HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Original_To:  BITNET%"csg-l@uiucvmd.bitnet"
Original_cc:  TBOURBON
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Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:18:00 CDT
From:         Tom Bourbon <TBOURBON@UTMBEACH.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Martin to Rick on Shannon

From: Tom Bourbon (921218  14:38  CST)
Subject:      Re: Rick on (off) Shannon


>[Martin Taylor 921217 10:40]
>(Rick Marken 921216 sometime)

>I really can't let Rick's latest non-sequitur go unchallenged:

>> Bill P.'s
>>important observation was that perception is one link in a
>>causal loop in which we are all locked -- a loop that obviates
>>Shannon's concerns about reliable transmission since, in living
>>systems, perception is not the "start" of communication (or the
>>"end", for that matter); it is both the start and the end at the
>>same time.

>Every piece of the loop is constrained by Shannon's
>observations/theorems. If (like Rick) you don't understand them,
>you are doomed not to uinderstand PCT.

I know Rick has been out of town (L.A.) for a few days so he
probably has not seen your post.  It probably will puzzle him as
much as it does me.  In the past, both of us wondered how,
specifically, Shannon's ideas, or any of the major concepts from
information theory, would improve any of the quantitative
predictions we make with our simple PCT models.

May I repeat and elaborate on an invitation I made about a year
ago?  I will send you one of my programs in which two systems (two
people, the two hands of one person, two models, or a person and a
model) interact and produce controlled relationships.  The version
I will send includes a procedure that uses data from a first run to
calculate values of parameters for two PCT models.  Then the
program calculates predictions of performance during a second run
under altered conditions.  Correlations between the predicted and
actual values of all variables reach or exceed the now-familiar
.99+ and rms error in the predictions is low.

What I am about to say is a serious offer.  It is not intended to
be malicious or deceptive -- some reviewers of "Models and Their
Worlds" believed Bill and I had bad intentions when we made a
similar offer.

I invite you to add to the PCT model any features of information
theory that you believe must be there.  If necessary, use features
from information theory to replace those from PCT.  If your changes
improve the predictions by the model, there will be no argument and
no complaint:  You will have demonstrated that a person who does
not understand Shannon or information theory does not understand
PCT.  Please, invite participation by any of your colleagues who
are interested.  All of us are trying to better understand the
phenomenon of control.  If a better understanding comes from a
model different from the present version of PCT, that is fine.
Until later,

Tom Bourbon                             e-mail:
Magnetoencephalography Laboratory       TBOURBON@UTMBEACH.BITNET
Division of Neurosurgery, E-17          TBOURBON@BEACH.UTMB.EDU
University of Texas Medical Branch      PHONE  (409) 763-6325
Galveston, TX 77550                     FAX    (409) 762-9961 USA
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Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 12:31:19 -0800
From:         Marken@COURIER4.AERO.ORG
Subject:      CLOSED LOOP

[From Rick Marken (911214.1200)]

Greg Williams (921214) --

>I'd be happy to put both the Models/Worlds and Blind Men papers in CLOSED
>LOOP if that's what the authors want. I think they'll both probably fit in
>the next issue (due out 1-15-93). Tom, Bill, and Rick, is that OK?

Sounds great to me!

If Bill and Tom bite, I'll e-mail you the latest copy of "Blind men" -- ie.
the one
that was rejected.

Thanks

Rick
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Date:         Sun, 13 Dec 1992 21:08:06 EDT
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From:         "Bill Cunningham, ATCD-G (8" <CUNNINGB@MONROE-EMH1.ARMY.MIL>
Subject:      Gangs of 1

|Bill Cunningham 921213.2030|

The gang of 3/5, just one minute, olive branch discussion motivates this
gang of 1 to throw in his own comments.  You may or may not here from
Martin as another gang of 1 when his e-mail system is fixed.  I just logged
on in a brief stop between trips and find returned mail from down system.
He's perfectly capable of speaking for himself.     Don't misinterpret any
short term silence on his part (or mine either, since I leave in morning).

Let me throw the brick first:  I make a major distinction between militarism--
which I regard to be both stupid and dangerous, and the military--which has
some very bright people (these days), does some stupid things collectively
(but no more so than other groups of humans eg psychologists who review papers)
and who has to live with danger (usually provided by the militarist).
So, Bill P, I'm offended when you paint anybody/thing who works with/for
the military with the same tar brush.  More important, that kind of labling
does more to perpetuate problems than to solve them.

For the most part, the military are just like real humans.  They
have some cultural foibles and tribal jealousies that are important to
them and absurd to an outsider.  So does every large organization of individual
control systems--nations, religions, you name it.  For both good and ill,
man is a social (or antisocial) animal.  The only escape short of becoming
an agnostic hermit is either catatonia or death.  So we have a need for
police, clinical psychologists, and even the military.

