🚀 go-pugleaf

[Martin Taylor 990503 10:30]

I haven't had time to read all of the CSGnet postings over recent months,
let alone make a serious contribution, so perhaps this note is a bit
presumptuous. Nevertheless...

Something strange seems to be happening to CSGnet. In the threads I have
skimmed, I see very little technical discussion, and much conflict.
Conflict has always been a part of CSGnet discussion--I've certainly
been in a few:-)- but usually it has been about technical matters, not
about the meanings of words. I'll take two examples.

The "coercion" debate that breaks out every few months seems to be
entirely about who has "ownership" of the meaning of the word. Some
people (e.g. Isaac) would like to see it used as it is in everyday speech,
while others (e.g. Rick) want to use it as a technical term in PCT in a
way that has only a passing resemblance to the everyday usage. I say
that we should do as has often been done before, and attempt either to
bypass the use of a term that does not aid communication about the
_technical_ aspects of PCT, or else to give it a precise definition.

And I'm sorry, Rick, your attempt at a definition "one person using
force or the credible threat thereof to control another person's behavior"
is neither coherent nor precise within PCT. It is not coherent because it
refers to two entirely different kinds of situation (so we ought to have
two different technical terms) and it is not precise because "threat"
is an ill-defined term in PCT. Any attempt to define "threat" opens up
a whole nest of interesting avenues of research, not the least of which
is a requirement for the perception and control of environmental feeback
functions, including notably EFFs that pass through another person.

The other example I'll use is "Simon's Ants." Bruce A cited Simon to show
that it has been elsewhere pointed out that complex patterns of observed
actions can be produced by simple organisms. Bill P says that's wrong
because he has shown by simulation that complex patterns of observed acts
can be produced by simple simulated organisms. Rick says Simon is wrong
because the simple organisms he proposes do not _explicitly_ incorporate
perceptual control (even though Simon nowhere restricts the simplicity
so as to eliminate perceptual control). I find both kinds of response
passing strange. And unhelpful in a technical forum.

Enough rant. I just hope that we can get CSGnet back to talking science.
To that end, in odd moments over the last month or so I have been working
on three messages (reward and punishment, coercion, and degrees of freedom).
I hope I will have time to finish at least one of them and post it before
I leave for a month in the UK three weeks from now.

Martin