HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 10:48:56 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Modelling vs. What
X-To:         csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

Re Rick's complaints on the Chapman & Agre papers - I found them rather
obscure too, so I borrowed the books from Penni & then got my own
copies.  I think it's pretty normal that papers are enigmatic unless
you already understand the background pretty well.  I find that AI
papers tend to leave out too much of the substance of what's being done
for me to follow them, but I imagine that people with the right training
would not have this problem.  Books present more of the background, &
are more detailed about the substance.

Moving on to a more specific point, Bill's arm demo (the version I
have at least) has to assume that the visual system can track the
fingertip & the target, whereas a major aspect of Sonja is an
visual system that can to some extent actually do this (though he ducks
problems of early vision).

I actually think that together, Bill and Chapman could build a robot
that could play real video games, at least if you wheeled it into the
arcade and plunked it down in the one it was supposed to play.  But
I don't think either could do it alone.

And, on PCT presentation, it would be nice to have more in the way of
concrete examples of 2nd order control systems doing useful things.
I think I understand how the vertical angle control inthe arm demo
works, but that's actually the only example I know, & it would be nice
to have more.  Maybe they're in the stuff I've ordered from Pat&Greg,
but still it might be a good idea to have it available online.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 00:43:00 GMT
From:         Dag Forssell <0004742580@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Kent's paper
X-To:         csg <CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

[From Dag Forssell (920901-2)]

For Kent McClelland:

Read your paper on the plane two weeks ago, Draft 7/21/92, which I picked
up in Durango.

Very nice. Really a compelling presentation. One of the best,
comprehensive introductions to PCT we have.

A few nitpicks, of course.

2.2.4.4. : I have never known wether my foot is at 60 degrees or any
other angle. I doubt that your readers will identify with this and say:
"of course."   I would suggest that the perceptual system controls
pressure on the pedal, plain and simple, which translates nicely into
tendon tension. All I ever do when I drive is squeeze the accelerator,
and let up, respectively. I do not care what the angle is, and would
guess poorly if asked. The angle becomes a consequence of the properties
of the environment (car design, uphill, wind resistance etc.).

2.3.2.5. : You bring in emotions and I don't understand "invites negative
emotions."  I do not know what insight of Rick's you refer to. If you
want to deal with emotions, I would think a summary of Ed Ford's
presentation in Freedom from Stress would be more appropriate and easier
to relate to. This could be its own section. LCS II has the missing (from
BCP) chapter on feelings.

Between Rick and Bill and all, there is much talk about loop gain. But
you are not using equations with constants all over the place.
Considering your audience, you could choose to not mention it,
deemphasize it or use / substitute more illustrations.

Personally, I find it intuitively easier to talk about how a control
system directs energy and or resources to influence the variable.

The nerve signal gives instructions to the muscle fiber, which contracts,
using the energy / resource of sugar to create an effect far stronger
than the energy content of the signal itself. (This is amplification).
What size biceps?

Your cruise control presses the gas pedal, which provides more fuel to
the engine. What size engine? (This is strength).

When you talk about conflict, you can talk about two control systems of
equal or different resources, strength, evoking the image of armwrestling
or such and make the same points about fatigue, reorganization, lack of
satisfaction.

3.2.8. :  There [are] some   ..

5.2. : ... To put it bluntly[: I]f...

This is a marvelous paper. What are your plans for it? Surely it deserves
publication in a highly visible place.

Dag Forssell
23903 Via Flamenco
Valencia, Ca 91355-2808
Phone (805) 254-1195    Fax (805) 254-7956
Internet:  0004742580@MCIMAIL.COM

PS  Kent, please acknowledge. Believe you are on net. If not, I will mail.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-Delivery-Notice:  SMTP MAIL FROM does not correspond to sender.
Posted-Date: Tue, 25 Aug 92 13:40:56 PDT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 13:40:56 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      control, trends

[From Rick Marken (920825.1330)]

First, a quick question to the net (especially Gary Cziko and Dennis
Delprato):

Does anyone know of any written critique of Behaviorism which explicitly
cites the following problem (that Gary mentioned some time ago) :if
human behavior is controlled by the environment (as claimed by Behaviorists)
then Behaviorists themselves should not be able to exert control over people
(as they say that they can -- and should) because they are under control?
What I want is a critique that points out that control cannot be exerted
by agents that are controlled. I have never seen any detailed critique
of Behaviorism from this perspective. The critiques I've seen usually
just say "there is so a mind" to which the Behaviorists reply "is not" to
which the cognitivists reply "is so" and so on  -- a process called
philosophical psychology.

