HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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Posted-Date: Thu, 03 Sep 92 09:38:22 PDT
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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 09:38:22 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      Deja vu all over again

[From Rick Marken (920803.0930)]

Bill Powers (920902.0800) quotes the following from Chapman:

>2.2 Situatedness

>"Situations change continually. Algorithms which formally solve your
>problem are of no use if they terminate after the problem has changed
>or solved itself or turned into a disaster."

>"Real situations, in particular, make it hard to know exactly what the
>outcome of your actions will be."

As Bill notes, these and some of the other quotes from Chapman sound
about as close to PCT as you can be without being there. Reading them,
I had a sort of deja vu -- and I realized that it was based on the
fact that I had read nearly the same kind of stuff in the early 80s;
it was written by the likes of Turvey, Kelso, Shaw, etc. They called
themselves the "Bernstein" school then (after the Russian physiologist)
who proposed the idea that we now know as "coordinative structures". The
Bernstein school has now become the nonlinear dynamics group after learning
some chaos theory.

The point is that the Bernstein school (like the interactionists or whatever
Chapman calls himself) was as close to PCT as you can be; they understood
that consistent behavioral results are produced in the context of variable
disturbances (they called it context conditioned variability); they knew
that it was impossible to compute the many outputs required to produce a
particular result (they called this the degrees o freedom problem). Some
had a glimmer that perception was important to the "invariance" of
behavior (they were Gibsonians, after all). So they were exactly where
Chapman is right now, then. But they steadfastly refused to consider
PCT as a solution to the problems that they correctly identified -- in
fact, they actively rejected PCT (in the Fowler-Turvey article). So now
they are off, happily poking down trendy dead end after trendy dead end.
I predict the same fate for Chapman et al. After the interactionist
verbalizations get tiresome they'll move off to the next trendy thing; and
another group of young turks will come along, rediscover control and not
know what they are looking at, and proceed to repeat the cycle again.

And PCT will just keep slowly rollin' along, with solutions to all the
problems that are being rediscoverd again and again, and making slow
progress because there are only two or three people doing the research
and modelling work.

What is it about PCT? Why don't people like it? Why do they prefer
trendy junk (Chapman, Turvey, Brooks, etc) to solid quality (Powers)?
Is there something wrong with PCT? Or is it the influence of network TV?

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:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 11:43:14 CST
From:         Thomas Baines <bainest@SMTPLINK.EID.ANL.GOV>
Subject:      Planning and Agre's Cooking Problem
X-To:         andaling%FAC.ANU.EDU.AU@ANLVM.CTD.ANL.GOV, CSG-L@UIUCVMD.BITNET

          Avery- I like the typology (relevant;relevant but routine;
          relevant but uncontrollable).  Try this on.  I am working on
          information systems which require different "granualities"
          at different levels of use.  The person at the top doesn't
          wan to be deluged, so he/she wants aggregation, but not loss
          of content.  Those below want less aggregation, but not loss
          of the leaderships "vision" from the top.  I'm looking at a
          model which puts everyone's information universe in a space
          that, in two dimensions, is a pyramid.  The base of the
          shape is a time dimension (going right) and the hieght of
          the shape is a measure of granularity.
          People at the top have require less granularity, so the
          height of their pyramid is greater than those below.(Showing
          that their perception is more course - thier min scale is
          greater.

          The shape is trisected, so that the bottom part represents
          those "inputs" that represent things which can be considered
          stable during the relevant time span.(Relevant time span is,
          by the way, a function of the time in which the perceiver
          can respond to the input).  The next portion up in the
          pyramid represents data that is predicably variable; by
          which I mean that it varies according to some pattern or
          routine KNOWN TO THE PERCEIVER.  The top part of the pyramid
          represents information that the perceiver must treat as
          either random, or varying in an unknown fashion; and
          therefore is the part of the data spectrum faced by the
          perciever which must recieve the greatest "attention."
          Breakdowns in understanding of information among the layers
          of the organization are related to the distribution of data
          among the sections of the pyramids at each layer.
          (lowerlayer having shorter time lines, and lower "ceilings",
          because their perceptions are finer).
          I'm still working on getting this in PCT language.
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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 14:16:31 -0500
From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      STELLA for PCT?

[from Gary Cziko 920903.1340]

To Macintosh programmers and users (e.g., Marken, Taylor)

In a recent campus newsletter on using computers for instruction, there is
an article on one professor's use of the Macintosh program STELLA for
dynamic modelling in the life sciences.

