From: sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM (Penni Sibun)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: Re: PCT & interactionism
Date: 20 Aug 92 03:36:28 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
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              19 Aug 1992 08:44:32 -0700
              <92Aug19.084749pdt.11940@alpha.xerox.com>

(penni sibun 920819)

i think we've all gotten rather tired of this thread so i will
summarize and i think drop it, unless someone has a specific question.
another reason to drop it, as i've mentioned, is that i have
repetitive motion injury troubles, and really oughtn't to be typing
such screeds.  (and since the problem is worst in my right pinkie,
capitals are a luxury i can't afford, unfortunately--sorry!)

we started out by someone suggesting that interactionism is
behaviorism.  i objected, and said that pct sounded cognitivist to me.
i think these two views are telling:  they certainly tend to pit us
against each other, because of the historical adversary bet. beh. and
cog..

i'm sorry if it sounded as though i thought pct started out building
creatures and generalizing to people:  i meant that to *me* pct looks
quite plausible for building creatures and rather less plausible for
explaining non-built organisms.

i think the importance of the brain is pretty clear, but i don't think
the brain is the be-all and end-all of organismhood.  what about
plants and bacteria and viruses and mitochondria?  what about anthills
and lichen?  in creatures with a brain, what about the spinal chord
and sensory organs and all the afferent and efferent neurons?  as far
as the brain itself goes, no one really knows how it works.  what
about hormones?  what about recent research suggesting that the brain
may communicate w/in itself via hormones?

i think it's inportant to try to model the brain; i think it's also
important to be open to the idea that that might turn out not to be
the best thing to model.

i don't think i can succintly explain active perception; i'm sorry
about that.  as i say, there's a literature; it's an active area of
cognitive science these days.

   [From Bill Powers (920819.0900)]

   Control theory brings all these
   models together into a single consistent framework, without claiming any
   property for a scientist that the subjects don't also have, without
   claiming that the scientist has any way of acting or knowing the truth that
   others don't also have.

i find this opposition odd (you've brought it up before), because i
don't know anything i or agre or chapman or preston or whoever has
said that has claimed there is a privileged Observer.  rather the
opposite:  it seems that a point of view that suggests that organisms
aren't privileged cannot coherently claim that a particular organism
is privileged.

   In the kind of explanatory system you're presenting, this fundamental
   phenomenon doesn't even appear, because all of your descriptions are cast
   in terms of the outcomes produced by motor activities -- moving the car
   here and there on the road, for example.

i *thought* all my descriptions were in terms of things like snow and
road reflectors and what i've overheard people say.  in my
descriptions, motor activities played a very minor role.  in fact, i
don't believe i once mentioned moving anything anywhere.

   Have you tried out the rubber-band demo? I should think that it would offer
   an excellent comparison of the interactionist kinds of explanation and the
   control-theoretic kind.

no; in what medium is it?

thanks, y'all, for the discussion.

cheers.

				--penni
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU