HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 21:36:34 PDT
From:         Penni Sibun <sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM>
Subject:      Re: PCT & interactionism, Blindmen II
X-To:         CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET@pucc.princeton.edu
              20 Aug 1992 08:54:23 -0700
              <92Aug20.085621pdt.11608@alpha.xerox.com>

(penni sibun 920329.2200)
   [From Rick Marken (920820.0900)]

   Note-- I have re-written (slightly, but brilliantly) the "Blind men" paper
   as a commentary on an article by Herb Simon that appeared in a recent
   issue of Psychological Science. It is relevant to our current discussion
   of "interactionism". Simon said that we have all kinds of great computer
   models of behavior -- so we understand behavior better than we think. My
   commentary said "that depends on what you mean by "behavior", Nobel man".
   I really only added a couple paragraphs to the old "Blind man" paper.
   But if anyone is interested, I will be happy to post the new version.
   I've already submitted it to Psych Science but I'd still appreciate
   comments.

i'd be interested.  it may not surprise you to know that simon has a
(probably similar) paper coming up in _cognitive science_ and agre has
written an excoriating reply.

cheers.

				--penni
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 14:57:31 -0500
From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: impact of repro command
X-To:         "Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)" <CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

[from Gary Cziko 920818.1453]

Bruce Nevin (Tue 920818 14:38:05) says:

>
>Bill says:
>
>>The repro command
>>sends your file back to you. But if everybody did that, the network
>>capacity would be halved.
>
>You'll have to explain your reasoning.

Doesn't make much sense to me either.  If there are 101 people on the
CSGnet, if person 1 sends a post, it goes out to 100 other people (default
is not to send post back to sender).  If person 1 uses the repro option to
receive his own post back, the post now goes out to 101 people instead of
100.  This is a 1% increase in traffic, not a 100% increase.  If everyone
on the list uses the repro option, the result is the same, 101 message
instead of 100 for each post.

Moral:  Use the repro option of you want your own messages back.  But then
to be consistent you should also be leaving messages for yourself on your
answering machine

Just another reason to be suspicious of the mathematical reasoning of
physicists!--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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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Sun, 16 Aug 1992 17:25:56 -0500
From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Generating Output
X-To:         Control Systems Group Network CSGnet <csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

[from Gary Cziko 920816.1715]

Rick Marken (920814.2200) said:

>There are many incarnations of cognitivism. But what is common to all
>of them (and what is commonly wrong) is that they view behavior as the
>end result of mental processing.

and

>There are many other examples of cognitive "models" . . . but they
>all have one thing in common -- once all the processing
>has occurred, behavior just "pops out" as the end result. Sorry,
>but behavior CANNOT happen that way. So, no matter how clever the
>processing carried out by these "models", they cannot behave; so they
>cannot be correct.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with Greg Williams at the last CSG
meeting in Durango.  Greg was telling me that the arm demo does generate
output.  It may not calculate trajectories, but it nonetheless generates a
behavior based on the error signal of the difference between its reference
level and its perception.  And the digital nature of computers requires
that these calculations be done in discrete steps (in the sequence
perception, comparison, action).

When I show Demo2 to someone with computer savvy, he or she can say that
what the model does is a reiteration of
perception-behavior-perception-behavior, etc. a la TOTE.  I realize that if
we were all using analog computers this TOTE interpretation could not be
made, but by using digital computers don't the demos show in fact that
control can be accomplished by generating output based on input (sounds
pretty S-R to me)?  I would very much like to have Marken and Powers
comment on this with critical reflection by Williams. --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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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 15:51:07 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
X-To:         csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[Avery Andrews 920818:1543]
  (penni sibun 920817.2100)

I guess I don't (yet) see the point of not drawing a line between the
inside & outside of critters.  Maybe Sonja is not the best example of
this, because she's not a full-scall critter-in-environment simulation, but
Randy Beer's bug is, and there seems to me to be a clear difference
between the neural circuits & currents on the inside & the locations of
the food-patches, barriers, etc. on the outside.  I take Beer's point not
to be that there is no inside-outside distinction, but that the
explanations for behavioral patterns (at the `molar' level, if I
remember my psych. jargon corrrectly) are often to be find in neither
place exclusively.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 14:51:12 EDT
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      impact of repro command
X-To:         csg-l%vmd.cso.uiuc.edu@bbn.com

[From: Bruce Nevin (Tue 920818 14:38:05)]

Bill says:

>The repro command
>sends your file back to you. But if everybody did that, the network
>capacity would be halved.

You'll have to explain your reasoning.

As I see it, CSG-L is not a network.  It is a set of subscribers on a
number of networks in or connected to the Internet (BitNet, MilNet,
CSnet, ARPAnet [is that still what the .com domain is called?], and so
on).  The *capacity* of each network to bear traffic is not affected by
the listserver sending one more copy of each message that it
distributes.  Nor is the capacity of the networks, nor of the listserv
software nor the host that it is running on appreciably challenged by
this increment of email traffic--if it were, we should worry right away
about limiting the growth of CSG-L, and send only short messages at
carefully coordinated intervals.  Before that, many system
administrators at many sites would be budgeting to purchase increased
computing capacity, and network analysts would be urging the purchase
and installation of more network nodes to alleviate bottlenecks.

Am I missing your point here?

	Bruce
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 16:32:33 -0500
From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: PCT vs cognitivism
X-To:         "Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)" <CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

[from Gary Cziko 920818.1632]

Rick Marken (920818) asks:

>2. Did anyone (such as you, Bruce Nevin) invite that editor from Discover
>to listen in on CSGnet?  I think it would be a nice idea to try to get
>something published in that forum.

Thanks for the reminder.  I just sent Carl Zimmer some introductory
propaganda on PCT and CSGnet.  We'll see if he bites.--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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X-Char-Esc: 29
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 12 Aug 1992 14:55:14 +0200
From:         Oded Maler <Oded.Maler@IRISA.FR>
Subject: Re: Blocks worlds

[From Oded Maler 920812]

(Bill Powers, yesterday):

> What would happen to AI and AL models if all computations
> were limited to 1 percent accuracy? ... etc.

The point is that there is some level where we (seem, at least, to)
work in discrete terms, e.g., "if my PC doesn't boot then I replace
the diskette" ,etc. The underlying assumption is that there are
lower-level modules, employing feed-back all the way down, making
sure that the abstract action "replace the diskette" is being performed
in a noisy world (in fact this is a too complicated example because
even sub-tasks of this action are not yet explainable *in detail* in
PCT style - try running Little Man in a non-uniform environment with
obstacles, non-reversible consequences, dead-ends [and this is by
no means an attempt to dismiss its achievements - just to note that
there are many hard problems in the highr-levels]).

Now, it's not clear what 1% accuracy means in this abstract world,
because the disk-drive cannot be 99% pregnant - and if I buy from you
a low-level black box, I trust that it will work. If you mean
inaccuracy in the higher-level, that is, replacing the diskette cannot
be performed or it may not solve the booting problem, and maybe
kicking the table will solve it, then you come to the realm of the AI
methods - searching among alternatives for actions, an activity that
needs a lot of creative imagination (more than I have for the moment)
in order to be perceived as gradient following, as servoing for
complex perceptions etc. The people who investigate such phenomena
surely abstract away the lower levels in the same way you abstract
away the micro-structure of neural and muscular cells.

Now I come back to my basic rhetoric question: goal-achieving in this
abstract world with simplifying assumptions should be much easier than
in reality - the lower-level black boxes are assumed to be perfect,
there is no conflict in actions, and still it is very hard to to give
tractable way of solving everyday problems. Why? What is wrong in our
verbal account of our introspection concerning the way we operate in
this level? Do the higher-level percepts and references carry with
them some concrete features of the lower level ones from which
they are constructed/grounded in such a way that the solution "flow"
instead of being searched-for/calculated?

I don't expect immediate answers..

Best regards

--Oded
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Posted-Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 08:54:23 PDT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 08:54:23 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      Re: PCT & interactionism, Blindmen II

[From Rick Marken (920820.0900)]

Martin Taylor (920820 10:30) --

Gee Martin, how can I add to your comments when you say it all so well.

>I can't speak for anyone else on CSG, but I have never thought of identifying
>the control hierarchy with what goes on in the brain alone.

