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Date:         Sat, 7 Nov 1992 14:25:53 -0700
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Politics;distributed PCT; Language'

 [From Bill Powers (921107.1100)]

 Rick Marken (921106) --

 You have hit a productive note on the political scene. I have wanted
 for a long time to start a nonpolitical discussion of the systems
 concepts (etc.) of right versus left, conservative versus liberal,
 Republican versus Democratic (to the extent that there is a "versus")
 belief systems. Maybe now that the election is over we can try this
 on without being accused of using the net for political purposes.

 While either side has some problems, I've been intrigued by the
 simultaneous attraction and repulsion I feel for the conservative
 view. Obviously a control theorist likes the idea of independence
 from external control, reliance on self, responsibility, and non-
 interference with the freedom of others. These ideals are sometimes
 beautifully expressed by conservatives and I feel sympathy with them.

 On the other hand, conservatives express these ideals, in practical
 situations, in a way that sounds and often is heartless and selfish.
 It is true, in PCT terms, that if you help another person to overcome
 difficulties, that other person will relax and let you do the work.
 If this is followed as a general policy, people will not learn to
 fend for themselves. On the other hand, when you have a person in
 need of help, what should you do? It often seems that conservatives
 say "Well, it's too bad for that person, but if we made a habit of
 helping everyone who needs it we would soon be overwhelmed with
 applicants." What the conservative seems to fear is that helping
 people in general will end up costing the helper more than the helper
 is willing to give. A very strong reference level seems to be not to
 risk losing what you have, even when this means allowing others to
 suffer.

 This is surely a conflict, because conservatives are not usually
 sociopaths; many of them profess to be sincere Christians. It
 reflects a theory of behavior, too: the idea that incentives and
 punishments will change people's behavior. There seems to be a belief
 that people do not have goals and aspirations of their own -- not the
 common people, anyway -- and that without some external force they
 would not try to do anything.

 Not being particularly savvy about politics, I'll leave it there as a
 seed for discussion. There is lots more to say in characterizing the
 perceptions and reference levels of conservatives, and the same job
 needs to be done for liberals and the rest. I think that all
 political points of view represent simply the stronger side of a
 conflict; every policy has its drawbacks, and no political viewpoint
 presents a clear picture. And of course, none of them contains any
 explicit recognition of the properties of living control systems. I
 would be very interested in everyone's thoughts about this -- not
 whether one system is better than the other, but just what the
 perceptions and reference levels seem to be. Maybe if we can get a
 good look at that subject, we will see how to form a "realist" party.
 --------------------------------------------------------------
 MArtin Taylor (921106.1045) --
 >...not only is the model not invalidated, it is enhanced by
 >distribution.  Indeed, I think distribution is the only way that a
 >full-blooded PCT system could work in a real, as opposed to a
 >modelled world.

 I agree with you in the sense that adaptation, learning, self-
 reorganizing couldn't be handled with the separate-function model. A
 change in any one function would have to be accompanied by precisely-
 calibrated changes in all the others in the same cluster. In the real
 system the nuclei or clusters of functions are, I'm sure, full of
 interactions; the reorganizations that go on affect many systems at
 the same time, not just one.

 I'm glad you agree about the current connectionist models. I think
 that the general approach has in it some extremely important ideas
 and methods. But this approach has to be incorporated in an overall
 HPCT model, in which there are many more kinds of computations
 involved at different levels. And connectionists have to stop trying
 to turn inputs directly into outputs; they're missing the whole point
 of the control organization because of a basically S-R orientation
 left over from older theories. In the brain, input processes are
 quite distinct from output processes at the lower levels (up to the
 interior layers of the cerebral cortex) and one can even find groups
 of comparators. Inside the cortex it's not so clear any more, but at
 least in the visual systems there are well-defined stages of
 processing that are clearly input processes.

 I would like to see a compromise between the general approach now
 being taken and my simplistic modeling. Inside a perceptual function,
 or perhaps even a layer of perceptual functions, the connectionist
 approach could be used to explain how input functions become
 organized, and also output functions. What I visualize is a smallish
 input network with multiple inputs and multiple outputs. The multiple
 outputs carry perceptual signals upward to the next level and
 laterally to comparators associated with an output network which has
 its own, and perhaps quite different, principles of self-
 organization. For the first four or five levels, at least, this
 picture would be consistent with neuroanatomy, in which input and
 output processes are physically distinct and distant from each other
 and are connected only by signals. A form recognizer doesn't need to
 produce behavioral outputs. All it needs to do, with respect to our
 modeling requirements, is produce a set of perceptual signals.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Bruce Nevin (921102.0738) --

 Nice to see you back in stride again. Something seems to have taken
 more shape in your investigations of PCT and linguistics. It's
 beginning to sound more coherent to a non-linguist. I think that some
 of our pseudo-disagreements simply went away during your
 preoccupation with other matters (as much in me as in you).

