Read on Twitter
research blog for Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) 
this thread also inspired by thinking about PCT since it would seem that desires emerge as like the alluring voices of higher-level control systems that aren't transparent to consciousness https://twitter.com/meekaale/status/1384754190438879232?s=20
this also makes it a bit weird to talk about "subconscious" because this kind of higher-level control feels more like "superconscious" as in these processes are "above" or "transcendent"
I read Slate Star Codex review of the original 1970s book by Will Powers https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-the-control-of-perception/
oh, so perceptual control is an older ancestor of "predictive processing", that's why it feels so familiar
I'm kind of trying to speedrun the past few years of rationalist zeitgeist theory exploration I guess https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/06/predictive-processing-and-perceptual-control/
I'm kind of trying to speedrun the past few years of rationalist zeitgeist theory exploration I guess https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/06/predictive-processing-and-perceptual-control/
Scott Alexander says "PCT is a good model, but what’s good about it is that it approximates PP. It approximates PP best at the lower levels, and so is most useful there; its thoughts on the higher levels remain useful but start to diverge and so become less profound."
ok, later he says PCT is just a lot easier to understand than the obscure Bayesian free energy babble
I guess I appreciate how PP uses predict in a weird way; it's kind of nice because these theories themselves seem to weirdly invert the typical picture of perception and action; there's a similar weirdness in the notion of "controlling perceptions"
like, the first instinct is to say "how can you control perceptions, perceptions are just what you receive from the world, you can only control your actions" but no, actions are what you USE to control perception, i.e. to get the experience that you want
here's Alexander on that point (FE/PC here is "free energy / predictive coding")
reflecting on a thought about exercise and exertion and intentional work https://twitter.com/meekaale/status/1384595760520564737?s=20
I think there should be a way to talk about Alasdair MacIntyre's view of action, narrative, and virtue with the PCT framework, and I think this would be very interesting https://twitter.com/meekaale/status/1384597854115749888?s=20
MacIntyre says the intellectual culture has problems understanding how actions aren't atomic but parts of larger structures that must be understood narratively, and that you can't understand your life unless you see the narrative structures in which you're embedded
PCT seems to agree that there are no atomic actions, it's all just different levels of control that bottom out in muscle activation but emanate from higher levels, that life is a continuous fractal unfolding
here the "predictive" framework also seems like a good vocabulary, because narrative is all about predictive processing: expectations, obligations, debts, setting things straight, correcting mistakes, etc
so basically I suspect that keeping in mind something like MacIntyre's account of action, narrative, social life, and ethics will be a good way to understand and maybe engage critically with these "cybernetic" theories
when MacIntyre says "deprive children of stories and you leave them anxious stutterers in speech and action" I think that is resonant for the same reason that Scott Alexander finds PCT an excellent novel explanation for tremors
hearing stories is like training a repertoire of narratives that exemplify how high-level errors can be propagated through down to speech and action, and this cultural learning is as important as learning how to talk and walk
this whole PCT thing points very exactly to what I've been trying to get a handle on, like in this thread from January: https://twitter.com/meekaale/status/1347109964008071169