There, I feel better.
_________________

Now, on the brighter side.  The process of boiling down a plethora of noisy
data into something intelligible, and the process of making wise decisions
based on the "right info" apply across our modern society.  Every attempt
I've ever seen to drain these swamps have come from the purveyors of fine
swamp water.  So we are off on a noble quest.  The military environment
happens to be a very good place to work on the problem, since the issues
are pretty clear and the grownups are willing to seek answers.
------------

To end on the brightest note, the complaints of the math being too complicated
are absolutely valid.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. As I remarked before,
in my dealings with John, it don't exist if I can't understand it.  This
I could understand.  Step two is that it doesn't pass the so what test unless
I can explain it on a non mathematical basis.  What you saw was an extract of
my struggling with that.  So we ain't there yet.  We still have a major
unexplained problem to deal with.  But we wouldn't be this far without PCT.
Nor would the other folks on the net.  So we are grateful for that.

I'll be out of town for 3 days.  Hope to return and find all the world's
problems solved, including the one we are groping at.

Warm regards (really) and affection.

Bill C.
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Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 09:09:09 CST
From:         John Gabriel <gabriel@EID.ANL.GOV>
Subject:      On wolves: A note from my science advisor

The expert on wolves (from the gang of three) has put straight about
some citations. Here are her comments:-

>From @firewall.nielsen.com:mgabriel@nis.naitc.com Wed Dec 16 21:36:45 1992
>To: gabriel@eid.anl.gov
>Subject: Re:  More for Rick Marken
>Cc: hculver@nis.naitc.com

>I can't resist adding a few comments about wolves.  The comment about
>alphas being former lone wolves is straight out of a lecture by Rolf
>Peterson to a group of us on Isle Royale.  I don't know if it's
>published anywhere.  The comment about the wolves holding an election,
>however, is straight out of Durwood Allen's wonderful book, "The Wolves
>of Minong."  It is almost the last chapter in Allen's account of the
>"big pack" (perhaps 23 members at full strength) and its leader "Big
>Daddy."  I'm quite sure the "election" was held before Rolf's time.
>The comment about packs being very deferential to their elderly former
>alphas is from George Rabb's observations of the Brookfield Zoo pack.  I
>don't think anyone knows how much of this applies to wolves in the wild,
>and particularly to wolves in the wild facing hard times.  Nothing is
>simple.

>Cheers,

>Marian

I also have to correct my citation about "All the fun of war ...."
It's from John Jorrocks MFH a fictitious character from about 1890
on Foxhunting. Oh well - the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable
to quote a later commentator. O tempora, Oh mores. And the fictional
Jorrocks, being a grocer who had become rich from his efforts and
purchased acountry estate was quite the (apparent) reverse of my
friends who have been shot at.

Best
                John
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Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1992 12:48:50 CST
From:         Mark William Olson <mwog8061@UXA.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      neuroscience

OK--I figured out that I gotta limit my message length.
First, I never saw Bill's post to me--I don't know if that was my fault or the
 computer's.  Second, when I speak of levels I am speaking not of perceptual
 levels but levels of analyis--like molecular, biological, psychological: that
 sort of thing but not quite that distinct.  I can describe what is going on in
 terms of neurons, or systems of neurons, or go lower and talk of the chemistry,
 or go higher and talk of the "computational models" (PCT).  I don't have to
 know much abut chemistry to have a good computational model and vice versa.  So
 when I say that PCT is at a different level than neuropsych, this is what I
 mean.  At one level there are goals, at one level there are neurons
 firing--nothing new. (I don't remember what I was saying in relation to this,
 however, unfortunately).
Third, I completely agree that I can't equate function with place--that's what I
 tried to write before and its what I am writing in my neuropsych final--but you
 got to start somewhere.  If I was doing a memory experiment (and by the way,
 neuroscientists are one up on this topic over PCTers as far as I can tell) I
 would do it exactely the same [switch to new post]
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Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 09:02:00 CDT
From:         Tom Bourbon <TBOURBON@UTMBEACH.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: Teaching PCT

From Tom Bourbon (921214  08:58)
I taught PCT (orginally CST) from 1973 until a few months ago, to
undregraduates (starting at the first-year level) and master's-level
graduate students.  I will try to organize some of my ideas on that
experience and will post them later.  (And they were undergraduates.)

Tom Bourbon
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Date:         Sun, 13 Dec 1992 14:56:03 -0600
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From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Hebb,"feedback" & cognitive psychology

[from Gary Cziko 921213.1945 GMT]

The January 1993 Scientific American has an article by Peter Milner
entitled "The Mind and Donald O. Hebb."  I particularly like the paragraph
where Milner describes Hebb's use of feedback:

"Feedback was not entirely new in learning theory.  Almost all models
assumed that the output of the organism influences the input in some way,
for instance, by enabling the animal to receive a reinforcing stimulus.
Unfortunately, feedback proceeding in this way, through a single path,
would operate slowly and often unreliably.  But with millions of internally
connected feedback paths, it would clearly be possible to establish
internal models of the environment that might predict the effects of
possible responses without having to move a muscle."