 You might recall that last Spring (or sometime) I offered a proposal
 about how communications were formed by a speaker. This was in the
 context of Harris' operator grammar. I was looking then, and am still looking,
 for the reasons behind the rules for operators and
 arguments, reasons other than just "that's how they say it." In the
 course of this I got the idea that AS we construct sentences or
 strings of words, we are concurrently perceiving the meanings that
 they evoke in ourselves, and progressively making sure that the
 sentence to date does not create any important meaning errors. Your
 sets of "do say" and "don't say" sentences seem to illustrate this
 rather clearly:

 >One might suppose this is because "donate to" simply is not used as
 >frequently as "give to."  It is true that the dative reduction is
 >more or less peculiar for many other verbs in the "give" set.  Call
 >them the "donate" subset, including:

 ? John administered [to] the fund the money
 ? John allocated [to] the fund the money
 ? John apportioned [to] the fund the money
 ? John communicated [to] the fund the money
 ? John consigned [to] the fund the money
 ? John contributed [to] the fund the money
 ? John conveyed [to] the fund the money
 ? John dealt [to] the fund the money
 ? John delivered [to] the fund the money
 ? John dispensed [to] the fund the money
 ? John distributed [to] the fund the money
 ? John entrusted [to] the fund the money
 ? John purveyed [to] the fund the money
 ? John relinquished [to] the fund the money
 ? John rendered [to] the fund the money
 ? John surrendered [to] the fund the money
 ? John transferred [to] the fund the money
 ? John transmitted [to] the fund the money
 ? John vouchsafed [to] the fund the money

 >But a considerable number of other verbs in the "give" set are
 >acceptable with the transposed argument order and zeroed "to".
 >Call them the "give" subset:

 John accorded [to] the fund the money
 John allotted [to] the fund the money
 John assigned [to] the fund the money
 John awarded [to] the fund the money
 John conceded [to] the fund the money
 John furnished [to] the fund the money
 John granted [to] the fund the money
 John handed [to] the fund the money
 John left [to] the fund the money
 John lent [to] the fund the money
 John offered [to] the fund the money
 John paid [to] the fund the money
 John presented [to] the fund the money
 John proffered [to] the fund the money
 John provided [to] the fund the money
 John sent [to] the fund the money
 John supplied [to] the fund the money John yielded [to] the fund the money

 >I don't think a "frequency of occurrence" argument holds up.

 I don't either. But looking over these two sets, I was reminded of my
 earlier proposal. If you read slowly, attending to meaning errors as
 you go, look what happens:

 From the first set:

 ? John administered the fund
 ? John allocated the fund
 ? John apportioned the fund
 ? John communicated the fund
 ? John consigned the fund
 ? John contributed the fund
 ? John conveyed the fund
 ? John dealt the fund
 ? John delivered the fund
 ? John dispensed the fund
 ? John distributed the fund
 ? John entrusted the fund
 ? John purveyed the fund
 ? John relinquished the fund
 ? John rendered the fund
 ? John surrendered the fund
 ? John transferred the fund
 ? John transmitted the fund
 ? John vouchsafed the fund

 From the second set:

 John accorded the fund
 John allotted the fund
 John assigned the fund
 John awarded the fund
 John conceded the fund
 John furnished the fund
 John granted the fund
 John handed the fund
 John left the fund
 John lent the fund
 John offered the fund
 John paid the fund
 John presented the fund
 John proffered the fund
 John provided the fund
 John sent the fund
 John supplied the fund
 John yielded the fund

 Both of these sets of statements create a large meaning error when
 they get to the stage shown. The meaning in each case, but more so in
 the first set, is clear but WRONG, because the intended meaning is
 not that the verb is being done to the fund. At this point in the sentence,
 however, it strongly seems to apply to the fund. In the
 second set there is more of an error of usage than in the first set,
 as you imply. But both sets create a positively wrong meaning before
 they are finished.

 On the other hand, if you stick "the money to" in the middle, there
 is no meaning error at all as the sentence progresses; only what
 error is present because of non-completion. You could put a period
 after "the money" and all the sentences would still have correct
 meanings, although some added meanings (the destination of the money)
 remain to be described.

 If you happen to start any of these sentences in this way, you can't
 terminate the sentences where shown without conveying and
 experiencing the wrong meaning. You MUST tack on "the money" to make
 your meaning clear, but even when you do, the echo of that midstream
 meaning error is still present. The sentence feels awkward with "the
 money" on the end. The only real cure is to rearrange the sentence so
 it does not create meaning errors at any point during its utterance.

