment of effort.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1992 08:34:49 EST
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      Re: tutorial on modelling

[From: Bruce Nevin (Thu 921112 08:10:20)]

Bill,

Thank you for that excellent tutorial on modelling.  It will be a vade
mecum reference document for me for some time.  Maybe I'll get a
compiler going sometime soon.

Especially helpful was seeing how each function can know of its output
only by way of its input, which carries the ongoing cumulative effect of
the entire loop.  The input looks like its back door to us, as external
observers, who are interested in the outputs of the function; but the
function can be "interested" only in its input, since it is to its input
that it responds.  In this, a function in an ECS is analogous to a
control system:  we are mistaken when we, as external observers, are
surprised that the effect of a change comes round the loop to its "back
door." Its perceptual input is really its "front door." Both the control
system and a function within it face upstream.

When we're dealing with inanimate objects, we are rightly concerned with
their outputs (actions, behaviors, etc.).  When we're dealing with
living things, we should concern ourselves with their inputs, and with
divining their controlled inputs.  Alice's venture through the looking-
glass is nothing to this.  The reversal is existentially shocking.  But
the shock is I think intellectual.  "Intuitively" I suspect we know how
to do this; we're control systems, after all.  So I think a good modus
operandi is to observe (without interference) how we do when we are
doing well with respect to living beings.  It then becomes
crucial to distinguish the social conventions by which we continually
grease the skids.  So I mean we need to observe how we do well in those
gaps not covered by conventional interaction.

	Bruce
	bn@bbn.com
From: N336BZ@TAMVM1.BITNET (MLee)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: bio; was re:dear Rick
Date: 10 Nov 92 18:07:07 GMT
Organization: Texas A%M University
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU

Pardon me if this is a repeat, but I did'nt see this appear on the
list the 1st time I posted.

In reply to: "From Rick Marken (921106.0800)"

>Thanks. You made my morning.

>You are most wise and most welcome to the list.

>How about a quick autobio and/or a comment about what
>got you onto csg-l?

O.K.

I am a degree candidate in sociology at Texas A&M University writing
dissertation entitled "Knowledge, Science, Technology, and Society:
a Theoretical Model of Self-Organization."  Basically, I am
arguing against the prevailing view of functionally differentiated
system structures that each act as "externalities" for the other.
I am trying to develop a hierarchical model of a self-organized
system of resource tranafers that utilizes the same unit of
of analysis for both ecosystems and social systems: the resource
transfer group.  I borrow this concept from Lee Freese at Washington
State University.

In building the model, I am interested in three basic sources of
hierarchical control: 1) interpersonal dominance/subordinance;
2) asymmetrical dependencies and interdependencies in "chains" of
resource transfers between groups; 3) aggregate control features
that may or may not be a perceptual artifact of the mathematical model.

I heard about the csg-l group via an announcement in the ASA newsletter.
I belong to a number of other groups, and decided to take a look.  I am
interested in the ideas, but _very_ unfamiliar with the area.  I
appreciate the beginner's bibliography that is posted, and am in the
process of locating some of the materials contained therein.

I am as yet undecided how the concept of perceptual control may fit
in with my thesis.  Thus, I am primarily observing the group
discussion at this point.

Thanks for welcoming me to the group.  I've enjoyed the discussion
so far, even though _some_ of it is Greek to me!


Regards,

M. Lee


Regards,

M. Lee
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1992 12:41:04 EST
From:         "(Avery Andrews)" <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      meaning

[Avery Andrews 921112.1238]
 (Bill Powers (921111.0900))

 >If you think that the book you are holding is called 'the Iliad," then
 >that is the meaning of "Iliad" for you: it means the book you are
 >holding and see in front of you. The word also means whatever else you
 >are reminded of, which depends on your experience and memories.

True.  But there is another rather interesting sense of `meaning' in
which your meaning is *wrong*.  E.g. if you used it as a basis for
teaching in a Classics department, it would be quite in order for you
to be sacked for incompetence.


  >But that objection is based on the idea that there is a "real" meaning
  >of "The Iliad" that can be objectively established by experts. All this

Which there is, sort of, tho `objective' might not be quite the right
word for.  The real Iliad is whatever Homer dictated to however wrote
it down, on current conceptions.  Being a bit more precise, people who
are into this sort of stuff seem to agree (at least implicitly) that if
somebody composed something pretty much like the Iliad as we have it
and dictated it to a scribe, or wrote it himself, or got it to be
memorized & transmitted by a school of apprentices for a while before
it got written down (the first possibility is presently considered the
most likely, as far as I can make out), then that person is Homer &
what he composed is the real Iliad.  If none of these presumptions are
true, then maybe there isn't a real Iliad.

I'm not denying that all this is ultimately based on perception, but I'm
trying to emphasize a social aspect of meaning that PCT maybe puts a bit
too much in the background.


Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 13:14:19 EST
From:         "(Avery Andrews)" <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      user modelling

[Avery Ahndrews 921105.1313)
  (penni sibun 921104.1400)

>i avoided that sort of thing like the plague
>when i drew up my thesis proposal, because in ai/comp ling, this sort
>of thing falls into a black hole called ``user/hearer modeling.''  the
>basic idea of this is that i build a model in my head of what you have
>in your head, and we pretend infinite regress doesn't happen.

I can't resist posting this little real-life example:

   I heard wailings on every side,
   and saw no-one who made them;
   wherefore, all bewildered, I stopped.

 ->I believe that he believed that I believed
  that all those voices from within the trunks
  came from people who were hidden from us.

  Thefore the master said:  if you break
  a little branch from one of those plants
  them thoughts that you have will  all be cut short.
      Dante _Inferno_ 13.22-30 (Singleton 1970 translation).

The crucial line in Italian is:

  cred' io ch' ei credette ch'  io credesse
  think I that he dhought  that I  thought

clearly recursive just like the English translation.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
From: gabriel@EID.ANL.GOV ((John Gabriel))
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: Re: language
Date: 9 Nov 92 23:10:07 GMT
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Re (penni sibun 921106)

A small group of us, not all really active CSG'ers have been talking
about the question of how to affect a decision maker's perceptions,
because the decision maker can only make changes on the basis of
perceived truth.

Here is perhaps a beginning of an answer to Penni.

A perception of the real world can be put in terms of a set of
propositions believd to be true (Aristotle - or if you want
something more modern, Pattern Recognition, Human and Mechanical -
Satosi Watanabe, pub John Wiley 1985).

The distance between "your" perception and "mine" is a Hamming
distance(*), possibly weighted by value systems for the propositions.
Note that you and I can disagree about the magnitude of the weighted
Hamming distance because of differing value systems, unless we
agree on everything in which case the Hamming distance is zero
(perhaps one cause of alienation - whenever I have real row with
my boss it's because of different value systems on the same set
of propositions).

In this framework, the PCT model has an error signal that is the
weighted Hamming distance, and the purpose of communication,
diplomacy, or in the last resort war, (von Clausewitz) is to
change that distance either by change of perceived truth or
change of (even imposing a different in case of war) value system.

Well, there's a whole lot more. We don't have it all sorted out
yet, but have promised collectively to do so by mid 1993 in time
for a private meeting in Washington DC. But there will be no
problem about circulating the talks afterwards, possibly even
a book, we don't know yet.

We owe Bill Powers for PCT, C.E. Shannon for Information Theory,
Pennti Kanerva for databases having a metric being the the Hammming
distance, and Bayes and Goodman for estimates of reliability of
perceived truth.

As I say, it isn't finished, it isn't even ready to talk about yet,
and perhaps I should have held my peace until we were ready.

Apologies to other members of the group if I've let the cat too
far out of the bag, but I think Penni had the string pretty far
untied anyhow.

Note by the way, two interesting things. This is not a classical
continuous control system - i.e. the PCT concept that you only
act on perceptions has deep and far reaching implications beyond
the little man, and that there are other formulations of the things
PCT deals with (such as optimisation theory) that become easier to
manage when the spaghetti bowl of feedback paths gets too tangled.
Conversely, inside every optimisation algorithm there is a PCT
system, e.g. Newton's Method.

(*) The Hamming distance is the count of propositions where we
disagree. It really truly is a metric (i.e. a distance) that
obeys the triangular inequality.

	John Gabriel 921109:16:45 CST
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 10:12:58 EST
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject: Re: Study PCT first. Then make revolution.

[Martin Taylor 921110 10:00]
(Dag Forssell 921109)

>PCT shows clearly that people attend to that which they are concerned
>about.

That's one claim I've never heard on CSG-L before, and I don't believe it to
be true.  Most of the perceptions that are under good control are not in
attention, and I'm not at all sure that "concern" is an attribute of an
Elementary Control System.  Where emotions and such feelings come into HPCT
is a very interesting and hardly touched area.

The only description within PCT that comes close to the concept of "attend"
is, so far as I know, based around the core concept that there are far more
sensory degrees of freedmon than effector degrees of freedom.  The
discrepancy ensures that there are far more potentially controllable
perceptions than are being controlled at any moment.  It might be tempting
to identify "attention" with the controlled perceptions, but I think it
would be wrong to do so.  Subjectively, attention seems more associated
with changes in which perceptions are being actively controlled, and thus
with the (unspecified) mechanism by which the control shifts among the
controllable perceptions.

>PCT is much more than a matter of faith. There is a lot of very hard
>evidence for those who are willing to look. PCT is knowledge, more
>certain than most.

Yes, but there's still an awful leap of faith from there to
>If you learn PCT first, everything will fall in place, your special
>interest included, whatever it is.

Nothing wrong with having faith, but recognize it for what it is.

Martin
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