Absolutely!  I use "brain" to mean nervous system (including hormonal
systems and whatever else) -- and my main interest is in understanding
human beings (a group from which I now exclude members of the republican
party) who are typically endowed with brains and nervous systems. But I
am also interested in control in systems that have no brain or nervous
system -- E. coli, for example (and members of the republican
party). E. Coli, by the way, is another good example of a system that
controls although there is no correlation between actions (tumbles)
and the result of those actions (direction of movement after tumble) --
but there is still control.

Note-- I have re-written (slightly, but brilliantly) the "Blind men" paper
as a commentary on an article by Herb Simon that appeared in a recent
issue of Psychological Science. It is relevant to our current discussion
of "interactionism". Simon said that we have all kinds of great computer
models of behavior -- so we understand behavior better than we think. My
commentary said "that depends on what you mean by "behavior", Nobel man".
I really only added a couple paragraphs to the old "Blind man" paper.
But if anyone is interested, I will be happy to post the new version.
I've already submitted it to Psych Science but I'd still appreciate
comments.

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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Subject: (no subject given)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 17 Aug 1992 10:12:01 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
X-To:         csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

A dumb question about Borland graphics in CGA mode -- is there any
fast & sensible way to erase circles in CGA Hi Res mode?

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 08:49:25 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      sonja, etc.
X-To:         csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[Avery Andrews 920813]

We should probably wait until Bill has spent some time with the Chapman book
before saying much about it, but I'll say now that he's perfectly aware of
the nature of the hyphenated routine names in the description of  Sonja.
One of the motives of the work was to produce a complete system where notions
of meaning and references were grounded in actual activity, rather than
being just empty `semantic markerese' (typeface-change semantics).  I think
anybody who studies the book will quickly perceive that Chapman doesn't
miss much.

As to why he doesn't emphasise the role of control, I think it's quite
possible that he doesn't know about the messes that psychology has gotten
itself into, & wouldn't care if he did.

Avery Andrews
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Original_To:  BITNET%"csg-l@uiucvmd.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 17:00:00 CDT
From:         PAPANICOLAOU@UTMBEACH.BITNET
Subject:      Independent Investigator #2?

From Tom Bourbon [14 August 92]

Re: Independent Investigator #2?

     For the past several months I have been pretty inactive on the
net.  I was winding down from 25 years at one institution, prior to
moving here.  We went through the traumas of selling a home of 21
years -- tons of "stuff," a daughter who had known no other home,
and the like.  Six days ago, we completed the move.

     Today, the foundation that provided the largest portion of
support for the laboratory here (unexpectedly) cut us off.  We have
enough money to continue operating the lab at the present level for
a couple of months and several proposals are under review, but I am
free to look elsewhere.  I am looking for honest work anywhere I
can find it -- have control handles, will travel.  Perhaps PCT will
soon have its second "Independent Investigator."

Best wishes,
Tom Bourbon

MEG Laboratory                     PAPANICOLAOU@UTMBEACH.BITNET
1528 Postoffice Street             PAPANICOLAOU@BEACH.UTMB.EDU
Galveston, TX 77550                PHONE   (409) 763-6325
USA                                FAX     (409) 762-9961
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 21:19:35 PDT
From:         Penni Sibun <sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM>
Subject:      language
X-To:         CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET@pucc.princeton.edu
              19 Aug 1992 12:02:10 -0700
              <92Aug19.120313pdt.11951@alpha.xerox.com>

(Penni Sibun 920820.2000)

   [Martin Taylor 920819 15:00]

   >i am deeply suspicious of hierarchical organization from my experience
   >in modelling language (as well as other behavior).  language is
   >supposed to have all sorts of hierarchy in it (eg, a text is composed
   >of paragraphs are composed of sentences are composed of words) and i
   >just don't think this is a very useful way of looking at language, and
   >am working to show this.

   I would be very interested to know more.  I have evolved in exactly the
   opposite direction.  My theory of Layered Protocols seems to me to hold
   promise of clarifying many of the difficult problems of language, and I
   think that arguments from information theory and feedback stability theory
   almost demand that dialogue be conducted in a hierarchic way.  If you have
   counterarguments, I'd be most interested in them.

i was talking about any text, written or spoken.  are you talking
about just dialog?  i agree that dialog has properties that
distinguish it from eg written text.  but i quite disagree that dialog
is hierarchic.  (that's been the model in computational linguistics
for nearly 20 years, and it has had approximately zero efficacy.)  can
you tell me what forms the structure of the hierarchy?