 This implies, of course, that meaning (plus convention) dictates the
 order in which we connect words together, and does so during the
 construction of utterances.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------
 RE: the diagram

 >This diagram makes the point about arriving at outputs by
 >continuous control of perception rather than by top-down
 >realization of some sort of archetype.  The actual flow of control
 >is probably quite different.

 No doubt. As you say, I am glossing over some very complex processes
 in this diagram. You could unpack all the functions a lot, if you
 knew what they need to be (I don't). Associative memory must play a
 large part, which can't be shown in a single-loop diagram.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 Jeff Hunter (921106-A)--

 >	The comparator is actually *trinary* since it can produce ><0,
 >0, or =0. This point is obscured by the code, and it makes an
 >analysis of the beast a little tricky.

 OK, I missed that. No adding or subtracting if the error is exactly
 zero.

 >>  ... The reason is the integration in the environmental part of
 >>  the loop.
 >	Not exactly. The reason is that the long term average of the
 >disturbances is zero. If I had biassed the random numbers so that
 >there were 3 increases for each decrease then the control would
 >disappear.

 Well, I just tried it. I did this:

 		blip = random(0x200) & 0x180;/*NOTE - USING 2 BITS*/
 		if (blip == 0x100) {
 			d =  increment;
 			pos++;
 			if (last) high++; else up++;
 		} else {
 			d = -increment;
 			neg++;
 			if (last) down++; else low++;
 		}
 		last = blip;

 My random function generates integers between 0 and the argument. So
 this makes three decrements occur for every increment, on the
 average.

 I then varied the "increment" (the disturbance) and printed out just
 the final value of the controlled (or free) variables. I did this for
 both the original case and the case with the offset. Here is the
 result:

         ORIGINAL CASE: EQUAL INCREMENTS AND DECREMENTS

 Increment size        free_tot       cont_tot      bias_tot

   1                   -16              0            0
   2                   -32              0            2
   3                   -48              0            2
   4                   -64             -8            0
   5                   -80            -18            0
   6                   -96            -28          -10

                 3 DECREMENTS PER INCREMENT

   1                 -5000              0             0
   2                -10000              0             2
   3                -15000             -12            2
   4                -20000            -376           -8
   5                -25000           -5008          -34
   6                -30000          -10004         -564

 In both cases, where the final values of cont_tot and bias_tot begin
 to change, the reason is that control has been lost altogether and
 the values of these variables are increasing without limit. The
 longer you run the bigger the error gets, so there is no control at
 all. This begins to occur at a value of the increment where the
 average disturbance added on each iteration exceeds the amount of
 correction that the control system can add to the controlled
 variable.

 You will notice that when the average disturbance is smaller than the
 maximum that the control system can resist, control is perfect. Your
 way of representing the data conceals this fact, because the numbers
 you get represent only the entire data set, not its behavior through
 time. You should have been looking at the controlled variables in
 detail, not using measures representing the whole run.
 I realized at this point that you were misled because of using only a
 reference level of zero. If effect, you are looking at the noise in
 the control system and missing the main effect. Here is a run of the
 second condition above with the reference level set to 10 by
 statements of the form

     if (*_tot > 10) ...
     if (*_tot < 10) ...

                 3 DECREMENTS PER INCREMENT

 Increment size     free_tot       cont_tot      bias_tot

   1                 -5000             10            10
   2                -10000             10            12
   3                -15000             -2            12
   4                -20000           -336             2
   5                -25000           -5000          -24
   6                -30000          -10000         -554

 Now it's clear that an RMS fluctutation of less than one unit is
 negligible relative to the reference level, here 10 units. For the
 case with 1 unit of random disturbance, the RMS fluctuations are
 actually about 0.001 units, or one ten thousandth of the reference
 value. You couldn't see this with a reference level of zero because
 you had nothing to compare the fluctuations against.

 Under this second condition, the average value of the disturbance is
 (3*increment - increment)/2 or simply the increment size. You see
 that control of cont_tot is perfect for an increment size of 2, which
 is just equal to the maximum output of the control system. Actually
 statistical variations would make this not quite perfect control, but
 with integers we can't tell the difference from perfection. For
 increments of 3 or greater, control is lost; the controlled variable
 is actually changing continuously, and with continued iterations
 would become larger without limit. Note that with an increment of 6,
 the average value is -3; add the +2 which is the maximum possible
 opposing output, and you get an average of -1 unit of unopposed
 disturbance per iteration, accounting for the final value of cont_tot
 of -10,000 in 10,000 iterations.

 So the difference in control with the disturbance present is not due
 to a change in loop gain, but to using disturbances too large to
 resist. The loop gain is zero for average disturbances greater than +
 or - 2. This shows the pitfalls of estimating apparent loop gain
 without looking at the details of behavior -- in fact, there was no
 control at all, but the data averaged over 10,000 iterations
 concealed that fact.
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 Best to all,


 Bill P.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU