HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 10:49:17 EDT
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject:      Re: PCT & interactionism

[Martin Taylor 920820 10:30]
(Penni Sibun 920819)

Sorry about your repetitive motion injury.  I do hope you are getting medical
attention for it and not just trying to cure it by yourself  (end parental
mode).

>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 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.  Bill has made
it clear that other kinds of organisms can be control systems, although he
sometimes seems to obscure the claim by saying that the hierarchy is
implemented in the CNS.  We have recently discussed the control system of
Paramecium, a single-celled organism without a nervous system, which can
move in a temperature gradient to control its temperature under hypoxic
conditions.  Any factor that can have an effect that can be sensed by the
generator of the factor can be a component of a control system.  One presumes
that early almost-living things had control systems that were entirely
chemical, and we know that cells in present living systems have many such
control systems.

In CSG-L we usually talk about human sensory-motor control systems, and we
presume (as much for convenience of discussion as for any other reason) that
the communication among ECSs happens through the neural channels.  But we
have also discussed the possibility that a single neuron could implement
several cooperating ECSs, based on the different functions of synaptic
junctions near to and far from dendrite roots.

Trees affect the chemistry of the ground near them, altering their growth
possibilities.  They are control systems if the loop has negative feedback,
so as to maintain an optimum local ecology for the treee.  If it doesn't,
they are not.  There's no bias in the theory toward or away from any kind
of life.  We just are naturally more interested in human life and "intelligent"
function than we are in the life of trees.  Other scientists may have a
different bias.  But where control exists, it is important in stabilizing
something important to the life of the organism, and should be considered
in studying that organism.  We deal in psychology, mainly.  It's only a part
of what PCT offers.

Martin
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Sat, 15 Aug 1992 07:47:28 MST
From:         Ed Ford <ATEDF@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Good Luck, Tom

from Ed Ford (920815:0846)

Tom Bourbon -

What a blow!  Keep us in touch and good luck.

                                      Best, Ed

Ed Ford              ATEDF@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
10209 N. 56th St., Scottsdale, Arizona 85253            Ph.602 991-4860
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:32:49 +0200
From:         Oded Maler <Oded.Maler@IRISA.FR>
Subject:      Re: PCT & interactionism, Blindmen II

[From Oded Maler 920820]

(Rick Marken, ibid.)

>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".

It depends also on what you mean by "understand" and by "think".

I'm just rereading a paper also written as a critique of similar
claims by Simon - it's Hofstadter's "Waking up from the boolean dream"
which I, btw, recommend. I think it won't hurt anybody if you re-post
your paper. And I can't help reminding you that wrt to the
universe/life, even the most knowledgable PCTer is also partly blind
(partly by choice and partly because of difference in order of
magnitudes between the observer and the observed).

I don't want by any means to interfere with your local politics, or to
start a thread on these topics, but it seems to me that republicans
are controlling by *all* the means they have for the obvious variable
for a party - to be in power. If the effects of the crap they probably
said in their convention works on the average (w. or w.o. brain)
American cityzen is positive, why should their worry of the opinion
and the aesthetic feelings of some marginal (quantitatively, of
course) R.M. in L.A.?

Best regards

--Oded
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Date:         Wed, 12 Aug 1992 13:06:30 -0500
Comments:     Warning -- original Sender: tag was mwog8061@UXA.CSO.UIUC.EDU
From:         m-olson@UIUC.EDU
Subject:      for Wayne
X-To:         CSG-L@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU

Wayne,
Your "The Synergy of Involuntary and Voluntary Action" is perfect for my
Causation paper!  i can't believe I didn't look at it before--i wish I had.
 Thanks!

Mark Olson


Educational Psychology 210            USmail:  405 South 6th St.  #4

College of Education                           Champaign, IL  61820
Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
phone: (home) 351-8257                e-mail:  (Internet) m-olson@uiuc.edu
       (office) 244-8080                       (Bitnet) FREE0850@uiucvmd
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Posted-Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 21:09:45 PDT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 21 Aug 1992 21:09:45 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      agre, facism

[From Rick Marken (920821.2100)]

penni (and anyone else):

I get the impression that there is some book or article by
Agre from which I can learn the principles of interactionism.
Could you tell me what that is? I'll be at ucla tommorrow
so maybe I can take a look at it. Maybe there's a forth
blind man (the zen master, perhaps) that I neglected in my paper.
It just struck me that the three views of behavior described in
my paper probably don't include the interactionist view. It
might be hard to represent that view in my scheme since it
seems that interactionists make no distinction between organism and
environment -- thus eliminating both equations 1 and 2. That would
sure take care of my thesis.

