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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 14:41:06 -0500
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From:         Loretta Merlo <Loretta_Merlo@QMCUMC.MAIL.CORNELL.EDU>
Subject:      amnesty, fines, coupons & ethics

    Here at Cornell Medical College, we also had an amnesty week coinciding
with National Library Week celebrations.
    I have never liked this kind of policy, and I do not believe that we got
any particular benefit, like getting back a long, long overdue item, for
example, which might be a justification for doing it. I'm not really sure it
mattered to most people one way or the other. Maybe it wasn't that well
publicized, and not too many people could plan to return on a "free" day.

    I continue to TRY to view the whole fine policy as "we're not interested
in the money, we're only interested in getting the book back".  After all, our
salaries are not paid from that money. It's not like we are in a profit making
endeavor, so we should reap the benefit of that fact, and not care so much
about the fine, but instead, about the preservation of the collection. However,
 with shrinking budgets and patrons who will argue over a $.30 fine, when you
know that they can well afford it, it's difficult not see it all as an ethical
issue. I find it a dilemma myself, and was against the amnesty week here also,
although I gave in. When you spend so much time and get so much aggravation
trying to get back an item, you feel a kind of vindication collecting the fine
for it, which is the trap, I think. But in truth, there is no ethical dilemma.
We could charge a fine or not-- some libraries do not. So if we charge a fine
every day but one week during the year, that's what we do-- it's "our" library,
 we make the rules. There's nothing unethical about that. What is unethical,
perhaps, is the behavior of the patrons who hoard items and return them only
on "free" days. But we have no real power over them anyway. If they didn't do
that,  the same people would do some other unethical thing, like bring the
books into the Library, reshelve them and then claim they returned them.  At
least we're getting items back, which is really what we want (right?).
   It continues to rub me the wrong way, however, and I guess it just part of
being on the front line all the time. The positive re-inforcement of handing
out coupons with all overdues returned also rubs me the wrong way. I think you
would want to give out coupons to all patrons who return their items on time
during amnesty week.
    The other day, I wrote about a policy we were considering here, which
would involve a "service charge" for each overdue notice produced, rather than
a fine for each day an item is overdue. If this practice became our policy,
then, when my administrators want to have another amnesty week next year, I
will bring up the ethics of charging some people a service charge for
production of an overdue notice and not others. Perhaps this gets closer to
being an ethical issue... (?)--LM
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Date:         Sun, 30 Aug 1992 07:36:52 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      sonja's visuals system
X-To:         csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[Avery Andrews 920830.0735]
  Bill Powers (920827.0800)

 >can you explain how Sonja's visual system identifies the various
 >retinal images, and how the relative retinal distances between image
 >points are converted into signals?

Not as well as Chapman can: although it would an excellent exercise for
me to try, I think I've got too much else on my plate at the moment to
take up the challenge.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 11:21:49 EDT
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject: Re: Exploration and Reorganization

[Martin Taylor 920902 11:15]
(Rick Marken 920831.1930)

>Martin Taylor (920831 17:20) says:
>
>>"All behavior is the control of perception."  But is it?
>
>Being the official sloganeer on the net, I would say:
>
>No. "All PURPOSEFUL behavior is the control of perception".
>
>This slogan captures the fact that there are many aspects of
>behavior that are neither the actions that are used to control
>nor the outcomes that result from control of perception.

It also comes perilously close to tautology, whether you are a PCT proponent
or not.  To have purposeful behaviour is to have a purpose or goal, with
behaviour calculated to lead toward achievement of that goal.  And how can
that achievement or progress toward it be assessed other than by perception
(in the broad sense in which you intend the term)?  Even in PCT terms, the
word "control" cannot be limited to smooth or monotonic results of monotonically
directed actions--things break abruptly after smoothly increased forces are
appied, for example.  The breaking may be the achievement of the goal, or
a step toward it, or an unwanted step away from it.  So it is not clear to
me what that slogan achieves, except to make people think about the importance
of the feedback loop.

>Exploration and reorganization can "look" the same; but I think
>you could tell the difference using the test.

They aren't even in the same domain, so I don't see how they could "look" the
same.  Exploration involves some observable actions, reorganization is
totally internal, even though it may strongly affect subsequently observed
actions.  I think of exploration as a means toward safe reorganization
(performed at zero gain), not as a form of reorganization.

Martin
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Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 09:12:24 EDT
From:         eric harnden <HARNDEN@AMERICAN.EDU>
Subject:      lcs ii & pct ed

is Living Control Systems II a sequel to Blayliss' (1969?) title, or to
another book of the same title generated by this group?

is this subject (pct) formally taught anywhere? perhaps by someone in this
group? or is this group, as i perceive, the only source for interactive
instruction? reading and experimentation are part of the learning process
(and i am actively and eagerly engaged in both), but one also requires a
place where naive, perhaps even stupid questions may be taken seriously
if they are offered in good faith. this is not meant as a criticism of most
of the activity here... the responsiveness of this group is by far the best
among the several which i monitor. the question remains, however; by which
channels is this discipline currently or expected to be carried on?

