🚀 go-pugleaf

[From Bruce Abbott (990428.1750 EST)]

>Rick Marken (990428.1020) --

>I think the problem in this discussion turns on failure to
>recognize that "behavior" refers to both  _acts_ and _results_.
>Simon focused only on acts; the means used to keep results
>(controlled variables) under control.  He noticed that complex
>acts (like a circuitous route) mirror complex environmental
>events (obstacles). What he didn't notice is that results of
>these acts (like getting back to the anthill) do _not_ mirror
>the complex environmental events that _should_ affect them.

Simon in his little ant example focused on the observable path of the ant.
He noted that the ant had a goal (whenever possible the ant's path veered
back onto a course toward its nest) and that it eventually reached that
goal, albeit via a circuitous path.  He could see that the deviations from a
direct path toward the nest often resulted from obstacles laying in the
ant's path, which the ant had to veer around or crawl over.  The path as
drawn on paper would describe a very complex curve.  He conjectured that the
complexity of this figure was due mainly to the complexity of the
environment -- to the many obstacles which forced the ant to deviate from
its path toward the nest, and not necessarily to any complexity in the in
the ant itself (i.e., its behavioral system).

In this example, Simon was not trying to describe the system mediating the
observed behavior; he was merely conjecturing that it may be relatively
simple; that complexity in the observed path does not require a
corresponding complexity in the system whose operation, in conjunction with
environmental inputs, produces the complex path observed.

So whether Simon believed that the underlying system was closed-loop,
open-loop, feedback, feedforward, TOTE, heirarchical, heterarchical, or some
combination of the above is ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT to this discussion.  If
you want to see a nice confirmation of Simon's conjecture, run Bill's CROWD
program.  The little moving circles embody a very simple little set of
control systems, yet they produce some astonishly complex paths as they make
their way among the obstacles on the screen toward their reference position
on the other side.

One more thing.  You write as if you had some authoritative knowledge of
what Simon did or did not understand, did or did not know, yet I'll bet
you've never even read what he had to say.  The "Simon" about whom you write
is completely a product of your own imagination, a straw man you erect in
order to destroy.

Regards,

Bruce