HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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Date:         Thu, 31 Dec 1992 15:28:10 -0600
From:         Tom Bourbon <TBOURBON@BEACH.UTMB.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Apologies

From Tom Bourbon (921231  15:14)

This is probably the final time I will use the "reply" function!

To Bruce Nevin, Bill Powers, and most of all to Martin Taylor, I am
happy to see that all of you "went up" what appears to be several
levels after my fat-fingered error.  Martin, the ideas yuo discussed in
your post (921230) went directly to the heart of my concerns in the
apology:  I use remarks much stringer than anything in the wayward post
iin conversations with friends, when we are in private places.  And I
use far stronger remarks to characterize my own actions when I find
them wanting.  (You might have been interested in my comments to
myself upon seeing a private post sitting in csg-l basket!)

My first concerns were that so many people are listening in the background,
and that Martin might (understandably) take the remarks as insulting.  I
was not sure enough about how he perceived our interactions that I could
assume the post would pass as a casual and careless remark.

I have no experience with other nets and interest groups, but from all I
hear and see, the tone of csg-l is different from many others. I value
the content and the tone of the material on this net. And even more
than before, I value the sensitivities and kindnesses of the participants.

Until later,
Tom Bourbon
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Date:         Fri, 25 Dec 1992 05:11:56 -0700
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Solsticial celebrations

[From Bill Powers (921225.0500)]

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it for various reasons; to
the rest, the days are getting longer up here in the Northern
Hemisphere, so cheer up. You upside-down antipodeans, I am
afraid, must wait six months for your solsticial celebrations.
Anyway, Venus is in the evening sky for everyone orbiting our
common luminary here and farther out and Orion looks the same,
upright or standing on his head, to all Solarians. We have more
in common than we think, whatever we call it.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ed Ford (921224) --

Congratulations on all your good news. I see that Denver is on
the list for airing your PBS program, so we'll get to see it out
here in the boondocks. You should have little difficulty enjoying
your holiday.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Best to all,

Bill P.
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From: gabriel@EID.ANL.GOV (John Gabriel)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: Re: Last thoughts; Auf Wiedersehen
Date: 21 Dec 92 15:00:05 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU

Thankyou Bill. I read yr previous post before this one. Let's keep in
touch. My reply to previous is dead serious. I shall always have
an enormous respect and admiration for what you have done.

You are absolutely right about minimisation and control being
interchangeable. That's all a minimisation system is - a control
system trying to make an objective function as small as possible.

The only things that give you trouble in going to a continuous
control model are those cases, like Kanerva, where dist(P,R)
does not have derivatives. And for those you need a control
system that hops from point to point, instead of gliding
smmothly along its' (as Bill C would say) "preordained" path.

But none of these things matter. YOU were there first, and all that
I'm doing is a little bit of mathematician's nitpickery.

We do have different world views and perceptual histories. I
always look for abstraction, and you most of the time, look
for concrete examples and machinery. Doesn't matter, we are
both necessary parts of the ecology.

                John
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From: marken@aero.org (Richard Marken)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: Re: Seeing the Loop
Date: 26 Dec 1992 23:01:33 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aerospace.aero.org

[From Rick Marken (921226.1500)]

Gary Cziko (921223.1815 GMT) --

Thanks for the nice comments on the "Cause of control movements.."
paper.

>P.S.  Rick, why do I keep seeing ? in your posts where single and double
>quote marks should be"""

This happens when I post using Microsoft Mail on my Mac. I don't
understand why -- but I see it when I look at the mail delivered
(from me) to my other address. I believe I'm using the appropriate
terminal emulation (vt100) -- and I see """, not ? when I create
my posts. It's quite annoying; I guess I could just avoid typing """
when I post using Microsoft Mail. Any other suggestions would be
welcome (though probably most appropriate if posted directly to me).

Best regards

Rick

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

Richard S. Marken                   USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
The Aerospace Corporation                   Los Angeles, CA 90024
E-mail: marken@aero.org
(310) 336-6215 (day)
(310) 474-0313 (evening)

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Date:         Fri, 25 Dec 1992 18:00:05 EST
From:         Eileen Prince <eprince@LYNX.DAC.NORTHEASTERN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Misc. blah

To the limits of my knowledge, and these are great, I am in fact trying
to apply PCT;  however, it doesn't always help with those who are not of
a PCT bent themselves.  If you want me to elaborate, ....

MERRY CHRISTMAS,

EILEEN
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Date:         Thu, 24 Dec 1992 23:41:55 -0600
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From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Seeing the Loop

[from Gary Cziko 921223.1815 GMT]

Rick Marken (921223.1300) says:

>For me, one of the most dramatic demonstration of this fact is given
> in my  ?Cause of control movements...? experiment (included in Mind
>Readings). This experiment shows beyond doubt that THE STIMULUS
>in a tracking task IS NOT THE CAUSE OF OUTPUTS that control the
>stimulus; there is no cause-effect (where it seems that there must
>be) because the cause and effect are IN A LOOP. It?s the loop
>that changes everything that has always been taken for granted in
>all previous approaches to understanding human nature.

I must admit that this short paper by Rick is my ALL TIME FAVORITE of
demonstrations of perceptual control.  I thought I understood the basics of
PCT before I first read it and then when I realized that Rick's results
seemed like magic I realized that did not.  Now when I read it, the results
seem only 50% magic.  Progress, but I still have a way to go (but I was
happy that Rick himself admitted to me last July in Durango that he also
finds the results somewhat mysterious).

I strongly recommend that anyone wanting to understand PCT read Rick's
paper.  So let me (as my Christmas gift to the net) remind people how they
can do this.

1. Get the paper from your local academic library in the journal in which
it as originally published:

Marken, R. (1980).  The cause of control movements in a tracking task.
_Perceptual and Motor Skills, _51_, 755-758.

2. Buy the collection of Rick's papers published as _Mind Readings_
available from The Control Systems Groups, 460 Black Lick Road, Gravel
Switch, KY 40328.  Price is $18 postpaid.  (I believe that Greg Williams
told me he will send the book anywhere in the world for that price,  but
you should check with Greg <4972767@mcimail.com> first about this for
orders coming outside the USA).

This also reminds me that I was going to try to devise a convincing
portable "manual" demonstration of what Rick does in this paper.  I'll keep
the net informed if I come up with something useful.--Gary

P.S.  Rick, why do I keep seeing ? in your posts where single and double
quote marks should be"""
------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary A. Cziko                    Telephone: 217.333.8527
Educational Psychology           FAX: 217.244.7620
University of Illinois           E-mail: g-cziko@uiuc.edu
1310 S. Sixth Street             Radio: N9MJZ
210 Education Building
Champaign, Illinois 61820-6990
USA
------------------------------------------------------------------
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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 12:00:07 -0800
From:         Marken@COURIER4.AERO.ORG
Subject:      Internet Tear

[From Rick Marken (921222.1200)]

I just learned that our Internet connection is down. So that means
1) both of my last posts will show up on CSG-L at some "indeterminate"
later time and 2) you will not see this note of apology for some time
either. But, again, sorry for the double posting -- looking forward to
getting into whatever might be the prevailing argument (er... discussion)
at the time that Internet returns.

PS. This note should not be taken as evidence of feedforward control.

Regards

Rick
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 11:04:12 EST
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject:      Re: Rick on (off) Shannon

[Martin Taylor 921223 11:00]
(Rick Marken 921221 2000) (delayed)

Rick,

I think the misunderstanding has been cleared up by your posting.

> So now we can get back to THAT conversation; do
>you think that reorganization involves control of perceived error in
>the hierarchy (in human control systems)?

Yes.

>Why or why not?

It seems a very plausible way that the linkages in the hierarchy can be
connected with appropriate signs (and as I mentioned in a posting a few
weeks ago, there seem to be 12 different ways that reorganization of this
kind could be effected, so I'm not plumping for a mechanism).

>Can you think of a behavioral test for such a model?

Not offhand.  And I think that a good part of this reorganising system
is outside the individual, occurring on an evolutionary time-scale, so
that aspect couldn't be demonstrated behaviourally.


>As for Shannon and information theory; could you give me another sample
>of this "understanding" of PCT that you get with info theory that you
>don't get otherwise? Could it be that info theory is just one of those
>comfortable old pieces of wisdom (like reinforcement, statistics,
>reflexes, information processing, experimental methodology, decision
>theory. etc) that just MUST fit into this (PCT) SOMEWHERE? What if it
>doesn't?

I admit the possibility, since we can never know when we are fooling ourselves.
But see the postings to Tom and Bill yesterday.  I hope that I will be able
to satisfy you with what I plan to write in a more serious vein than
impromptu net postings.

Happy Xmas.

Martin
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Date:         Thu, 24 Dec 1992 12:03:34 -0700
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Science letter

[From Mary Powers (921224.1200)]

The following letter appeared in Science for 11 Dec 1992. It
should be of interest to CSGnet.