A random note -- it seems that the trendiness in science is somewhat
self-correcting. The following was posted to sci.cognitive:


>   I  am writing  an article on AI Winter Refugees:  un(der)employment
>among  AI professionals.

Looks like ai has run its course. I guess that's why we're seeing
new words -- artificial life might work for a few years (ai worked
for about 7); neural nets should have peaked in a couple if they have
the staying power of ai. I hope chaos and fuzzy logic don't create
even larger unemployment lines. I just wish PCT could have it's shot
at fame -- if it's just another trendy science we would at least have
a few years of fun. But I think it would prove to be a wonderfully
enduring surprise. Ah well.

Best regards

Rick

PS. Tom. Good luck with the hurricane. But I must admit that it's nice
to see that at least ONE bad thing is not happening in LA.



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

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)
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-Delivery-Notice:  SMTP MAIL FROM does not correspond to sender.
Fake-Sender: sibun@parc.xerox.com
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 11:13:10 PDT
From:         Penni Sibun <sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM>
Subject:      Re: chapman; visual perception
X-To:         CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET@pucc.princeton.edu
              2 Sep 1992 08:27:21 -0700
              <92Sep2.083532pdt.11804@alpha.xerox.com>

(ps 920902.1100)

   [From Rick Marken (920902.0830)]

   Bill Powers (920901.1900) --

   >RE: Chapman's book.

   >The part on visual perception isn't anywhere
   >near as specific as I was lead to believe, ahem.

   Sarcasm on--

   Which is EXACTLY what I guessed (and mentioned in a post
   to Avery). Proving once again that, while I am an asshole,

it looks to me like all this proves is:

1)  you're more inclined to believe bill than avery

and

2)  you will happily believe things w/o going to the primary source to
check for yourself


cheers.

				--penni
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-Envelope-To: CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
X-Vms-To: @CSG
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 16:20:31 -0600
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Pyramids; Succinctness; Stella

[From Bill Powers (920903.1600)]

Thomas Baines (920903) --

You might consider looking at my _Living Control Systems_, the chapter
called An Outline of Control Theory. In it are defined 11 levels of
perception ranging from intensities to system concepts. These are, of
course, also levels of control. If the ordering is right, the lower
levels operate the fastest; also, it is necessary to control variables
of level n-1 in order to control variables of level n. I don't know
how well these properties actually hold up in every instance, but you
might find some suggestions in this hierarchical arrangement.

Use the term "model" carefully around here. We generally think of
models as things you can set up as a program, turn on, and run -- at
least in principle.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Greg Williams (920903) --

That's the trouble with succinctness. Somebody immediately comes up
with a counterexample -- in the worst case, in your own words.

"Controlling a person" means controlling some variable associated with
that person. This is possible without direct use of force only if the
variable is an output variable. Otherwise [Tucker]  "... the term
'control' cannot be used to describe any activity that goes on between
"self-regulating systems"."

I was thinking of an activity "between" self-regulating systems,
meaning one in which they are interacting. If I'm controlling your
outputs, we aren't interacting; I'm just diddling around with side-
effects of your control actions and you're ignoring me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Gary Cziko (920903.1340) --

I've seen Stella in operation, and it would be a fine tool for
simulating control systems on a Mac. I've heard that it's available
for PCs too. But my impression is that it's VERY expensive. If Rick
could get a copy I think he would freak out: it's really quite pretty.
You just draw block diagrams using standard components like amplifiers
and integrators, specify the parameters, connect the blocks by drawing
lines, and run! You can get plots of various variables, read in data
from files, and so on.

Greg and Pat Williams are going to be working on a general simulation
program that will probably work similarly. The only problem: it will
be written for the PC world. I presume it will be written in C,
however, so a C-competent Mac user might be able to port it to the Mac
world, in which case we'd all be able to run the same simulations.
That would truly be a great step forward.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-

Best to all,


Bill P.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 13:20:29 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Re: Agre's Cooking problem

[from Avery Andrews 920901.1312]
  (Jeff Hunter (920831)


On my reading, C&A's point is not that a certain amount of actual planning
is unnecessary, but that what planning there is gets done against a
background of routine activity, & lots of experience.  E.g. mostly you
don't have to figure out the optimal order in which to carry out the
breakfast making subtasks, because you've done it lots of times  before,
and saw people doing it before you had to.  So the critique of the
planning weenies is not that planning is unnecessary, but that it would
be a good idea to find out more about the nature of the routine background
against which it happens.  In fact, it seems to me that actual planning
by humans is incredibly bad when the background is deficient.


Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 13:03:27 CST
From:         Thomas Baines <bainest@SMTPLINK.EID.ANL.GOV>
Subject:      Perceiving as a PCT theorist
X-To:         ATEDF%ASUACAD.BITNET@ANLVM.CTD.ANL.GOV, CSG-L@UIUCVMD.BITNET

          What is the relationship between the charts for each
          teacher/councelor/participant called for here & the kinds of
          charting called for in Demming Mangement TQM sorts of
          things?
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 09:23:55 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      individualism, chapman
X-To:         csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[Avery Andrews (920903.2000)]
 (Bill Powers 920901.1900)

Re Penni on individualism, etc.:

 >Sounds pretty much the same to me. In either case, the institutions
 >are reified. Not that I don't believe in them. I just think they exist
 >in people's heads, not in the environment.

 >> ``playing a role'' is a well-understood way of talking about these
 >>things.  the advantage of talking about roles instead of perceptions,
 >>is that you don't have to ask perceived by whom.

I'd put it like this.  You can have any perceptual functions you like,
but if you don't perceive the right things, you loose.  And some
perceptions are important because of things in the heads of other people
(heresy in Medieval Spain, Political Incorrectness at some (many? most?
all?) US universities).  I think there are some very subtle questions
lurking here, for which Tyler Burge's stuff on non-individualism is
relevant reading.

My suspicion is that you can't understand the non-individualistic
phenomena without understanding the relevant properties of the
individuals first, but that you also can't understanding them without
going beyond the individuals.


Re Chapman:


 >The part on visual perception isn't anywhere
 >near as specific as I was lead to believe, ahem.

Hmmm.  It seemed to say relatively definite things about all sorts of
topics that had puzzled me, via markers, addressing pyramids, etc.  And
what's wrong with bit-blitting?  It seems like perfectly sensible thing
for sheets of neurons to be able to do.


 >Maybe it was this. Chapman seems, although not clearly, to adopt the
 >principle of "coded" perception, in which a system that receives a
 >perceptual signal can tell what it's about from the information in the
 >signal. In my model, of course, all perceptual signals are alike, so

Well, that would depend on what kind of a system it was.  E.g. if you
have a whole bunch of input lines coming into a perceputal system,
different patterns on the lines can signal different things being
perceived, but the signals get their significance from where they
come from and what they're going to, just like in PCT.  As far as
as I can see, Chapman & PCT have exactly the same attitude towards
what kinds of computations are legit, namely ones that one can
sort of see how to do with neurons (`essentially connectionist
hardware', in Chapman's jargon).


Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 12:48:48 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Re: Modeling vs. WHAT?

I'm not convinced that PCT-ers really understand that interactionist
arguments are aimed at a fairly specific group of people, the `Planning
weenies', a group of people who really seem(ed?) to believe that an
Agent or a critter can make its way through the world by concocting
elaborate plans with its eyes closed, and then following them (still
with its eyes closed).  According to Chapman, for example, AI vision
people actually tend to think that there needs to be an exhaustive
categorization of everything in the visual field, plus precise
metric information.  Part of Sonja's mission is to demonstrate that this
assumption is unnecessary (and, by implication wrong).  The idea is not
no machinery, but minimal machinery, surely scientific Right Thinking.

I think that PCT diverges from standard Interactionism by denying that
much in the way of useful results will emerge from accidental outcomes
of the dynamics of activity.  One of Agre's examples is that if you have
a stack of bowls in your cupboard, the ones you use most will tend to `drift'
to the top, not because you mean for them to be there, but just as an
accidental side-effect of the fact that the top of the stack is the easiest
place to put a bowl you've used when you've finished with and washed it.
Agre sees this as evidence of the cooperativeness of the world, while I
imagine that Bill or Rick would say that this kind of effect is of marginal
importance (as would I), & most good stuff has to be controlled for.  (On
the other hand, setting places up so that their natural dynamics tends to
support the results you want is definitely a good idea, & I suspect that
Agre could make a fortune as a business consultant if he wanted to).