-----------< Cognitive Dissonance is a 20th Century Art Form >-----------
Eric Harnden (Ronin)
<HARNDEN@AUVM.BITNET> or <HARNDEN@AMERICAN.EDU>
The American University Physics Dept.
4400 Mass. Ave. NW, Washington, DC, 20016-8058
(202) 885-2748
---------------------< Join the Cognitive Dissidents >-------------------
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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 14:55:47 EDT
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject: Re: What's important

[Martin Taylor 920826 14:45]
(Rick Marken  920826.1000)


>>Why is there a conceptual problem with understanding the importance of the
>>differing numbers of degrees of freedom in different parts of the hierarchy?
>
>Because I don't know what phenomenon this relates to. I am interested in
>modelling human behavior; that's what I do well. I can't do all these fancy
>mathematical analyses of properties of the mdoel itself. If you want to
>do that then go ahead. You may find out something important about the
>model and that would be great. But I'm more interested in the phenomenon
>of control. So if your degrees of freedom analyses of the model predict
>something about the phenomenon of control, then let me know and I'll test it.
>
Well, I thought I had done exactly that, which is why the plaint above.  I
demonstrated the absolute need for some means to pass control from one ECS
to another (or, equivalently, a means to change the perceptual input function
of controlling ECSs).  If that isn't an important point about the model, I
don't know what is.  It deals all at the same time with attentional focus
and with wide-open alerting systems.  And if you don't understand it simply
because the relation of degrees of freedom to system dynamics is unimportant,
then you miss something critical in PCT (whether H or not).


>Perception (p) is made to match an internally specified reference (r) and
>this is accomplished by producing outputs (o) that cancel the effects of
>disturbances (d) on p.
>
>OK. There's the trivail truth.[If it's so trivial, why don't psychologists
>TAKE IT FOR GRANTED AND ACT AS THOUGH THEY UNDERSTOOD IT (like by not doing
>research in the stupid way it is currently done)].
>
I can't answer the first part of the question, because to my mind it is a truth
that is gloriously self-evident once someone points it out.  It is the initial
discovery of that truth that is the sign of genius.  As for the second part,
I can answer from personal experience.  Even when you acknowledge the
fundamental truth, its consequences and power are far from self-evident.
Even Bill says he's still learning about that aspect, and for myself I have
seen only that there is glory there, not its shape.

Martin
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Date:         Sat, 29 Aug 1992 13:29:27 EDT
From:         Martin Taylor <mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA>
Subject: Re: A General Theory of Manipulation

[Martin Taylor 920829 13:15]
(Greg Williams 920828 - 2)

I think a lot of the problem in the discussion of "controlling" other people
comes from a dual use of the word "control," which was much clarified by Bill's
posting of yesterday (reference not at hand).

Using Greg's set of axioms indirectly, or Bill's discussion, we have a
statement that the only legitimate use of "control" is the control of
perception, specifically the provision by an ECS of output signals that
by some unknown means bring the percept of that ECS nearer to the reference
level of that ECS.  Any other use of the word "control" is analogic and
imprecise.

Any percept in an ECS corresponds to a CEV (complex environmental variable).
It is an estimate, more or less precise, of the current state of that CEV.
The word "control" is often used to indicate effects on the CEV, but that is
only legitimated by the assumption that the percept is a precise and immediate
representation of the exact state of the CEV. One should never say that one
"controls" the location of the car within its lane on the road.  One should
say that one controls the percept of the location of the car....

The word that has been used to describe external effects has been "influence,"
but this seems inappropriate, because it has the S-R connotation that a
force has been applied, but the result not noted.  We need a different word
for what happens to the CEV corresponding to a controlled percept.  For
lack of a better word, I propose here to use X-control (externalized control).
One can X-control passive CEV's in the real outer world.  One cannot control
(P-control?) them.

Bill pointed out that one does incorporate the actions of other people in
control loops.  We want the child to be in the garden, not in the middle of
the busy street.  If one action does not bring this desired percept to its
reference, another might, and we continue acting until the percept is within
its reference.  We have controlled the percept of the child's location.  We
have X-controlled the child's location.  We may have done this by restricting
the child's range over which it is capable of controlling its own perception
of its own location, or by influencing it to change its reference level for
its percept of its own location.  Whatever happened, we X-controlled the
child in at least one aspect.  From our point of view, it may be more difficult
to X-control a child than to X-control a car, but the principle is the same.

I hope this clarifies something.

