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From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: THE MIND EXTENDS BEYOND THE SKIN
Summary: Cybernetics:  Self-Regulating Feedback Control Systems
Keywords: Mind, Brain, Robots, Searle, Governors
Message-ID: <46265@linus.UUCP>
Date: 12 Mar 89 07:27:57 GMT
References: <305@edai.ed.ac.uk> <7337@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort)
Organization: Garden Golems, Inc., Norbert, WI
Lines: 27

In article <7337@boulder.Colorado.EDU> hassell@monarch.Colorado.EDU
(Christopher Hassell) writes:

 > [ From article <305@edai.ed.ac.uk> cam@edai.ed.ac.uk, Chris Malcolm
 > introduces Bateson's example of a speed governor on a steam
 > engine and comments on the function of a governor or controller. ]

 > Control is entirely a misnomer in itself.  In a deterministic system
 > what controls what???  What can EVER "control" what else?  The governer
 > is "controlled" by speed, and from this there is never a "peak" in ANY
 > deterministically closed system.

I think the term "regulator" more accurately captures the function
of the "speed governor".  In feedback control systems, we know that
the control loop has two essential components:  the Observer,
which monitors the current output state, and the Controller,
which applies an error-correcting adjustment to the system input.

Central to the operation of a feedback loop is a "goal state"
(ideal speed, say) around which perturbations and error-correcting
adjustments are computed.

So the self-regulating system controls itself, responding to the
random winds which would otherwise deflect the system from its
desired course.

--Barry Kort