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Posted-Date: Fri, 01 Jan 93 18:05:20 PST
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 18:05:20 PST
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      HyperCard; Beliefs

[From Rick Marken (930101.1600)]

Gary Cziko (930101.1623 GMT)

>Rick, could you say a bit more about the relative tradeoffs of using "real"
>languages like Pascal and C compared to HyperTalk?

I'm getting pretty hyper on the possibilities of HyperCard for control
experimentation and demonstration. The new version of HyperCard plus
the faster Macs (IIci,IIfx) makes it feasible to produce the kind of
experiments we like. I think HyperCard could be used to easily reproduce
most of the experiments in the "Mind readings" book. Hypertalk is pretty
easy to learn and use; HyperCard eases much of the user interface
aspects of programming. The BIG downside of HyperTalk is the lack of
array variables -- but it is always possible to go to XCMDs (which I've
never used) when you need this stuff. I think you could do your melody
control experiment in HyperCard -- but maybe someone else could comment
on this who has used sound with HyperCard -- I haven't.

I think that, for people with Macs, HyperCard will be a VERY accessible
way to present and develop PCT demos. But for the "real" bigtime
stuff (like Powers' ARM and Taylor et al's LITTLE BABY) you need the
power and speed of serious languages (like C).

I will send you (Gary) a BinHex version of the Conflict stack so
that you can get an early view of (what I see anyway as) the enormous
possibilities of HyperCard for making PCT PHENOMENA accessible to
the Mac community.

Ed Ford (930101:1305) --

Sorry -- the "total insanity" thing  was meant to be a joke; I
apologize for any suggestion of insult; there was none intended.

I think you took my post as being hostile to certain beliefs.
You say:

>When it comes to religious beliefs, it is obvious
>where your bias is concerning the Christian tradition (and other
>traditions as well).

My only bias concerning the Christian tradition (belief?) is that
it is a belief. The point of my posts was not to disparage any
particular beliefs (in fact, I think I've said on several occasions
that I happen to find many of the Christian beliefs quite attractive --
such as the belief in a forgiving savior; just to prove that I can be
an equal opportunity offender regarding beliefs, I'll take the risk of
raising Oded's ire by saying that I find the jewish belief in their own
"chosenness" quite unattractive). The point was simply that these
beliefs ARE BELIEFS (by my definition of belief). I agree that PCT
is also a belief in this sense; but it is a special kind of belief
that can be turned into a working model whose behavior can be
compared to that of real systems; you can see whether this belief
produces the perceptual results you expect.

I think it is EXTREMELY important to try to clarify the difference
between a belief like "christ died for our sins" and one like "a
system in a high gain negative feedback relationship with it's
environment controls its perceptions". I think there is a BIG difference
between these two types of beliefs -- and I don't think it's that
one is "better" than the other. I think it has something to do with
the fact that the former exists ONLY as imagined perceptions; the latter
can exist as actual experienced perceptions.

>But what
>you claim to be total insanity, I claim to be in large part, boss
>reality.

I love you, Ed. But this is the kind of thing that makes belief scarry
to me. I claim that "believing" some things is total insanity -- like
the belief that vulcan is up there on mount olympus making lightning
bolts or that god sent a non-descript bunch of nomads a tablet with the 10
"rules of life for everyone " written on them. These are beliefs -- and
they're fine. But what is it about them that informs you about boss reality?
More importantly, what is wrong with these beliefs if they are JUST BELIEFS???

Best regards

Rick
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