As someone who is quite computer literate but with only very basic (and in
fact only BASIC) programming experience, I wonder if STELLA might be a way
for me to do some PCT-type modelling without the pain of learning a
traditional language.  Can someone comment on the potential uses
(advantages and disadvantages) of STELLA for PCT work?--Gary
------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary A. Cziko                    Telephone: (217) 333-4382
Educational Psychology           FAX: (217) 244-0538
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:         Sat, 29 Aug 1992 14:50:51 EDT
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject: Re: Prolegomenon; Misc

[Martin Taylor 920829 14:45]
(Bill Powers 920828.1800)


>Definition 1 and Axiom 1 state that control consists of comparing
>perceptual signals with reference signals and acting to maintain them
>in a match. Axiom 2 states that people can't alter each others'
>reference signals. The definition and the two axioms thus indicate
>that there is no way for people to alter each others' perceptual
>signals if those signals are under control. We exclude, I assume, the
>application of overwhelming physical force as being outside the
>meaning of "manipulation."
>
>This conflicts with:
>
>>Axiom 3. Other persons CAN, in general, directly ("causally")
>generate
>>disturbances which alter a given person's current perceptual signals.
>
>The only way to resolve this conflict is to insert the word
>"uncontrolled" between "current" and "perceptual signals."
>

Wait a minute here...This is one of the things I was talking about when I said
that the dynamics are important.  You are dealing with steady states, whereas
the effect the attempting controller would have is transient.  Even in the
steady state, when there is conflict, two controllers attempting to move
a single CEV to different levels, each will show some persistent error, so
even in the steady state one can influence the other's controlled percepts.
How much the "controller" influences the "controlee"s percept will depend on
who has the higher insistence (gain), and that could be interpreted as who
applies the more overwhelming physical force. We do not exclude that, I think,
because it applies to a greater or lesser degree in every instance of conflict.

Besides, does planting a fence constitute "overwhelming physical force?"  It
certainly affects the child's ability to perceive itself as being in the
middle of a busy street. The parent's actions do affect the child's controlled
percepts, even in the steady state and without the parent experiencing conflict.

Martin
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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 15:16:16 EDT
From:         goldstein@SATURN.GLASSBORO.EDU
Subject:      wet mind
X-To:         CSG-L@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU

I am enjoying reading a book now and thought that
other list members might like to know about it.

Title: Wet Mind
Author: Stephen M. Kosslyn & Oliver Koenig
Publisher: The Free Press, 1992

If anyone has read this book and would like to talk about
it in relationship to HPCT, I am game.

David Goldstein
internet: goldstein@saturn.glassboro.edu
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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 19:46:26 EDT
From:         goldstein@SATURN.GLASSBORO.EDU
Subject:      Outcome Based Parenting program
X-To:         CSG-L@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU

Ed,

Can you tell us about your Outcome Based Parenting program?

Thanks,

David Goldstein
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Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 09:28:17 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>

[Avery Andrews 920828.0923]
 (Bill Powers 920827.0800)


>You say
>>the interactionist argument is in general deemphasizes individuals
>and >emphasises their interactions.
>
>Does this mean that interactionists believe that interactions can be
>EXPLAINED without reference to the properties of individuals, or that
>they can be DESCRIBED without such reference?

Neither, based on what I've seen.  In the present intellectual climate
out there in ScienceLand, it is just a matter of whether you bother
to think about interactions at all.  E.g. all PCT-ers are already
Interactionists.


Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 12:28:14 PDT
From:         Penni Sibun <sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM>
Subject:      lotw
X-To:         CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET@pucc.princeton.edu
              25 Aug 1992 09:08:00 -0700
              <92Aug25.091928pdt.11759@alpha.xerox.com>

(ps 920825.1200)

i hope you get through the hurricane well!