Martin
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Date:         Mon, 31 Aug 1992 10:51:18 EDT
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      Sloman: The Mind as CS
X-To:         csg-l%vmd.cso.uiuc.edu@bbn.com

[From: Bruce Nevin (Mon 920831 10:41:17)]

Interesting title of talk by Sloman, highlighted in the following:

| From: neuron-request@CATTELL.PSYCH.UPENN.EDU ("Neuron-Digest Moderator")
| Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
| Subject: Neuron Digest V9 #41 (conferences)
| Date: 27 Aug 92 04:53:43 GMT
| Reply-To: "Neuron-Request" <neuron-request@cattell.psych.upenn.edu>

| There follows the provisional programme of papers for the Royal Institute
| of Philosophy Conference "Philosophy and the Cognitive Sciences" at the
| The University of Birmingham September 11-14 1992.

| [I have clipped the left column containing dates and times -- BN]

| `Blindsight',
|         Michael Tye

| `Wittgenstein and Connectionism: a significant
| complemenarity',
|         Stephen Mills

| `Levels of description in connectionism: cognitive
| transition, dynamical system, neural implementation',
|         Terry Horgan (and John Tienson)

| `On the notions of specification and implementation',
|         Anthony Galton

| `The connectionism/classicism battle to win souls',
|         Brian McLaughlin

| /*****************************************************************************
| *                                                                            *
| * `The mind as a control system',                 < I wonder what he         *
| *         Aaron Sloman                            < means by this? -- BN     *
| *                                                                            *
| *****************************************************************************/

| `Systematicity in the vision to language chain',
|         Niels Ole Bernsen

| `Two notions of implicit rules',
|         Martin Davies

| `Do your concepts develop?'
|         Andrew Woodfield

| `Quine, Simon and the pragmatist's project',
|                                 Stephen Stich

| The total for Registration, Bed and Breakfast and all meals is 122.50
| pounds sterling. To obtain a registration form, please email
| rip92@bham.ac.uk.
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Date:         Mon, 31 Aug 1992 17:37:52 EDT
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject:      Exploration and Reorganization

[Martin Taylor 920831 17:20]

"All behaviour is the control of perception."  But is it?  I've been pondering
a bit on Bill's comment a while ago that he found in his reorganization
simulations that the flip of a sign in an output-to-reference connection
caused a bad transient that troubled the whole net.  It leads to the question
"What is exploration?"

Exploratory behaviour is "what if" behaviour.  One is not controlling for any
particular reference (at a higher level one is controlling for a percept of
knowing more than one does, but that's outside this point).  One is just acting,
more or less randomly at the level at which exploration is being done.  Of
course it isn't random at lower levels, and probably not at higher ones.

Exploration could be considered action without a reference, or action with a
severed connection between comparator and output, with a noise source
substituted for the error signal.  "What happens if I give a weak positive
output?...OK, now what happens if I give a strong negative output?...OK, now
what..." and so forth.  The results could be used in for reorganization,
in this case the adjustment of the signs of the output gain function or the
signs of randomly selected output links.  Flipping signs has no effect on
the behaviour of the hierarchy if the signs are flipped in a loop with zero
gain.

Exploration is for learning, and that is not usually coupled with a desire
for the results to have particular values (unless you are a politician); so
the actions involved in exploration are carried out in the absence of (strong)
negative feedback.  This makes reorganization safe, at the cost of providing
unpredictable (but compensable) disturbances to parts of the hierarchy that
are controlling.

In the Layered Protocol formulation, before I heard of PCT, I argued that the
purpose of casual conversation was for the partners to develop models of each
other that would permit them to communicate effectively when the need arose.
In the same vein, I suggest that the purpose of casual exploration is to
develop organizations that permit effective control when the occasion arises.
Exploratory behaviour, then, is NOT the control of perception, but the
discovery of how to control perception.

Martin
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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 03:48:00 GMT
From:         Henry James Bicycles Inc <0005096370@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Promoting PCT
X-To:         ems <CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

[From Hank Folson (920902)]

(Dag Forssell 920901)
>>I won't embarrass Dag by listing all the different things he has
>>tried to get me interested in over the years, but there were many.

>Would it embarrass me?

Must have. YouUre responding, arenUt you? -Just joking, folks. DagUs
intention is to make a good point:

>Was I trying to interest you (focus on you), or
>just bubbling along about what interested me at the time
>(focus on me)? I got no error signal from your refusal to take my
>expert advice, did I?

If you had no error signal, my response was not the controlled
variable. If so, IUm ticked off that you wasted my time going on about
your selfish interests all those years....

As I typed this little witticism, it became embarrassingly clear to me
that that this last sentence is a classic S-R view of life that has no
place on the net, except perhaps as a bad example. Had I known about
PCT then, I would have watched for your reaction to my courteous but
non-committal response to your latest interest. Had I seen no hurt in
your eyes (The Test), I would have understood that you were indeed just
bubbling along about yourself. If my time was wasted, it was my doing
not yours as I recall no violence in our past.