By the way. Didn't anyone else feel the sense of relief that I
felt after the republican convention when they revealed that
all the problems in this country are the result of homosexuals and
atheists -- and NOT JEWS.  I'm particularly relieved that there
has been no embarassing outcry agaist the republicans -- as there
was agaist Joe McCarthy.  Could the republicans have finally
found the people that everyone can hate. I'm impressed; they are
already AHEAD of Hitler -- and after only 48 years. Heil (er...
Viva) Bush.

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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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 11:29:04 EST
From:         Avery Andrews <andaling@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Re: Misc catching up

[Avery Andrews 920820.1115]
 (Martin Taylor 920819 2010)

> A quick response, indeed!
Yes - I've even found myself with plane reservations leaving Hawaii the
day before I got there.

>Only at a very high level,...
Corrections accepted, but what exactly is `inverse bandwidth'?  If I
had been being more careful I would have said something to the effect that
the correlations between direction of effort and direction of change in
result must persist for `reasonable' time periods, that is, not changing
too often.  But I don't have the conceptual tools to know how to be precise
about how often is too often.


Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au
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Posted-Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 13:56:02 PDT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 13:56:02 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      constructors/ not detectors

[From Rick Marken (920818.1400)]

Epistimological warning--

When I called the neuron a "detector" I implied that neurons are designed
to detect things that are actually "out there". This is an unnecessary
assumption. Neuron's can be hooked up to sensors in such a way that they
computer ANY kind of function of the sensory input. So it's wrong to
call them detectors -- better to call them "constructors" because they
are constructing perceptions from the raw material of the senses.


This fact becomes important in PCT 201. So we might as well get it right
in the introductory course.

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:         Sun, 16 Aug 1992 10:08:54 -0600
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Welcome, Fred
X-To:         CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[From Bill Powers (920816.1000)]

Fred Keijser (920813) --

Hello, Fred, and welcome to our conversation.

I have had some contact with Maturana; in some ways we have similar views,
but we diverge greatly in other ways. Maturana's concept of autopoiesis is
not worked out in any detail -- it's just a statement that some systems are
"self-making." What such a system would have to be able to do in order to
make itself isn't explained.

There's a discussion of my views on Maturana in Living Control Systems II,
available from Greg Williams.

My biggest argument with Maturana regards his "closed" nervous system. If
you're going to assume a model of a nervous system, this entails the whole
theoretical structure that is behind it: neurology, physics, chemistry, and
so on. So to claim that the nervous system is structurally closed is only a
half-baked epistemology. If you admit of a physical nervous system, then to
finish baking the idea you have to include the relationships of the nervous
system to the physical external world -- which Maturana refers to as the
"medium" and treats as an unknown black box. In my opinion he doesn't have
a workable model -- only a sort of metaphor.

As to "representation," PCT addresses it in two ways. There is perception,
which is a signal-based representation of aspects of the current external
world. There are also reference signals, which are signal-based
representations of the intended state of the perceptions. The perceptual
signals arise from sensory interaction with the external world. The
reference signals are internally generated. Which aspect of representation
are you concerned with?

Again, welcome.

Bill Powers
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From: mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: Re: Drivers, cognition, & PCT and perception
Date: 19 Aug 92 19:02:10 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-To:         CSG-L@UIUCVMD.BITNET, sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM

[Martin Taylor 920819 15:00]
(Penni Sibun 920818.2000)

>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.

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.
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.  Language is not a concatenative process.

I do hope you can learn enough about PCT to appreciate what it is doing.
It took me over a year of working with, and arguing in, CSG-L to realize
its beauty and power, and even now I doubt I have seen more than a glimmer.
I have come to feel that it really is the Newtonian revolution that physics
had 300 years ago and that psychology needs.  After 35 years as an experimental
psychologist and sometime psycholinguist looking for some coherence in the
field, it's quite a revelation to find that one really can do more than
produce little models that work for specialized micro-fields of enquiry.

Martin
From: ray@ESPRESSO.BOEING.COM (Ray Allis 5-3583)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: Postdoc in San Diego
Date: 21 Aug 92 00:37:02 GMT
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X-To:         CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU

----- Begin Included Message -----

From ml-connectionists-request@Q.CS.CMU.EDU Thu Aug 20 17:24:46 1992
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 14:29:15 PDT
From: Terry Sejnowski <terry@helmholtz.sdsc.edu>
To: connectionists@cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Postdoc in San Diego
Cc: scott@cpl.nhrc.navy.mil
Content-Length: 1036

              Opportunities for post doctoral research
          at the Naval Health Research Center, San Diego.
       Cognitive Performance and Psychophysiology Department
         __________________________________________________

    Our laboratory is developing alertness and  attention  moni-
    toring  systems  based on human psychophysiological measures
    (EEG, ERP, EOG, ECG), through ongoing research at basic  and
    exploratory  development  levels.  We have openings for post
    doctoral fellows in signal processing / neural network esti-
    mation  and  human cognitive psychophysiology.  We are espe-
    cially interested  in  the  relation  of  oscillatory  brain
    dynamics  to  attention  and alertness.  Our research is not
    classified.

    Please address inquiries to:

    Dr. Scott Makeig
    Naval Health Research Center  email: scott@cpl.nhrc.navy.mil
    PO Box 85122                  fax:   (619) 436-9389
    San Diego, CA 92186-5122      phone: (619) 436-7155

Scott

-----


----- End Included Message -----
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 17 Aug 1992 21:23:34 PDT
From:         Penni Sibun <sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM>
X-To:         CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET@pucc.princeton.edu
              18 Aug 1992 11:48:30 -0700
              <92Aug17.205028pdt.11675@alpha.xerox.com>

(penni sibun 920817.2100)

   [from Avery Andrews 920818]

    >i think it's conceivable that pct-type control might be more
    >interactionist than any of us understands at this point.  however,
    >part b) is squarely cognitivist:  it requires an inside-outside line
    >to be drawn, and puts crucial stuff on the inside of the line.

   This doesn't fit with my conception of what `cognitivism' is - I would
   take cognitivism-in-field-X as being the position that everything worth
   understanding in field X can be understood as a process of building
   mental representations in the head.  This is different from drawing
   an inside-outside line & locating certain things inside the line.

but _in extremis_, which is certainly how i'm arguing, just saying
something's in the head is drawing a line.

  In
   fact, Chapman and Agre seem to do this:  Sonja has a clear
   inside-outside line, with the visual system & much else located inside
   it.

well i don't think sonja's implementation really addresses
inside/outside (though it does address other things), and i don't
think c&a think it does either.  i don't think anyone knows how to
address this in building frobs right now.  sonja's deemphasis on the
central system makes it not completely inconsistent w/ interactionism,
even if c&a succumbed to linedrawing in building it.

cheers.

				--penni
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Sat, 15 Aug 1992 03:04:05 EDT
From:         Martin Taylor <mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA>
Subject: Re: PCT vs cognitivism

[Martin Taylor 920816 03:00] Almost back from holiday.
(Rick Marken 920814.2200)

>The short
>answer is "because the organism amplifies, the environment dampens".

Not always true, and certainly not true of that part of the environment
that contains control systems. Not true in sensitive parts of the environment
that don't (e.g. bifurcation points, such as things balanced on table edges).
Sufficiently often true that it is a beguiling temptation to take it as truth.

Look at my mirror diagram of a few weeks ago to see another view, according to
which control is indeed exerciesed in the head but on an environment that
cannot be seen as "outside" except by the controller.  (There are better
versions of the mirror diagram in my abstract of my Paris talk, which I have
sent to Bill, and will send if anyone else urgently wants it (50 pages, so
I don't want to send too many).)

(Lots of interesting stuff been going on in the time since the meeting. I don't
suppose I'll comment on much of it (do I hear sighs of relief?), but this just
struck me as worth a note.)

Martin
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 11:40:27 -0400
From:         "Jason Bucata,
              LTU Software Administrator" <MATHCLUB01@LTUVAX.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: CLJI (?) question

]I  need to  issue  a "query  *  (netwide" (I  know,  there's no  netwide
]option), so I thought of sending a small CLJI job, but the problem is, I
]don't know the syntax I need. More  specifically - how do I code to have
]the job propagated  to all servers (or should I  blush 'cause that's the
]default behaviour ?) ?

If you're familiar with CLJI jobs, then this should be no problem: Try
using the DISTRIBUTE command.  I've used it for a similar task with
some success.  I wanted to get a detailed list listing for a group of
sites, so I sent to a nearby ListServ a job with two data sets: One
with a list of net addresses to send to (all ListServ@...), and one
with the command: LIST DETAILED.  I then put in the command to
distribute data set X as a Mail file to everybody in data set Y.
Sorry, I don't know the exact syntax offhand, you'll have to look at
the memos or someone else's posts for that.

Jason Bucata
Delphi: JBUCATA
Internet: mathclub01@ltuvax.bitnet
          jbucata@delphi.com
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.lstsrv-l
Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 12:40:27 EDT
From:         "Duane D. Weaver" <WEAVER@OHSTVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: MAXGETK
              14 Aug 1992 10:49:29 CST from <CA1225@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU>

MAXGETK is set in the file LOCAL SYSVARS.


After the file is updated, LISTSERV must be rebooted for the change
to take affect.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.lstsrv-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 03:41:58 +0200
From:         Eric Thomas <ERIC@SEARN.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: %% Undelivered Mail %%
              17 Aug 1992 21:07:09 EST from "Forum on LISTSERV release 1.7"
              <LSTSRV-L@SEARN>

On Mon, 17 Aug 1992 21:07:09 EST Jim Jones <JIMJ@JHUVM> said:

> The difference is,  luckily in my case, the encapsulated  mail that was
> being  returned, didn't  have  the addresses  flipped ass-backwards  in
> JANET order. So,  my LISTSERV saw the mailing list  address in the body
> of  the  mail  message.  In  your  case,  your  LISTSERV  saw,  Sender:
> ORACLE-L@edu.sunysb.CCVM, which  is total crap  as far as  everyone but
> JANET is concerned.

LISTSERV can handle that, but you have to tell it that CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU is
an alias for the local node (via the MYDOMAIN variable).


> Why were the mail headers in your rejections left in JANET order, while
> mine were in Internet order?

Because  the rejection  took place  in the  JANET world,  a JANET  mailer
generated a  delivery error with  a JANET-formatted rejected  message and
passed it back to BITNET. The gateway doesn't touch the body of course.

> And if some  sites are going to  make cute headers with  "%%" gizmos to
> 'highlight'  Subject:  text  and  use unusual  From:  address  in  mail
> rejection  notices, the  text of  the  returned mail  becomes a  rather
> important piece of information.

They claim the package  in question is OCO and thus  the subject can't be
changed. That the body is in  JANET format is unavoidable. That's the one
thing they can't  be blamed for (assuming one accepts  the very existence
of a JANET format, which is something I do very reluctantly ;-) ).

  Eric
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Subject: (no subject given)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.lstsrv-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 09:57:51 EST
From:         Ken <TCBALLK@VCCSCENT.BITNET>

I am in the process of setting up a new list (my first).  I have got
the list up and running in test mode but have run into a slight problem.
We are running OfficeVision with PUMP at two locations in our network.
If anyone from either location uses OV to subscribe to the list it
appears as if the Mailbox manager is subscribing and not the user.  The
user isn't recognized and isn't subscribed to the list.  If the user
subscribes using Mailer or IBM NOTE then everything works ok.

Has anyone else run into this problem and successfully conquered it?

Thanks in advance for any help or guidance.

Ken Ballard (TCBALLK @ VCCSCENT)
Tidewater Community College
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.lstsrv-l
Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 11:13:45 CDT
From:         "Mark R. Williamson" <MARK@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: MAXGETK
              14 Aug 1992 10:49:29 CST from <CA1225@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU>

On Fri, 14 Aug 1992 10:49:29 CST Adam Floro said:
>Does anyone know the procedure for increasing the MAXGETK default
>above 256K?

Add a line "MAXGETK = nnnn" to LOCAL SYSVARS where "nnnn" is the size
limit you wish to establish, without "K".  You may also wish to copy
the comments describing MAXGETK from LISTSERV SYSVARS.  Don't mess
with LISTSERV SYSVARS itself, since it may be replaced by a new release.

For example, to increase the limit to 1024K, add the following line:
MAXGETK = 1024

Mark R. Williamson, Rice U., Houston TX; MARK@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU or @RICEVM1
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