   >From Tom Bourbon [920825 -- pre-Alexander time]
      I had wanted to jump into some of the discussion about "leaning
   on the world" -- is that a round about way of saying that tha actions
   of an organism combine with independent influences in the environment, so
   that the organism need only, indeed can only, add a small influence to
   what is going on?  In that case, the nature of the controller becomes
   critical.  Do the authors of work about "leaning on the world" address
   the nature of how control is achieved under those conditions?

i dunno, but i actually managed to find where agre introduces the term
(``the dynamic strucutre of everyday life'', mit ai tr 1085, 1988, pp
26-27):

why does an understanding of an agent's interactions w/ its world lead
to simpler hypothesies about its machinery?  real agents
_lean_on_the_world_ (emph in orig--ps).  the world is its own best
representation and its own best simulation.  it isn't an obstacle or a
problem, it's a helpful place.  your interations w/ the world, both
past and present, provide many ways to alleviate computational
burdens.  why conduct elaborate deductions about yr surrounding when
you can look and see?  in particular, why maintain elaborate control
structures when you can look and see what needs to be done?  why make
highly detailed Plans when you can improvise?  why required instant
expertise when you can improve by just keeping on doing it?  why try
figuring it out yourself when you can collaborate w/ others who have
been there?  why insist on figureing out every situation afresh when
you can trust yor accumulated experience?  all the dynamic phenomena
can work together to suggest imaginative ways to simplify machinery
or even eliminate parts of it altogether.  put someone in solitary
connfinement and they fall apart:  people rely on the
_organizing_presence_of_the_world.

i am suggesting an inversion of values, not only in ai but in all
forms of computational and psychological inquiry.  faced w/ an
empirical phenomenon to explain, our first explanatory recourse should
be to dynamics, not to machinery.  faced w/ a techinical problme to
solve, our engineering should begin w/ dyunamics, not w/ machinery.
heretofore, people have gotten prizes for inventing new machinery.  but
we've got far too much machinery.  i would like to suggest that
people get prizes for getting_rid_of_ machinery.


cheers.

				--penni
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Date:         Sat, 22 Aug 1992 17:45:34 PDT
Reply-To:     sibun@parc.xerox.com
From:         Penni Sibun <sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM>
Subject:      Re: Preston reference?
X-To:         CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET@pucc.princeton.edu
              22 Aug 1992 14:20:27 -0700
              <92Aug22.142123pdt.11931@alpha.xerox.com>

(ps 920822.17)

beth preston is at the univ of ga, w/ a phil/ai appt.  send her email
asking for a preprint of the "3rd alternative" paper.  i don't
guarantee her sending it, but ask nice and drop my name.  (she can
prob. send it via email.)

    epreston@aisun3.ai.uga.edu

				--penni
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 11:01:12 CST
From:         Thomas Baines <bainest@SMTPLINK.EID.ANL.GOV>
Subject:      The phenomenon of control

          Dag- could you send me the info & demo too?  I need all the
          insight I can get.
          Thomas B. Baines
          ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY
          EID900
          9700 South Cass Avenue
          Argonne, IL 60439
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From: eprince@DS5000.DAC.NORTHEASTERN.EDU (Eileen Prince)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: Re: steering
Date: 28 Aug 92 17:26:46 GMT
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>
> [ Ray Allis 920828.0845 ]
> ----- Begin Included Message -----
>
> From: Eileen Prince <eprince@DS5000.DAC.NORTHEASTERN.EDU>
> . . .
> The centipede stopped and thought.  He wanted to answer the caterpillar's
> question.
>
> Unfortunately, he could not.  Nor could he ever walk again.
>
> Eileen Prince
> Northeastern University
>
> ----- End Included Message -----
>
> I memorized this from a "Sugar Creek Gang" book about 40? years ago:
>
B>    A centipede was happy, quite,
>    until a frog, in fun,
>    said "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
>    This roused his mind to such a pitch
>    he lay distracted in the ditch
>    considering how to run!
>
> It helped make me aware that there's a lot more to intelligent
> behavior than conscious, logical "reasoning".  "AI" as presently
> constituted is a crock!
>
> Ray Allis

Thank you.  I have never seen the poem before.  And I agree witx the first
sentence of your commen|.  I hqven't the expertise to comment on the second.

Eileen Princu
Nortxeastern University
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Posted-Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 19:32:41 PDT
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Date:         Mon, 31 Aug 1992 19:32:41 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      Exploration and Reorganization

[From 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.
My favorite: the position of my body over time as it plummets into
the pool from the high dive.  Other aspects of that behavior
may be controlled, but I can't do much about it's downward
acceleration (unless I'm holding a hang glider).

As to your question

>"What is exploration?"

I don't know. I think that it is different than reorganization
because it is systematic; so it is a controlled behavior (some-
times). That is, I think it is a program level perception that
is carried out for some higher order principle. Thus, I don't
think that exploration itself is random; reorganization is.
Exploration and reorganization can "look" the same; but I think
you could tell the difference using the test.

