Understanding purposeful systems

Abstract Engineers use control theory to help them build artificial control systems that will achieve the purposes of the engineer, a process called forward engineering. Psychologists use control theory to help them understand how living control systems are “built” so as to achieve the purposes of the systems themselves, a process called reverse engineering. However, psychologists have often used control theory in a way that is more appropriate to doing forward than reverse engineering, which gives a misleading picture of how the systems they study produce purposeful behavior. This paper describes a version of control theory called Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) that was specifically developed to be used to reverse engineer living control systems. The PCT approach to reverse engineering is aimed at discovering the perceptual variables around which the observed behavior of a living system is organized, a process called the Test for the Controlled Variable or TCV.

• Publication year

  2020

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• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/b978-0-12-818948-1.00002-2
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  Open on Semantic Scholar

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  Semantic Scholar

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