So for Hebb, feedback has to do with internal loops, not with a loop
working through the environment.  This allowed him to move easily from S-R
psychology to cognitive psychology (S-O-R) without changing the overall
perspective of stimulus and response.

I was very lucky to be a part of the last group of psychology graduate
students at McGill University that participated in Hebb's graduate seminar.
 My first teaching assistantship involved teaching from Hebb's _Textbook of
Psychology_.  I was quite sympathetic to  behaviorism when I started
graduate school and Hebb made it easy for me to consider his brand of
neuro/cognitive psychology as an improvement.  I suppose it was this
background that also made it easier for me to see the problems of both S-R
and cognitive psychology after being introduced to Powers's work.

I highly recommend Hebb's _Textbook_  to anyone wanting to see how
neuro/cognitive psychology can be understood as a straightforward
modification of S-R theory.--Gary

P.S.  One insight of Hebb's which I continue to value his is interactionist
perspective on the nature-nurture issue in psychology.  Anyone tempted to
say things such as "70% of trait X is innate" or "65% of characteristic Y
is due to learning" would do well to read Hebb's 1953 article in the first
issue of the _British Journal of Animal Behaviour_.




------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary A. Cziko                    Telephone: 217.333.8527
Educational Psychology           FAX: 217.244.7620
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Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 04:08:53 GMT
From:         rljackson@ATTMAIL.COM
Subject:      Re: citations...

[from Ray Jackson (921217.2100 MST)]

  Tom Bourbon  (921216  09:18  CST)

>Re: Citations of PCT
>If anyone has citations for applications of PCT, in any setting, I
>want them.  Keep my address on file and send or post anything you
>find.  I will be grateful.

Hi Tom,
Your request got me thinking: Have you ever seen those ads for the
Anthony Robbins' "Unlimited Power" program? Also, there's another
self-help program out called "Investment in Excellence" by Louis
Tice. I have only followed these programs with passing interest or
through the experience of others. I haven't been able to look into
these programs in depth. I just remember thinking that the reasons
why these particular programs were more effective than others were
because they seemed to incorporate PCT principles; that is, they
seemed to focus on affecting perception as a by-product of creating
or programming in a set of healthy and constructive internal
reference signals for an individual to operate with.

In the business world there is Stephen Covey and "Seven Habits..."
and "Principle-Centered Leadership". Also, you'll find an
undercurrent of PCT in Deming's management philosophy; I finally got
around to reading Dag Forssell's excellent "Observations,
Interpretations, Commentary [on Deming]" -- (By the way, Dag, I have
some minor editing suggestions for the piece I will forward by snail
mail this weekend). But, once again, the reasons why these programs
are successful seemed to me (and Dag) because they happened to be
representative of the "common sense" found in PCT.

I hope that is the type of thing your looking for...By the way, even
though I'm still a "PCT-lightweight", I always enjoy getting through
your posts.

Regards,
Ray

********************************************************************
Ray L. Jackson
3613 W. Saragosa St.
Chandler, AZ 85226
Home: 602-963-6474
Pager: 602-244-3252 #2545
********************************************************************
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Date:         Sun, 13 Dec 1992 10:50:20 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      comments on arm2 docco

[Avery Andrews 921212.1010]
 (Bill Powers (921212.0300))

Congratulations!

3 comments on the arm2 documentation -

  - I think it would be good to give some basic references for the
    neural wiring, especially the covariance of alpha & gamma reference
    signals.

  - pg 9, mid, don't you mean `Fig 3 above is drawn ...'


  - cogitating on the spinal control system, it's my impression that it
    is rigged to protect the muscle from damage due to extreme events
    caused by unpredicted variations in the external resistence to
    effort.  Thus, if the (alpha-gamma) reference signal increases
    by a modest amount, this increase will call forth a modest change
    in position if there is no resistance, or a modest increase in
    tension if there is (effectively) infinite resistence.  This
    presumably means that the muscle won't destroy itself, regardless
    of what idiotic commands come down from on hi.  If this is more or
    less on the right track, it might be a good idea to put it in
    towards the beginning of the discussion of spinal cord systems.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 11:01:12 -0800
From:         Marken@COURIER4.AERO.ORG
Subject:      Law and Order/Fratricide

From Rick Marken (921215.1030)]

Gabriel (921215 05:29 CST)--

>The feedback mechanisms for Altman and Peterson's reports are quite
>clear.

