That, sadly, is the current situation. But just because it is so poor does not mean that Powers’ theory is the best.
This looks to me like an uninteresting argument about what the word “best” means. It looks like we both agree that there’s not a superior positive alternative, although it’s fine if you think it’s better to choose the negative alternative of no current theory.
Probably that was just an infelicity in the wording.
No, we really don’t agree. The existing body of cognitive psychology knowledge contains, implicit in it, an outline theory of how motivation works. That theory (be it ever so implicit) is already a whole world better than Powers’ theory, because the latter is so totally arbitrary and inconsistent with the cognitive pscyhology body of knowledge.
(You will ask why: because the latter does not rely on simple control parameters that act like homunculi. But this is a subtle point. Too complex to handle in this context).
This looks to me like an uninteresting argument about what the word “best” means. It looks like we both agree that there’s not a superior positive alternative, although it’s fine if you think it’s better to choose the negative alternative of no current theory.
Edited.
No, we really don’t agree. The existing body of cognitive psychology knowledge contains, implicit in it, an outline theory of how motivation works. That theory (be it ever so implicit) is already a whole world better than Powers’ theory, because the latter is so totally arbitrary and inconsistent with the cognitive pscyhology body of knowledge.
(You will ask why: because the latter does not rely on simple control parameters that act like homunculi. But this is a subtle point. Too complex to handle in this context).