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:         Mon, 24 Aug 1992 10:39:57 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
X-To:         csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[Avery Andrews 920824.1034]

 (Bill Powers 920822.0800)

Thanks for the pointers.  Two further observations.

First, I am very sceptical that people normally perceive the wheel
angle.  In fact, once I read an article in which you were advised to
put some tape on the wheel at the position that is at the top when the
wheels were pointing straight ahead, in order to make the wheel-angle
information available.  If people are being advised to set up visual
aids to make it more available, that suggests that they aren't normally
using it.  So my guess is that rate of movement and net
changes in angle (however observed), are what is actually noticed.

Second, while taking a long drive yesterday I noticed something that
doesn't fit into my story as told, which is that on long distance drives
at least, most of my (and my wife's, as far as I could see) steering
movements were quick & small adjustments, whereby the wheel was turned
various distances, but at what seemed subjectively to be a pretty
uniform rate.  These motions seemed to be completed before there was
any noticeable change in the heading of the car.  I don't yet have
a real story about what's going on here, but I think it involves
perceiving the car-heading to be wrong, ordering up more-or-less enough
path-curvature to change it quickly enough, and then repeating this
to straighten the car out again.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 09:09:43 CST
From:         Thomas Baines <bainest@SMTPLINK.EID.ANL.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Agre's Cooking problem
X-To:         andaling%FAC.ANU.EDU.AU@ANLVM.CTD.ANL.GOV, CSG-L@UIUCVMD.BITNET

          I think Avery almost has it.  Most formal planning starts
          with an attempt to fit a known template over a current set
          of facts (Pick A Model).  Too many times this results in
          forced ignorance of precisly those things which make the
          current case unsuitable for analysis by the model chosen.
          "Best fit" means, very regularly, that certain facts and
          contingencies must be lopped off the decision tree.

          What is attractive about PCT for the planner is that one is
          forced to start with what is, and not what one must observe
          in order to find a best model fit.
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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 19:09:04 EDT
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject: Re: Skinner & Control; More cooking; variaboili

[Martin Taylor 920903 19:00]
(Bill Powers 920903 0800)

(To Penni Sibun)
>By this I don't mean that a specific model, assembled for purposes of
>analysis, is unique or self-evident. I mean that the CONCEPT of which
>the specific model is one embodiment seems unavoidable. If you're
>holding back from accepting PCT, it's only because you haven't seen
>the CONCEPT yet.

(To me)
>We can't tell if conjectures like these are any good until they are
>cast in the form of a model from which we could predict the
>consequences of such an organization. To turn them into models, you
>have to make specific propositions about the details. Until that's
>done, there's nothing to test. You don't even know if the organization
>you suggest is feasible on its own merits, much less descriptive of
>behavioral organization.

I don't have or expect to have a specific model of alerting systems.  I can
think of many.  But the situation is like that of PCT itself.  The basic
proposition of PCT, that "all (purposeful) behaviour is the control of
perception" is incontrovertible.  There are many models that might instantiate
it.  So with the alerting systems.  Given the basic proposition of PCT,
their existence in an organism supplied with more sensory than motor degrees
of freedom is incontrovertible.  There are many models for how they might
work.

As for "controlling for variability," I was more musing than proposing, but
if you want a proposal, you mentioned a while back that if you had two
one-way control systems back-to-back to make a two-way one, and if they had
the right (square-law?) control function, then the pair could be controlled
both for gain and for reference level.  The normal (S-R?) view of adaptation
is a change of gain in the perceptual input, put there's no intrinsic reason
why that sensitivity shouldn't be in the output (also?).

I see here added complexity, but no implausibility, and I don't plan to
model it (yet?).  It doesn't seem to be a mainstream problem, as the
alerting structure is.
=============

Unless I see something else for response in the next few minutes, this is
likely to be my last posting until Sept 24.  (But my addiction to CSG-L may
make a liar of me until Saturday afternoon).


Martin
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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 17:07:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Loose talk, or what?

From Greg Williams (920903)

>Bill Powers (920830.1545):

>Controlling "a person" means controlling the value of some variable
>associated with that person. Some of those variables (the amounts and kinds
>of actions) are controllable if the controlled variable is known. Others
>(perceptions, controlled variables) are not.

>Bill Powers (920903.0800):

([replying to] Chuck Tucker (920902.1223))

CT>>... the term 'control' cannot be used to describe any activity that
CT>>goes on between "self-regulating systems".

BP>That puts my view succinctly.

Say what???? Talk about major contradictions....

Please elucidate if possible.

Greg
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