I didn't see them clearly at all. Could you give a quick diagram of the
"feedback mechanisms" operating in this situation.

>Any comments on exactly what feedback mechanisms were working and
>what were not in Los Angeles??

Looks like the gang member wanted to see someone shot, saw them shot and
left (because they also wanted to percepive themselves as being "not in
custody",
prbabaly) -- control of feedback. It works because the gang member's actions
have
effects, via the environment, on the gang member's perception ( of things
like whether or not people are shot).

Are you really intrested in what higher level perceptual goal might have been\
satisfied by produce the percpetion of someone being shot? I don't think you
can tell from just looking at the results described in your little scenario.

Best

Rick
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Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 18:13:13 EST
From:         "Allan F. Randall" <randall@DRETOR.DCIEM.DND.CA>
Subject:      Memory and Imagination -- REPOST

This is a repost of an article I sent out around the time we lost our
Internet feed. I don't know if it was successfully distributed or not,
but since I haven't seen any replies, I'll assume the worst and repost
it. If anyone has replied, it did not make it to DCIEM. My apologies if
you receive two copies of this.
       -- Allan Randall
----------------------------------------------

Hi all,
  Although there have been delays, I am happy to say that I am now working
full-time on Martin Taylor's control project. I will be working in
conjunction with Chris Love and Jeff Hunter.
  Anyway, my first order of business is to get more properly grounded in
control theory, so I have just finished giving "Behaviour: The Control Of
Perception" a thorough reading (BTW, my formal background is in computing
and AI).
  I am intrigued by the model of memory presented in Chapter 15. Bill, is
this still your working model, or has it changed? (I know its been a while
since you wrote the book). Do you still see the basic function of memory
as providing reference signals? Do you see the imagination loop as
operating through memory as it does in the book? Or have the intervening
years changed your conception of the problem? My conception of the diagram
on page 221 is that the memory unit would take references from the
higher level ECSs and remember how the world is supposed to act, so the
memory is basically a little toy world inside the ECS (a toy world, that
is, for all the ECSs above it that feed it references). This is a neat
model, I think, especially with the switches that give the four
different modes of behaviour. But I also realize there are probably many
other spcific ways of implementing memory that do not conflict with the
basic HPCT scheme, so I am wondering how you feel about this model now,
twenty years later.
  I had previously thought of imagination mode as one ECS telling upper
levels that they are controlling, even though they aren't. However,
talking with Martin recently, he pointed out the need to imagine that a
reference has NOT been satisfied, as well as imagining that it had, I
realized this model can do this as well. If the memory box is acting as
a little toy world, then it can respond in imagination mode that
"no, this won't work." -- the higher level ECS will experience prolonged
error in imagination.
  I also found it interesting that you used the RNA model of memory. Have
you dropped this idea since the RNA theory has fallen out of favour?

Allan Randall, randall@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca
NTT Systems, Inc.
Toronto, ON
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Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 10:08:56 CST
From:         John Gabriel <gabriel@EID.ANL.GOV>
Subject:      Signing off for a while

[From Gabriel 921217]

Just heard signs of an avalanche of things to do on the hillside
above me.

Bill C. points out that the last few days of NET is example of
failed attempts to establish layered protocols. He will probably
elaborate in due course.

Back some time in New Year when I'm dug out. Meanwhile over and out.
Don't unsubscribe me though or anything drastic like that. I hope
to have time to read at least.

Best Wishes to All

                John
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Date:         Sat, 12 Dec 1992 00:46:18 +0100
From:         Eric Thomas <ERIC@SEARN.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: problems with the new <listname> WELCOME message file
              11 Dec 1992 12:23:35 EST from "Forum on LISTSERV release 1.7"
              <LSTSRV-L@SEARN>

On Fri, 11 Dec 1992 12:23:35 EST Greg Kroll <USDGK@VTVM1> said:

>3)  I then  tried: a)  saving the  <listname> WELCOME  file as  a normal
>   FILELIST file which
>      means it was placed on the <listname> CMS userid.

Uh??? How  would LISTSERV do that,  the list userids don't  normally have
any minidisk where this could be stored.

>   b) saving the <listname> WELCOME file on LISTSERV's 191 disk.

This doesn't work, the WELCOME file is a *LISTSERV* file, not a CMS file.
You manipulate it with GET and PUT  rather than COPYFILE. It is just like
meeting minutes or anything else you'd make available to the list.

  Eric
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Subject:      forward func. on listserv with OV/VM R2

FROM Bryan Carson
  We have recently converted from Profs to OV/VM R2 on a VM/XA
machine.  I have a few users complaining about the Listserv (1.7d)
forward function not working with userids defined to OV.  Userids
not defined to OV seem to work fine.  Has anyone experienced this and
if so are there fixes available?
                                     Thanks yet again,
                                       Bryan Carson
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