OR: My response was the controlled variable, but your expectation was
framed in the negative (that I would NOT respond). This a nice defense
system people have that creates a win-win situation. My negative
response would create no error signal. A positive response creates an
error signal, but a higher level is satisfied by my positive response
which overrides the lower level error signal. Thanx to Ed Ford for
introducing me to this in _Freedom From Stress_.

In any event, whatever your intentions, I, an independent control
system, responded as I wanted to respond, which reinforces the
difficulty in promoting PCT, which is where this all started.

In control, Hank

Hank Folson, Henry James Bicycles, Inc.
704 Elvira Avenue, Redondo Beach, CA 90277
310-540-1552 (Day & Evening) MCI MAIL: 509-6370 Internet: 5096370@MCIMAIL.COM
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Posted-Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 15:50:58 PDT
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 15:50:58 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject: Re: The paradox of control

[From Rick Marken (920827.1530)]

Martin Taylor (920827 16:15)

>You presented the paradox as a way to get non-PCT believers in S-R to see
>that their position was untenable and that they should convert to the true
>way.  If the paradox evaporates when seen from the S-R position, then it
>does not provide a very powerful means for inducing that conversion.

I'm not that interested in the paradox as a way of getting S-R theorists
to switch to control theory. I am much more interested in the paradox
as a way of illustrating the self-contradictory nature of the assumption
that human problems can be solved by control of other people. This
solution to problems is not just a penchant of SR theorists or
reinforcement theorists. It is the the approach that is advocated (and
used) by many people, every day, as a way to make the world a better
place. I bet that most people think about control just the way Skinner did.
They believe that people can be controlled and that they themselves
can exert that control if they just try hard enough. Parents believe it;
teachers believe it; civic leaders believe it; employers believe it;
managers believe it; children believe it; even I apparenly believe it
sometimes (as some of my efforts to brow beat people into accepting PCT
might suggest -- thanks Chuck).   The paradox of control is for people
who believe that they can make things better (ie. the way they want it) by
controlling other people. It points to why it doesn't work even though it
seems like it should. It suggests how important it is for psychologists
to start trying to understand how people control, and to stop worrying
about how to control people.

Best regards

Rick

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

Richard S. Marken                   USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
The Aerospace Corporation                   Los Angeles, CA 90024
E-mail: marken@aero.org
(310) 336-6214 (day)
(310) 474-0313 (evening)
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 09:23:57 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      Deja vu, PCT promotion

[From Rick Marken (920904.0930)]

Dennis Delprato -- Thanks. I received the programs and accompanying
materials. I have not looked them over yet, in detail, but I will
this weekend. I have the felling, however, that the problems you
had with the program are most likely caused by bugs in the compiler
(rascal) than in the very simple code I saw (rascal is nearly the same
as pascal).

Dag Forssell (920903-2)--

Thanks. I feel much better now.

>You are one of the very few who likes to think
>for yourself based on the evidence, instead of conveniently accepting
>what your teachers told you and what the abundant literature of the
>prestigious association tells you.

And you are a very astute judge of character.

>So when you say:

>>What is it about PCT? Why don't people like it? Why do they prefer

>you know the answer.

Yes, I do. Of course. I know that people are controlling for system
concepts that are often fundementally inconsistent with PCT. So PCT
is just a disturbance.

But I am a control system too. And I am controlling for (among other
things) being part of a happy community of scientists exploring the
nature of control in humans and other systems. I am part of that
community already -- but it's rather small (relative to my reference
for what its size should be, of course). I want a larger group because
I need help from people who appear to have great skill and energy
(people like Chapman, Agre, Brooks, Beer, etc). There are, in fact,
people with quite formidable skills who are "doing the work" of
understanding life from a PCT perspective. But there could be more --
and it hurts to see people (like Chapman, say)  squandering their talent
on ill-considered nonesense. I know that I cannot control a variable
whose value depends on the settings of reference signals in other people;
that it, I know I can't MAKE people understand and love PCT. But, being
a control system myself, it's hard to avoid reorganizing (isn't that
what ranting is?) in an attempt to do SOMETHING that might end up
with me perceiving myself in my dream community of scholars. But I
must admit that, since I first got into PCT (in about 1979) the community
of interested (and CAPABLE) PCT scholars has grown -- SLOWLY, but steadily.
And it's nice to have you as a part of that community.

Best regards

Rick

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

Richard S. Marken                   USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
The Aerospace Corporation                   Los Angeles, CA 90024
E-mail: marken@aero.org
(310) 336-6214 (day)
(310) 474-0313 (evening)
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