   But if all you mean is that one cannot describe language as the simple
   combination of unitary elements of different sizes, then I totally agree.
   Your use of the word "composed" suggests that this may be your
   meaning.

yes, i mean that--and more!

   All the elements, of whatever size, change their functions dramatically
   depending on situational and linguistic context, and the contextual effects
   can be very long-lasting.

i'm going to suggest that the elements aren't anything we might think.
eg, in spoken language, ``word'' is not a useful concept.  in written
language, it's only useful because ``word'' refers to elements of our
encoding system--not of language itself.  because we are literate
people in a literate society, we tend to think of ``word'' as the
stuff between spaces on a page, but these words don't particularly
seem to be what we use when we utter stuff.

  Language is not a concatenative process.

i'm not exactly sure what you mean here, beyond a reaffirmation of
hierarchy.

cheers.

				--penni
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 22:48:50 -0500
From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Tumbling Genomes
X-To:         Control Systems Group Network CSGnet <csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

[from Gary Cziko 920818.2240]

There's a article in the recent _Science_ (vol. 257, 14 August 1992, pp.
884-5, "Possible evolutionary role explored for 'jumping genes'") which I
thought at least Bill Powers and Greg Williams would find interesting.

It says:

"If at a certain time the suppressor genes were somehow turned off, the
accumulated variation could be unleashed, giving rise to dramatic
differences in a population over a short period of time and perhaps even
creating changes that could lead to new species."

So here is a possible mechanisms for the genome to "tumble" around a bit
when some intrinsic error is high, fitting in nicely with Bill's
speculations about evolution as a control process leading to punctuated
equilibrium.--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:         Mon, 17 Aug 1992 23:33:59 -0600
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      PCT vs. Cognitivism
X-To:         CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[From Bill Powers (920817.2100)]

Penni Sibun (920816) --

Your "interactionist" picture of driving certainly shows how complex and
variable it can be. I had written a long and windy response, which I
somehow, and fortunately, managed to destroy. I think the most productive
step would be just to cite a little bit of your description of driving, and
ask you a simple question.

You say

>new england is covered in backroads--they are twisty, hilly, narrow,
>and old, and are subject to nearly all possible weather conditions.
>the way one drives them is to keep one's left wheels near, or quite
>possibly over, the center line (if it is visible).

My question is this: would you explain, in terms of cog. sci,
interactionism, or any other approach HOW a driver keeps the "left wheels
near, or quite possibly over, the center line (if it is visible)"? By this,
I mean just explain how the intention that this result should happen gets
turned into the actual happening.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Best


Bill P.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 07:25:37 EDT
From:         "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@CCB.BBN.COM>
Subject:      Re: closing the loop
X-To:         csg-l%vmd.cso.uiuc.edu@bbn.com

[From: Bruce Nevin (Tue 920818 07:24:34)]

I received a copy of my message before receiving the little notice about
it having been distributed.  The command works.

	Bruce
	bn@bbn.com
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 17 Aug 1992 13:52:00 CDT
From:         PAPANICOLAOU@UTMBEACH.BITNET
Subject:      Re: independent Investigator #2?

Re: Independent Investigator #2?

From Tom Bourbon  (920817)

What an oversight -- Greg Williams has been #2 for years!  If I must assume the
title, the company of #s 1 and 2 is tops.

Thanks to everyone (many in private posts) who offered condolences, support, and
suggestions about people and places to contact.  Keep those cards and letters --
and job prospects -- coming.

Warm regards -- Tom Bourbon
Interim (?) Independent Investigator #3

(These addresses and numbers will serve for the next month or
so.)

MEG Laboratory                     PAPANICOLAOU@UTMBEACH.BITNET
1528 Postoffice Street             PAPANICOLAOU@BEACH.UTMB.EDU
Galveston, TX 77550                PHONE   (409) 763-6325
USA                                FAX     (409) 762-9961
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