          Conflicts of interest

In his article "When does intellectual pas-
sion become conflict of interest?" (Special
News Report, 31 July, p. 620), Eliot Mar-
shall wrongly focuses on individual passion.
Shared intellectual passions generate much
more powerful conflicts of interest and are a
greater threat to scientific progress. Enthu-
siasts for widely held ideas are in a strong
position to promote their interests by ad-
vancing cherished, but flawed, theories.
Consensus among many scientists is no
guarantee against major errors in thinking.
Lone thinkers have only the strength of
their aruments behind them, yet some-
times their arguments prevail and lead to
major advances.
  Proposals to censor unfavored ideas by
invoking legalisms such as "conflict of
interest" are alarming. Suppression of the
opinions of scientists with strongly held,
idiosyncratic points of view is profoundly
antiscientific. Individual intellectual pas-
sion remains essential for scientific prog-
ress.
                    Jerome L. Sullivan
           Veterans Affairs Medical Center,
              Charleston, SC 29401-5799
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Date:         Sat, 26 Dec 1992 10:24:49 EST
From:         Eileen Prince <eprince@LYNX.DAC.NORTHEASTERN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: PCT and other disciplines

Dear Bill,

Thanks for the quick comment and invitation.  It feels good to have
someone pay attention to what I say and/or ask.

I will write briefly for now, as my (autistic) daughter Katy is home for
the holidays and I both need to supervise and want to be with her.
Also,
I hope you and yours are having a wonderful holiday season.

I had two thoughts in mind when I wrote my comment:
        1.  In working with those who have minds that are closed to PCT
and any theory other than the one they dogmatically follow, I have found
it difficult to introduce new ideas.  This goes for the ESL teachers I
work with and supposedly supervise and others who "manage" within our
program.  It also goes for the educators who work with Katy and are of
the B-Mod persuasion.  However, with these latter I have found it useful
to use their terminology as much as possible and praise them for the
wonderful successes that have in fact taken place.  As for getting more
control FOR Katy, it's hard, but I think my deliberate attempts to make
them think that I partially agree with their approach and at least
understand it have given me sympathetic ears.  There has been far less
success with many of the ESL type.

        2.  In trying to operate from a PCT approach myself, I find
again that the closed mind is the greatest "enemy."  (Naturally, I can't
comment on the degree to which my own mind is closed :-).)  Let's say I
choose to think of my current spouse or one of my daughters in a certain
way, trying to avoid the stereotypes that I naturally grew up with.
(And, believe me, those have changed anyhow!)  The other person may have
already neatly categorized me as wife, mother, etc. and found me to fall
short of the definition.  What to do?  Say fine, this is what I am, take
it or leave it.  (Often my response, though not overtly.)  Or to try to
change their perceptieon in other ways, and then how?  (It's probably a
mistake to try to change someone's perceptions.  I can probably describe
what is going on better than affect it, except in myself.  Then, just
because I am perversely human, I don't choose to easily end
relationships just because the other does not perceive me as I am.
Though perhaps I eventually do/have.  But with my children?
Completely?)

Happy Holidays again,

Eileen
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Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 16:05:43 -0600
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From:         Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster <POSTMASTER@UIUCVMD.BITNET>

Dr. Arkin,

    Regarding intelligent buildings, I think there was a book
published by MIT Press in the early-mid 1970's called The
Adaptive House, which discussed user-modifiable structures and
(if my memory is correct) self-adapting structures and materials.
I think there are still quite a few visionaries left in the
Architecture and Urban Studies departments at MIT, so you might
try to get in touch with them.

    There are also a small number of people concerned with
Intelligent Materials, which are essentially adaptive materials
that change their properties in response to changing environments
(like the bones of most vertebrates). I don't know if this group
includes architects and builders; unfortunately I don't have a
good reference or contact for them.

Peter Cariani
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Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 09:30:46 -0800
From:         Marken@COURIER4.AERO.ORG
Subject:      On the lighter side

[From Rick Marken (921223.9000)]

Bill Cunningham --

Holiday greetings to you too. Great exam. I'm still working on it.
I think I got one:

>4.  Propose a means whereby two PCTers might determine whether a light bulb
>Found on table might control for no change.  HINT: flirting won't do it.

Suppose one PCTer tries to screw the bulb in -- the other tries to screw
it out. Does this count as flirting? Or are we approaching "safe sockets".

>The very best holiday wishes to all.  May all your perceptions be closely
>alligned with your higher level control system, this day and forever more.

And may all your goals be adjustable.

Regards

Rick
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Posted-Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 11:33:47 PST
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Date:         Tue, 29 Dec 1992 11:33:47 PST
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From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA

[From Rick Marken (921229.1130)]

Martin Taylor (921229 13:45) --

>Your experiments on conflict sound great.  Would it be too much to ask for
>a copy of your HyperCard stack?

Thanks. I will BinHex them and send them to you tommorrow (I have to
bring them in to work to do the transfer; I also want to pretty them
up a tad so that you can use them better. But I'll be available for
help if they are still arcane).

> I promise not to do anything with it to
>pre-empt you (I don't have access to experimental subjects, anyway),

PLEASE PRE-EMPT ME!! Heck, with PCT we have trouble getting people
to STEAL our ideas -- even when we intentionally leave them out in
the open. I would love it if you would use this stack as the basis
for some of your own research.

>I might be able to send you some proposed test conditions or script
>modifications that could link into (a) Bomb, (b) superstition, or
>(c) information theory (no promises on any of them).

Great. If you get interested, I'd be happy to help; I don't need
publications or recognition (just money -- he he) and I would really
be thrilled if you proposed some test conditions; I have the same
access to subject's that you do -- just people hangin' around. All
you need is a couple (maybe three) -- it works the same with everyone
(assuming no gross neurological problems).

>For this kind of thing, HyperCard sounds like a good way to go.

I think it's great -- at least for some fairly simple stuff (like
this) where speed and efficiency are not crucial. You couldn't
build an ARM or a LITTLE BABY with it (unless you used XCMDs
profusely).

>(Isn't there a translator to an HC look-alike on IBM compatibles, too?
>That would let Bill P look at it.)

I'll let him see it at the Durango meeting -- there is always a Mac there.
I bother Bill with enough stuff during the rest of the year -- but he
still manages to get tons of work done anyway.

Best regards

Rick
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Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 15:41:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      It's ALL belief!

From Greg Williams (930101)

Re. "belief" (Rick, Ed, et al., recently): PCT says it's ALL belief. Of
course, there are degrees (of "warrantability," as some of the contemp.
philosophers say). Some of us BELIEVE in PCT and BELIEVE it warranted to
a greater degree than belief in S-R. There is a large measure of "faith"
and accepting authority of others even in our beliefs about Newtonian
physics (none of us have done all of the experiments which we "accept" to
support N.p. as a better model than Aristolelian physics for certain
aspects of The Boss out there). It appears that the motivation for
accepting authority in most any kind of belief is largely economic -- I
don't have time to check all this out in detail, but I trust the "experts"
in the area.

I BELIEVE the New Year is here, so

ENJOY!

Greg
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Date:         Sat, 2 Jan 1993 15:19:20 -0600
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From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      On Purpose

[from Gary Cziko 930102.1800 GMT] (STILL typed "92" first!)

Rick Marken (930102.1200) warns Bill Powers:

>If you don't write this book, Bill, I will! (Visions of a PBS
>documentary are already starting to dance in my head). That was
>a really incredible post.

No fair!  I was planning to write such a book after finishing _Without
Miracles_.  I was going to call it _On Purpose_ (I could then tell people
that I was writing a book "on purpose").  Bill's perspective of animism to
anti-animism to control gives a wonderful organizing framework for the
book.  But since the current book is taking me so long (when my wife keeps
telling people "My husband has almost finished his book" they reply "He
must be a slow reader") I will let Bill and Rick take the first crack.
With the book should come a computer disk with Rick's computer demos and an
appendix with "my" collection of manual demonstrations of control (mostly
stolen from others).

There should also be a videotape companion to the book.  It would include
both the computer and manual demonstrations of control.  I've have just
viewed such a video which is a companion to John Koza's _Genetic
programming_ and it is a very effective way to demonstrate the algorithms
he describes in the book.  And just about everybody (in North America at
least) seems to a videotape player these days.  This would also give Rick a
start on preparing his PBS special (see what you've started, Ed?).--Gary
------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary A. Cziko                    Telephone: 217.333.8527
Educational Psychology           FAX: 217.244.7620
University of Illinois           E-mail: g-cziko@uiuc.edu
1310 S. Sixth Street             Radio: N9MJZ
210 Education Building
Champaign, Illinois 61820-6990
USA
------------------------------------------------------------------
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Original_To:  BITNET%"CSG-L@UIUCVMD.BITNET"
Original_cc:  TBOURBON
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 08:26:00 CDT
From:         Tom Bourbon <TBOURBON@UTMBEACH.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: Science letter

Mary,
   Great letter from Science.  I had missed that one.  Sullivan went
straight to the heart of it.
  Love,
Tom
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