Bill Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) interprets all living systems as control systems. This is very different from regarding living systems as biochemical machines reacting to external stimuli as if they were billiard balls. Powers:
"Nearly all life scientists, particularly those who
Bill Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) interprets all living systems as control systems. This is very different from regarding living systems as biochemical machines reacting to external stimuli as if they were billiard balls. Powers:
"Nearly all life scientists, particularly those who
try to achieve objectivity and uniform methodology,
have interpreted behavior as if it were caused by events
outside an organism acting on a mechanism that
merely responds. This hypothesis has become so in-
grained that it is considered to be a basic philosophical
principle of science. To explain behavior, one varies in-
dependent variables and records the ensuing actions;
to analyze the data, one assumes a causal link from
independent to dependent variable and calculates
a correlation or computes a transfer function. This
leads in turn to models of behaving systems in which
inputs are transformed by hypothetical processes into
motor outputs; those models lead to explorations of
inner processes (as in neurology and biochemistry)
predicated on the assumption that one is looking for
links in an input-output chain. One assumption leads
to the next until a whole structure has been built up,
one that governs our thinking at every level of analysis
from the genetic to the cognitive."
Instead of the billiard ball model, here is an example of how Powers interprets biochemistry,
"There are workers in biochemistry who are inves-
tigating feedback control processes. One significant
process involves an allosteric enzyme that is converted
into an active form by the effect of one substance, and
into an inactive form by the effect of another. When
these two substances have the same concentration,
the transition from active to inactive is balanced; the
slightest imbalance of the substances causes a highly
amplified offset toward the active or the inactive form.
In one example, the active form catalyzes a main reac-
tion, and the product of that reaction in turn enhances
the substance that converts the enzyme to the inactive
form—a closed-loop relationship. The feedback is
negative, because the active form of enzyme promotes
effects that lead to a strong shift toward the inactive
form. This little system very actively and accurately
forces the concentration of the product of the main
reaction to match the concentration of another
substance, the one that biases the enzyme toward
the active form. This allows one chemical system to
control the effects that another one is having on the
chemical environment.
A person without some training in recognizing
control processes might easily miss the fact that one
chemical concentration is accurately controlling the
product of a different reaction not directly related to
the controlling substance. The effect of this control
system is to create a relationship among concentra-
tions that is imposed by organization, not simply
by chemical laws. This is the kind of observation
that a reductionist is likely to overlook; reduction-
ism generally means failing to see the forest for the
trees. Even the workers who described this control
system mislabeled what it is doing—they concluded
that this system controls the outflow of the product,
when in fact it controls the concentration and makes
it dependent on a different and chemically-unrelated
With PCT in place, human purpose and feelings have an engineering basis, consistent with physics, but based on the organizational control systems of the human organism (rather than responding to external stimuli as if we were billiard balls). Thus here is how he explains emotions,
"So-called emotional behavior is simply ordinary
behavior. However, strong feelings are involved
because the errors are considered very important,
so a small error produces a large output, and large
outputs call for strenuous action and a high degree
of physiological preparedness to support the action.
The technical term for this state is “high loop gain.”
In most circumstances the actions take place, the error
is corrected before it can become large, and the physi-
ological state returns to normal with no noticeable
emotional state being seen. But if the actions are not
allowed or if they fail to correct the error, the result is
a continued state of preparation that does not return
to normal, and the result is what we recognized as an
emotional state.
Therefore emotional behavior and emotional
thinking are simply ordinary behavior and think-
ing concerning subjects which are very important
to the person, so that strong actions will be used as
required to correct errors, and even small errors are
"Feelings" are how we experience the need for our control systems to correct error.
On top of Powers universal account of living things as control systems, in the case of human beings we have:
1. "Play" or "degrees of freedom" in our systems, most likely evolved because such experimentation allowed us to adapt to more diverse conditions;
2. Cognition that allows us to assess the expected value of various uncertain courses of action;
3. High stakes social status and coalitional decisions under uncertainty; and
4. Emotionally-laden symbolic cognitive processing through culturally defined symbols (whose meaning and coalitional salience are constantly shifting)
These four additional conditions have led to an internal landscape of experiences of feelings with far greater complexity than exist for feelings of warm, cold, pain, pleasure, hunger, etc.
Ultimately in the West (and now around much of the world) the combination of high stakes uncertainty in error correction in a soup of symbolic processing gave rise to individual self-consciousness (see Julian Jaynes for the key hypothesis, even if, as Daniel Dennett says, the details of his account happen to be wrong).
Personal identity (aka "consciousness") has become part of a control system with feelings associated with error correction signals. Our error correction mechanisms today are working on multiple levels of complexity and uncertainty. Conflicting feelings have become the norm rather than the exception among many WEIRD homo sapiens.
With respect to the relationship between consciousness and physics, consciousness is no more strange than feelings in Powers account (though the fact of consciousness is still remarkable, as are many evolved living systems).