At any rate,  we don't have to have an argument about this - analyse enough
specific cases in detail, and a trend will probably emerge.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au

So PCT seems cognitivist to Penni
(I think) because of the emphasis on the internal representation (as
reference levels) of
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 19:31:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      One more GTM axiom
X-To:         CSGnet <CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>

From Greg Williams (920828 - 3)

I forgot an axiom in my last post, as Pat just reminded me:

Axiom 6. PCT has nothing to say about the utility of attempted manipulation,
in general, for either influencers or influencees, except that it might waste
time and/or resources for either or both parties.

Greg
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 15:34:14 -0300
From:         Bill Silvert <bill@BIOME.BIO.NS.CA>
Subject:      Submitting items to the Gopher server
X-To:         Control Systems Group Network <csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.EDU>
X-cc:         "Gary A. Cziko" <g-cziko@UIUC.EDU>

If you have material which you want to submit to the CSG Gopher server,
you can mail it to csg-news@biome.bio.ns.ca.  It then goes into a
folder called News in the CSG folder.

To use the Gopher server if you don't have a gopher client running, just
telnet to gopher@biome.bio.ns.ca.
--
Bill Silvert at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2
InterNet Address: bill@biome.bio.ns.ca
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 10:14:56 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      sonja's visual system
X-To:         csg-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[Avery Andrews 920828.1013]

 (Rick Marekn 920827)

The short answer to what's so great about Sonja's visual system is that
she has a simulated visual field (as would be provided by current ideas
about low level vision), in which objects are located, tracked, etc.
by means that are (supposedly) plausible from a neurological point
of view.

Avery
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 16:28:13 EDT
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject: Re: The paradox of control

[Martin Taylor 920827 16:15]
(Rick Marken 920827.1230)

I think I agree with the paradox of control when seen from a PCT viewpoint,
with the caveat that full control implies infinite gain, and any departure
from that leaves a little hole in the argument. It's a bit like the liar's
paradox that you used as an analogy.  That, too, doesn't work when there are
degrees of truth-telling rather than pure lies and pure truth. But let that be.

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.  That's
what I tried to illustrate, in the message that distressed Bill.

When you try to affect someone's actions, it helps to try to see things from
their viewpoint.  Of course it isn't possible to do so with any precision,
but one can often get close.  Good advertisers and propagandists get quite
close.  People who start with the position that they are correct, and that
others should see it from the "correct" point of view, do not get close.
They may well be correct, but they won't have much influence.

Martin
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 09:56:31 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Re: Modeling vs. WHAT?

This discussion is gotten completely out of hand, and, like Martin,
I'm rather baffled by it.  I suspect that people haven't done enough
homework on the other guys' stuff to justify the things they're saying about
it.  I rather suspect that `interactionists' have an inadequate
appreciation of how feedback control systems actually work (I haven't
noticed them talking about the fact the high-level systems need to
respond more slowly than low-level ones, for example), but I also think
that PCT is pretty shaky in the area of perception, where Chapman in
particular has done useful work.  But they really are very similar.
Yesterday I was thinking along the lines that while Interactionism says
that you can`t make breakfast following a plan, PCT goes further and
says that you can't even get your hand on the spatula that way, much
less your coffee-cup from the table to your lips (and that the means
whereby these tasks are actually accomplished reach much further into
behavioral organization than people realise).

Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that people are too eager to be
believed rather than understood.  It should be fine if Penni or anyone
else is skeptical about the truth of PCT, as long as they actually know
what they  aren't believing in.  But real comprehension of anything takes
quite a long time to dawn - much more time than the standard dynamics
of argument (and, for that manner, academic life) allow for.

I wish I had time to spend the morning trying to hose this down, but
I don't, so I'll just end with a relevant quotation:

 One can seldom be sure whether the silence of other scholars indicates
 agreement or disagreement, indifference or incomprehension.

    Wilbur Maas, _Greek Metrics_.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU