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Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 14:57:43 -0600
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Modeling vs. WHAT?
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[From Bill Powers (920825.1400)]

Penni Sibun (920825) --

> 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?

At one level I agree with all these rhetorical questions, as long as
you don't apply them to PCT. At another, if you mean these questions
generally, I think you're risking looking like a nihilist, or a naive
realist.

These questions, at another level, imply accepting as an explanation
of behavior what I would consider a statement of the problem. In fact,
it doesn't look to me as though you're trying to _explain_ behavior or
experience at all; you're just accepting it at face value with no
explanation. You ask "why maintain elaborate control structures when
you can look and see what needs to be done?" PCT is a model that
attempts to explain how it is that you can look, see, and do. PCT
explains how it is, for example, that two people can look at the same
environment and see different things; how they can, even supposedly
seeing the same thing, see that two quite contradictory things "need
to be done," and how, even if they end up doing the same thing, they
end up doing it by totally different means. PCT puts the "needing"
into the organism, not into its environment. It interprets "seeing" as
a process in the brain, perception, which entails as much construction
as representation. It sees "doing" as a process of control. Are you
really suggesting that we put all that intelligence into the non-
living world? If so, I'd say that you have a mammoth job of
explanation ahead, if you want anyone to believe you.

Or are you pulling someone's leg?

>faced w/ an empirical phenomenon to explain, our first explanatory
>recourse should be to dynamics, not to machinery.

I don't call that an explanatory recourse; it's just describing the
dynamics of the phenomenon (usually from the standpoint of an unspoken
theory). Once you've described that, the question of HOW IT WORKS
arises -- i.e, the question of the machinery that accounts for these
appearances. PCT is about how it works.

>i would like to suggest that people get prizes for getting_rid_of_
>machinery.

Does this mean that it's modeling itself that you don't like? Do you
think there's any point in talking about nerves, brains, and such
machinery? I'm having a hard time figuring out where you're coming
from.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Best,

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