His paper on the origins of purpose coinciding with the origins of life, via control systems accidentially coming into existence in the primordial soup billions of years ago, is especially fascinating,
Bill Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) interprets all living systems as control systems. This is very different from regarding living systems as biochemical machines reacting to external stimuli as if they were billiard balls. Powers:
"Nearly all life scientists, particularly those who
try to achieve objectivity and uniform methodology,
have interpreted behavior as if it were caused by events
outside an organism acting on a mechanism that
merely responds. This hypothesis has become so in-
grained that it is considered to be a basic philosophical
principle of science. To explain behavior, one varies in-
dependent variables and records the ensuing actions;
to analyze the data, one assumes a causal link from
independent to dependent variable and calculates
a correlation or computes a transfer function. This
leads in turn to models of behaving systems in which
inputs are transformed by hypothetical processes into
motor outputs; those models lead to explorations of
inner processes (as in neurology and biochemistry)
predicated on the assumption that one is looking for
links in an input-output chain. One assumption leads
to the next until a whole structure has been built up,
one that governs our thinking at every level of analysis
from the genetic to the cognitive."
Instead of the billiard ball model, here is an example of how Powers interprets biochemistry,
"There are workers in biochemistry who are inves-
tigating feedback control processes. One significant
process involves an allosteric enzyme that is converted
into an active form by the effect of one substance, and
into an inactive form by the effect of another. When
these two substances have the same concentration,
the transition from active to inactive is balanced; the
slightest imbalance of the substances causes a highly
amplified offset toward the active or the inactive form.
In one example, the active form catalyzes a main reac-
tion, and the product of that reaction in turn enhances
the substance that converts the enzyme to the inactive
form—a closed-loop relationship. The feedback is
negative, because the active form of enzyme promotes
effects that lead to a strong shift toward the inactive
form. This little system very actively and accurately
forces the concentration of the product of the main
reaction to match the concentration of another
substance, the one that biases the enzyme toward
the active form. This allows one chemical system to
control the effects that another one is having on the
chemical environment.
A person without some training in recognizing
control processes might easily miss the fact that one
chemical concentration is accurately controlling the
product of a different reaction not directly related to
the controlling substance. The effect of this control
system is to create a relationship among concentra-
tions that is imposed by organization, not simply
by chemical laws. This is the kind of observation
that a reductionist is likely to overlook; reduction-
ism generally means failing to see the forest for the
trees. Even the workers who described this control
system mislabeled what it is doing—they concluded
that this system controls the outflow of the product,
when in fact it controls the concentration and makes
it dependent on a different and chemically-unrelated
substance."
http://www.livingcontrolsystems.com/intro_papers/crossroads.pdf
With PCT in place, human purpose and feelings have an engineering basis, consistent with physics, but based on the organizational control systems of the human organism (rather than responding to external stimuli as if we were billiard balls). Thus here is how he explains emotions,
"So-called emotional behavior is simply ordinary
behavior. However, strong feelings are involved
because the errors are considered very important,
so a small error produces a large output, and large
outputs call for strenuous action and a high degree
of physiological preparedness to support the action.
The technical term for this state is “high loop gain.”
In most circumstances the actions take place, the error
is corrected before it can become large, and the physi-
ological state returns to normal with no noticeable
emotional state being seen. But if the actions are not
allowed or if they fail to correct the error, the result is
a continued state of preparation that does not return
to normal, and the result is what we recognized as an
emotional state.
Therefore emotional behavior and emotional
thinking are simply ordinary behavior and think-
ing concerning subjects which are very important
to the person, so that strong actions will be used as
required to correct errors, and even small errors are
not tolerated. "
http://www.livingcontrolsystems.com/intro_papers/on_emotions.pdf
"Feelings" are how we experience the need for our control systems to correct error.
On top of Powers universal account of living things as control systems, in the case of human beings we have:
1. "Play" or "degrees of freedom" in our systems, most likely evolved because such experimentation allowed us to adapt to more diverse conditions;
2. Cognition that allows us to assess the expected value of various uncertain courses of action;
3. High stakes social status and coalitional decisions under uncertainty; and
4. Emotionally-laden symbolic cognitive processing through culturally defined symbols (whose meaning and coalitional salience are constantly shifting)
These four additional conditions have led to an internal landscape of experiences of feelings with far greater complexity than exist for feelings of warm, cold, pain, pleasure, hunger, etc.
Ultimately in the West (and now around much of the world) the combination of high stakes uncertainty in error correction in a soup of symbolic processing gave rise to individual self-consciousness (see Julian Jaynes for the key hypothesis, even if, as Daniel Dennett says, the details of his account happen to be wrong).
Personal identity (aka "consciousness") has become part of a control system with feelings associated with error correction signals. Our error correction mechanisms today are working on multiple levels of complexity and uncertainty. Conflicting feelings have become the norm rather than the exception among many WEIRD homo sapiens.
With respect to the relationship between consciousness and physics, consciousness is no more strange than feelings in Powers account (though the fact of consciousness is still remarkable, as are many evolved living systems).
Lots of Powers' content available here,
http://www.pctweb.org/bill/billpowers.html
His paper on the origins of purpose coinciding with the origins of life, via control systems accidentially coming into existence in the primordial soup billions of years ago, is especially fascinating,
http://www.livingcontrolsystems.com/intro_papers/evolution_purpose.pdf